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Submission + - British film 'Creation' banned in USA (digitaljournal.com) 8

Submitted by
thesappho
thesappho writes: "From the story : "British film 'Creation' will not be coming to the United States because of its controversial theme. While the film opened the Toronto Film Festival to rave reviews, the religious undertones surrounding this Darwin biopic appear to be to much for the U.S. ". It seems that the film could not find even one distributor to be aired. Is this a kind of banning? negligence? censorship? or business decision?"

Comment Re:Intrepid? RV'er? It Hurts. (Score 1) 438

by roadkill-maker (#29446111) Attached to: (Near) Constant Internet While RV'ing?

I have to agree with the BWCA suggestion. Used to go there with my father when I was in high school (mid-90's). The first day was the roughest, but after that you adjust quickly to the physical aspect of it, and the lack of technology. Its very refreshing to cleanse the system of overexposure to EM and computers.

If you want to get away from EM I'd suggest you stay out of view of the sun :\

Comment Re:toposhaba (Score 1) 792

by Xerolooper (#29445919) Attached to: Congress Mulls Research Into a Vehicle Mileage Tax

And a GPS can't be removed and left at home? Slightly harder but come on. ...

GPS is not a perfect solution either. I have used several different models including the Pharos GPS with Streets and Trips. They often jump temporarily to another state or place on the globe and then after a few minutes jump back. So are we going to be able to challenge the 3000 mile trip we supposedly took on our way to grocery store? I have an idea just give me a check for 150million and I'll tell them it won't work.

Comment Re:I've used pre-production versions. They are FAS (Score 2, Interesting) 133

by Diabolus Advocatus (#29423761) Attached to: Start-up Claims SSD Achieves 180,000 IOPS
You are using comparing HDD's in a Clariion to your SSD's. Not a very fair comparison. Why not compare your box to a Symmetrix V-Max with SSD's, or even a DMX with SSD's. What you've done is like sticking a Ferrari engine into a Lada and compared it to say a Ford Focus and saying that your's wins. Just because your engine is faster doesn't mean your product is better.
Privacy

Submission + - Would you trust an insurance company's "drive- (teensafedriver.com)

Submitted by ramen99
ramen99 writes: Our new car insurance company offered us discounts for our teenage driver if we agree to install a "drive-cam" that records driving habits and wirelessly transmits video footage to a "neutral driving coach" for evaluation and comment. While this might be great to monitor a new teen driver, it will also monitor other adult drivers. The insurance company claims that they would NEVER use any information obtained to consider changes in insurance rates, but that really sounds unbelievable. Would you give up your privacy to save some dough? Installation is free, and the camera mounts just under the rear-view mirror, but something seems fishy about this...
Censorship

Submission + - Yahoo Threatens To Call Police on User (thomashawk.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this year, Flickr user Shepherd Johnson made headlines in the media after posting comments critical of President Obama on the President's official Flickr photostream. Johnson had his account deleted at the time by Flickr. In addition to losing his Flickr account, Johnson also lost politically sensitive photos that he had not backed up elsewhere. At the time Flickr offered Johnson a $24.99 gift card as consolation for his account deletion. Now, however, it would seem that things have taken a turn for the worst. After trying to address his account deletion again with a now unresponsive Yahoo/Flickr staff, Johnson had his account locked out of their help forum Tuesday after posting on it there. Johnson said he next placed a few polite phone calls to Yahoo and received a call back from one of their security officers (who also claims to be a former FBI special agent) threatening him that if he calls Yahoo again that they will report him to the Sunnyvale police. Talk about your poor customer service.

Comment Modifiers (Score 1) 1

by Diabolus Advocatus (#29375871) Attached to: I only read slashdot firehose
You can set modifiers to mark down posts that are modded funny, and mark up interesting/insightful. I agree there's some interesting stuff in the firehose that is good enough for front page, but I think the editors also have to consider how much debate it will attract, which much of the rejected submissions in the firehose will not do.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Cool-sounding things to do with Beowulf clusters. 1

Submitted by brentonboy
brentonboy writes: I have been scavenging computers out of trash and recycling bins for a few years, and my roommate and I finally decided to put all our boxes to use in a Beowulf cluster, more to impress visitors than anything else. So we have this stack of computers, and a good answer to the question "what is that?" But now we need a really impressive answer to the next question: "what is it doing?" So what are some neat things to have a small ragtag "conversation starter" Beowulf cluster work on?
Earth

Submission + - First Death from Toxic Seaweed?

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "BBC reports that French investigators are examining whether a driver who died after carrying three truckloads of sea lettuce (Ulva Lactuca) has become the first victim of a toxic seaweed that is clogging parts of the Brittany coast. Sea lettuce is harmless in the sea, but as it decomposes on the beach it releases hydrogen sulphide. Researchers from France's National Institute for Environmental Technology and Hazards (Ineris) who visited the same beach found the deadly gas at such high concentrations that it could be "deadly in few minutes". "When you walk into the crust of such accumulation, you make a hole in a reservoir of hydrogen sulphide, and this gas is very toxic," said Alain Menesguen. Environmentalists say decades of misuse of Brittany's agricultural land is to blame for the explosion of algae, due to the high levels of nitrates used in fertilizers and excreted by the region's high concentration of livestock. The 48-year-old driver who had been part of the annual operation to remove 2,000 tons of rotting sea lettuce from the beaches at Binic had been working without a mask or gloves and died at the wheel of his vehicle when it crashed into a wall. His death was originally recorded as a heart attack but prosecutors now want to know if it was linked to the seaweed. "'We want to know if in future we should take precautions to safeguard workers who collect or transport seaweed," says Christian Urvoy, the mayor of Binic."
Media

Submission + - DRM Take II - Digital Personal Property 1

Submitted by
Diabolus Advocatus
Diabolus Advocatus writes: "Ars Technica has an article on a new form of DRM being considered by the IEEE. It's called Digital Personal Property and although it removes some of the drawbacks of conventional DRM it introduces new drawbacks of its own. From the article:

Digital personal property (DPP) is an attempt to make consumers treat digital media like physical objects. For instance, you might loan your car to a friend, a family member, or a neighbor. You might do so on many different occasions and for different lengths of time. But you are unlikely to leave the car out front of your house with the keys in it and a sign on it saying, "Take me!" If you did, you might never see the vehicle again.

It's that the ability to lose control over property that is central to the DPP system. DPP files are encrypted. They can be freely copied and distributed to anyone, but here's the trick: anyone who can view your content can also "steal" it irrevocably. The simple addition of a way to lose content instantly leads consumers to set up a "circle of trust" that can be as wide as they like but will not extend to total strangers on the Internet."
Mozilla

Submission + - Is Firefox turning into the ultimate nagware? (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "Mozilla has announced plans to remind Firefox users to update third-party plug-ins. Firefox 3.5.3 will prompt users to upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Flash Player if they haven't got it installed already, and Mozilla plans to extend the scheme to other third-party plugins for Firefox 3.6. Barry Collins from PC Pro wonders if Firefox is turning into the ultimate nagware?. Already pestered on a near-daily basis for upgrades to extensions and the browser itself, Collins wonders if plugin reminders will be a step too far for Firefox?"

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