Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Entertainment

Game of Thrones: Bush's Head Gets a Makeover 266

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the eastasia-has-always-been-the-enemy dept.
mahiskali writes "After apologizing for using a likeness of former President George W. Bush's head in the season finale of the first season of 'Game of Thrones,' HBO has digitally altered the offending scene. After releasing an formal apology, HBO proceeded to yank the episode off all digital platforms, as well as halt distribution of the Season 1 box sets. The episode is now back with an altered head; more hair, less chin. Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss later clarified, 'We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush.'"
Medicine

Black Death Discovered In Oregon 404

Posted by timothy from the oregon-the-euthanasia-state dept.
redletterdave writes "The Black Death, a strain of bubonic plague that destroyed nearly a third of Europe's entire population between 1347 and 1369, has been found in Oregon. Health officials in Portland have confirmed that a man contracted the plague after getting bitten by a cat. The unidentified man, who is currently in his 50s, had tried to pry a dead mouse from a stray cat's mouth on June 2 when the cat attacked him. Days later, fever and sickness drove the man to check himself into Oregon's St. Charles Medical Center, where he is currently in 'critical condition.'"

Comment Where are my discs? (Score 4, Insightful) 518

by RenHoek (#40296875) Attached to: NewEgg: Installing Linux Breaks Laptop

If I were to buy a laptop with Windows (heavens forbid), then I'd expect installation media to go with it. I can understand NewEgg not fielding support questions on every flavor of Unix, but my grandmother should be able to restore the laptop to mint (pun intended) condition by inserting a DVD.

If NewEgg fails to deliver that, then there's the problem, not a user installing something else.
Microsoft

Red Hat Will Pay Microsoft To Get Past UEFI Restrictions 809

Posted by timothy from the one-low-low-price-but-still dept.
ToriaUru writes "Fedora is going to pay Microsoft to let them distribute a PC operating system. Microsoft is about to move from effectively owning the PC hardware platform to literally owning it. Once Windows 8 is released, hardware manufacturers will be forced to ship machines that refuse to run any software that is not explicitly approved by Microsoft — and that includes competing operating systems like Linux. Technically Fedora didn't have to go down this path. But, as this article explains, they are between a rock and a hard place: if they didn't pay Microsoft to let them onto the PC platform, they would have to explain to their potential users how to mess with firmware settings just to install the OS. How long before circumventing the secure boot mechanism is considered a DMCA violation and a felony?" Note that the author says this is likely, but that the entire plan is not yet "set in stone."
Businesses

MS Will Remove OEM 'Crapware' For $99 474

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the i-thought-that-was-called-ubuntu dept.
walterbyrd writes about a program from Microsoft to clean up bloated base installs, for a price. From the article: "Microsoft even offers up numbers to show how detrimental this OEM-installed crapware is to your system. Microsoft claims that Signature systems start up 39 percent faster, go into sleep mode 23 percent faster, and resume from sleep a whopping 51 percent faster compared to their crapware-ladened counterparts. (A 'Signature' system is one without crapware). But now, Microsoft will offer customers the opportunity to give their Windows 7 PC the Signature treatment by bringing it to a Microsoft Store and paying $99, according to the Wall Street Journal."
Science

Study Aims To Read Dogs' Thoughts 154

Posted by samzenpus from the squirrel-ball-cat! dept.
jjp9999 writes "A new study at Emory University is trying to figure out what dogs think. The study uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to scan the dogs' brains while they're shown different stimuli. Results from the first study will be published by the Public Library of Science, where the dogs were shown hand signals from their owners. 'We hope this opens up a whole new door for understanding canine cognition and inter-species communication. We want to understand the dog-human relationship, from the dog's perspective,' said Gregory Berns, director of the Emory Center for Neuropolicy and lead researcher of the dog project."
Google

In Australia, Google Pays Just $74k Tax On Claimed Revenues of $200 Million 345

Posted by timothy from the avoidance-vs-evasion dept.
daria42 writes "Looks like Apple isn't the only company with interesting offshore taxation practices. The financial statements for Google's Australian subsidiary show the company told the Australian Government it made just $200 million in revenue in 2011 in Australia, despite local industry estimating it actually brought in closer to $1 billion. The rest was funnelled through Google's Irish subsidiary and not disclosed in Australia. Consequently the company only disclosed taxation costs in Australia of $74,000. Not bad work if you can get it — which Google apparently can."
Crime

Terminal Mixup Implicates TSA Agents In LAX Smuggling Plot 255

Posted by timothy from the and-your-knees-go-on-these-yellow-dots dept.
First time accepted submitter ian_po writes "The U.S. Attorney's office has filed indictments against 7 people, including two Transportation Security Administration Screeners and two former TSA employees, after federal agents set up several smuggling sting operations. The alleged smuggling scheme was revealed after a suspected drug courier went to Terminal 5, where his flight was departing, instead of going through the Terminal 6 checkpoint his written instructions directed him to. Court documents indicate the plan was to return to Terminal 5 through a secure tunnel after being allowed through security by the accused Screener. The courier was caught with 10 pounds of cocaine at the other checkpoint by a different TSA agent. If convicted, the four TSA employees face a minimum of 10 years in Federal prison." If ten pounds of anything can get onto a plane by the simple expedient of bribery, please explain again why adult travelers, but not children, must remove their shoes as they stand massed in an unsecured part of a typical U.S. airport.
Transportation

TSA Defends Pat Down of 4-Year-Old Girl 1174

Posted by samzenpus from the child-ticket-for-security-theater dept.
cosm writes "With public outcry against the TSA continuing to spread, the TSA is defending a recent episode in which a four-year-old was patted down while kicking and screaming at Wichita Airport in Kansas. From the AP article: 'The grandmother of a 4-year-old girl who became hysterical during a security screening at a Kansas airport said Wednesday that the child was forced to undergo a pat-down after hugging her, with security agents yelling and calling the crying girl an uncooperative suspect.'"
Transportation

Interview With TSA Screener Reveals 'Fatal Flaws' 582

Posted by Soulskill from the my-toothpaste-is-not-a-deadly-weapon-you-jerks dept.
OverTheGeicoE writes "Jonathan Corbett, creator of the video showing that TSA's body scanners can't see metal objects on our sides, has a new video out. This time he's interviewing an experienced TSA screener identified only as 'Jennifer,' and her allegations point to 'fatal flaws' in TSA and its procedures. Worse, TSA's screeners are well aware of these flaws. According to Jennifer, body scanners frequently fail to detect objects on passengers, and this flaw is well known to the screeners on the job. People with visible items in their pockets can pass through scanners without detection, even when the items are simulated weapons or explosives. Jennifer also alleges that training for screeners is severely lacking. Screeners are directed to operate body scanners, even the X-ray scanners, without any training whatsoever. The manual of standard operating procedures often can't be found at the checkpoints, let alone read. Jennifer was so alarmed by what she experienced that she wrote her congressional representative to complain. She was ultimately fired as a result, effective yesterday."

Comment Re:40 rods to the hogshead (Score 4, Insightful) 406

by RenHoek (#39579595) Attached to: Self-Sustaining Solar Reactor Creates Clean Hydrogen

1) While it's in use by a lot of people, _most_ people don't use it.
2) It's about a scientific article, so we're talking about science. It just makes sense to use celsius or kelvin in a science topic. If we're talking about the distance between planets, we use AU or light years. If we're talking temperature, fahrenheit is not the first choice.

Comment Re:40 rods to the hogshead (Score -1, Troll) 406

by RenHoek (#39579547) Attached to: Self-Sustaining Solar Reactor Creates Clean Hydrogen

Is it not our task to educate? If people get shielded from concepts like celsius/kelvin, will they ever learn? Also, this is Slashdot.. True, an American site, but read globally. I'm sure 99% of the audience knows about all three scales, but for science stuff, kelvin or celsius just makes more sense. Like how cocaine goes by the kilo. :)

Slashdot Top Deals

If Machiavelli were a hacker, he'd have worked for the CSSG. -- Phil Lapsley

Close