Sunburnt - Slashdot User

Submission + - Putin Threatens US Missile Bases in Europe (forbes.com)

Submitted by

Melugo

on Sunday June 03, 2007 @12:45PM

Melugo writes: "Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that U.S. plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe would force Moscow to target its weapons against Europe. "If the American nuclear potential grows in European territory, we have to give ourselves new targets in Europe," Putin said, according to Corriere. "It is up to our military to define these targets, in addition to defining the choice between ballistic and cruise missiles." It feels like the Cold War all over again. See the rest of the article at: Forbes or a comment on it at alittlebitoffreedom.blogspot.com."

Submission + - Do We Need Online Reputation? (informationweek.com)

Submitted by Symblized on Sunday June 03, 2007 @12:38PM

Symblized writes: A new article from InformationWeek argues that not only does the Web need ways to verify identity, it also needs better ways to measure reputation. The article uses Digg, Wikipedia and eBay as examples and discusses that their models could be applied more widely. Choice quote from a source in the article: 'the idea of a transferable, semantic reputation is identity nirvana.'

Submission + - world's largest radio telescope could lose funding

Submitted by palewook on Saturday June 02, 2007 @07:45AM

palewook writes: Space.com reports Engineers will travel to Arecibo, Puerto Rico in coming weeks to study whether to shut down the world's largest radio telescope, which was featured in the movie "Contact'' but now faces steep budget cuts observatory officials said Thursday.

Submission + - Internet killing Worldwide Video Porn Industry

Submitted by

Pcol

on Saturday June 02, 2007 @05:08AM

Pcol writes: "The New York Times reports that after years of steady increases, pornographic video rentals declined last year. Industry insiders attribute the 15% drop off to the online availability of free or low-cost photos and videos which have taken a toll on X-rated DVDs. "People are making movies in their houses and dragging and dropping them" onto free Web sites, said Harvey Kaplan, a former maker of pornographic movies and now chief executive of GoGoBill.com, which processes payments for pornographic Web sites. "It's killing the marketplace." Counterintuitively the market is flooded with new video releases in part by an influx of new low budget filmakers. "The barrier to get into the industry is so low: you need a video camera and a couple of people who will have sex," says Paul Fishbein, President of AVN Media Network, an industry trade publication. The more traditional pornographic film companies are not giving up however and say their answer to the new competition is better production values: using better cameras and more experienced directors and performers, hoping that viewers will discern quality when it comes to sex."

Submission + - The Ignorance of Crowds

Submitted by gnaremooz on Saturday June 02, 2007 @04:26AM

gnaremooz writes: Nicholas G. Carr takes a look at 10 years of The Cathedral and the Bazaar. From the article:

But if peer production is a good way to mine the raw material for innovation, it doesn't seem well suited to shaping that material into a final product. That's a task that is still best done in the closed quarters of a cathedral, where a relatively small and formally organized group of talented professionals can collaborate closely in perfecting the fit and finish of a product. Involving a crowd in this work won't speed it up; it will just bring delays and confusion.

Submission + - Schools ordered to drop MS Office from Macs

Submitted by

Repton

on Monday May 28, 2007 @09:00PM

Repton writes: "Microsoft has asked the Education Ministry to pay a licence fee for all copies of Microsoft Office being used on Macintoshes in New Zealand schools. The Ministry doesn't think this is cost-effective, and so it is asking schools to remove Microsoft Office from any Macs they have. Education Minister Steve Maharey suggets schools use NeoOffice instead, but some schools aren't impressed, saying that NeoOffice may be buggy."

Submission + - New images of deep Martian caves

Submitted by untree on Monday May 28, 2007 @06:15PM

untree writes: The Astronomy Picture of the Day today is an image recently taken by the HiRISE instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. More information is available on the Planetary Society blog, including a description of the paper (pdf) that describes this series of caves.

From the image description:

"Black spots have been discovered on Mars that are so dark that nothing inside can be seen. Quite possibly, the spots are entrances to deep underground caves capable of protecting Martian life, were it to exist."

And for fans of traditional units of measure, this cave entrance is about the size of a football field.

Submission + - Climate Monitoring Station Proposed on the Moon

Submitted by

CryogenicKeen

on Sunday May 27, 2007 @10:26AM

CryogenicKeen writes: "From the Article: "Using data from an Apollo 15 experiment whose original intent was thwarted by unanticipated lunar surface conditions, the University of Michigan geophysicist recently showed that surface temperatures on the near side of the moon accurately record important information about Earth's climate system. Based on his analysis, recently published online in Advances in Space Research, Huang is calling for an international effort to develop and deploy monitoring stations on the moon for the study of terrestrial climate change." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/07052 5200427.htm"

Submission + - US oppose G8 climate proposals

Submitted by elrond on Sunday May 27, 2007 @07:46AM

elrond writes: The US appears to have rejected draft proposals for G8 members to agree tough measures in greenhouse gas emissions. Details at BBC News and The Washington Post.

Submission + - Good note-taking software

Submitted by on Sunday May 27, 2007 @03:13AM

An anonymous reader writes: I've noticed that I do a lot of brainstorming on paper, and I wondered why I don't use my computer more. I realized that one of the things I like about writing on paper is the ability to arbitrarily position my text. Is there good software for OS X that lets me put the cursor anywhere I want and begin typing immediately? As for PCs, I think OneNote allows this — is there anything else? What about software that also lets me drag and drop entire blocks of text any way I want to organize them?

Submission + - cheap cure for cancer

Submitted by Psiuyo on Monday January 29, 2007 @05:57PM

Psiuyo writes: Researchers at the University of Alberta have found a cheap and easy to produce drug that kills almost all cancers. Dichloroacetate. The drug has no patent, and could be produced for bargain basement prices. Already used to treat metabolic disorders, it should be no problem to use it for other purposes.

Submission + - Cheney Sidesteps Travel Disclosure Rules

Submitted by

JayTheHun

on Monday January 29, 2007 @01:07AM

JayTheHun writes: "Unlike the rest of the White House, Cheney doesn't make his outside travel public By Kate Sheppard and Bob Williams WASHINGTON, November 16, 2005 — Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff have been unilaterally exempting themselves from long-standing travel disclosure rules followed by the rest of the executive branch, including the Office of the President, the Center for Public Integrity has discovered. Cheney's office also appears to have stuck taxpayers with untold millions in travel costs rather than accepting trip sponsors' funds that the rules would require to be disclosed. It's not as if those in Cheney's office don't indulge in the type of junkets that are routinely funded by private sources. Instead of accepting reimbursement for such trips like other government travelers, it appears that his office labels them "official travel." As a result, however, the public is kept largely unaware of where he and his staff are traveling, with whom they are meeting with and how much it costs, even though tax dollars are covering the bill. http://www.publicintegrity.org/lobby/report.aspx?a id=760"

Submission + - JOULE II launches rockets to study Northern Lights

Submitted by

WaltonNews

on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @11:27PM

WaltonNews writes: "On January 19, 2007 (starting at about 3:29 Alaska Standard Time), NASA launched a project called JOULE II that consists of four rockets to study the aurora display over the skies of northern Alaska. The mission is geared to learn more about the electrical heating of the thin upper atmosphere above the Earth's surface. For more of the story, go to: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8885/1066/."

Submission + - China Tests Anti-Satellite Ballistic Missile

Submitted by Vicissidude on Thursday January 18, 2007 @06:55PM

Vicissidude writes: US intelligence agencies believe China performed a successful anti-satellite weapons test at more than 500 miles altitude January 11th, destroying an aging Chinese weather satellite target with a kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile. The United States, Australia, and Canada have criticised China over the test. Neither the Office of the US Secretary of Defense nor Air Force Space Command would comment on the attack, which followed by several months the alleged illumination of a US military spacecraft by a Chinese ground based laser.

Submission + - Anatomy of pump'n'dump SPAM

Submitted by giorgiofr on Thursday January 18, 2007 @06:54PM

giorgiofr writes: Laura Frieder and Jonathan Zittrain have analized pump'n'dump spam activity in their paper "Spam Works: Evidence from Stock Touts and Corresponding Market Activity". Unbelievably, it appears that spammers are able to achieve a 5% gain on pumped stock before dumping it, along with a dramatic increase in transaction volume of the stock. Paper summary, full paper.

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