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Government

Submission + - Manual on How to Molest Children Is Legal, Cops Sa (go.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A 170-page manual explaining step by step how to molest children which police in Orange County, Fla., believe has been circulating there for months, is not illegal. Investigators have stated that they still want to know where it came from. I've never seen anything like it. It was pretty amazing when I first saw it just because how detailed it was," Orange County Sheriff's Office Det. Philip Graves told ABC News Orlando, Fla., affiliate WFTV.

The manual, which was apparently written by someone who calls himself "the mule," is a how-to of child molestation, even explaining where and how to find potential victims, the station reported.

"I was more amazed that someone would be as bold as to create an actual 170-page document that would detail how to do it," he said.

Politics

Submission + - Senate Candidate Sued by Copyright Troll (yahoo.com) 2

The Iso writes: Las Vegas based company Righthaven found two articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal about Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle reprinted on her web site without permission, so it did what it always does: bought the rights to the articles from the Review-Journal and sued the alleged infringer, seeking unspecified damages.
Displays

Submission + - The New Difficulties in Making a 3D Game (msn.com)

eldavojohn writes: MSNBC spoke with the senior producer of a new stereoscopic 3D game called "Killzone 3" and highlighted problems they are trying to solve with being one of the first FPS 3D games for the PS3. The team ran into serious design problems like where to put the cross hairs for the players (do they constantly hover in front of your vision?) and what to do with any of the heads up display components. Aside from the obvious marketing thrown in at the end of the article (in a very familiar way), there is an interesting point raised concerning normalized conventions in all video games and how one ports that to the new stereoscopic 3D model--the same way directors continue to grapple with getting 3D right. Will 3D games be just as gimmicky as most 3D movies? If they are, at least Guerrilla Games is at least making it possible for the player to easily and quickly switch in and out of stereoscopic 3-D while playing.

Comment Re:Unbelievable (Score 2, Informative) 106

The swarm of ground robots is a bit of a reach goal. Current applications of this include showing manpower and equipment (and current robotic resources, like UAVs). The idea being, issued orders to a person or vehicle's representation on the map will send orders to a communication device they posses. The map would also serve to display data that currently is compiled (slowly) onto paper maps. This way, the interface becomes useful for combining data and asset display that also allows orders to be issued to those assets.

(I work next door)

Comment Re:Troubling (Score 1) 404

>>>When I was in the ISP business I learned that it's illegal in New York State to tell one of your customers that he's the subject of a electronic surveillance warrant.

That law is null and void according to the Higher Law of the NY Constitution: "Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press."

(emphasis mine)

In this case, the law has determined that informing a subject of electronic surveillance that he is under said surveillance is an abuse of your right - and thus you are responsible for the penalties under the law. Yes this is a terrible loophole.. but it's right there in the text you cited.

Submission + - TI Against Calculator Hobbyists ... Again (omnimaga.org)

Deep Thought writes: Texas Instruments, already infamous thanks to the signing key controversy last year, is trying a new trick to lock down its graphing calculators, this time directed toward its newest TI-Nspire line. The TI-Nspires were already the most controlled of TI's various calculator models, and no third-party development of any kind (except for its very limited form of TI-BASIC) was allowed until the release of the independent tool Ndless. Since its release, TI has been determined to prevent the large calculator programming community from using it. Its latest released operating system for the Nspire family (version 2.1) now prevents the calculators from downgrading to OS 1.1, needed to run Ndless. This is the TI's second major attack on Ndless, as the company has already demanded that websites posting the required OS 1.1 be removed from public download, obviously to prevent use of the tool. Once again, TI is preventing calculator hobbyists from running their own software on calculators they bought and paid for. Is TI going the way Apple did?
Space

Submission + - WISE Discovers 95 New Near-Earth Asteroids (discovery.com)

astroengine writes: "NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has turned up 25,000 new asteroid discoveries, 95 of which are near-Earth objects (NEOs). This mission is as fascinating as it is frightening. Capable of spotting any cosmic object glowing in infrared wavelengths, WISE has become an expert asteroid hunter, seeing these interplanetary vagabonds, some of which get uncomfortably close to our planet."
Graphics

Submission + - 3D engine company, Unlimited Detail, not dead? (gameobserver.com)

PsxMeUP writes: A few months ago Unlimited Detail shocked the 3D graphics industry by revealing a graphics engine that could render unlimited amounts of polygons and point cloud data in real time. The concept was very promising, but not long after Chief Executive officer at Unlimited Detail, Bruce Dell, showed off the demos, the company went silent and we haven't heard from them since. GameObserver.com managed to get in touch with Bruce Dell, who was kind enough to admit some errors in their previous strategy.

It appears they didn't have a working product yet, and a few companies were already interested in using the engine. As a result, Unlimited Detail went under the radar, but they have since been "working hard to produce a commercial SDK" and ways to "import objects made for movies and use them without any downscaling." So it appears the company is still intent on releasing the Unlimited Detail engine in the future.

If you don’t know what Unlimited Detail is working on, check out this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-ATtrImCx4

Earth

Submission + - Another oil spill in the Gulf underway

An anonymous reader writes: It's being reported that there is another oil spill happening in the Gulf at this time. examiner.com reports,

The leaks at the Ocean Saratoga site have been leaking since Hurricane Ivan which caused an undersea mudslide nearly six years ago destroying the rig. Taylor Energy have been working since that time to stop the leaks. A ten-mile oil strip was discovered today near the Saratoga site. ... The Ocean Saratoga well was once operated by BP

more here

Alabama's Press Register reports that this 10km long oil slick is now visible from satellite images. This seems to indicate it may be leaking more than the 14 gallons of oil per day reported by the Examiner.

Comment Re:Laptop Useage in Class? (Score 2, Informative) 218

Speaking for myself, I find them a good distraction during mandatory classes with professors I have already discovered can't teach whatsoever and I am better off reading the book (and sometimes I do that instead of use a laptop). For those who can though, I never do.

At least at my uni you can usually tell how respected the professor is by how many laptops/iPhones/random gadgets are being used in-class.

Ubuntu

Submission + - Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook May Drop Firefox For Chromium (digitizor.com) 3

An anonymous reader writes: Looks like the Ubuntu guys — the decision makers — are in a real good mood to give a face-lift to the Ubuntu brand. Just yesterday we told you about the possibilities of Ubuntu replacing the EXT4 file system with a new BTRFS File System and now we have words that the Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 Maverick Meerkat may have Chromium as the default browser. This naturally means that the existing default browser Mozilla Firefox may be dropped from the Ubuntu NE 10.10.
Communications

Submission + - Cameron bans mobiles from cabinet meetings

An anonymous reader writes: The UK's new Prime Minister, David Cameron, has banned the use of mobile phones and BlackBerries from cabinet meetings. According to the BBC, use of mobile phones and other devices during meetings and debates in parliament used to be banned, but now politicians are allowed to have them, but they must be in silent mode. In 2008, then Commons Speaker Michael Martin rejected a plea from MP Greg Mulholland to fine colleagues if their mobile phones rang in the chamber. He made the call after a fellow MP's phone rang twice while then Culture Secretary Andy Burnham was answering questions in the Commons, but Mr Martin said he was "powerless" to implement the idea, even if the fines went to charity.

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