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Submission + - Pigeon transfers data faster than South Africa's T (news.com.au) 2

Submitted by Attila Dimedici
Attila Dimedici writes: I believe that we discussed this when they first proposed it, but now they have gone and done it.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/pigeon-transfers-data-faster-than-south-africas-telkom/story-e6frfro0-1225771449209?from=public_rss

Workers at a South African information technology company this week proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom, the country's leading ISP.

Comment Factually Incorrect Title: There Is No Retweeting (Score 5, Informative) 137

by thehossman (#35590806) Attached to: NY Times Asks Twitter To Shut Down Retweeting Feed

The twitter account in question isn't retweeting the URLs.

There is no automated bot in play here.

All this guy did was create a "Twitter List" of the ~40 official Twitter Accounts used by the NYTimes (they seem to have one per section of their site) ...

https://twitter.com/#!/FreeNYT/firehose/members

...if you follow that "list" you get access to all of those URLs.

You would get access to the same URLs if you followed each of those ~40 individual twitter accounts directly.

Essentially the NYT is complaining that someone is promoting the existence of their twitter accounts.

Comment Some actual news stories about this (Score 3, Informative) 191

by thehossman (#35510468) Attached to: Teen Cancels Party After 200,000 RSVP On Facebook

If a random blogger is going to submission spam slashdot with all of his two paragraph blogs plagiarizing news articles, the least he could do is actually LINK to some genuinely useful coverage of the story on a reputable sites...

Businesses

Submission + - IRS Nails CPA for Copying Steve Jobs, Google Execs 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Silly rabbit, $1 salaries are for super-wealthy tech execs! The WSJ reports that CPA David Watson incurred the wrath of the IRS by only paying himself $24,000 a year and declaring the rest of his take profit. It's a common tax-cutting maneuver that most computer consultants working through an S Corporation have probably considered. Unlike profit distributions, all salary is subject to a 2.9% Medicare tax and the first $106,800 is subject to a 12.4% Social Security tax (FICA). By reducing his salary, Watson didn't save any income taxes on the $379k in profit distributions he received in 2002 and 2003, but he did save nearly $20,000 in payroll taxes for the two years, the IRS argued, pegging Watson's true pay at $91,044 for each year. Judge Robert W. Pratt agreed that Watson's salary was too low, ruling that the CPA owed the extra tax plus interest and penalties. So why, you ask, don't members of the much-ballyhooed $1 Executive club like Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt get in hot water for their low-ball salaries? After all, how inequitable would it be if billionaires working full-time didn't have to kick in more than 15 cents into the Medicare and Social Security kitty? Sorry kids, the rich are different, and the New Global Elite have much better tax advisors than you!

Submission + - Paypal alternatives? 6

Submitted by dotancohen
dotancohen writes: It seems that everything that I used to do with Paypal is gone, and nobody has found a good alternative yet. This month I tried donating to Anki (but Paypal is no longer serving Japan for donations) and Virtual Identity (which stopped accepting Paypal due to the Wikileaks incident). The authors of both software are looking for alternatives. What can we recommend to them? What reliable and inexpensive money-transfer services exist today? What do you use?

Submission + - Thousands of blackbirds fall from sky dead (reuters.com) 1

Submitted by Dan East
Dan East writes: In a fashion worthy of a King or Hitchcock novel, yesterday blackbirds began to fall from the sky dead. Somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 birds rained down on the small town of Beeb, Arkansas, with no visible trauma. Officials are making wild guesses as to what happened — lightning strike, high-altitude hail, or perhaps trauma from the sound of New Year's fireworks killed them.

Submission + - Student Arrested for Airport Protest (wtvr.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Aaron Tobey, a 21-year-old student, was arrested for disorderly conduct after protesting the TSA screening rules at the Richmond International Airport. While in the screening line, he stripped down to a pair of running shorts and revealed that the text of the 4th Amendment was written on his chest in marker. Aaron has been questioned by the FBI, airport security and U.S. Marshals before being cited with disorderly conduct. His arraignment is on January 10th.

Comment Poorly Worded Summary (Score 1) 170

by thehossman (#34643302) Attached to: A Klingon Christmas Carol

I don't like star trek, i haven't seen most of hte movies, and even i kow that the proper way to have started that summary should have been:

"Have you always wished that you could hear your favorite Christmas classics in the original Klingon?"

Comment It's really, stupidly, simple... (Score 4, Informative) 266

by thehossman (#34520004) Attached to: Oracle Asks Apache To Rethink Java Committee Exit

Bruno Borges said it the most succinctly...

"There is no point helping to write specifications that you aren't allowed to implement"

http://twitter.com/#!/brunoborges/status/13058930657730560

And Brian McCallister explained the full ramifications most clearly...

http://skife.org/java/jcp/2010/12/07/the-tck-trap.html
Censorship

Submission + - Kuwait Ban of DSLR Cameras turns out to be a Hoax (kuwaittimes.net) 3

Submitted by Voulnet
Voulnet writes: The Kuwait Times, the newspaper that started the false rumor of Kuwait banning DSLR cameras, has posted an update saying that after investigation, it turned out that they didn't verify their information, and issued a retraction: "On Saturday, November 20, 2010 the Kuwait Times published an article titled 'Multi ministry camera ban frustrates artists' in which incorrect information was provided. The newspaper regrets failing to verify the information. The article wrongly stated that a ban on DSLR cameras was implemented by the Ministries of Information, Social Affairs and Finance. This information is false. In a follow up investigation, it was proved that no such ban has been issued. We regret this error and deeply apologize for any inconvenience caused"
Transportation

Submission + - Amazing Brick Machine Rolls Out Roads Like Carpet (inhabitat.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Brick roads are beautiful and durable, but we don’t see them too often due to the effort it takes to prouce them. What once was a labor-intensive, back-breaking job has now become a snap with this automatic Dutch paver laying machine, called the Tiger-Stone. The device rolls out automatically assembled bricks to create an instant road anywhere it travels. A small telescoping forklift feeds the hopper, allowing the Tiger-Stone to lay out an impressive 400 meters of road day, and the span can be adjusted up to six meters wide.
Games

Submission + - Lost online games from the pre-Web era (pcmag.com)

Submitted by harrymcc
harrymcc writes: Long before the Web came along, people were playing online games--on BBSes, on services such as Prodigy and CompuServe, and elsewhere. Gaming historian Benj Edwards has rounded up a dozen RPGs, MUDs, and other fascinating curiosities from the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s--and the cool part is, they're all playable on the Web today.
Medicine

Submission + - Researchers Regenerate Nerves After Spinal Injury (gizmag.com)

Submitted by fergus07
fergus07 writes: About two percent of Americans — more than six million people — have some form of paralysis resulting from spinal cord injury, which is due primarily to the interruption of connections between the brain and spinal cord. Such paralysis and loss of function has long been considered untreatable, but a new approach has, for the first time, induced robust regeneration of nerve connections that control voluntary movement, showing the potential for new therapeutic approaches to paralysis and other motor function impairments and offering hope to sufferers.
Iphone

Submission + - iPhone data leads to rape charges being dropped (theage.com.au) 1

Submitted by one eyed kangaroo
one eyed kangaroo writes: The Age reports that a Sydney man has used deleted iPhone messages to have serious charges against him dropped.
"In what may be the first time an iPhone's elephantine memory has saved someone accused of a serious crime, deleted data retrieved by a leading surveillance expert appears to have led to the dropping of five rape charges against a Sydney man." His lawyer said, "'Without the ability of Coulthart to drag the content out, a man's life may have been ruined'.'

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