Cali Thalen - Slashdot User

Comment Re:too bad (Score 2) 252

by Cali Thalen on Tuesday March 29, 2011 @12:54AM (#35648872) Attached to: ISP's War On BitTorrent Hits <em>World of Warcraft</em>

I've seen illegal copies of music on web pages, and look at all the stuff on Youtube that shouldn't be there. I've seen people selling many questionable things out of their cars. Planes are frequently used to smuggle illegal drugs. Hell, you can find stores selling stuff that they're not supposed to be selling in the 'right' parts of the world. Shut all those down too by removing the tools?

If we can just get *most* of the things on bittorrent to be legal, maybe...naw, the music industry has to have a scapegoat.

Submission + - Support the Darwin Day resolution in Congress (examiner.com) 1

Submitted by klchoward on Saturday February 12, 2011 @01:51PM

klchoward writes: On Feb. 9th, California Rep. Pete Stark (D-13th District) introduced House Resolution 81, calling for the designation of February 12, 2011 as Darwin Day in recognition of the ground-breaking work of Charles Darwin and the importance of science to bettering the human condition.

Submission + - USA to get first drone test pilot (suasnews.com)

Submitted by garymortimer on Saturday February 12, 2011 @11:47AM

garymortimer writes: U.S. Air Force Capt. Nicholas “Hammer” Helms is in line to be the next aviator to make history at Edwards. But he won’t be breaking any speed records or risking his life to push the limits of what aircraft can do.

Instead, he’ll do his test-flying from a computer workstation, safely on the ground. Helms is being trained to be the nation’s first drone test pilot.

“Flying at 9 Gs is a lot more fun than sitting in a locked room, I’ll tell you that,” said Helms, 29. “I never expected to be flying anything other than an F-16. But now I’m here.”

Submission + - America updates its space-security policy (economist.com)

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid on Saturday February 12, 2011 @10:30AM

PolygamousRanchKid writes: The Economist has an interesting article about the risk that the US now faces in space:

A strategy document* published on February 4th by the country’s Department of Defence (DOD) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reveals interlopers. Around 60 countries now have satellites orbiting the Earth. Along with those satellites—which number more than 1,000—there are 22,000 man-made objects large enough to track by radar and hundreds of thousands of bits of debris too small to detect. Space is a congested, contested and competitive place, and one in which America is merely first among equals. Satellites, vital for both military and economic security, face a range of threats, including accidental collisions, anti-satellite missiles, lasers, electronic jamming and even the hacking of their software.

Submission + - HBGary planned to sabotage Wikileaks, Other Groups (nytimes.com)

Submitted by artor3 on Saturday February 12, 2011 @01:41AM

artor3 writes: As you may recall, some hackers recently infiltrated the networks of HBGary Federal, after the security firm had sought to expose participants in Anonymous' DDoS of sites that had come out against Wikileaks. The emails they obtained show that HBGary had proposed several nefarious plots to undermine Wikileaks, as well as some liberal organizations, on behalf of Bank of America and the US Chamber of Commerce. One plan was to submit fake stories to Wikileaks, and then expose the fraud, hoping to cast doubt on their other material. Another scheme, ironically, proposed identifying and exploiting security flaws in the networks of liberal groups opposing the US Chamber.

Predictably, BoA and the Chamber are denying all knowledge.

Submission + - Two Cans, One Sand: A Cool Physics Trick (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit on Monday February 07, 2011 @08:13PM

sciencehabit writes: If there were a Nobel Prize for the best scientific party trick, this would be a contender. Take two tin cans, one with the top removed and the other with both ends cut out, flip them over, and push them into a bed of sand. The closed can will sink more easily than the open tube, which, bizarrely, is the opposite of what would happen if you pushed them into water. The mind-bending effect depend on air's ability to make sand flow like a fluid and highlights the weird physics of granular materials.

Submission + - Excel vulnerable for over 6 months. (zerodayinitiative.com) 1

Submitted by zonky on Monday February 07, 2011 @06:42PM

zonky writes: Zero Day Initative have just released the following to Full Disclosure. Excel 2003 & 2007 are vulnerable to remote code executition. While user interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability — in that the target must visit a malicious page or open a malicious file — the big issue is that Microsoft have known about this for over 6 months, and have failed to act.

Submission + - First Quad-Core Smartphone SoC Announced (conceivablytech.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 07, 2011 @05:21PM

An anonymous reader writes: A superphone chip? Quite possibly. Reality? Not yet. Texas Instruments (TI) has announced a monstrous smartphone/tablet SoC with massive processing capability that has the potential to drive mobile computing deep into the 3D space. From the spec sheet: USB 3, real-time 2D/3D conversion in 1080p, up to 8 GB DDR, 24 MP digital camera support and a supported display resolution of 2560x2048.

Submission + - It's Official: Kyocera Echo Will Be On Sprint (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider on Monday February 07, 2011 @05:13PM

RedEaredSlider writes: The rumors are looking like they are true: Sprint Nextel is unveiling a Kyocera smartphone on its network at an event tonight in New York.
Sprint's web site, when a search for "Kyocera" is entered, leads to text billing the Kyocera Echo as the first dual-touchscreen smartphone. A click on the link provided by Sprint leads to a note that the page is "not quite ready yet."
The only specification given so far is that the phone has a 4.7 inch screen when both displays are combined.

Submission + - FCC Moves to Convert Phone Fund to Broadband Fund (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by medv4380 on Monday February 07, 2011 @05:02PM

medv4380 writes: The Federal Communications Commission is expected to change the Universal Service Fund and instead of having the funds go towards Rural Phone Infrastructure it would not go towards Broadband Infrastructure. You can see a transcript of what was presented to the FCC here.

Comment Re:Domain seizure? (Score 1) 161

by Cali Thalen on Monday December 13, 2010 @05:46PM (#34539618) Attached to: Righthaven Sues For Control of Drudge Report Domain

I like it! If I find a picture of me up in (let's say), Wal Mart, I 1) ask them to take it down; 2) demand $150,000 for infringement, and 3) I now own Wal Mart! No need for a ??? step at all!

Possible Treatment For Ebola 157

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday August 25, 2010 @06:59PM from the there's-a-pill-for-that dept.

RedEaredSlider writes "Researchers at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have found a class of drugs that could provide treatment for Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fever. The new drugs are called 'antisense' compounds, and they allow the immune system to attack the viruses before they can do enough damage to kill the patient. Travis Warren, research scientist at USAMRIID, said while the work is still preliminary -— the drugs have been tested only on primates — the results are so far promising. In the case of Ebola, five of eight monkeys infected with the virus lived, and with Marburg, all survived. The drugs were developed as part of a program to deal with possible bioterrorist threats, in partnership with AVI Biopharma."

Submission + - Blizzard sues private server company, awarded $88M (rfcexpress.com)

Submitted by Cali Thalen on Saturday August 14, 2010 @09:26PM

Cali Thalen writes: A private server company, Scapegaming (aka Alyson Reeves), was ordered to pay Blizzard Entertainment over $88 million in damages after losing a lawsuit that was concluded last week. Scapegaming was using a micropayment system to collect money from the server's user base, which according to the lawsuit amounted to just over $3 million. $85 million of that settlement was for statutory damages, and surprisingly only $63,000 in attorney's fees.

Food Activist's Life Becomes The Life of Brian 165

Posted by samzenpus on Monday March 22, 2010 @03:34PM from the you-are-all-individuals dept.

krou writes "After food activist and author Raj Patel appeared on The Colbert Report to promote his latest book, things seemed to be going well, until he began to get inundated with emails asking if he was 'the world teacher.' In events ripped straight from The Life of Brian, it would seem that Raj Patel's life story ticks all the boxes necessary to fulfill prophecies made by Benjamin Creme, founder of religious sect Share International. After the volume of emails and inquiries got worse, Patel eventually wrote a message on his website stating categorically that he was not the Messiah. Sure enough, 'his denial merely fanned the flames for some believers. In a twist ripped straight from the script of the comedy classic, they said that this disavowal, too, had been prophesied.'"

Japanese Turning To "Therapeutic Ringtones" 75

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @05:39PM from the take-two-calls-and-see-me-in-the-morning dept.

indiavision writes "A host of young Japanese are drawn to the allure of 'therapeutic ringtones' — a genre of melodies that promises to ease a range of day-to-day gripes, from chronic insomnia to a rotten hangover. Developed by Matsumi Suzuki, the head of the Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory, an eight-year-old subsidiary of the Japan Acoustic Laboratory, the tones are a hit with housewives as well as teenagers."

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