Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
United States

Texas Attorney General Warns International Election Observers 817

Posted by samzenpus from the stay-out-of-it dept.
First time accepted submitter mescobal writes "Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott warned international election observers not to come closer than 100 feet from a polling place; otherwise, they could be subject to criminal prosecution. The warning was addressed to a group of international observers who intend to monitor polls. The OSCE, an UN affiliated organization of observers, was concerned about voter ID issues among other things. From the article: '“The Texas Election Code governs anyone who participates in Texas elections — including representatives of the OSCE,” Abbott wrote. “The OSCE’s representatives are not authorized by Texas law to enter a polling place. It may be a criminal offense for OSCE’s representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place’s entrance. Failure to comply with these requirements could subject the OSCE’s representatives to criminal prosecution for violating state law.”'"
Government

French Science and Higher Education Programs Avoid Austerity 139

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the we're-clearly-in-the-mirror-universe dept.
ananyo writes "Bucking a trend of cutting science seen elsewhere, the French government has committed to increasing spending on research and development in its draft austerity budget for 2013. France's education and research ministry gets a 2.2% boost under the proposed budget, giving it a budget of just under €23 billion (US$29 billion). Most other ministries get a cut. The upshot of the cash increase is that 1,000 new university posts will be created, no publicly funded research jobs will be cut and funding for research grants will rise (albeit less than inflation) by 1.2% to €7.86 billion. The move to spend on science during a recession is notable and means that French politicians understand that a sustainable commitment to public spending on science is vital for long-term economic growth. The situation is in stark contrast to that in the U.S. and in the UK, where a recent policy to boost hi-tech industries, unveiled with much fanfare, failed to do much for science. Meanwhile, in Australia, there's alarm over proposals to freeze research grants— a step that could jeopardize 1700 jobs."
Electronic Frontier Foundation

2012 EFF Pioneer Award Winners Revealed 19

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the one-way-ticket-to-terror-watch-list dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In 2012, EFF Pioneer Award winners are Hardware Hacker Andrew (bunnie) Huang, Anti-ACTA Activist and La Quadrature du Net cofounder Jérémie Zimmermann, and Groundbreaking Anonymity Group Tor. '"Every year, our Pioneer Awards celebrate those who have made a difference for digital freedom. We are extraordinarily proud of this year's winners and their unflagging dedication to protecting the rights of technology users around the world," said EFF Executive Director Shari Steele. "Whether it's your right to reverse engineer a game console, or to avoid the interference of overbroad IP enforcement, or to block websites or governments from tracking your every online move, these winners are working hard to protect our online freedom."' The 21st edition of the annual EFF Pioneer Awards ceremony will take place September 20 in San Francisco."
Robotics

Robot Learning To Recognize Itself In Mirror 133

Posted by samzenpus from the staring-back-at-me dept.
First time accepted submitter Thorodin writes in with a story at the BBC about scientists at Yale who have built a robot that they hope will be able to recognize itself in a mirror. "A robot named Nico could soon pass a landmark test - recognizing itself in a mirror. Such self-awareness would represent a step towards the ultimate goal of thinking robots. Nico, developed by computer scientists at Yale University, will take the test in the coming months. The ultimate aim is for Nico to use a mirror to interpret objects around it, in the same way as humans use a rear-view mirror to look for cars. 'It is a spatial reasoning task for the robot to understand that its arm is on it not on the other side of the mirror,' Justin Hart, the PhD student leading the research told BBC News. So far the robot has been programmed to recognize a reflection of its arm, but ultimately Mr Hart wants it to pass the "full mirror test". The so-called mirror test was originally developed in 1970 and has become the classic test of self-awareness."
Hardware Hacking

'Wiki Weapon Project' Wants Your 3D-Printable Guns 570

Posted by timothy from the next-round-of-illegal-shapes dept.
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "Earlier this month, University of Texas law student Cody Wilson and a small group of friends who call themselves 'Defense Distributed' launched an initiative they've dubbed the 'Wiki Weapon Project.' Their goal: to raise $20,000 to design and release blueprints for the world's first entirely 3D-printable gun. If all goes according to plan, RepRap users will soon be able to turn the project's CAD designs into an operational firearm capable of shooting at least one standard .22 caliber bullet, all in the privacy of their own garage. Wilson and his handful of collaborators at Defense Distributed plan to use the money they raise to buy or rent a $10,000 Stratysys 3D printer and also to hold a 3D-printable gun design contest with a $1,000 or $2,000 prize for the winning entry — Wilson says they've already received gun design ideas from fans in Arkansas and North Carolina. Once the group has successfully built a reliable 3D-printed gun with the Stratysys printer, it plans to adapt the design for the cheaper and more widely distributed Reprap model. The group had already raised more than $2,000 through the fundraising platform Indiegogo, but the site took down their page and froze their funds on Tuesday. They're continuing to seek donations through their website via Paypal and Bitcoin."
IT

Ask Slashdot: Is There a Professional Geek Dress Code? 432

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the pants-optional dept.
First time submitter KateKintail writes "I'm being promoted to be a director of a computer/web services department at work with staff members (not yet hired) working under me. My workplace doesn't have a dress code 95% of the year. Is this the end of my days of jeans and enjoyably geeky t-shirts? Is there a way to dress professionally in the workplace as a boss (the kind that doesn't need to be defeated at the end of a level) while still showing my Browncoat or Whovian love as I crawl under cobwebby desks to check that equipment is properly plugged in?"

Comment Boxing, or more precisely pugilat (Score 1) 207

by Damien Clauzel (#40827987) Attached to: What Is Your Favorite Ancient Olympic Game?
In ancient Greece — when contests were closer to daily life than today's abstract simulations — pugilat was made with leather strips covered with metal bands. Combat ended on KO or forfeiture, no points. If a combat was too long, a procedure called "klimax" (héhé :) was activated : in turn, each fighter was given a free punch to his opponent that couldn't be blocked or dodged, until only one fighter remained.

Now get of this silly balance beam and run the marathon, please ! Oh, and don't forget to wear your full armour and weapons : you would not dare to arrive naked before the gods, don't you ? :)
Space

New Type of Chemical Bond Predicted To Exist In White Dwarfs 97

Posted by Soulskill from the played-by-sean-connery dept.
ananyo writes "A previously unknown type of powerful chemical bond should be induced by the ferocious magnetic fields of white dwarfs and neutron stars, according to computer simulations. If the effect can be harnessed in the lab, 'magnetized matter' could be exploited for quantum computing. Chemists identify two classes of strong molecular bonds: ionic bonds, in which electrons from one atom hop over to another, and covalent bonds, in which electrons are shared between atoms. But researchers at the University of Oslo accidentally discovered a third bonding mechanism when they simulated how atoms should behave under magnetic fields of about 105 tesla — 10,000 times the biggest fields that can be generated on Earth (abstract)."
Space

SETI Running Out of Money 312

Posted by Soulskill from the no-worries-we-still-have-sigourney-weaver dept.
New submitter opusman writes "According to an Australian space analyst, SETI is running out of money. Despite needing only $2 million a year, a relatively small amount in space industry terms, they are facing a financial crisis. From the article: 'Getting on board a spacecraft is tricky. There are few places for professional astronauts. Even when Richard Branson and a group of other visionaries makes space tourism more affordable, it will still cost huge sums to fly. But getting a foothold in the greatest quest of all can be done for just a few tens of donated dollars. Which is why it beggars belief that the SETI quest is on its knees.'"
Science

CERN Announcing New LHC Results July 4th 226

Posted by samzenpus from the building-block dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Higgs boson is regarded as the key to understanding the universe. Physicists say its job is to give the particles that make up atoms their mass. Without this mass, these particles would zip though the cosmos at the speed of light, unable to bind together to form the atoms that make up everything in the universe, from planets to people. From the article: 'Five leading theoretical physicists have been invited to the event on Wednesday - sparking speculation that the particle has been discovered. Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider are expected to say they are 99.99 per cent certain it has been found - which is known as 'four sigma' level. Peter Higgs, the Edinburgh University emeritus professor of physics that the particle is named after, is among those who have been called to the press conference in Switzerland."
Piracy

Reject ACTA, European Parliament Trade Committee Recommends 24

Posted by timothy from the we-are-not-amused dept.
Qedward writes "The European Parliament's trade committee, INTA, voted on Thursday not to postpone a crucial parliamentary vote on the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The committee also decided, by 19 votes to 12, to recommend to the Parliament that the trade deal be rejected. INTA is the lead committee examining the international agreement, and its recommendation will carry weight with the rest of the Parliament. The Parliamentary plenary vote on the treaty is now scheduled for July 3."
Power

Auto Makers Announce Electric Car Charging Standard 373

Posted by timothy from the this-could-change-my-mind-when-widespread dept.
Overly Critical Guy writes "Auto makers are launching a universal EV charger that charges an electric vehicle in 15 to 20 minutes. The standard, called Combined Charging System, has been approved by the Society of Automotive Engineers and ACEA, the European association of vehicle manufacturers, as the standard for fast-charging electric vehicles."

Comment Same in France, with average success (Score 1) 353

by Damien Clauzel (#39674841) Attached to: Portugal Is Considering a "Terabyte Tax"

We have the same here in France, for years, with average success.

Every couple of years, the administration has to completely adjust those taxes because of the market evolution (new category of devices : think smartphone, tablet, NAS, digical video recorder, hard drive based TV recorder, internet-modem-with-nas-but-only-for-catchup-tv, etc) and the technological improvements (DVD, blueray, SSD, hybrid storage, cloud, etc). Basically, it is a mess and nobody is happy : the entertainment industry says it gets not enough money from it, the citizen are against it, ISP say that content is none of their business, companies pay for taxes that don't concern them, etc.

The final result is that the money doesn't go to the right persons, the average customers are taxed, and all the rest are buying their hardware in other European countries where the products are not burdened with those taxes.

Slashdot Top Deals

If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.

Close