Comment Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score 1) 540
People in legal cases.
Submission + - Canadian passport security full of online holes
twilight30 writes: Tuesday's Globe and Mail is reporting that 'A security flaw in Passport Canada's website has allowed easy access to the personal information — including social insurance numbers, dates of birth and driver's licence numbers — of people applying for new passports. The breach was discovered last week by an Ontario man completing his own passport application. He found he could easily view the applications of others by altering one character in the Internet address displayed by his Web browser. "I was expecting the site to tell me that I couldn't do that," said Jamie Laning of Huntsville. "I'm just curious about these things so I tried it, and boom, there was somebody else's name and somebody else's data." That data included social insurance numbers, driver's licence numbers and addresses.'
Submission + - Trolltech cancels Greenphone
twilight30 writes: From ZDNet:
'The mobile Linux development company Trolltech says that it has sold out of its Greenphone reference handsets and that it will not reorder further units, because there are now suitable alternatives in the marketplace. Trolltech launched the Greenphone in 2006, the first fully open handset designed for the development of open-source applications. Running on Trolltech's Qtopia platform, the device was supposed to stimulate the growth of mobile Linux'
Submission + - Bad Box Office? Blame 'Halo 3'
twilight30 writes: Advertising Age reports that ' ... Total industry ticket sales were only $80 million for the Oct. 5 weekend the film [The Heartbreak Kid] opened, a whopping 27% below the same weekend the year before, according to research firm Media by Numbers. That's the industry's worst performance for an October weekend since 1999. Overall, domestic receipts are down 6% from last fall.
Blame the Master Chief. ...
"We marketed it like a film," said Josh Goldberg, a "Halo 3" product manager at Microsoft, adding, "and now, we're just as big or bigger than film." ... Not all of Hollywood is convinced. '
Blame the Master Chief.
"We marketed it like a film," said Josh Goldberg, a "Halo 3" product manager at Microsoft, adding, "and now, we're just as big or bigger than film."
Submission + - Bad Box Office? Blame 'Halo 3'
twilight30 writes: Advertising Age reports today that ' ... Many film executives are convinced audiences stayed home to play Microsoft's carpal-tunnel classic, "Halo 3," which went on sale on Sept. 26. The game sold an astonishing $170 million worth of copies on its first day, before going on to sell well over $300 million. ... "We marketed it like a film," said Josh Goldberg, a "Halo 3" product manager at Microsoft, adding, "and now, we're just as big or bigger than film." He said "Halo 3" was marketed as an event film in terms of its partnerships, with beverage, automotive, fast feeders and mobile-phone companies all joining up.
And there's more where that came from. Take 2 Interactive's Rockstar Games is readying its release of "Grand Theft Auto 4."
Not all of Hollywood is convinced. Mediocre reviews on "Kid" piled up from critics, and at rival studio Screen Gems, owned by Sony, marketing chief Mark Weinstock says that "box office is driven by content." '
And there's more where that came from. Take 2 Interactive's Rockstar Games is readying its release of "Grand Theft Auto 4."
Not all of Hollywood is convinced. Mediocre reviews on "Kid" piled up from critics, and at rival studio Screen Gems, owned by Sony, marketing chief Mark Weinstock says that "box office is driven by content." '
Submission + - Orion Nebula Gets New Milepost Marker, Now Closer
twilight30 writes: Discovery News is reporting that 'One of the most famous and scrutinized heavenly objects is 10 to 20 percent closer than we thought, say two teams of radio astronomers who have made some of the most precise cosmic distance measurements ever, with a telescope nearly as big as Earth. The Orion Nebula is the closest major stellar nursery to Earth, so it has been heavily studied to learn about the lives of stars. Its distance from Earth, however, has long been a matter of uncertainty, with an estimate made about 25 years ago in need of revision.'
Submission + - Apple fails to deal with change to NZ DST
NTDaley writes: Debian may not have pushed their update for the NZ daylight savings change, but Apple has failed to deal with it at all. Their website instructs users to change the time manually, which is obviously inadequate for people who have to administer a large group of computers, or who need to have accurate times for other timezones. Fortunately a third party has created a fix for the problem.
Submission + - Alzheimer's disease as form of diabetes (physorg.com)
Atzanteol writes: Insulin, it turns out, may be as important for the mind as it is for the body. Research in the last few years has raised the possibility that Alzheimer's memory loss could be due to a novel third form of diabetes.
Submission + - Demonoid back online
2Y9D57 writes: As of Sunday 30th September, the Demonoid bittorrent tracker is back online — outage caused by need to filter Canadian traffic following threats from lawyer representing the CRIA. Somewhat ironic — Demonoid stays in Canada, but Canadians can't use it. Nice work, CRIA.
Submission + - Vitamin D deficiency behind many Western cancers?
twilight30 writes: Today's Globe and Mail is reporting that 'research into vitamin D is suggesting a heretical notion: that cancers and other disorders in rich countries aren't caused mainly by pollutants but by a vitamin deficiency known to be less acute or even non-existent in poor nations.
In June, U.S. researchers will announce the first direct link between cancer prevention and the sunshine vitamin. Their results are nothing short of astounding. A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn't take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error. And in an era of pricey medical advances, the reduction seems even more remarkable because it was achieved with an over-the-counter supplement costing pennies a day.
One of the researchers who made the discovery, professor of medicine Robert Heaney of Creighton University in Nebraska, says vitamin D deficiency is showing up in so many illnesses besides cancer that nearly all disease figures in Canada and the U.S. will need to be re-evaluated. "We don't really know what the status of chronic disease is in the North American population," he said, "until we normalize vitamin D status." '
In June, U.S. researchers will announce the first direct link between cancer prevention and the sunshine vitamin. Their results are nothing short of astounding. A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn't take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error. And in an era of pricey medical advances, the reduction seems even more remarkable because it was achieved with an over-the-counter supplement costing pennies a day.
One of the researchers who made the discovery, professor of medicine Robert Heaney of Creighton University in Nebraska, says vitamin D deficiency is showing up in so many illnesses besides cancer that nearly all disease figures in Canada and the U.S. will need to be re-evaluated. "We don't really know what the status of chronic disease is in the North American population," he said, "until we normalize vitamin D status." '
Submission + - Wikipedia bureaucrat with bogus PhD
keyero writes: The New Yorker has posted an Editor's note, correcting for a story they published in July about Wikipedia and expertise. In the article, they quoted User:Essjay who is a a bureaucrat, arbitrator, and other roles including checkuser. He was described as "a tenured professor of religion at a private university" with "a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law." Turns out, he is twenty-four and holds no advanced degrees, and that he has never taught. Nonetheless, Jimmy Wales has brushed this aside and recently appointed Essjay to the Arbitration committee. He also hired Essjay to serve as "Community Manager" on Wikia.
Submission + - IBM SW evaluation DVD with all its Linux apps
An anonymous reader writes: This is the easiest way to get all of the fresh releases of IBM applications for Linux. A DVD with all DB2, Rational, Websphere, Informix, Tivoli, and Workplace applications for Linux will be sent to you at no cost.
Submission + - Making 300 Interview
An anonymous reader writes: Surprisingly, FHM Online has an interesting interview with visual effects supervisor Chris Watts about the making of 300.
From the article:
"What does it take to film Frank Miller's legendary graphic novel about the ancient Spartan army? Spears, loincloths and over 1300 visual effects — including a series that gave life to a military-enlisted rhinoceros. Here, 300's visual effects supervisor, Chris Watts, breaks down every step that went into creating that sweet-assed rhino scene."
http://www.fhmonline.com/articles-3866.asp?cnl_id= 3&stn_id=12&idx_id=3866
Submission + - No MSFT Iowa case docs 'pulled' from archive.org
gojomo writes: "Last week's story "MS Dirty Tricks Archive Trickles Back Online" quoted a piece in TheRegister suggesting that material from www.iowaconsumercase.org had been "pulled" from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. As an Internet Archive blog explains, that's not true."
Feed Not Lost in Translation (nytimes.com)
Developing some fluency in foreign languages is getting to be as important as taking along a laptop on an overseas trip.
