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United States

Submission + - Lifesaving hospital hygiene checklist banned (nytimes.com) 2

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: From the article:
Johns Hopkins University published a simple five-step checklist designed to prevent certain hospital infections. It reminds doctors to make sure, for example, that before putting large intravenous lines into patients, they actually wash their hands and don a sterile gown and gloves.

The results were stunning. Within three months, the rate of bloodstream infections from these I.V. lines fell by two-thirds. The average I.C.U. cut its infection rate from 4 percent to zero. Over 18 months, the program saved more than 1,500 lives and nearly $200 million.

Yet this past month, the Office for Human Research Protections shut the program down.
Wii

Submission + - Nintendo Wii Fully Exploited

Submitted by Croakyvoice
Croakyvoice writes: The 24th Annual Chaos Communication Congress was the launchpad for the unveiling of the hacking of the Nintendo Wii via an exploit to allow homebrew to run in native Wii mode ( previously only Gamecube Homebrew was available on the Wii) which will allow access to the Wiimote, WiFi and SD Cart Slot. Tehskeen a Wii scene site has today posted an interview with the author of the exploit who has discussed the release to the public and linux amongst other things.
Security

Submission + - AVG Anti-Virus to Users: Pray for mercy, infidels! (grisoft.com) 1

Submitted by Lincoln6Echo
Lincoln6Echo writes: I've been using and reselling AVG products for a few years now. Lately they appear to have begun a campaign to "be more corporate". I'd like to add my two cents towards their new corporate image and to user's impression of non-compromised AVG updates: remove the page that says "Pray for mercy, infidels!" from your SSL protected website. I found it when I made a mistake logging into the resellers console at https://biz.grisoft.cz/ (not https://biz.grisoft.com/) which is supposed to now redirect you to https://secure.grisoft.com.
Censorship

Submission + - YouTube censoring atheists. (youtube.com)

Submitted by Metaleks
Metaleks writes: 'Tis the season to be jolly. But all is not well. It would seem that YouTube is censoring those who lack Christmas spirit. One after another, atheists on YouTube are being removed from Top 100 lists, and having their channels stripped of any honours. To prove this wasn't some sort of YouTube glitch, one atheist went as far as creating another account. As soon as he was "discovered" of being an atheist his videos were stripped of any honours and his name taken off of the Top 100 lists. Why is YouTube censoring atheists?
Government

Submission + - Norway mandates government use of ODF and PDF

Submitted by siDDis
siDDis writes: Earlier this year Slashdot mentioned that Norway moves towards mandatory use of ODF and PDF. Now it's confirmed that the Norwegian government has mandated the use of open document formats from January 1st, 2009.

There are three formats that have been mandated for all documentation between authorities, users and partners. HTML for all public information on the Web, PDF for all documents where layout needs to be preserved and ODF for all documents that the recipient is supposed to be able to edit. Documents may also be published in other formats, but they must always be available in either ODF or PDF.
The Internet

Submission + - Wikipedia Bans Whistleblower (wikipedia.org)

Submitted by Retired Wikipedia Editor
Retired Wikipedia Editor writes: When a user of Wikipedia complained about a former administrator named Betacommand calling another user a "fucktard", he was banned over it by a power-tripping admin who goes by Moreschi. Why? Because it was the user's first edit to Wikipedia. This user could have been an alternate account of a regular editor, who was afraid of blowing the whistle in fear of retaliation. He was right; the Wikipedia cabal banned him for it. Or maybe he was a lurker who was concerned over such a strong use of language. The discussion about it is still ongoing, but there's a shocking amount of support for the banning of the whistleblower. I used to edit Wikipedia pretty regularly, until I finally gave up on it due to the politics and the need of administrators to pull garbage like this.
Censorship

Submission + - Wikipedia COO was Convicted Felon (theregister.co.uk) 4

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: From the Register:

"For more than six months, beginning in January of this year, Wikipedia's million-dollar check book was balanced by a convicted felon. When Carolyn Bothwell Doran was hired as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Florida-based Wikimedia Foundation, she had a criminal record in three other states — Virginia, Maryland, and Texas — and she was still on parole for a DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol) hit and run that resulted in a fatality. Her record also included convictions for passing bad checks, theft, petty larceny, additional DUIs, and unlawfully wounding her boyfriend with a gun shot to the chest."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Arthur C Clarke's 90th Birthday Wish List 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "British science-fiction author, inventor, and futurist Arthur C Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, celebrates his 90th birthday today and has marked it by releasing a video on YouTube. In the nine-minute message, recorded at his home in Sri Lanka, Clarke makes three wishes: First, he would like evidence of extraterrestrial life. 'I have always believed that we are not alone in the universe,' he says. 'But we are still waiting for ETs to call us — or give us some kind of a sign.' Clarke's second wish concerns global warming: 'I would like to see us kick our addiction to oil and adopt clean energy sources. For more than a decade, I've been monitoring various new energy experiments, but they have yet to produce commercial scale results.' His third wish concerns his home: 'I've been living in Sri Lanka for 50 years and, half that time, I've been a sad witness to the bitter conflict that divides my adopted country. I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka as soon as possible.'"
Sci-Fi

Startrek.com Shutting Down 260

Posted by kdawson from the could-have-offered-it-to-fandom dept.
Curlsman writes to let us know that the fan site startrek.com, operated for 13 years by CBS, is being shut down and its staff laid off. Is this site worth a write-in campaign? From the (perhaps final) post: "Goodbye from the STARTREK.COM Team. Sadly, we must report that CBS Interactive organization is being restructured, and the production team that brings you the STARTREK.COM site has been eliminated. Effective immediately. We don't know the ultimate fate of this site, which has served millions of Star Trek fans for the last thirteen years. If you have comments, please send them to editor @ startrek.com — we hope someone at CBS will read them."
Linux Business

Submission + - Linux is about to take over the low end of PCs (desktoplinux.com) 3

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Desktop Linux has a recent commentary on the inevitable growth of Linux on the cheaper end of the desktop market. According to the article, the availability of under-$500 usable hardware, combined with free a operating system, free desktop office products, and free or cheap "Software as a service" online applications, opens a new market in which Microsoft cannot compete. "Microsoft will fight this trend tooth and nail. It will cut prices to the point where it'll be bleeding ink on some of its product lines. And Windows XP is going to stick around much longer than Microsoft ever wanted it to. Still, it won't be enough. By attacking from the bottom, where Microsoft can no longer successfully compete, Linux will finally cut itself a large slice of the desktop market pie."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Who Are the Heavy Clickers? 3

Submitted by
Reservoir Hill
Reservoir Hill writes: "While focusing on clicks makes a lot of sense in search advertising, since the audience has already been highly qualified by their search term and is "hand-raising" — announcing their interest in a particular product or service or activity — what about banner ads on Web pages where the audience is not in an active search-and-buy mode? Dave Morgan has an interesting post on his blog about research done analyzing behavioral and click data to determine who clicks on banner ads, and whether they are different than the Web population in general. Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often. That tiny percentage makes up the vast majority of banner ad clicks. Who are these "heavy clickers"? They are predominantly female, indexing at a rate almost double the male population. They are older. They are predominantly Midwesterners, with some concentrations in Mid-Atlantic States and in New England. Not surprisingly, they look at sweepstakes far more than any other kind of content. They are the same people that tend to open direct mail and love to talk to telemarketers. Morgan makes the point that focusing banner ad campaigns to optimize on clicks means skewing campaigns to optimize on middle-aged women from the Midwest."
United States

Submission + - Senate Bill 1959 to Create Thoughtcrime (newstarget.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "The end of Free Speech in America has arrived at our doorstep. It's a new law called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and it is worded in a clever way that could allow the U.S. government to arrest and incarcerate any individual who speaks out against the Bush Administration, the war on Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security or any government agency (including the FDA). The law has already passed the House on a traitorous vote of 405 to 6, and it is now being considered in the Senate where a vote is imminent." Source: http://www.newstarget.com/022308.html
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Lemon Law for PC Games?

Submitted by
Monk
Monk writes: "Recently I purchased Gears of War from Gamestop, for the PC. I liked the Xbox version, but since I don't have an xbox, and instead I have decently powerful computer, I wanted to play it without buying a console system. The first time I played it, it crashed within 10 minutes. For the next hour, I couldn't play the game for more than 10 minutes without it crashing. It seems others have the same problem as me, after reading the Gears of War forum, so I wanted to take the game back and get my money back. There's no point in paying for a game that is unplayable. When I tried to take the game back, they would only exchange it for another copy. What do I do? Keep the game and wait for a patch? Throw it away and consider it a "loss"? Is there any legal help for consumers who buy software that doesn't work? Who do I blame? Microsoft for Vista? Nvidia? Epic? Or myself for buying a console port of a game?"
Censorship

Submission + - Linux Users Can't Sell On eBay (ubuntuforums.org) 2

Submitted by bobintetley
bobintetley writes: Many Linux/Firefox users are reporting problems uploading images to eBay. Having tested this myself, it is indeed completely broken. Why eBay would break standard HTTP uploads by using IE specific javascript to "check the file exists" boggles the mind. This problem has been reported to eBay since late October, but so far with no resolution. eBay have since stated that only IE is supported. I guess when you have no real competition you can pull stunts like this.

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