Despite having over 2.6 million followers on his Twitter account, @BarackObama admitted to a Chinese audience that he has never used the service.

“I have never used Twitter, but I’m an advocate of technology and not restricting Internet access," Obama told an audience of Shanghai youth on Sunday.

"My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone," the president added.

Then what the heck is he doing on that Blackberry all the time? Playing tetris?

Yeah, he just broke 10 million points. Top that, Palin.

The company said it will publically release the code for their new Frontier Election System in November.

“I think Sequoia is recognizing that it won’t do anymore to just urge people to trust them,” said Princeton University computer scientist Ed Felten, “and that people want to know that the code that controls these machines is open and that experts have had a full chance to look at it.”

Sequoia, like most other voting companies, has been reluctant to reveal to the public exactly how their machines work. From the Wired article:

The company has long had a reputation for vigorously fighting any efforts by academics, voting activists and others to examine the source code in its proprietary systems, and even threatened to sue Princeton University computer scientists if they disclosed anything learned from a court-ordered review of its software.

However, pressure has been mounting on the secretive company after allegations of voting irregularities, and the introduction of a competing, open source solution by the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation.

If anything is open source and fully transparent to the public, shouldn’t it be our voting machines?

Duke University and the University of Michigan performed a joint study showing that the testosterone levels of male John McCain and Bob Barr supporters plummeted after the results of the 2008 election.

Females and Obama supporters did not show a change in hormone levels.

"This is a pretty powerful result," said Duke neuroscientist Kevin LaBar. "Voters are physiologically affected by having their candidate win or lose an election."

The tests were performed on 183 college-aged men and women on election night. They each chewed a piece of gum and spit it into a sample tube when the polls closed. They provided a second sample after the results came in, and then two more in 40 minute span. The spit was later tested for hormone levels.

"Voters participate in elections both directly by casting their ballots, and vicariously because they don’t personally win or lose the election," said researcher Steven Stanton. "This makes democratic political elections highly unique dominance contests."

Did the guys wimp out because Obama won, or because they realized that Sarah Palin wouldn’t be on television as much anymore? I’ll let you be the judge.

Techcrunch reports

So http://recovery.gov gets “shortened” to…http://go.usa.gov/liO. Wait, that’s not shorter at all, it’s two characters longer! YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

Granted, this isn’t a bad idea…in theory.  First, who knows how long any commercial shortening service will last? Second, it’s nice to have a trusted service, one that (hopefully) won’t direct readers to pictures of a repulsively ripped rectum.

Then again communism works…in theory. Seriously, how many .govs can there be? I think http://u.gov is wide open! No one else can even take it but you, the federal government of the United States! In fact, you’d be the shortest shortener in the biz! C’mon, prove that you can beat the private sector in at least one thing!

Cloud computing is the technology behind many popular web services, such as Gmail and Twitter. As opposed to traditional server technologies that only use one server, a cloud uses many, both real and virtualized, as one unit. The advantage is that it is scalable, meaning that a user only uses as much as he needs, and that it is (usually) redundant, meaning that if one server goes down, the others can pick up the slack.

“As one of the world’s leading providers of computing resources to advance science, the Department of Energy has a vested interest in exploring new options for meeting the overwhelming demand for computing time,” said Michael Strayer, associate director of DOE’s Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research.

Magellan, as the project is called, will be powered by thousands of Intel Nehalem CPUs, and possibly solutions from companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

The DOE hopes that cloud computing’s commercial success will carry over into scientific research.

Let’s just hope the DOE’s data doesn’t get sidekicked, shall we?

The New York Department of Labor initially told her that her Google AdSense revenue was residual, and that it would not affect her unemployment. However, the NYDOL later launched an investigation into her “business” to determine if she is still eligible for benefits, and decided to withhold her checks in the meantime. She has since yanked AdSense from her site in an effort to regain them.

Forbes called the NYDOL several times, but never received a coherent reply, and was told that her case was “uncharted territory.”

“It’s frustrating that nobody seems to have a straightforward answer,” Karin told Forbes. “It’s even more frustrating that trying to work and generate additional income, while being straightforward and honest about that income, is treated with suspicion and punished.”

Karin received her law degree in 2008 from the University of Virginia. She soon accepted a position at a New York City law firm, but was laid off six months later. She moved to St. Louis, Mo. for cheaper rent, meanwhile retaining her New York benefits, which is allowed under law.

In the meantime, Karin began searching for jobs and preparing for the Missouri bar exam. Along the way, she began her blog and decided to try and make a little money from it.

Other than unemployment, Karin only had her blog, STL Meal Deals, to support her, a blog that has earned her a measly $238.75 since April.

This whole situation is ridiculous for a couple of reasons. First, unemployment isn’t welfare, it’s a form of public insurance that employees pay into. I think some online commenters are unaware of that fact.

Second, Forbes describes New York’s regulations thusly:

According to state regulations, anyone receiving unemployment benefits who works one day and earns less than $405 will have his check for the week reduced by 25%. Someone who earns more than $405 in a single week becomes ineligible for any payments for that week.

So a reduction in payment makes some sense. But having all her rightful benefits taken away for $238.75, earned over the span of months? Absolutely absurd. Maybe she should blog about it?

If you haven’t been keeping up, let us bring you up to speed. Back during the summer, Apple told Google that it couldn’t play with its favorite toy in the whole wide world, the iPhone. Mommy FCC stepped in and asked what was going on. Apple said Google was trying to break its favorite toy. Google cried that Apple wouldn’t let it play with its toy, and AT&T played innocent. Then for some reason, AT&T called Google a doo-doo head, which Google denied. Apple turns around and says it doesn’t want to be friends with Google anymore. Mommy FCC decides that maybe it should keep an eye on Google.

Now AT&T is saying that not only is Google a doo-doo head, but Mommy FCC should check it for cooties as well. That is, the FCC should take a closer look at Google Voice, which it is already investigating.

In the letter (PDF), AT&T counters Google’s claim that Voice only blocks phone sex operators and free conference calling services.

“In fact, Google is blocking calls to, among others, an ambulance service, church, bank, law firm, automobile dealer, day spa, orchard, health clinic, tax preparation service, community center, eye doctor, tribal community college, school, residential consumers, a convent of Benedictine nuns, and the campaign office of a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives,” the letter said.

Wow, that’s a lot of stuff. AT&T later goes on to say that phone networks should be as neutral as Google and the FCC want the internet to be. Which is odd, since phone networks have never been terribly neutral. Case in point, have you ever been charged extra to access a Japanese web site?

The FCC seems to agree. The Washington Post’s Cecilia Kang said that an anonymous FCC source said the inquiry into Google Voice will not consider net neutrality rules, but rather just old-fashioned telecommunications rules.

Oddly enough, AT&T maintains in the letter that it is against net neutrality.

Billshrink.com, a site that helps consumers find ways to save on their cell phone bills, filed its comment on Tuesday.

“The plans are complicated,” said Billshrink president and co-founder Schwark Satyavolu, “and there’s no way for consumers to stay on top of that.”

Billshrink said in its statement that the average cellphone subscriber overspends by $300 a year. It continued, saying that it had found $800 million in potential cell savings in the past five months.

Billshrink calls for more transparent billing, including clearer information about contract termination and coverage, as well as better information on how to modify existing contracts.

Considering that CNET has a five-part article on how to understand your cell phone bill, we’d say that maybe Billshrink has a point. Then again, the very existence of a service like Billshrink kinda proves its own point.

Now the California Air Resources Board is insisting that automakers make windows more energy efficient. That seems reasonable. A 45% decrease in solar energy entering each vehicle by 2014. Also seems reasonable. A 60% decrease by 2016. Okay, fair enough.

But here’s what the geniuses at the CARB didn’t seem to realize: In order to block solar rays, a glaze of metal oxide must be applied to the windows, which has the unintended side effect of blocking radio signals, including, but not limited to: Cell phones, Wi-Fi receivers, GPS units, garage door openers, and parolee ankle bracelets. Also, it would effectively kill the soft-top Jeep Wrangler, which really sucks since California is home to the famed Rubicon trail, a popular test site for 4×4 vehicles.

According to Autoblog, Honda tried a similar technique about twenty years ago, but quit because of the aforementioned radio signal issue.

Or maybe it was an intended consequence. Hey, kill two birds with one stone, save the environment, and effectively ban texting while driving! Genius. As for (relatively) innocent parolees? Well, hey, gotta crack a few eggs, ya know?

I’m waiting to see if the Federal Communications Commission might have a little something to say about this.

"We do not have authority to impose a fine for violation of the (FTC) Act," Cleland told Kang.

Cleland explained that enforcement will mostly be through warning letters, and if things get bad enough, it could be taken to court.

"I have to tell you that there is no realistic scenario that we get from here to there," Cleland said.

Meanwhile, the Electronic Freedom Foundation has predictably come out against the new, useless rules. In particular, the EFF takes exception to the fact that newspaper reporters are not covered under edict.

Cleland explained the FTC’s reasoning to blogger Edward Champion, “Most of the newspapers have very strict rules about that and on what happens to those products.”

Yeah, because newspaper reporters never violate their paper’s ethical standards. Neither do video game journalists for that matter. You truly have a dizzying intellect there, Dick.