Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment IERS (Score 1) 255

by cei (#26257753) Attached to: Leap Second To Be Added Dec 31, 2008

Damn. I've been following the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) emails for years and this one managed to slip into my spam filter. Thanks slashdot! for making sure I didn't miss it this year!!!

(A great bonding moment with my father was counting along to 61 with the atomic clock signal on the short wave while sitting by the sundial at the local science museum...)

Comment Re:no photography policy (Score 4, Informative) 743

by cei (#24615159) Attached to: Photographers Face Ejection Over Lenses

Actually, if you RTFA, the museum had explicitly made a big deal about how they were opening up more to photographers. Both the museum's website and a senior museum employee had confirmed such with the photographer. But one power-mad guy in charge of visitor relations, or somesuch, got on his high horse and shut the photographer down.

Keep in mind, this was photography in the open atrium of the museum lobby... not pictures of individual pieces in the museum's collection.
The Courts

Database Finds Fugitive After 35 Years 459

Posted by CowboyNeal from the can-run-but-cannot-hide dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian has a story on a woman who was claims she is innocent and was apprehended 35 years after escaping prison by a computer database created by the Department of Homeland Security. Linda Darby was convicted of killing her husband in 1970 and sentenced to life at an Indiana prison but escaped two years later by climbing over a barbed-wire fence at the Indiana Women's Prison. She knocked on a stranger's door in Indianapolis, telling the woman who answered that her cuts and scratches were from a fight with her boyfriend. In Indianapolis she met the man who would become her third husband and moved to his hometown of Pulaski, where they raised their two children and watched eight grandchildren grow up. As Linda Jo McElroy, she used a similar date of birth and social security number to her real ones which allowed a computer database created by the Department of Homeland Security to identify her. Darby says she is innocent and fled prison because she did not want to serve time for another person's crime."
Music

RIAA Going After a 10-Year-Old Girl 510

Posted by kdawson from the winning-friends dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The latest target of the RIAA's ire is a 10-year-old girl in Oregon, who was 7 when the alleged infringement occurred, and whose disabled mother lives on Social Security. In Atlantic v. Andersen, an Oregon case that was widely reported in 2005 when the defendant counterclaimed against the RIAA under Oregon's RICO statute and other laws, the defendant's mother sought to limit the RIAA's deposition of the child to telephone or video-conference. The RIAA has refused, insisting on being able to grill the little girl in person. Here are court documents (PDF)."
Television

Submission + - Apple TV Starts Shipping Today

Submitted by techitout
techitout writes: According to Jim Dalrymple of Macworld, the Apple TV began shipping today:
Apple told customers that the Apple TV is now shipping, say several readers and a staffer of Macworld who had pre-ordered the device. While delivery times vary, most units are expected to be delivered by the end of this week.
Analysts are musing that this will be an even bigger opportunity than the iPhone (maybe not generate the same amount of fan-fare, but likely stronger long-term profitability).
Education

Submission + - Controversial Skywalk in place over Grand Canyon

Submitted by
AustinSlacker
AustinSlacker writes: "CNN is reporting that the Grand Canyon Skywalk is opening today. "The Skywalk, which will be unveiled Tuesday, is being touted as an engineering marvel. The glass-and-steel horseshoe extends 70 feet beyond the canyon's edge with no visible supports above or below."
The glass-floored Skywalk allows visitors to peer 4,000 feet (1220 meters) down into the canyon. The caveat? Each visitor must pay $25.00 (USD) PLUS addition fees to get to the viewing area. I guess the $25 will help defray the cleaning costs when weak-stomached folks lose their lunch upon realizing they are standing in mid-air over a 4,000 foot drop, a-la Wile E. Coyote..."
Wii

Submission + - Mac Dev tool to support Wii game creation

Submitted by
frenchy64
frenchy64 writes: "Over the Edge has announced that their Mac-based Unity game development tool will be able to create games for the Nintendo Wii console later this year. So in theory at least, one can design, build and test a game entirely on the Mac, and then go to Nintendo with a finished game to apply for a devkit. And once you have the devkit it should be just a matter of packaging it for the Wii! That is a really cool way to go, very nice idea."
Wireless Networking

The Assassination of Wi-Fi 258

Posted by Zonk from the sniper-has-range-on-the-target dept.
justelite writes "John C. Dvorak from PC Magazine has up an article looking at the new strategy of American cell-phone-service companies. From article: 'There is mounting evidence that the cellular service companies are going to do whatever they can to kill Wi-Fi. After all, it is a huge long-term threat to them. We've seen that the route to success in America today is via public gullibility and general ignorance. And these cell-phone-service companies are no dummies.'"
Communications

T-Mobile Bans Others' Apps On Their Phones 349

Posted by kdawson from the get-less dept.
cshamis writes "T-Mobile has recently changed their policies and now tell their customers with appropriate data plans and with Java-Micro-App-capable T-Mobile phones: no third-party network applications. You can, of course, still use their incredibly clunky and crippled built-in WAP browsers, but GoogleMaps and OperaMini are left high and dry. Would anyone care to speculate if this move is likely to retain or repel customers?"
Microsoft

Microsoft Retracts Patent 182

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the too-hot dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has retracted their recent controversial patent application. The story was first brought to light by Slashdot on Saturday. Today, Jane Prey of Microsoft announced the retraction on the SIGCSE (Special Interest in Computer Science Education) mailing list. 'Many thanks to the members of the community that brought this to my attention — and here's the latest. The patent application was a mistake and one that should not have happened. To fix this, Microsoft will be removing the patent application. Our sincere apologies to Michael Kölling and the BlueJ community.'"
Businesses

The Twilight Years of Cap'n Crunch 313

Posted by Zonk from the keeping-it-cranky dept.
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Tech pioneer John Draper, a legendary, eccentric figure in Silicon Valley better known as Cap'n Crunch, has slipped to the margins while his peers became rich, the Wall Street Journal writes in a profile. Draper was a 'phone phreak' and helped develop the technology for word processing and voice-activated telephone menus; meanwhile, he eluded the mainstream by tampering with the phone system, frequenting the rave scene and shouting at anyone smoking anywhere near him. 'Once tolerated, even embraced, for his eccentricities, Mr. Draper now lives on the margins of this affluent world, still striving to carve out a role in the business mainstream,' says the WSJ. More from the article: 'Contemporaries who've gone on to riches and fame say they've tried to help Mr. Draper over the years. Mr. Wozniak says Mr. Draper's problem is that his skills lie in technology rather in making business deals or starting a company. "He didn't come from a business orientation," says Mr. Wozniak.'"
Education

Submission + - 100 things we didn't know last year

Submitted by
gollum123
gollum123 writes: "The BBC news magazine is runnnig a compilation of the interesting and sometimes downright unexpected facts that we did not know last year, but now know ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/index.h tml#a007948 ). some examples — There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts. Urban birds have developed a short, fast "rap style" of singing, different from their rural counterparts. The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up. just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles. More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality. The word "time" is the most common noun in the English language, according to the latest Oxford dictionary. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666. The egg came first. Thinking about your muscles can make you stronger."

The Rise and Fall of Commodore 340

Posted by samzenpus from the those-were-the-days dept.
Andrew Leigh writes "On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of Commodore by Brian Bagnall is fodder for anyone interested in the buried history of the personal computer. Whether you owned a Commodore computer or want to hear a new angle on the early stages of computer development, you'll find this book easy to pick up and almost impossible to put down. Bagnall has gone to a massive amount of effort in telling this tale, researching and interviewing the real personalities involved. It takes readers on an important and often emotional ride that will many times leave you shaking your head at how painfully it all went wrong." Read the rest of Andrew's review

' Naughty Bits' Decision Not So Nice 459

Posted by timothy from the expensive-wireless-at-dulles dept.
Many readers found stifling Judge Richard P. Matsch's decision yesterday that Cleanflix, a service selling versions of popular movies edited (some would say censored) to remove violence, nudity and other elements, was in violation of U.S. copyright law for selling these edited versions, while others welcomed the decision as appropriately respecting the intent of those who made the original movies. Read on for the Backslash summary of the conversation, with some of the best comments of the more than 1200 that readers contributed to the story.

Slashdot Top Deals

The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.

Close