Atheists Advertise on UK Buses

A novel advertising campaign underway in the United Kingdom reads "There's probably no God. Now, stop worrying and enjoy your life." Residents will see it on the sides of buses, and perhaps, on posters, and elsewhere. In addition to the slogan, the adverts will feature the URLs of secular, humanist and atheist websites, so that readers can find out more about atheism as a positive and liberating alternative to religion. There is also an interactive campaign website and Facebook group, so that questions raised by the adverts can be publicly debated. The group British Humanist Association is sponsoring the campaign and is seeking donations. Apparently multimillionaire Richard Dawkins has been matching donations – but only up to a total of £5,500. £11,000 is needed to keep two sets of 30 buses carrying the slogan across Westminster for four weeks. By last night, individuals and organisations had pledged more than £47,900.

Writer Ariane Sherine, who suggested the idea in a Guardian Comment is Free blog last June, said she was surprised by the level of support but was pleased with the extra money, which would finance a more ambitious campaign. "We could go national, we could have tube posters, different slogans, more buses, advertising inside buses. The sky's the limit - except, of course, there's nothing up there."

To donate to the atheist bus campaign, please visit JustGiving.

Homeland Security Gets Closer To Minority Report-Style Crime Predictor

TechDirt reports:

Ever since the film Minority Report came out, we've seen a series of stories about efforts to predict future crimes before they happen. Most of these are more about data mining to predict high crime areas and times -- but some are going much further. Slashdot points us to a story about Homeland Security apparently making progress on a "pre-crime detector." It was originally called "Project Hostile Intent," but after some folks figured that the name was a bit... ominous, it seems to have been renamed as "Future Attribute Screening Technologies" (FAST). Basically the system is designed to spot "shifty" people who may be getting ready to commit a crime of some sort. The researchers behind it say that the early tests are incredibly effective: "We are running at about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception." Of course, there are tons of questions about privacy violations and how long it will take criminals to figure out ways to "beat the system."

Let GoPlanIt Plan Your Vacation For You

Web-based travel planning service GoPlanit attempts to take the solo and tedious act of itinerary planning and inject it with a social element. Upon signing up for the service and selecting a destination city, GoPlanit can roll an itinerary for you. GoPlanIt provided me an instant itinerary for New York, which I was able to tweak based on how active or low-key I wanted to be and how much money I had. GoPlanit has a "fill in the gaps" function on its planner which will suggest fun and interesting things to do in between other commitments. GoPlanit also offers support for mobile devices (including an iPhone-optimized mobile site) and a microblogging tool to journal your trip adventures. GoPlanIt is still in beta. During the beta, GoPlanit offers planning for eight major US cities (San Francisco - Los Angeles - New York - Chicago - Las Vegas - Seattle - Boston - Honolulu)