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Comment Not being lethal doesn't mean it is entirely safe! (Score 2, Interesting) 570

by RafaelGCPP (#21490147) Attached to: Radiation Not As Hazardous As Once Believed
From TFA:

About 4,000 children were afflicted with cancer. Less well-known, however, is the fact that only nine of those 4,000 died -- thyroid cancers are often easy to operate on.

Great!! Having cancer and not dying of it is really something everyone should try!!
No, thanks! I'd rather keep my thyroid where it is!
Censorship

Submission + - New software will reconstruct Stasi files

Submitted by vorlich
vorlich writes: Just prior to the re-unification of Germany the DDR's secret police, the Stasi began shredding their files. However in the surreal environment of the communist party losing all control, the people's shredders were not up to the demands of 45 million documents and the Stasi operatives were reduced to tearing up the files by hand — producing approximately 60 million pieces. The shredded files in 16,250 sack-loads ended up being confiscated by the unified German authorities and have been held in storage. Now the Frauenhofer Institute has developed software to re-construct the files. The files contain highly sensitive information on Stasi informants and victims and is believed to hold material on a large number of well-known individuals, especially West Germans. From the BBC- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6643855.stm and you can always check to see if the Stasi had a file on you at www.bstu.de where you can download the application form (and dude, it's in German) but perhaps you might want to wait a few years for when the Fraunhofer institute have finished the giant jigsaw puzzle.
Google

Submission + - Google search by employer not illegal, say judges

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A court of appeals for the federal circuit has upheld a ruling (PDF) against a man who sued his former employer for Googling his name before firing him. He had accused his former employer of participating in "ex parte" communications — off-the-record communications that are used to play a part in the final outcome of a decision — that ultimately affected the decision to fire him from his job. However, the three-judge panel ruled that an ex parte communication did not occur in the case when the employer used Google.

The man in question, David Mullins, was a government employee at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Weather Forecast Office in Indianapolis, IN. Through a series of events, Mullins' employer found that he had misused his government vehicle and government funds for his own purposes — such as sleeping in his car and falsifying hotel documents to receive reimbursements, withdrawing unauthorized amounts of cash from the company card, traveling to destinations sometimes hundreds of miles away from where he was supposed to be (and using his company card to fill up on gas there), and spending company time to visit friends and/or his children. Mullins' supervisor provided a 23-page document listing 102 separate instances of misconduct.

Mullins took issue with a Google search that Capell performed just before authorizing his firing. During this Google search, Capell found that Mullins had been fired from his previous job at the Smithsonian Institution and had been removed from Federal Service by the Air Force. Mullins argued that his right to fundamental fairness was violated when Capell performed the search and that she committed perjury when she stated that the search did not influence her decision to fire him.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070510-goog le-search-by-employer-not-illegal-say-judges.html
Google

Google Pushes Open Source OCR 212

Posted by Zonk from the google-has-taken-all-knowledge-to-be-its-provice dept.
SocialWorm writes "Google has just announced work on OCRopus, which it says it hopes will 'advance the state of the art in optical character recognition and related technologies.' OCRopus will be available under the Apache 2.0 License. Obviously, there may be search and image search implications from OCRopus. 'The goal of the project is to advance the state of the art in optical character recognition and related technologies, and to deliver a high quality OCR system suitable for document conversions, electronic libraries, vision impaired users, historical document analysis, and general desktop use. In addition, we are structuring the system in such a way that it will be easy to reuse by other researchers in the field.'"
Handhelds

Submission + - Palm Announces New Linux-based OS

Submitted by attarine
attarine writes: Palminfocenter reports:
"Palm CEO Ed Colligan officially announced that Palm will deliver a new Linux and open source based mobile computing platform combined with Palm OS Garnet technology on new products later this year.".
Apparently Palm tries to modernize its aging Palm OS 5.x that way, addressing a still large and loyal Palm OS userbase.
Displays

Submission + - Seeing colors in the night

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "In 'Things that show color in the night,' the Boston Globe reports that a company named Tenebraex is helping color blind people to travel. But it's also developing goggles to help soldiers and physicians to see all colors at night, and not only the green color of current night vision systems. These goggles, which should become available this summer, will be sold for about $6,000 to the Army. But as states one of the founders of the company, with monochrome night vision, 'blood is the same color as water.' So these expensive night vision devices might be more targeted to Army physicians than to regular soldiers. Read more for additional references and pictures of the ColorPath night vision system."
Media

Submission + - Linux as an OS for music production?

Submitted by Ximogen
Ximogen writes: "You just can't get decent music production tools for anything but Windows and MacOS, and I'll not touch anything from Apple with a bargepole. If you believe otherwise let me know as I'd be interested to find out. I currently use Cubase 4 as my primary music production application along with an extensive library of VST instruments, effects and mastering tools. So any Linux (either open or closed source) alternative would need to support VST2 & VST3"

I included the above comment in a post relating to a different story but it got me thinking. I am a Windows user for many reasons but the most significant reason in recent years is that I've just not been able to find acceptable music production tools for Linux. Given that I'm repeatedly informed by Linux users that Linux is more stable and out-performs Windows on equal hardware AND that I am currently looking to spec a new PC for the sole purpose of music production I thought I might put this to the test.

Unfortunately I fell at the first hurdle, drivers for my E-MU 1820M (E-MU 1010M + IO breakout box + sync daughter card) and given that I don't want to replace a perfectly functional £300+ audio interface that is pretty much where I've got to. Of course £300+ is peanuts compared to the extensive library of VST instruments, effects and mastering tools I've purchased over the years so if the performance benefits of moving to Linux were sufficient and I could utilize my existing library of VSTs I would consider new audio hardware.

While talking of hardware the new PC is likely to be built around an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz CPU on an Intel DP965LT motherboard.

Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Is there likely to be enough of a performance difference to give any practical benefit? Does anyone out there use Linux for music production?

Any thoughts or recommendations gratefully received!
Security

Submission + - U.S. leading the world in malware creation?

Submitted by
PetManimal
PetManimal writes: "China, Russia, and the other developing countries usually blamed for the increasing amount of malware are not the biggest culprits, according to Symantec. The security software company just released a report which claims that the U.S. leads the world in a number of malware categories, ranging from the "amount of malicious activity originating from their networks" to "underground economy servers". Preston Gralla says the U.S. lead should come as no surprise, considering the capitalist way of life and the high level of technical knowledge. He also suggests that the some of the "criminals" may actually be Internet entrepreneurs who crossed over to the dark side:

It's an inevitable result of a thriving free market and tech expertise. An underground economy often mirrors the legal, above-ground one. Scratch a criminal, and sometimes you find a misguided entrepreneur, looking to get rich a little too quick.
"
Spam

Computer Games Magazine To Shut Down 54

Posted by Zonk from the there-are-plenty-of-ways-you-can-hurt-a-man dept.
Gamasutra is carrying the sad news that the second-oldest PC gaming magazine is to shut down. TheGlobe.com, owner of Computer Games Magazine and its sister, MMOG-specific magazine Massive, has apparently opted to shutter the outlets as a result of financial troubles. They were saddled with a judgement by a California court in connection to a series of spam messages that went out across the MySpace social site. An SEC filing stated that the company stood to lose at least $40 Million; these shutdowns appear to be the direct result. "Calls to TheGlobe.com's Florida-based publisher Jayson Dubin, also the publisher of CGM and Massive Magazine, were not returned as of press time, with more recent calls to his direct line getting an automated recording indicating that the number had been disconnected. Besides Computer Games Magazine, TheGlobe.com also operates two other wholly-owned subsidiaries: voice over IP solution prover Voiceglo, and online game retail outlet Chips & Bits."
Businesses

Dell Opens a Poll On Linux Options 404

Posted by kdawson from the you-asked-for-it dept.
narramissic writes "In response to overwhelming user demand for Linux, Dell has posted a survey on a company blog that asks 'PC users to choose between Linux flavors such as Fedora and Ubuntu, and to pick more general choices such as notebooks versus desktops, high-end models versus value models and telephone-based support versus community-based support.' Votes will be collected through March 23, and Dell plans to use the feedback to begin selling Linux-based consumer PCs." The poll is pretty minimal. Wonder how much it will really guide Dell's choices.

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