Comment Most of the Chinese Women's team... (Score 1) 113
Looks to me like most of the women on the chinese team look like they're fresh out of the local sex-change clinic... remember the swimming team from a few years back?
Submission + - Nintendo Wii Fully Hacked at 24C3, runs Homebrew (wiinintendo.net)
cHALiTO writes: "From the site:
The guys over at 24C3 just demoed a Wii hack that is set to provide native Wii homebrew in the near future (not running in GC mode, and with full access to all the Wii hardware!)
They were able to find encryption and decryption keys by doing full memory dumps at runtime over a custom serial interface. Using these keys, they were able to create a Wii 'game' that ran their own code (their demo happened to show live sensor/Wiimote information, amongst a few other things).
Read here and watch video here."
The guys over at 24C3 just demoed a Wii hack that is set to provide native Wii homebrew in the near future (not running in GC mode, and with full access to all the Wii hardware!)
They were able to find encryption and decryption keys by doing full memory dumps at runtime over a custom serial interface. Using these keys, they were able to create a Wii 'game' that ran their own code (their demo happened to show live sensor/Wiimote information, amongst a few other things).
Read here and watch video here."
Submission + - The Death of High Fidelity (rollingstone.com)
88NoSoup4U88 writes: "Over the past decade and a half, a revolution in recording technology has changed the way albums are produced, mixed and mastered — almost always for the worse. Producers and engineers call this "the loudness war", and it has changed the way almost every new pop and rock album sounds. By applying dynamic range compression, which reduces the difference between the loudest and softest sounds in a song, the engineers can make the music louder to grab the listeners' attention."
Submission + - Linux / Unix boxes sweep Amazon's 'best of" 20 (businesswire.com)
christian.einfeldt writes: "Computers and handheld devices running default GNU Linux or Unix OSes have swept Amazon's 'best of' list for 2007, according BusinessWire.com for 28 December 2007. Best selling computer? The Nokia Internet Tablet PC, running Linux. Best reviewed computer? The Apple MacBook Pro notebook PC. Most wished for computer? Asus Eee 4G-Galaxy 7-inch PC mobile Internet device, which comes with Xandros Linux pre-installed. And last, but not least, the most frequently gifted computer: The Apple MacBook notebook PC. Microsoft makes only one appearance on the list, and it wasn't in games, but in the best selling software package: Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007. Microsoft fans will point out that 'all of these computers are capable of running Windows', but in years past, that line belonged to the Linux / Mac crowd."
Submission + - Snortable Drug Keeps Monkeys Awake
sporkme writes: A DARPA-funded research project at UCLA has wrapped up a set of animal trials testing the effects of inhalation of the brain chemical orexin A, a deficiency of which is a characteristic of narcolepsy. From the article:
Researchers seem cautious to bill the treatment as a replacement for sleep, as it is not clear that adjusting brain chemistry could have the same physical benefits of real sleep in the long run. The drug is aimed at replacing amphetamines used by drowsy long-haul military pilots, but there would no doubt be large demand for such a remedy thanks to its apparent lack of side-effects.The monkeys were deprived of sleep for 30 to 36 hours and then given either orexin A or a saline placebo before taking standard cognitive tests. The monkeys given orexin A in a nasal spray scored about the same as alert monkeys, while the saline-control group was severely impaired. The study, published in the Dec. 26 edition of The Journal of Neuroscience, found orexin A not only restored monkeys' cognitive abilities but made their brains look "awake" in PET scans. Siegel said that orexin A is unique in that it only had an impact on sleepy monkeys, not alert ones, and that it is "specific in reversing the effects of sleepiness" without other impacts on the brain.
Submission + - Will Linux Ever Make it to the Desktop? (wildgardenseed.com)
BlueParrot writes: Almost every year someone declares it to be "The Year of the Linux Desktop." Yet, these pundits are wrong-every year. Definitely, Linux has made a lot of progress since the days of Red Hat 6.0, but it still has major architectural problems that have existed since the beginning (and actually, in the pre-Linux days as well). http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2007/04/15/will-linux-ever-make-it-to-the-desktop/
Submission + - Will Google lose its trademark? 1
140Mandak262Jamuna writes: Once upon a time, Google was the new kid on the block in the search engine arena. Then it became the big kahuna of that area. There was a time when using google as a verb would have brought a smile. But now every body and his brother and even the prim and proper, stiff upper lip and what not types like the Deputy Attorney General Ronald Smetana are using it as a verb. The quotes have been dropped, the capitalization still persists as some vestigial token acknowledging it as a neologism.
Already a number of dictionaries define google as a plain English word. If OED or some such big name dictionary includes it, would Google lose its trademark? Does Google have lawyers who assiduously take steps to protect its trademark and not allow it to become a generic word to mean "search the internet"? Didn't Xerox lose its trademark or came close to losing it? Imagine a world where Microsoft Live could be branded as "Microsoft Live Google"!
Already a number of dictionaries define google as a plain English word. If OED or some such big name dictionary includes it, would Google lose its trademark? Does Google have lawyers who assiduously take steps to protect its trademark and not allow it to become a generic word to mean "search the internet"? Didn't Xerox lose its trademark or came close to losing it? Imagine a world where Microsoft Live could be branded as "Microsoft Live Google"!
Submission + - Germany plans to email trojans (bbc.co.uk)
speardane writes: The BBC is reporting that the German authorities are planning to send emails containing trojan horses to suspected terrorists. This is apparently supported by the German chancellor despite protests.
Apparently "the spyware would be used only in a few cases and for a limited time".
It seems to me that this is even more stupid than Sony.
Perhaps the Greman authorities have never heard of emails being forwarded...
Perhaps criminals and terrorists (no I didn't say hackers) won't re-use the weapons the German government have given them...
Apparently "the spyware would be used only in a few cases and for a limited time".
It seems to me that this is even more stupid than Sony.
Perhaps the Greman authorities have never heard of emails being forwarded...
Perhaps criminals and terrorists (no I didn't say hackers) won't re-use the weapons the German government have given them...
Submission + - Sony squeezes HSDPA into TZ notebooks
An anonymous reader writes: As if Sony's TZ range of notebooks weren't cool enough with their 2.4lb weight, LED screens, 8 hour battery life and solid state disks. Now Sony has somehow squeezed HSDPA into these incredibly thin machines, providing mobile data speeds of 3.6mbps. If you want the ultimate notebook, you better start saving for one of these. http://www.trustedreviews.com/notebooks/news/2007/ 08/28/Sony-Adds-HSDPA-To-TZ-and-SZ-Series-Notebook s/p1
Submission + - Microsoft bought Swedens ISO vote on OOXML ?
a_n_d_e_r_s writes: The vote on OOXML looked fairly secured for a No vote in Sweden. Most in the Working Group In Sweden was against the vote to approve OOXML. Suddenly on the day of the vote more companies showed up at the door, some 20 more companies — each one payed about $2500 to be allowed to vote — and vote they did. Most of the new companies was strangely enough partners from Microsoft who suddenly out of the blue joined the working group, payed membership fees and voted yes for approval.
From being a fairly negative group the working group suddely had a huge majority of yay-sayers who voted for Sweden to approve OOXML as an ISO standard.
For those that want to buy the Swedish vote on an ISO standard — it only cost about $50 000 — its not too much money for anyone that want there own bought and payed for ISO standard.
This has started to brew in Sweden and the newspapers are right now starting to write about the coup against the SIS — Swedens Standards Institute http://www.sis.se/ . The workings groups position can be changed if the power to be at SIS wants to — so its not over yet.
OS2World writes about it:
http://www.os2world.com/content/view/14868/1/
Patrik Fältströms blogg about it:
http://stupid.domain.name/node/382
From being a fairly negative group the working group suddely had a huge majority of yay-sayers who voted for Sweden to approve OOXML as an ISO standard.
For those that want to buy the Swedish vote on an ISO standard — it only cost about $50 000 — its not too much money for anyone that want there own bought and payed for ISO standard.
This has started to brew in Sweden and the newspapers are right now starting to write about the coup against the SIS — Swedens Standards Institute http://www.sis.se/ . The workings groups position can be changed if the power to be at SIS wants to — so its not over yet.
OS2World writes about it:
http://www.os2world.com/content/view/14868/1/
Patrik Fältströms blogg about it:
http://stupid.domain.name/node/382
Submission + - Job breaking Open-Source license
An anonymous reader writes: The well known site www.rentacoder.com contains a job that requires breaking the Open-Source license. Quote from the requirements:
"1. Modify the Open Source project, SpamBayes (http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/index.html) to be rebranded for our company.
2. You will modify the names, logos and icon images/titles based on our specification. This will only include changing the existing assets and adding only one button which contains our logo and links to our website."
More details here: http://rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/BidRequests/ ShowBidRequest.asp?lngBidRequestId=755582
Submission + - Aussie telcos plan fast 'net using powerlines (news.com.au)
Onlyodin writes: A consortium led by aussie telecommunications carrier Optus is considering the use of powerlines to deliver broadband to homes, as it prepares to battle the largest telco in Australia, Telstra for rights to build a high-speed broadband network.
Public debate over the new network has been dominated by proposals that rely on using fibre optic cable to boost broadband speeds.
Broadband over powerlines would provide the consortium known as G9 with an alternative to fibre-based broadband technology that relied on Telstra's copper network. Telstra has maintained that it would use all legal means at its disposal to block rivals gaining access to its copper to build the new network.
There are three main proposals to boost broadband speed in Australia and all rely on using Telstra's copper network for last-mile access to homes and premises.
Public debate over the new network has been dominated by proposals that rely on using fibre optic cable to boost broadband speeds.
Broadband over powerlines would provide the consortium known as G9 with an alternative to fibre-based broadband technology that relied on Telstra's copper network. Telstra has maintained that it would use all legal means at its disposal to block rivals gaining access to its copper to build the new network.
There are three main proposals to boost broadband speed in Australia and all rely on using Telstra's copper network for last-mile access to homes and premises.
Submission + - How to get a Linux laptop being more responsive? 1
VincenzoRomano writes: "I'm an almost happy Linux user. I presume mine is a common profile: I run both "productivity" and development software on my Centrino Duo laptop.
Everything I need is (almost always) there.
What puzzles me is that while my laptop is a 100 times more powerful that any PC I used to have 10 years ago and has as 20 times more memory and disk space, it has the same responsivenes of a 15 years old PC (i486 DX2-50).
When rebuilding big DB indexes, burning optical media, copying large files from a directory to another one, the Linux system is almost unusable. I cannot even edit text files with the "vi" editor.
One more thing: I'm running KUbuntu Feisty.
By using "a different commercial OS" shipped with the laptop I've encountered much less troubles ... in responsiveness I mean.
I've tried a number of suggestions and hints like those linked by Ubuntu Performance Guides with only small enhacements and also fear that also desktops are affected by such a behaviour.
So the question is: how can I take advantage of my laptop without running other commercial OSes?"
Everything I need is (almost always) there.
What puzzles me is that while my laptop is a 100 times more powerful that any PC I used to have 10 years ago and has as 20 times more memory and disk space, it has the same responsivenes of a 15 years old PC (i486 DX2-50).
When rebuilding big DB indexes, burning optical media, copying large files from a directory to another one, the Linux system is almost unusable. I cannot even edit text files with the "vi" editor.
One more thing: I'm running KUbuntu Feisty.
By using "a different commercial OS" shipped with the laptop I've encountered much less troubles
I've tried a number of suggestions and hints like those linked by Ubuntu Performance Guides with only small enhacements and also fear that also desktops are affected by such a behaviour.
So the question is: how can I take advantage of my laptop without running other commercial OSes?"
Submission + - Developing Databases in Developing Countries (fromthehorizon.com)
Michael writes: "Developing Databases for Disasters in Developing Countries is a paper presented at the ISCRAM China Workshop based on my experiences developing and implementing databases for International Non Government Organizations (INGOs) in Indonesia after the 2004 Tsunami, Pakistan after the 2005 Earthquake and in Uganda. It discusses a number of observations and issues regarding wider information systems, data entry models, stakeholder participation and Head Office involvement."
Submission + - Sony again blasted for helping hide malware on PCs (zdnet.com.au)
An anonymous reader writes: ZDNet is reporting that Sony's MicroVault USB, which is a biometric USB storage device, cloaks driver software in a Windows directory that could be used by malware to avoid detection from security applications.
