p2pnet:- Hi all:

I got up this morning full of good intentions but my family and I have been fighting this ‘flu which is on the rise here in Canada.

I struggled through it yesterday but every bone in my body aches, I’m dizzy and I’m going to go back to bed.

Here’s what the Edmonton Sun says about it:

The influenza virus has mutated into a strain resistant to an antiviral drug that world governments have been stockpiling for years to stave off a super-flu pandemic.

Capital Health’s Dr. Gerry Predy said the region is aware of the situation – which is developing in Europe – and is waiting for direction from Canada’s national laboratory.

"We have been alerted to this issue in Europe by the national lab here in Canada, which is doing some testing on resistance for strains they are seeing this winter," he said.

Mutated flu viruses in 10 European countries, the United States, Australia, Hong Kong and Canada have been found resistant to the Tamiflu vaccine, according to the World Health Organization. Tamiflu is widely used to guard against Influenza A and B.

Not only but also, "Individual cases have been found in British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador and Manitoba."

So I guess that’s us.

Sorry, guys.

I’ll check in from time and with a bit of luck, I’ll be back tomorrow. For now, below are a few stories you might want to check out.

Cheers!
Jon

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Comments system for torrents – isoHunt

From the Whoa-Crap-what-have-you-done-BIG department, I bring you the much requested comments system for torrents. Check it out by searching for gentoo for example (our favorite server OS). You can see direct links to comments with the orange talk bubbles now under all torrents search results, with a new tabbed interface for torrent details. To post comments you have to register first if you haven’t. The commenting comes in full AJAX glory, so posting comments is never easier.

We have not considered comments under torrents to be priority in the past for isoHunt, as its focus was and is Search, and you can find various comments from all the sites we index. But you requested and we listened, and now you have no more excuse to _not_ use isoHunt "because there’s no comments", a sentiment I’ve heard many times. Wink And I want to stress that we continue to maintain the largest and most quality torrents search index available. The new comments and flagging (below) will certainly improve that quality.

Besides comments themselves, you can now also place flags on each torrent, marking them as Spam, etc. With increasing popularity and sheer volume of files and users using BitTorrent, spam is increasingly becoming a big problem, as is malware and other nasties in files. So help your fellow isohunters out and flag/comment as appropriate!

Ratings of torrents (star counts on torrent search results) also come as bonus to the flagging. Each flag equals a -1 vote, while clicking on "Just say Thanks" found under the comment submission box constitute a +1 vote. Both ratings (when available) and comments are shown on torrents search results, as we recognize the need to involve the community to easily identify bad torrents, as well as adding a new way to form discussions surrounding shared files. As such, discussions on specific files and topics directly related to files should no longer be posted in the Forum but directly under comments of torrents.

In order to make room for the comments page, you should have noticed since we pushed a preliminary update on Sunday of various interface changes we did to torrent search results. Clicking on rows now bring you to a new page of the torrent details’ summary, while new toggles on left of rows of search results retain the old behavior of showing you torrents’ summary in an expanding table below each result (an rather unique interface for search that many of you said you’ve come to love isoHunt for). You now also get standard hyperlinks to torrent details and comments instead of requiring Javascript in your browser as previously, which should be a boon for mobile users and those without Javascript in your browser for whatever reason. There are also other minor improvements across the board, for example you now get torrents you clicked on grayed out in its name in search results.

I want to thank the isoHunt team in for the 2 months we have spent in making this happen. Comments have been on my todo list for a long time but I never found the time to implement it myself until now. I believe this to be one of the most important update in the 5 years history of isoHunt, and the new community oriented features represent a departure from our original mission of simply making a kickass search for any and all files on the P2P internet, to becoming more "social". After all, the internet is social, and particularly so with sharing files. Now share your thought concerning the files.

(Cheers, Gary)

>>>

From Larry

This site hosts this video to explain the launch of two exploratory projects — first, a Change Congress movement, and second, my own decision whether to run for Congress in the California 12th.

I have decided I want to give as much energy as I can to the Change Congress movement. I will decide in the next week or so whether it makes sense to advance that movement by running for Congress.

Many friends have weighed in on that decision – both strongly in favor and strongly opposed. Many more have joined draftlessig.org and a Facebook group asking me to consider it.

Watch or listen and you will understand some of my reasoning. Feel free to send your thoughts or advice to lessig@lessig08.org (though please excuse any slowness in my response).

- Larry Lessig, February 19, 2008

>>>

Internet Censorship: A Comparative Study – Global Integrity

Using data from the Global Integrity Index, we put a U.S. court’s recent order to block access to anti-corruption site Wikileaks.org into context. In summary: The Wikileaks.org shutdown is unheard of in the West, and has only been seen in a handful of the most repressive regimes. Good thing it doesn’t work very well. Starting in 2007, Global Integrity added specific questions about Internet censorship to the Integrity Indicators, which are a set of 304 questions addressing the practice of anti-corruption in national governments. We have always held that a free and critical media is an essential component of good governance; adding an analysis of Internet censorship was an overdue refinement. We asked two questions: 1. Are Internet users prevented from reaching political material on the Internet? 2. Are content creators prevented from posting political material to the Internet?

>>>

Introducing the most advanced news site on the planet – TechCrunch

I’m going to … call companies on unrestrained hyperbole, and hold them to the expectations they’ve set with users. Being proud of your work is one thing, but spouting random nonsense is something else entirely. Enough.

>>>

Brain control headset for gamers – BBC

Gamers will soon be able to interact with the virtual world using their thoughts and emotions alone. A neuro-headset which interprets the interaction of neurons in the brain will go on sale later this year."It picks up electrical activity from the brain and sends wireless signals to a computer," said Tan Le, president of US/Australian firm Emotiv. "It allows the user to manipulate a game or virtual environment naturally and intuitively," she added.

>>>

Music speeds recovery: study – Ottawa Citizen

A little Beethoven is good for the brain, according to a Finnish study published today showing that music helps people recover more quickly from strokes. And patients who listened to a few hours of music each day soon after a stroke also improved their verbal memory and were in a better mood compared with patients who did not listen to music or used audio books, the researchers said. Three months after stroke, music listeners showed a 60-per-cent better improvement in verbal memory compared with a 29-per-cent improvement for people who did not listen. All of those in the study received standard rehabilitation treatment. The ability to focus attention also improved by 17 per cent in music listeners.

>>>

Hollywood strike cost $2.5 billion: report – Reuters

A little Beethoven is good for the brain, according to a Finnish study published today showing that music helps people recover more quickly from strokes. And patients who listened to a few hours of music each day soon after a stroke also improved their verbal memory and were in a better mood compared with patients who did not listen to music or used audio books, the researchers said. Three months after stroke, music listeners showed a 60-per-cent better improvement in verbal memory compared with a 29-per-cent improvement for people who did not listen. All of those in the study received standard rehabilitation treatment. The ability to focus attention also improved by 17 per cent in music listeners.

>>>

[OT] Why do we believe in God? £2m study prays for answer – Times Online

Researchers at the University of Oxford will spend £1.9 million investigating why people believe in God. Academics have been given a grant to try to find out whether belief in a deity is a matter of nature or nurture. They will not attempt to solve the question of whether God exists but they will examine evidence to try to prove whether belief in God conferred an evolutionary advantage to mankind. They will also consider the possibility that faith developed as a byproduct of other human characteristics, such as sociability. Researchers at the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion and the Centre for Anthropology and Mind in Oxford will use the cognitive science disciplines to develop "a scientific approach to why we believe in God and other issues around the nature and origin of religious belief".

>>>

Slashdot it!

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