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Submission + - William H. "Bill" McCellan Passed away

An anonymous reader writes: It is with great Sorrow I am reporting on the death of Bill McCellan, The inventor of the first Nanomotor, and the father of all Nanotech. Bill had a stroke 2 weeks ago and did not recover. Bill was an employee at Caltech from the 50's until the 90's when he retired, but was still active in the the Caltech astronomy Labs, and also was involved in Engineering projects at Palomar Observatory as late as last fall.firing
IT

Submission + - IT Inferno: The Nine Circles Of IT hell (infoworld.com)

snydeq writes: "InfoWorld's Dan Tynan takes us on a tour of the nine circles of IT hell, a place 'not unlike the underworld described by Dante in his Divine Comedy.' 'But here, in the data centers, conference rooms, and cubicles, the IT version of this inferno is no allegory. It is a very real test of every IT pro's sanity and soul,' Tynan writes. From IT limbo, to tech lust, to stakeholder gluttony, to tech-pro treachery, the IT inferno is not buried deep within the earth, it's just down the hall. 'Thankfully, as in Dante's poetic universe, there are ways to escape the nine circles of IT hell. But IT pro beware: You may have to face your own devils to do it. Shall we descend?'"
Power

Submission + - US Navy drone helicopter flies on biofuel (suasnews.com)

garymortimer writes: "A U.S. Navy MQ-8B Fire Scout conducts the first unmanned biofuel flight at Webster Field in St. Inigoes, Md. The Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Directorate piloted the helicopter fueled with a combination of JP-5 aviation fuel and plant-based camelina. The biofuel blend reduces carbon dioxide output by 75 percent when compared to conventional aviation fuel. The MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Take-Off and Landing Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle provides critical situational awareness, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR), and targeting data to the forward deployed warfighter."
Facebook

Submission + - Fcaebook files for a patent to track it's users on (uspto.gov)

suraj.sun writes: United States Patent Application# 20110231240

Communicating Information in a Social Network System about Activities from Another Domain:

In one embodiment, a method is described for tracking information about the activities of users of a social networking system while on another domain. The method includes maintaining a profile for each of one or more users of the social networking system, each profile identifying a connection to one or more other users of the social networking system and including information about the user. The method additionally includes receiving one or more communications from a third-party website having a different domain than the social network system, each message communicating an action taken by a user of the social networking system on the third-party website. The method additionally includes logging the actions taken on the third-party website in the social networking system, each logged action including information about the action. The method further includes correlating the logged actions with one or more advertisements presented to the one or more users on the third-party website as well as correlating the logged actions with a user of the social networking system.

USPTO: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=20110231240.PGNR.&OS=dn/20110231240&RS=DN/20110231240

Social Networks

Submission + - Diaspora launches Diasporafoundation.org (diasporafoundation.org)

An anonymous reader writes: The open-source social networking project Diaspora that was first released last year seems to have made great progress in the past year. From their beginnings as a team of 4 inexperienced programmers, the project was taken under the wing of Pivotal labs, attracted many more developers and now has a fully revamped website launched yesterday.
Networking

Submission + - Cities may get smart with their own OS (bbc.co.uk)

CProgrammer98 writes: BBC news reports that cities may soon get their own OS. The Urban OS works just like a PC operating system but keeps buildings, traffic and services running smoothly.

The software takes in data from sensors dotted around the city to keep an eye on what is happening.

In the event of a fire the Urban OS might manage traffic lights so fire trucks can reach the blaze swiftly.

Submission + - Debit Card Outrage Takes Down BofA Site (reuters.com)

Sez Zero writes:

Bank of America Corp plans to charge customers who use their debit cards to make purchases a $5 monthly fee beginning early next year, joining other banks scrambling for new sources of revenue. Senator Richard Durbin, architect of debit card interchange fee reform, bashed the proposed monthly fee. "Bank of America is trying to find new ways to pad their profits by sticking it to its customers," he said in a statement. It's overt, unfair, and I hope their customers have the final say."

This morning, it looks like Bank of America's website is down.

Submission + - USPS Has A Hard Time Letting Go (washingtonpost.com)

kd5zex writes: In its death throes, The United States Postal Service is launching an ad campaign to bolster the silly justifications for maintaining an antiquated and unprofitable organization.

Here is a gem from one of the ads, according to the Washington Post:

“A refrigerator has never been hacked,” an announcer says in the first message as an actress pins a paper bill to her fridge.

Idle

Submission + - Exploding Toilet Injures Two Government Workers (discovery.com)

RedEaredSlider writes: Two toilets exploded in the General Services Administration building, hospitalizing two workers (who were in separate bathrooms, evidently). The physics is sort of interesting: older water systems operate using air to force the water through at the right pressure, but if there is some problem in the system enough pressure can build to cause the commodes to crack. Plumbers: please weigh in.

Submission + - IBM surpasses Microsoft to become 2nd largest tech (bbc.co.uk)

FlatEric521 writes: The BBC is reporting that for the first time since 1996 IBM's market value has exceeded Microsoft's. The values cap a sustained period in which IBM's share price has moved steadily upward as Microsoft's has generally been in decline. Of course, Apple is still the #1 company by far.
IBM

Submission + - Critical Vulnerabilities Triple in 2011 (net-security.org)

Orome1 writes: The IBM X-Force team reports that the percentage of critical vulnerabilities has tripled thus far in 2011. Due to the large number of high-profile attacks and network compromises that have occurred this year, IBM declared 2011 "Year of the Security Breach". Teams of professional attackers motivated by a desire to collect strategic intelligence have been able to gain and maintain access to critical computer networks through a combination of stealth, sophisticated technical capabilities and careful planning. Targeted attacks are often launched after careful study of a person's online profiles has armed an attacker with the information needed to create a compelling phishing email that the victim will be fooled into clicking on.
Robotics

Submission + - AlphaDog: DARPA's robotic mule ready for battle (extremetech.com)

MrSeb writes: "The robotic doggie, made by Boston Dynamics with a grant from DARPA, is almost ready for field testing. Slashdot has covered this robomule a couple of times [links below], but the advances that have been made since the previous iteration — BigDog — are plain to see. AlphaDog is fast, incredibly tenacious (watch it scale ankle-breaking rocks, and survive being shoved a few meters to the side), and it can even self-right by rolling onto its stomach. Best of all, it can carry some 400lbs (180kg) for 24 hours before it needs to be refueled. DARPA and the US Marine Corps are scheduled to test this bad dog sometime next year — and considering soldiers have to carry up to 70lbs on their backs, and travel to regions where vehicles simply can't go, AlphaDog can't get into active service soon enough.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/06/03/04/0240246/Robotic-Pack-Mule-with-Impressive-Reflexes
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/02/01/2141213/militarys-robotic-pack-mule-gets-32m-boost"

Comment Re:Thanks for proving it. (Score 1) 1345

>> Science and religion deal with two different domains.

To me, it seems that religions tend mainly to stand as a code of conduct for human societies. However, moral code is in the science domain because this concerns us, we humans, as a specie.

The right or wrong behaviors must be viewed from the point of view of human specie's survival. Objectively, the ethic is a survival trait that improves perpetuation chances for our specie. That's why there is so many religions with similar 'don't be evil' like code of conduct, even in little human groups lost in deep forests.

The religions was, somewhat, some sort of tools designed to ensure proper functionning of society (from perpetuation point of view) at times and epochs where societies had not disposed of large, efficient informational and educational infrastructures. Religions are now more "toxic" than useful in western world (condom, abortion, familly planning, grow and multiply, etc.) but still remain partialy usable in the less evolved parts of the world.

For us, science better fits our needs, the religions shouldn't be more than a memory part of our common identities.

Comment Successfully recovered the related bad sectors (Score 1) 375

Successfully recovered the related bad sectors, thanks to ddrescue and a screwdriver

For whom could be concerned, i have used my best floppy drive (from an old 80286 i don't even remember the brand), ddrescue with -R 2000 and a screwdriver to "lowering" the diskette while ddrescue tries the remaining 3 bad sectors. I got a complete recover and a full CRC match of the archive.

Thanks everyone.

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