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Cellphones

Cellphone Networks Survive Inauguration, Mostly 121

Posted by timothy from the ever-more-robust dept.
nandemoari writes "Everybody was talking about Barack Obama's inauguration on Tuesday morning, and it showed. According to reports, a number of mobile phone networks faced overload circumstances that day until late afternoon, when the chat sessions finally began to dissipate. Having the most trouble that morning appears to have been T-Mobile, and AT&T also had some difficulty that morning."

Comment Re: configuration (Score 1) 306

by The Salamander (#26213379) Attached to: Shuttleworth Proposes Overhaul of Desktop Notifications

I've had a pain in the ass time doing dual monitors. Not to mention, one of my monitors can pivot (rotate) 90 degrees.. (its nice to see 2 whole pages of text when your typing on a "long screen", instead of a widescreen) but last time I looked, there is no easy way to adjust that either..

For what it's worth, both 2nd monitor and rotation are easy GUI options in KDE. I haven't used Gnome in many years...

Plugged a new monitor into my laptop and it just works.
Government

Watergate "Deep Throat" Mark Felt Dead At 95 126

Posted by kdawson from the linda-lovelace-in-mourning dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "W. Mark Felt Sr., 95, associate director of the FBI during the Watergate scandal, better known as 'Deep Throat,' the most famous anonymous source in American history, died at his home in Santa Rosa, California. Felt secretly guided Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to pursue the story of the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office buildings, and later of the Nixon administration's campaign of spying and sabotage against its perceived political enemies. 'It's impossible to exaggerate how high the stakes were in Watergate,' wrote Felt in his 2006 book A G-Man's Life. 'We faced no simple burglary, but an assault on government institutions, an attack on the FBI's integrity, and unrelenting pressure to unravel one of the greatest political scandals in our nation's history.' No one knows exactly what prompted Felt to leak the information from the Watergate probe to the press. He was passed over for the post of FBI director after Hoover's death in 1972, a crushing career disappointment. 'People will debate for a long time whether I did the right thing by helping Woodward. The bottom line is that we did get the whole truth out, and isn't that what the FBI is supposed to do?'"
Transportation

Ford To Introduce Restrictive Car Keys For Parents 1224

Posted by kdawson from the no-you-cannot-borrow-my-keys dept.
thesandbender writes "Ford is set to release a management system that will restrict certain aspects of a car's performance based on which key is in the ignition. The speed is limited to 80, you can't turn off traction control, and you can't turn the stereo up to eleven. It's targeted at parents of teenagers and seems like a generally good idea, especially if you get a break on your insurance." The keys will be introduced with the 2010 Focus coupe and will quickly spread to Ford's entire lineup.
The Courts

Submission + - U.of Oregon Says No to RIAA; ID no good

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The University of Oregon has filed a motion to quash the RIAA's subpoena for information on student identities, in what is believed to be the first such motion made by the university itself, rather than by the students, and the first instance of a State Attorney General bringing a motion to quash an RIAA subpoena. The motion (pdf) explains that it is impossible to identify the alleged infringers from the information the RIAA has presented: "Five of the seventeen John Does accessed the content in question from double occupancy dorm rooms at the University. With regard to these Does, the University is able to identify only the room where the content was accessed and whether or not the computer used was a Macintosh or a PC.... The University cannot determine whether the content in question accessed by one occupant as opposed to another, or whether it was accessed instead by a visitor. Two of the seventeen John Does accessed the content in question from single occupancy dorm rooms....No login or personally identifiable information, i.e. authentication, was used by the Does to access the university's network because none is required. The University cannot determine whether the content was accessed by the room occupant or visitor. Nine of the seventeen John Does accessed the content in question from the University's wireless network or a similar system called the "HDSL Circuit." These systems do record a user name associated with the access. For these John Does, the University can determine the identity of the individual who bas been assigned the user name, however, it is unable to determine whether the content was accessed by the individual assigned that user name or by someone else using the computer associated with the user name. In the case of sixteen of the seventeen John Does, .... it is not possible for the University to identify the alleged infringers without conducting interviews and a forensic investigation of the computers likely involved." The AG's motion further argues (pdf) that "Plaintiffs' subpoena is unduly burdensome and overbroad. It seeks information that the University does not readily possess. In order to attempt to comply with the subpoena, the University would be forced to undertake an investigation to create discovery for Plaintiffs — an obligation not imposed by Rule 45. As the University is unable to identify the alleged infringers with any accuracy, it cannot comply with its federal obligation to notify students potentially affected by the subpoena." One commentator has likened the AG's argument to saying, in effect, that the RIAA's evidence is "rubbish"."
Spam

Submission + - Spammers Enlist the Aid of Virtual Strippers

Submitted by Tha_Big_Guy23
Tha_Big_Guy23 writes: Spammers have a new way around captchas: A virtual stripper who is paid when you fork them over. The BBC is reporting that a Windows game shows a woman in "a state of undress" when a person correctly types in a Captcha. In the game, a woman named Melissa invites victims to decipher the text. After a bunch of Captchas you get your payoff and the malicious program gets its way around the Captcha system.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Memory card adds wi-fi to digital cameras (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by ISurfTooMuch
ISurfTooMuch writes: Gizmodo has a story on the Eye-Fi, an SD memory card that doubles as a wi0fi card. Plug the card into your digital camera, and it connects to a wireless router and automatically uploads any photos you take to your choice of 20 sites or your local computer. You can use it to automatically send your family photos to your PC, or, for the activists among us, you could use it to take pictures of protests and get them out on the Internet before someone can try to take your camera.
Space

Submission + - Hillary Clinton Declares War on Space Exploration (associatedcontent.com)

Submitted by
MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: "Recently, Senator Hillary Clinton revealed her science agenda. Of great interest to people involved in making and debating space policy were the three bullets concerning the space program. To be brief and to the point, Hillary's agenda would be terrible news for anyone who supports space exploration and space commerce."
The Courts

Submission + - Interpol unmasks photoshopping paedophile

Submitted by
gmack
gmack writes: "Police have unmasked a paedophile who used a standard adobe Photoshop swirl to cover his identity. Hopefully this doesn't mean they all move to more advanced ways of covering their identities."
Announcements

Submission + - "Burning" Saltwater

Submitted by sunspot42
sunspot42 writes: From the too-good-to-believe file comes this AP story. Pennsylvania cancer researcher John Kanzius claims that hydrogen can be cracked from saltwater using nothing more than radio waves. A demonstration for the US Departments of Energy and Defense is scheduled for later in the week. Assuming this process puts out more energy than it costs — a big assumption — it could turn the most plentiful resource on the surface of the earth into an almost limitless, reusable source of energy.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Superfund365, A Site A Day (turbulence.org)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: http://transition.turbulence.org/Works/superfund/

"Superfund365, A Site-A-Day" is an online data visualization application with an accompanying RSS-feed and email alert system. Each day for a year "Superfund365" will visit one toxic site currently active in the Superfund program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They begin the journey in the New York City area and work their way across the country, ending in Hawaii.

I frequently bike past the first site they visit in NJ — and I had no idea... chilling.
Google

Submission + - Google Earth Flight Simulator (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
marcog123
marcog123 writes: "Last week Google launched Google Sky as an addition to Google Earth. However, what they didn't tell us is that the sneaked in another key addition — a flight simulator. They appear to have held back on publicising this new feature, although it could be considered by some as more useful than Google Sky. It is currently limited to an F16 and SR22, but the selection of runways is impressive for an under-the-radar release. It's a great new addition that complements Google Earth well!"

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