Google+ Adds ‘Ignore’ and ‘Block’

Google+ has been in a slight rut recently, with not nearly as many active users as when it first came out (mostly due to still being in an invite-only beta). However, there has been an increase in the call for a way to not see posts or anything from users. The new option will allow users to take a simple step to get rid of a notification about what that annoying person is doing or get rid of a post you don’t want to see.

“We want to make sure you can represent your real-life relationships on Google+ – whether you want to connect with someone or not,” wrote Wichrowska. “So starting today, we’re rolling out a new option to Ignore people, in addition to the existing (and stronger) option to Block them.” said Olga Wichrowska , a Google software engineer, in a Google+ blog post last week.

The blocking feature allows you to remove a person from your circle so you cannot see what they post, they cannot see what you post, and cannot comment on your posts as well. Although the ignoring feature is a little less severe.

“Of course, in real-life there are also people you don’t know, don’t like or don’t want to hear from. And we want to give you the ability to define these relationships in Google+ as well,” said Wichrowska. “Ignoring someone is basically saying you’re just not interested. Maybe you don’t know them or maybe you don’t want to see what they’re sharing.” said Kathleen Ko , another Google software engineer, on her own blog post.

The Ignore option will be available alongside the Block option in multiple places on Google+. The buttons will appear in the Circles pages, the notification stream and in the Google+ bar. The action is reversible, so in case someone warms up to you and you don’t hate them enough to block or ignore them anymore you can go back to a mutual friendship…or just place them in the “Loser” circle.

read more

Australia to enact law asking Muslim women to remove veil if demanded by police

Muslim women wearing burqa may have to take away the veil at what time demanded by the police or else face take into custody in the Australian state of Victoria, on the heels of an alike law enacted in New South Wales.

Victorian police force has the authority to command that Muslim women eliminate face veils, the state administration has ruled, with the police rector Peter Ryan saying that anybody who refuses to exemplify their face can be under arrest

The Victorian administration led by Ted Baillieu sought officially permitted advice in July following a move about by the New South Wales to bring in special law for veiled women drivers, the Herald Sun reported.

The authorities were told the state police were before now empowered to concern such an categorize as well as the document said that the decision means Victorian police force may make the command of motorists at what time checking licenses of those supposed of offense.

The Victorian administration has determined that the contemporary laws are sufficient as well as there is no current require for planned changes to legislation, presenter Justine Sywak supposed.

Conversely, she whispered, the state management would scrutinize the NSW legislation once it comes into consequence.

A regulation prohibition woman from wearing veils that envelop their faces in community is in addition in force in European countries similar to France, Belgium, Italy as well as parts of Spain.

read more

Astronomers discover planet made of diamond

Astronomers have marked an interesting planet that seems to be prepared of diamond racing around a tiny star in our enormous garden. The new-fangled planet is far denser than any other recognized so remote and consists largely of carbon.

For the reason that it is so opaque, scientists work out the carbon must be crystalline, so a great part of this bizarre world will successfully be diamond. The evolutionary times gone by as well as amazing compactness of the globe all suggest it is comprised of carbon — i.e. a enormous diamond orbiting a neutron star each two hours in an course so tight it would fit within our own Sun, said Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.

Lying 4,000 light years not here, or around an eighth of the way towards the centre of the Milky Way beginning the Earth, the planet is probably the remnant of a once-massive star that has lost its outer layers to the so-called pulsar star it orbits. Pulsars are tiny, dead neutron stars that are only around 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) in diameter and spin hundreds of times second, emitting beams of emission. In the case of pulsar J1719-1438, the beams frequently sweep up the Earth as well as have been monitored by telescopes in Australia, Britain as well as Hawaii, allowing astronomers to perceive modulations outstanding to the gravitational drag of its unseen escort planet. The measurements put forward the planet, which orbits its star all two hours as well as 10 minutes, has to some extent additional mass than Jupiter but is 20 times as opaque, Bailes along with colleagues reported in the journal knowledge on Thursday. In addition to carbon, the new planet is also likely to contain oxygen, which may be additional widespread at the outside as well as is almost certainly increasingly unusual towards the carbon-rich centre. Its high thickness suggests the lighter elements of hydrogen with helium, which are the chief constituents of gas giants similar to Jupiter, are not in attendance. Immediately what this strange diamond world is really like close up, though, is anonymity. In terms of what it would seem like, I don’t know I could even conjecture, said Ben Stappers of the University of Manchester. I don’t visualize that a picture of a very gleaming object is what we’re looking at here.

read more

Lamborn apologizes for ‘tar baby’ remark on Obama policies

Colorado Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn apologized Monday night for saying during a Friday appearance on a Denver radio program that embracing President Barack Obama’s policies is like “touching a tar baby.”

Lamborn made the comment on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman program in reference to the President’s budget priorities.

“Even if some people say, ‘Well the Republicans should have done this or they should have done that,’ they will hold the President responsible,” Lamborn said. “Now, I don’t even want to have to be associated with him. It’s like touching a tar baby and you get it, you’re stuck, and you’re a part of the problem now and you can’t get away. I don’t want that to happen to us, but if it does or not, he’ll still get, properly so, the blame because his policies for four years will have failed the American people.”

The term “tar baby” is widely regarded as a racial slur.

Late Monday evening Lamborn’s office announced that he had sent a letter to President Obama. Lamborn’s communication’s director later explained that the congressman meant no disrespect.

“Congressman Lamborn regrets any misunderstanding. He simply meant to refer to a sticky situation or quagmire,” she wrote in an email statement.

This is not the first time a member of Congress has come under fire for using the term “tar baby.” In 2009 North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx faced severe criticism for using the term in reference to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

“I thought about just a common sense way to describe this to people: the Democrats have a tar baby on their hands and they simply can’t get away from it,” she said then. “They are stuck on this problem.”

read more

Philadelphia Eagles sign RB Ronnie Brown

Ronnie Brown had held out hope that he’d be back in South Florida, back with the Miami Dolphins – the only team he’d known since entering the NFL in 2005. But Brown on Tuesday signed a one-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles.

The team announced the move on its Twitter page.

Whenever Brown, who’d been a free agent, talked about his future during the past several months he made clear his desire to return to the Dolphins, who selected him second overall in the 2005 NFL Draft. Brown said he’d built a life in South Florida. He said he was happy here.

The Dolphins, though, made equally clear they were headed in a different direction. They drafted former Kansas State running back Daniel Thomas in the second round of the draft in April. Then, just before its first practice of the season, Miami acquired Reggie Bush from New Orleans.

In six seasons with the Dolphins, Brown ran for 4,815 yards and averaged 4.3 yards per carry. He broke the 1,000-yard mark once, in 2006, when he ran for 1,008 yards and 5 touchdowns. He ran for 10 touchdowns in ’08.

Brown played in 76 games for the Dolphins, starting 71 of them.

Ricky Williams, Brown’s running mate in the backfield for the past several seasons, remains a free agent. His return to the Dolphins is unlikely.

read more