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Opossums Overrun Brooklyn, Fail To Eliminate Rats 343

Posted by samzenpus from the urban-opossum-blight dept.
__roo writes "In a bizarre case of life imitates the Simpsons, New York City officials introduced a population of opossums into Brooklyn parks and under the boardwalk at Coney Island, apparently convinced that the opossums would eat all of the rats in the borough and then conveniently die of starvation. Several years later, the opossums have not only failed to eliminate the rat epidemic from New York City, but they have thrived, turning into a sharp-toothed, foul-odored epidemic of their own."
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Girl Seeks Help On Facebook During Assault 417

Posted by samzenpus from the emergency-status-update dept.
A 12-year-old girl who was being assaulted by her mother's ex-boyfriend used some quick thinking by sending a message on her iPod to a friend's Facebook account for help. The friend was able to contact the girl's mother who then contacted the police. 42-year-old Raymond Ernest Cesmat was arrested and charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. He is being held at the Dakota County Jail on $175,000 bail.

Comment 1st step in something useful for deep exploration. (Score 3, Insightful) 284

by hadesan (#32529460) Attached to: Japan Successfully Deploys First Solar Sail In Space
One question, how does it stop with no fuel (aka an ability to brake?)

Also, how well does the membrane hold up to minuscule debris? Is it durable for extended voyages (outer solar system, extra solar)?

What is the maximum velocity it could reach with the available solar wind prior to it ending at the heliosheath?

If they could combine it with something to scoop up stellar gas, along with something to process the gas into energy for steering and braking, you would have something useful.

And please no Uranus comments for my subject line...

Comment Google has begun a Cash Back program (Score 1) 466

by hadesan (#32528616) Attached to: Google Introduces, Then Scraps, Bing-Style Background Images
In a move to boost their search engine ratings, Google has now started a Cash Back program.

From Google HQ:

Google Cash Back is designed to help advertisers reach you with compelling offers, and to provide a new type of shopping experience that will change user behavior and attract a bunch of new users to Google. We have put in new programs for you and our advertisers designed to provide amazing shopping experiences for consumers and great opportunities for advertisers.

Our strategy for Google remains evergreen – working hard to understand the intent of your search and helping you make smarter decisions and complete important tasks.

Shopping remains one of the most important tasks people engage in while using search, and we remain committed to delivering great shopping experiences for you that help you make better shopping decisions, get great deals, and save time and money along the way. For merchants and advertisers, we have some ideas for making it easy to get a broader array of products and offers into Google, and we’ll share some details on this later this summer.

BTW, another important task is implemented our swell new feature called Google Background - we hope you like it!

Don't be evil!

Comment Simply put - BCB was more money in my pocket... (Score 1) 124

by hadesan (#32479806) Attached to: Microsoft Cancels Bing Cashback Program

By using a combination of key words (a bunch from http://www.slickdeals.net/) on bing.com (especially during the holiday season), I was able to save between 5% to 30% on a bunch of items. I knew M$ was trying to buy results and did not care - $1500 cash back in addition to more from rebates and sometimes coupons which worked with cash back is more money in my pocket....

As for the person who says it costs more to buy thru bing - I don't think so - there are some items which go on sale at specific merchants and then become awesome deals with high BCB percentages... some recent purchases: i7 980X for $780 delivered, X58 Classified 3-way SLI for $321 (includes $30 rebate), 8% on everything purchased from ebay, LCD TVs, Canon EOS 7D combo deal, newegg deals, etc. - the program has saved me a lot of money since November of 2009. Wish I had used it when it first came out.

Check out slickdeals site and you will see the posts which people have made to help people save money on all sorts of items... Yesterday it was 30% off your purchase from endless shoes (Amazon's shoe site). There are good deals to be had if you know what other places are charging.

Comment Prepare for the lawsuits... Sexual Harassment 101 (Score 2, Insightful) 352

by hadesan (#32132240) Attached to: TSA Worker Jailed In Body Scan Rage Incident
What a mess. If it was his supervisor cracking the jokes, the supervisor just opened up the whole sexual harassment facet of this. Mr. Negron has a case if can prove it made his work environment hostile.

Based upon the available information - sounds like they should fire the supervisor, train the employees on sexual harassment, and fire Mr. Negron for assault.

Unfortunately, we as taxpayers will ultimately pay for all of it...
Censorship

Thailand Cracks Down On Twitter, Facebook, Etc. 130

Posted by timothy from the and-everybody-loves-the-king dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The ongoing poitical turmoil in Thailand has inspired the country's Ministry of Information, Computers, and Telecommunications to issue a stern warning that all users of the Internet in Thailand must 'use the internet in the right way or with appropriate purpose and avoid disseminating information that could create misunderstanding or instigate violent actions among the public', that 'all popular websites and social networks such as facebook, twitter, hi5 and my space [sic] will be under thorough watch,' and that 'Violators will be prosecuted by law with no compromise.' Thailand has draconian anti-lèse majesté laws which are routinely abused in order to settle political scores and silence dissent, and recently implemented a so-called 'Computer Crimes Act' which appears to be almost solely focused on thoughtcrimes and censorship, rather than dealing with, you know, actual crime. Several Web forums have recently been shut down, their operators charged because they failed to delete 'harmful posts' quickly enough to suit the Thai authorities."
Hardware Hacking

Home-Built Turing Machine 123

Posted by Soulskill from the i'll-order-a-dozen dept.
stronghawk writes "The creator of the Nickel-O-Matic is back at it and has now built a Turing Machine from a Parallax Propeller chip-based controller, motors, a dry-erase marker and a non-infinite supply of shiny 35mm leader film. From his FAQ: 'While thinking about Turing machines I found that no one had ever actually built one, at least not one that looked like Turing's original concept (if someone does know of one, please let me know). There have been a few other physical Turing machines like the Logo of Doom, but none were immediately recognizable as Turing machines. As I am always looking for a new challenge, I set out to build what you see here.'"

Comment Paypal and fraud... (Score 5, Interesting) 253

by hadesan (#31382848) Attached to: PayPal Freezes Cryptome's Account
With heightened visibility comes more scrutiny. Paypal and their more shady customers probably don't want anymore light shown on their activities. Better for paypal to dump cryptome to protect their "more lucrative" albeit more less forthright customers...

Here is a lovely site for some light reading... http://www.paypalsucks.com/

Also an interesting story on a new scam in Boston on a scam using facebook, twitter, and Paypal http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/03/6000_fall_prey.html

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