slap20 - Slashdot User

Pre-20th Century Gadgetery 104

Posted by Zonk on Sunday February 03, 2008 @01:35AM from the yay-science dept.

The Byelorussian Hatter writes "Wired, presumably bored to death of Cellphones, Zunes, MairBook Nacs and what-have-you, looks back at the elegant inventions of a less civilized age. 'The Turk was a chess player concealed in a table packed with cogs and gears, contrived to give the appearance of a mighty chess-playing machine. Atop the table, an articulated automaton would be seen to make the moves determined by the master within. One of the 18th and 19th century's many illustrious hoaxes, the Turk is perhaps the greatest gadget that wasn't.'"

Submission + - New Scanner Takes Stunning Images of Your Insides (inventorspot.com)

Submitted by Michelle on Wednesday November 28, 2007 @02:14AM

Michelle writes: Philips Medical Systems has recently unveiled a new medical scanner that can take images of the inside of the body with stunning precision. Called the Brilliance Computerized Tomography (CT) scanner, the machine takes images of slices of the human body and combines them to create realistic images of organs, blood vessels, and other body parts. The images produced are nothing short of AMAZING.

Submission + - Asus corrects Eee PC source code issue. (blue-gnu.biz)

Submitted by

ozmanjusri

on Wednesday November 28, 2007 @02:12AM

ozmanjusri writes: "Asus has corrected the availability of source code for its Eee PC, and reaffirmed its commitment to meeting the requirements of open source licenses, including the GPL.

They also announced the upcoming release of a new SDK to assist the Open Source community development on the Eee PC."

Submission + - How To Build a Hackintosh

Submitted by Otter Escaping North on Tuesday November 13, 2007 @04:58PM

Otter Escaping North writes: Just came across this little guide on building your own PC that you can run a patched (aka hacked) copy of Leopard on. I love my mini, but hobbyist that I am, I might give this a go when it's time to trade up.

Submission + - Working iPod encased in clear resin

Submitted by frdmfghtr on Tuesday November 13, 2007 @04:47PM

frdmfghtr writes: iPods have been seen as artistic in their design — here's an example of an iPod as embedded art: a fully working iPod encased in clear resin. Also read about it at TUAW.com

Submission + - Eating Fish Into Extinction (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by

reporter

on Monday November 12, 2007 @12:54AM

reporter writes: "According to a report just published by "The Washington Post", the human population is eating the bluefin tuna (and other fish) into extinction. In 1950, humankind extracted 400,000 tons of tuna; by 2004, the global catch had increased to 4 million tons. "[The] tuna fishing fleet is now far larger — in some cases 70 percent larger — than is needed for a sustainable catch. The consequences have been severe, especially for bluefin tuna. The total population of southern bluefin has been reduced to about 8 percent of levels before industrial fishing took off in the 1950s."

The report implies that human overpopulation (with far too many mouths) are forcing fish into extinction. When India and China reach a first-world standard of living, they will further endanger already dangerously low levels of fish stocks. There are too many people and not enough resources — fish, fresh water, etc. What will we do about overpopulation?"

Submission + - Government Study finds P2P increases CD Sales

Submitted by Vaystrem on Monday November 12, 2007 @12:11AM

Vaystrem writes: On November 2nd 2007 Canada's Intellectual Policy Directorate released a report entitled "The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada" From the abstract:

Our review of existing econometric studies suggests that P2P file-sharing tends to decrease music purchasing. However, we find the opposite, namely that P2P file-sharing tends to increase rather than decrease music purchasing. Among Canadians who engage in P2P file-sharing, our results suggest that for every 12 P2P downloaded songs, music purchases increase by 0.44 CDs. That is, downloading the equivalent of approximately one CD increases purchasing by about half of a CD.

The study was paid for by Public Works and Government Services Canada. Details of the contract, methodology and the original data files from the study may be found here.

Submission + - U.S. Pork Board vs. Cannibals 2

Submitted by

Muzadi

on Saturday November 10, 2007 @03:51AM

Muzadi writes: "To the law offices of Faegre & Benson LLP:

Recently, your office requested from Cafepress.com the cessation of my use of the slogan "Vegetarians: The Other White Meat" on t-shirts and bumperstickers provided by my site Crankmonkeys at the behest of your client the U.S. Pork Board. While I appreciate your employer's need to protect their trademarks, unfortunately this claim does not meet the requirements of Title 15, Chapter 22, Subchapter I, 1051 of the Federal statue governing the use of trademarks:

1. The term "The Other White Meat" is a humorous, satirical expression, and as such falls under the protection of parody and similar such works by the First Amendment. See: L.L. Bean, Inc. v. Drake Publishers, Inc., 811 F.2d 26, 28 (1st Cir. 1987) and Hormel Foods Corp. v. Jim Henson Prods., 73 F.3d 497 (2d Cir. 1996).

2. The term "The Other White Meat" as a humorous parody relating to human meat significantly pre-dates the Pork Board's adoption of the slogan in question. Specifically, the Pork industry's usage of the slogan in question dates to only as recently as 1987, whereas the use of the expression relating to human meat significantly predates 1987. The trademark, thus, is arguably not even valid in the first place, and certainly not when applied to anything other than pork.

3. The term "Vegetarians: The Other White Meat" might be protected if the Pork Board's primary business was selling humorous t-shirts and bumperstickers. As its primary business is promoting the over consumption of massive amounts of greasy bacon dripping with cholesterol inducing heart attacks, there is no legal conflict.

4. The term "The Other White Meat" as used by the Pork Board is a trademark, and as such only applies to the use of said trademark as applied to the specific area of commerce engaged in by the Pork Board. Unless the Pork Board has expanded its promotion of food from pork into the area of the consumption of human flesh, there is no commercial conflict, reducing the validity of a possible claim of trademark privilege.

Given the clarity of the legal statutes that in this case completely undermine your assertion, a lack of any adequate response on your part should constitute an acknowledgement of the idiocy of your claim, clearing the way for Cafepress.com to reenable the sale of my product.

Thank you very much."

Russia to Build New Spacecraft by 2020 101

Posted by Zonk on Saturday November 10, 2007 @03:34AM from the shouldn't-we-have-ftl-by-2020 dept.

Tech.Luver passed us the word that Russia is now working on a new generation of spacecraft, presumably to help fuel its renewed space exploration ambitions. The Space-based industry is still one of the few areas in which Russia is intentionally competitive, and they intend to exploit that in the coming years. Even still, the new technologies are not expected to see use until 2020. ""A tender to design a new booster and spaceship has been announced," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov as saying ... Perminov did not give further details of the tender, but said TsSKB-Progress from the Volga city of Samara is likely to bid with its Soyuz-3 design of spacecraft, as well as Moscow's Khrunichev centre with Angara 3P and Angara 5P. The United States beat the Soviet Union in developing multiple-use Space Shuttle rockets, which form its current fleet of manned spacecraft. Russian space officials have said single-use spacecraft like the Soyuz-TM currently used are cheaper and more practical."

Submission + - Confirmed: gPhone to be announnced on Monday 5th! (wsj.com)

Submitted by

mobile freak

on Sunday November 04, 2007 @06:39PM

mobile freak writes: "Less than a week after the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Google would be announcing their Linux-based gPhone OS and accompanying software suite within a fortnight, Monday 5th November is pegged as the day that the search giant will open up what have been notoriously-tight lips regarding the expansion of their business model within the cellular industry."

Submission + - Rare earthquake in a cold place 1

Submitted by

DragonFire1024

on Sunday November 04, 2007 @05:55PM

DragonFire1024 writes: "Rare earthquake in a cold place A magnitude 5.8 earthquake has struck in a place where earthquakes are rare, but sometimes large. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), at 3:35 p.m (eastern time) the 5.8 quake struck in Antarctica, 105 kilometers (65 miles) south, southeast of Casey Station or 2565 kilometers (1590 miles) north of the South Pole."

Submission + - Scientists Successfully Created Super Mice (xuecast.com)

Submitted by

XueCast

on Sunday November 04, 2007 @05:38PM

XueCast writes: "Yesterday, a bunch of scientists at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA announced that they had successfully engineered a group of 500 genetically enhanced super mice that are super healthy, extremely aggressive, hyper active, higher in metabolism, have much longer lifespan compared to normal wild mice, can run pretty much non stop for 6 hours and can eat twice more than normal wild mice but only have half the weight."

Submission + - In Canada, Colbert Report Bars Linux 2

Submitted by uncleO on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @03:01AM

uncleO writes: I-fail-to-see-the-humour-dept. In Canada, visitors to Comedy Central website hoping to find 'The Colbert Report' are redirected to thecomedynetwork.ca. Linux users are greeted with the message, 'Sorry, your OS is not supported! We recommend Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Mac OS X.' Is Colbert turning in to his character, or is he selling out to be ironic?

Submission + - SourceForge services market: up to 12.5% commiss'n (idg.com.au)

Submitted by

StonyandCher

on Monday October 29, 2007 @01:48AM

StonyandCher writes: "SourceForge is launching a open source services market place. Currently in beta, the market place will be designed to allow paying customers find open source developers, including those working on specific open source projects. The catch is that SourceForge want to make between 12.5% on small projects and 7.75% on projects over $US500. This seems like a fairly hefty commission to me. What do others think?"

Submission + - DHS to require government permission before flying (10zenmonkeys.com)

Submitted by

destinyland

on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @04:17PM

destinyland writes: "The Department of Homeland Security quietly moves closer to an invasive "Secure Flights" proposal that requires government-issued credentials for all air travellers — and government permission for each flight! International "Advance Passenger Information System" rules were published Monday (effective February of 2008), making the U.S. version much more likely to pass. The proposed rules also let airlines retain the information obtained, even after it's been passed it on to the government. "The Identity Group" discovered that the U.S. government's travel dossier records include everything — the books travelers were carrying, the phone numbers of their friends, and even whether they asked for one bed or two in their hotel room."

Slashdot Top Deals