×
Science

Submission + - Wayback Machine trumps FOI tribunal (omnologos.com)

Submitted by calder123
calder123 writes: Last week, the BBC won an FOIA tribunal ruling that they didn't have to reveal the names of attendees at a seminar in 2006, designed to shape the BBC's coverage of climate change issues. The document, uncovered by Maurizio Morabito, puts comments by the BBC that the meeting was held under Chatham House rules, and that that the seminar drew on top scientific advice in an interesting light. In a bizarre co-incidence, four of the BBC's attendees at the seminar have resigned in the last few days.
Businesses

Submission + - Mark Cuban: Facebook Is Driving Away Brands - Starting With Mine (readwrite.com)

Submitted by
concealment
concealment writes: "Tech billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says he is fed up with Facebook and will take his business elsewhere. He's sick of getting hit with huge fees to send messages to his team's fans and followers.

Two weeks ago Cuban tweeted out a screen grab of an offer he'd received from Facebook. The social network wanted to charge him $3,000 to reach 1 million people. Along with the screen grab, Cuban wrote, "FB is blowing it? This is the first step. The Mavs are considering moving to Tumblr or to new MySpace as primary site.""

Submission + - Best 32-bit System In 2012 (microsoft.com)

Submitted by
justthinkit
justthinkit writes: "I have a number of applications that will not run on 64-bit Windows, but I would like to gain the benefits (most better caching) of having more than 4GB of RAM. Am I stuck with these Windows operating systems? And why is Windows Server 2008 Datacenter and Enterprise not included on that page? Should I go with a Linux or Win 7/8 system, and run a VM of Windows XP? Is this a solved problem or a lost cause?"
Music

Submission + - Why dissonant music sounds 'wrong' (nature.com) 1

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "Many people dislike the clashing dissonances of modernist composers such as Arnold Schoenberg. But what’s our problem with dissonance?
There has long been thought to be a physiological reason why at least some kinds of dissonance sound jarring. Two tones close in frequency interfere to produce 'beating': what we hear is just a single tone rising and falling in loudness. If the difference in frequency is within a certain range, rapid beats create a rattling sound called roughness. An aversion to roughness has seemed consistent with the common dislike of intervals such as minor seconds.
Yet when cognitive neuroscientist Marion Cousineau of the University of Montreal in Quebec and her colleagues asked amusic subjects (who cannot distinguish between different musical tones). to rate the pleasantness of a whole series of intervals, they showed no distinctions between any of the intervals but disliked beating as much as people with normal hearing.
Instead the researchers propose that harmonicity is the key. Notes contain many overtones — frequencies that are whole-number multiples of the basic frequency in the note. For consonant 'pleasant sounding' intervals the overtones of the two notes tend to coincide as whole-number multiples, whereas for dissonant intervals this is no longer the case.
The work suggests that harmonicity is more important than beating for dissonance aversion in normal hearers (abstract)."
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows Head Leaves Microsoft

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Guardian reports that in a shocking move move that comes just two weeks after the launch of Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, the head of the Windows division at Microsoft is to leave the company. Sinofsky had been at the company for 23 years and had been seen by some as a future chief executive of the software giant but according to reports, there had been growing executive friction between Sinofsky and other top executives at the company. "This is shocking news. This is very surprising," says Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities. "Like a lot of people, I thought Sinofsky was in line to potentially be Ballmer's successor." Sinofsky's place will be taken by Julie Larson-Green, another Windows executive who has been at Microsoft nearly as long as Sinofsky – joining in 1993 – and will be in charge of hardware and software for Windows. "If this had happened before Windows 8 shipped, I would have worried about potential delays," says Al Hilwa, program director for application software at the research company IDC. "The strategy of folding PC, tablet, phone and set-top into a single platform and ecosystem is the right strategy, and likely will continue to be the strategy of record.""
Oracle

Submission + - Oracle makes Red Hat kernel changes available as broken-out patches (oracle.com)

Submitted by Artefacto
Artefacto writes: The Ksplice team has made available a git repository with the changes Red Hat made to the kernel broken down. They are calling this project RedPatch.

This comes in response to a policy change Red Hat had operated in early 2011 with the goal of undercutting Oracle and other vendor's strategy of poaching RedHat's customers. The Ksplice team says they've doing the work they're now making available since the policy was implemented; they claim to be now making it public because they "feel everyone in the Linux community can benefit from the work".

For Ksplice, we build individual updates for each change and rely on source patches that are broken-out, not a giant tarball. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to take the right patches to create individual updates for each fix, and to skip over the noise — like a change that speeds up bootup — which is unnecessary for an already-running system. We’ve been taking the monolithic Red Hat patch tarball and breaking it into smaller commits internally ever since they introduced this change.

At Oracle, we feel everyone in the Linux community can benefit from the work we already do to get our jobs done, so now we’re sharing these broken-out patches publicly.
Google

Submission + - Flash Player Update Forces Installation of Google Toolbar (adobe.com) 4

Submitted by
breakpoint8088
breakpoint8088 writes: "Flash users who don't want the Google Toolbar should avoid updating Flash, at least on 64-bit Windows 7. I finally relented and allowed Adobe Flash to update on my Windows 7 box, and my security solution caught it trying to install the Google Toolbar-- without asking. Other people are seeing this as well. Adobe has not yet commented."
Microsoft

Submission + - Sinofsky Leaves Microsoft With Immediate Effect (microsoft.com)

Submitted by toomanyairmiles
toomanyairmiles writes: The BBC reports that Microsoft's head of Windows division Steven Sinofsky has left the company with immediate effect. He will be replaced by Julie Larson-Green "Microsoft Corp. today announced that Windows and Windows Live President Steven Sinofsky will be leaving the company and that Julie Larson-Green will be promoted to lead all Windows software and hardware engineering. Tami Reller retains her roles as chief financial officer and chief marketing officer and will assume responsibility for the business of Windows. Both executives will report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "

Submission + - 15 year jail sentence for pirating movies. (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by
Xpo3
Xpo3 writes: ""The RIAA has welcomed a mind-boggling jail sentence handed to a man who sold pirated movies and music. The 37-year-old man pleaded guilty to six felony counts of selling counterfeit media after he sold five movies and one music CD to an undercover investigator without the permission of copyright holders. As a result he will go to jail in Mississippi for 15 years to be followed by three years of supervised release." -TorrentFreak"
Crime

Submission + - In Mississippi: 15 Year Jail Sentence For Movie and Music Copyright Infringement (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by patella.whack
patella.whack writes: A guilty plea for six counts of selling counterfeit media gets a defendant 15 years in Mississippi. An undercover reporter from the Attorney General’s Intellectual Property Theft Task Force managed to buy a total of five copied movies and one music CD from the defendant who had 10,500 pirated discs at home and 2 prior convictions: one for assaulting a police officer 17 years ago and one for CD piracy that got him a year under house arrest.

          Says the RIAA: "[This] highlights the fact that the individuals engaging in these activities are frequently serial criminals for whom IP theft is simply the most convenient and profitable way they could steal from others."

          Frequently serial criminals? 15 years? I wonder how much of his sentence can be attributed to his priors rather than to other factors...
Idle

Submission + - km-range shit thrower being developed in New Zealand (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by RockDoctor
RockDoctor writes: A man has been bailed by a New Zealand court for allegedly planning to [...] throw horse manure at [the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall].

The 76-year-old "known anti-royalist" was ordered to stay at least 500 metres (550 yards) away from the royal couple (BBC)

Very obviously therefore, the Republican (sense: anti-imperialist, e.g. Brutus Senior or Junior ) campaigner is working out how to throw shit from significantly more than 500m away.
I can think of two [edit : three] credible technologies : a trailer-mounted trebuchet ; a shit-atomiser sited over 500m upwind and producing a miasma blowing downwind ; or a remote-controlled plane fitted with a real-time camera and a shit-dispenser.
Can Slashdot come up with better suggestions for assisting this vital free speech task?

As a corollary, the mechanism for dispensing shit from the model plane needs a name. Preferably a "backronym", such as an "ADAM — Automated Dispenser of Aerial Manure" or a JAMIE ... which I can't think of anything for. (Yes, those names are suggested by the Mythbusters and their "shit hits the fan" experiments.)

Submission + - First Release of AresEd: an Open Source 3D Game Creation Toolkit (google.com)

Submitted by
Jorrit
Jorrit writes: "AresEd is a Free and Open Source 3D Game Creation Kit based on Crystal Space. It currently runs on GNU/Linux and Windows. It is alpha software right now but when it is ready you will be able to create full 3D games using this tool. You can download a few binaries and the source here: http://code.google.com/p/ares/

I'm also looking for developers who are interested in helping me develop this project. Please contact me if you are interested."

Submission + - Africa makers get energy from pee (makerfaireafrica.com)

Submitted by aglider
aglider writes: A few sources is reporting about this technology breakthrough.
A group of African students built a small generator where with

1 Liter of urine gives you 6 hours of electricity.

It's not 100% clear how much energy you can get out of that liter (you insensitive Imperial clod) though.
It's also not 100% clear whether the main aim of the setup is to purify water or to generate energy thanks to electrolysis.
In any case either aim would be a great thing in a continent like Africa. And the whole world as well.
Businesses

Submission + - Cyber Weapon Friendly Fire: Chevron Hit by Stuxnet (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: "The pioneering Stuxnet computer virus, which was designed to attack a single Iranian uranium enrichment facility, went on to infect PCs around the world. Security experts have identified thousands of resulting Stuxnet infections. On Monday, multinational energy giant Chevron became the first U.S. company to admit that it, too, was infected by Stuxnet.

"'Escaped' continues to be a puzzling term when applied to a virus that relied on numerous Microsoft zero-day vulnerabilities and propagation vectors," said Sean McBride, the director of analysis for Critical Intelligence, in a SANS newsletter. "On the other hand, if your system was not the single underground facility in Iran that Stuxnet was intended to disrupt, the infection was benign. Such collateral damage is part of the price industry gets to pay for — what was then — two more years of Iran [being] without a nuclear weapon.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky Leaves Microsoft (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "Steven Sinofsky, the executive in charge of Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system and the driving force behind the new OS, is leaving the company effective immediately, Microsoft announced late Monday. Sinofsky was also the public face for Windows 8 and its new Metro interface, posting constant updates in a Windows 8 blog that charted its development. His last post, fittingly, was entitled 'Updating Windows 8 for General Availability.' The OS was officially launched at the end of last month. According to the All Things D blog, there was growing tension between Sinofsky and other members of the Microsoft executive team, who didn't see him as enough of a team player. But Microsoft's official position is that the decision was a mutual one. Sinofsky had only good things to say about his former employer."
Idle

Submission + - Micron Associates, Elderly woman who botched religious fresco demands royalties (goodreads.com)

Submitted by ldwinkle
ldwinkle writes: The elderly Spanish woman who ruined a religious fresco with her botched restoration is now demanding royalties from her work after it became an unlikely tourist attraction.
Cecilia Gimenez, who is in her 80s, made headlines across the world after attempting a DIY restoration that left the 19th century fresco of Christ at her local church in Borja resembling a monkey.
The altered image of Ecce Homo – Behold the Man – became an internet sensation and sent thousands of curious sightseers to the Sanctuario de Misericordia to laugh at her handiwork.
Authorities threatened to sue Mrs Gimenez for her unauthorised attempt, which she insisted had been carried out with only good intentions because the painting was in need of repair.
But popularity for the modified masterpiece grew with even budget airline Ryanair offering cheap deals to nearby Zaragoza airport encouraging “pilgrims” to visit the work that was quickly dubbed “Ecce Mono” – Behold the Monkey.
An internet petition to keep the repair job garnered widespread support and seizing an opportunity to swell its coffers, the church began levying a 4 euro (£3) entrance fee on visitors, earning 2,000 euros in the first four days.

Continue Reading:
http://micronassociates.net/hi-TECH/2012/09/21/elderly-woman-who-botched-religious-fresco-demands-royalties/
Privacy

Submission + - Petraeus case shows FBI's authority to read email (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Back in April, we discussed how the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act defines email that has resided on a server for more than six months can be considered abandoned. The recent investigation of General Petraeus brings this issue to light again, and perhaps to a broader audience. Under current US law, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor — not a judge — to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older. Do you know anyone these days who doesn't have IMAP accounts with 6+-month-old mail on them?

Slashdot Top Deals