Comment Re:Eyes Free ??oneoneone? (Score 2, Funny) 85
+1, Relevant Sig
Demonoid Tracker Is Back Online 211
Crymson4 writes "We discussed the shutdown of the Demonoid torrent tracker last fall. For those who don't already know, Demonoid is back up. Looks like they found a new host for the Web site and the tracker is functioning properly as well. For those with old accounts, all the old data has been saved. It's almost as if they never left."
Journal Journal: Water-activated batteries (NoPoPo)
The Japanese manufacturer Aqua Power Systems Japan is producing Water-activated battery in the AA and AAA sizes, with larger sizes and capacities on the way. As far as I can tell, this is the only commercial offering of these batteries in the AA and AAA form factors.
Submission + - JavaJive: The Older You Get, the More that Coffee (scienceblogs.com)
grrlscientist writes: "Older women enjoyed the best effects from drinking at least three cups of coffee per day; namely, increased memory and recall. Men weren't affected at all, suggesting that men metabolize coffee differently than do women."
Submission + - What Would You Put In A Video Game Time Capsule? (angry-gamer.net)
AGFlamey writes: "The team at Angry Gamer are building a video game time capsule to be buried 6 feet underground. They have roughly the space of a large shoe box to fill with essential artifacts of modern-day video gaming. What goes in it is up to you to decide. What should we show the future generations of video gamers? What items are important enough to preserve? Will Duke Nukem Forever be out by the time it is dug up?"
Submission + - Netflix Gets Hacked (tvsquad.com)
Dragontologist writes: "In an interestingly round-about way, a few hackers have posted publicly about how to get around the $17/month fee for Netflix streaming video. It's not particularly easy, you only get 17 hours of video a month, and you can't copy it onto your iPod (not without another hack, anyway), but it's free (assuming you don't mind the whole illegal thing). All I want to know is, who would think to exploit Windows Media Player?"
Submission + - Enable compiz-fusion in Ubuntu Feisty (vanzonneveld.net)
kevmaster writes: "Linux desktop effects have come a long way. Over time we've seen different implementations like compiz & beryl. These 2 projects have lead a life of their own but have now been merged back together again in a new project called: compiz-fusion. Compiz-fusion has got some awesome eye candy effects, but it's still a little bit tricky to get it to work though. There are some other howtos online but those didn't cut it for me, so eventually after getting it to work, I wrote one myself."
Submission + - Corporate CEO targets teenage blogger 3
marylouluddite writes: "A corporate CEO named Patrick Byrne, who runs a company called Overstock.com, has sicced his Director of Communications, Judd Bagley, on a teenage blogger who lampooned him.
The blogger's name is Zac Bissonnette, a college freshman and 19 years old. Zac blogs on stocks at AOL, and also has a parody website, wwww.hedgefunnies.com.
One of his items lampooned Patrick Byrne, and he has also been critical of Byrne in Blogging Stocks. See http://hedgefunnies.com/2007/07/30/patrick-byrne-u nveils-irrefutable-proof-of-naked-short-selling
Byrne struck back by having Bagley attack Zac on Wikipedia, and by threatening to do an item about him in antisocialmedia.net, a website dedicated to attacking critics of Patrick Byrne.
An investigative reporter, Gary Weiss, has the scoop on his blog: http://garyweiss.blogspot.com/2007/08/overstockcom -sinks-to-new-low-targets.html
It's really a shame that a big company is so paranoid and sensitive to criticism that it has to chase after a teenage blogger."
The blogger's name is Zac Bissonnette, a college freshman and 19 years old. Zac blogs on stocks at AOL, and also has a parody website, wwww.hedgefunnies.com.
One of his items lampooned Patrick Byrne, and he has also been critical of Byrne in Blogging Stocks. See http://hedgefunnies.com/2007/07/30/patrick-byrne-
Byrne struck back by having Bagley attack Zac on Wikipedia, and by threatening to do an item about him in antisocialmedia.net, a website dedicated to attacking critics of Patrick Byrne.
An investigative reporter, Gary Weiss, has the scoop on his blog: http://garyweiss.blogspot.com/2007/08/overstockco
It's really a shame that a big company is so paranoid and sensitive to criticism that it has to chase after a teenage blogger."
Submission + - Hackers Extract Main Key to iPhone Unlocking (gizmodo.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: After reverse-engineering Nucleus, the iPhone's radio/multimedia chip RTOS, the iPhone Dev Team has achieved the next big milestone to free the iPhone from the AT&T network: they have extracted the full content of the S-Gold2 chip's NOR memory. Bluntly put, these are the plans for the damn Death Star and "is the main key to achieve true unlocking." They are also calling for donations to help them keep their efforts.
Submission + - Elton's war on the web (smh.com.au)
timboc007 writes: Elton John (not exactly a regular on Slashdot!) wants to shut down the internet. From the article, he is quoted as saying "I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span." Anybody want to sign up for this 'incredible experiment'?
Submission + - Odd fossil trees provide vital clues to climate
Device666 writes: uly 31, 2007 — It may look like a haunted forest — but a rare cluster of fossilized trees is luring scientists in, not scaring them away. [...] The remains of the 16 uncovered trees [...] are an oddity because they did not petrify, or turn to stone, as preserved trees usually do. Instead, the trees retain their original wood, giving scientists vital clues to the puzzling geology and climate of ancient central Europe.
"The importance of the findings is that so many trees got preserved in their original position in one place," Alfred Dulai, a geologist at the Hungarian Natural History Museum.
"The importance of the findings is that so many trees got preserved in their original position in one place," Alfred Dulai, a geologist at the Hungarian Natural History Museum.
Submission + - Multiformat Listening Test at 64kbps 1
prospective_user writes: "Do you think you have good ears? Think again.
The community at Hydrogenaudio has prepared a Public Listening Test for comparison of the most popular audio codecs (AAC, Vorbis, and Microsoft's WMA included) in a battle to see how they stand at compressing audio at 64kbps.
Many of the participants right now have expressed their surprise at being unable to determine which is the original and which is the compressed version of 18 samples covering a vast amount of musical styles.
The results of this test (and other that are conducted at Hydrogenaudio) will be used by the developers of the codecs to further improve the "transparency" and let this kind of test be even harder.
Everyone is invited to participate and show how good your listening is!"
The community at Hydrogenaudio has prepared a Public Listening Test for comparison of the most popular audio codecs (AAC, Vorbis, and Microsoft's WMA included) in a battle to see how they stand at compressing audio at 64kbps.
Many of the participants right now have expressed their surprise at being unable to determine which is the original and which is the compressed version of 18 samples covering a vast amount of musical styles.
The results of this test (and other that are conducted at Hydrogenaudio) will be used by the developers of the codecs to further improve the "transparency" and let this kind of test be even harder.
Everyone is invited to participate and show how good your listening is!"
Submission + - Chernobyl Mushrooms Feeding on Radiation
cowtamer writes: According to a National Geographic Article certain fungi can use ionizing radiation to perform "radiosynthesis" using the pigment melanin (the same one in our skin that protects us from UV radiation). It is speculated that this might be useful on long space voyages where energy from the Sun is not readily available.
Submission + - Stem Cells Shown to Protect Dying Motor Neurons
Penguinshit writes: "Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal, progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by rapid loss of muscle control and eventual paralysis due to the death of large motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Growth factors such as glial cell line derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) are known to protect motor neurons from damage in a range of models. Human cortical neural progenitor cells derived from fetal tissue (ie. stem cells) can be expanded in culture for long periods and survive transplantation into the central nervous system, in some cases making large numbers of GFAP positive astrocytes. They can also be genetically modified to release GDNF and thus act as long-term 'mini pumps' in specific regions of the brain. In this study a team at UW-Madison's Waisman Center genetically modified human neural stem cells to release GDNF and transplanted them into the spinal cord of rats with mutant SOD1. Following unilateral transplantation into the spinal cord of the rats there was robust cellular migration into degenerating areas, efficient delivery of GDNF and remarkable preservation of motor neurons at early and end stages of the disease within chimeric regions.
This work is especially important to me, as I have been living with ALS for almost three years."
This work is especially important to me, as I have been living with ALS for almost three years."
Submission + - What Linspire Agreed To (groklaw.net)
Loctus writes: We can read the Linspire-Microsoft patent agreement now, and I thought it would be worthwhile to give it a close, line-by-line reading. I'll explain it as best I can, but ask your lawyer if it matters to you in a real-world sense. For our purposes here, let's just have fun with the worst deal I've seen yet in this category.
