Comment Trivia Calendars (Score 1) 534
I've had a Simpsons trivia calendar on my desk for the last 8 years.
Comment Re:Don't take freedom for granted (Score 2, Insightful) 521
I'll share my personal story to show how quickly a thriving democracy can turn into an oppresive regime, here in the US.
...
I had published a couple of letters to the editors in the San Jose Mercury News, discussing politics. I was reading foreign media which were hinting that US intelligence on Iraq WMD was bogus. Guess what? I stood very quiet, very silent. Who knows who was listening and how far the goverment was willing to go to silence dissent. If it had been just me, I would have stood up and fought for my rights, but with my family in mind, I decided to cave.
How does that story show anything other than your own paranoia?
Submission + - Raven: An Elegant Build for Java (onjava.com)
kevin_conaway writes: Matthieu Riou wrote an interesting article on Raven, a build system for Java powered by Ruby. His premise is that Raven allows you access to the full power of a scripting language including things like conditions, loops, exceptions and complex data structures and that this is an improvement over linear, "toy" build systems like Ant and Maven.
Submission + - Could seawater fuel your car? (www.cbc.ca)
Raver32 writes: "A cancer researcher in Erie, Pa., has stumbled on a technique that could turn salt water into fuel, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.
John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.
The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.
Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations. The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said."
Submission + - SPAM: How Boston College recovered from security breach
alphadogg writes: The college's head of IT security explained this week how the school went about recovering from a breach, caused by a hack into a rogue server, that potentially put personal info on 100,000 alumni at risk. Part of the response thinking: "Boston College was founded by Jesuits, and the president of the university is a priest. That leads to a highly ethical culture, and it made processing a lot easier. We confessed to our guilt and asked people's [forgiveness]."
[spam URL stripped]
Submission + - House Approves Comprehensive Patent Overhaul (washingtonpost.com)
George Demmy writes: "The House yesterday passed the most comprehensive patent reform in half a century, delivering a victory for computer technology and financial services companies and leaving drug companies, small inventors, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office bracing for a bigger fight before the bill hits the Senate floor.
The bill, which passed 225 to 175 with strong bipartisan support, is meant to reduce the mounting number of patent infringement cases by changing the ways patents are awarded and challenged."
Submission + - Futurama Movie Set for November 27th (tvsquad.com)
kevin_conaway writes: "TV Squad informs us that the new Futurama movie will be available on November 27th. The show will return as a full-length high-def film sold on DVD. It will be followed by three additional films, and each film will be divided into four episodes each to be aired on Comedy Central. So, that's 4 DVD movies or 16 new episodes depending on how you look at it."
