Freedom to connect? First, my overall reaction to Hillary Clinton's speech: It's thrilling that a Secretary of State would claim “freedom to connect” as a basic human right. That's a very big stake in the ground. Likewise, it's sort of amazing that the State Department is funding the development of tools to help users circumvent government restrictions on access. On the negative side, it's distressing (but not surprising) that the Secretary of State should come out against anonymity so we can track down copyright infringers. Of course, in response to a question she said that we have to strike a balance so that the anonymity of dissenters is protected even as the anonymity of file sharers is betrayed. I just don't know how you do that. – hyperorg.com Leno's press tour Naturally, Jay Leno is taking a lot of heat for reclaiming the ‘Tonight Show'. Conan O'Brien got the boot and everyone is very angry. In order to try to please the masses, Jay is embarking on a press tour dedicated to damage control. First up is a visit to Oprah – controller of millions. If anyone can help clean up a mess, it's Miss O. Jay and Oprah are actually friends, so there really won't be any surprises during that taping. The comedian will then headline a dinner for the White House Correspondents' Association. The President, his wife and about 2,000 other celebrities and politicians are due to attend. Talk about hitting up the right crowd. Whoever is behind the chin knows exactly what they are doing. Jay will be back in everyone's good graces in no time. – imnotobsessed.com Selling Google shares Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have both made plans to sell 5 million shares apiece, for a combined total worth of $5.5 billion. Both Larry and Sergey plan to sell their shares over the next five years, taking them from roughly 59 percent combined voting power of Google to about 48 percent. The sudden sale of their shares is part of their “...respective long-term strategies for individual asset diversification and liquidity.” With both Larry and Sergey giving up roughly 9 percent of their power, that drops them to about 48 percent voting power, meaning they could potentially be out-voted if the shareholders make a combined effort to overthrow the two. However, CEO Eric Schmidt still maintains a 10 percent stake in Google, so the trio will still have a combined power vote of 58 percent. The likelihood of the Google co-founders being out-voted is very unlikely, but the possibility is still very present after the sale of the shares. – neowin.net Tweet from space We may very well take for granted the fact that we have access to infinite information on the Internet everyday. However, when you're high above earth in the International Space Station, the luxury of sending a tweet can be a pretty great thing. Timothy Creamer, who has been living on the Space Station since December, sent his first live tweet Friday morning, thanks to a high-speed wireless connection and screen sharing with mission control. By sharing screens (a laptop in space that mirrors a desktop on the ground), the crew can browse the web, send emails, and chat with people on the ground. The whole crew will be getting in on the tweeting action and hosting Q&A over Twitter soon – so let out your inner space nerd and tweet them your questions! – geeksugar.com Mideast ancestors? Most men in Europe are descendants of the first farmers who migrated from the Middle East 10,000 years ago, say researchers at the University of Leicester in England who examined the lineage of the Y chromosome. The researchers say their work also supports the idea that farmers spread agriculture by migrating from the Fertile Crescent into hunter-gatherer populations in Europe. Researchers examined the frequency of a certain common lineage of the Y chromosome, called haplogroup R1b1b2, carried by about 110 million European men. The Y chromosome, responsible for creating males, is passed from fathers to their sons. Men carry one X chromosome and one Y; women have two Xs. The researchers used databases of DNA gathered from men all over Europe, from Ireland to Turkey, and determined how frequently the lineage occurred in different parts of the Continent. Now, I have a dumb question: How can anyone say that “European Males Descend from Mideast Farmers?” Does that mean that European females do not? If not, how is that possible? Can someone explain that to me?
