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Australia

Australian Police Spying On Web, Phone Usage With No Warrants 78

New submitter i-reek writes "Australian police, along with government agencies, are accessing phone and internet account information, outward and inward call details, phone and internet access location data, and details of IP addresses visited of Australian citizens, all without judicial warrants . In the last two years, some states have shown an increase of more than 50 per cent in these surveillance authorizations, which can be granted by senior police officers and officials instead of a magistrate or judge."
Government

Is the Government Scaring Web Businesses Out of the US? 271

suraj.sun sends this quote from an article at Techdirt: "The federal government has been paying lip service to the idea that it wants to encourage new businesses and startups in the U.S. And this is truly important to the economy, as studies have shown that almost all of the net job growth in this country is coming from internet startups. ... With the JotForm situation unfolding, where the U.S. government shut down an entire website with no notice or explanation, people are beginning to recognize that the U.S is not safe for internet startups. Lots of folks have been passing around [a] rather reasonable list of activities for U.S.-based websites."
Idle

Submission + - Canadian Digs Out Basement Using Only Radio Controlled Scale Tractors and Trucks (blogspot.com) 1

Phurge writes: Excavating a basement using professional machinery is nothing new but doing it with radio controlled (RC) scaled models is something unheard of. Welcome to the little big world of Joe, from Saskatchewan, Canada.

For the past 7 years (!), Joe has been digging out his basement at an average annual rate of 8 to 9 cubic feet using nothing more than RC tractors and trucks!

And we're talking about the whole nine yards here — he starts by transporting the excavator on an RC truck to the basement, unloads it, digs and uses other trucks to transfer the dirt up to the ground through a spiral ramp! He even has a miniature rock crusher!

"I feel quite fortunate to have stumbled onto this basement excavation idea, it's been a great past time to date dreaming up new ideas to tackle different projects along the way," Joe wrote on the Scale4x4rc forums where he also posted pictures and videos of his feat

The Courts

Zynga Sues Brazilian Dev For Copying Its Games 115

An anonymous reader writes "In what can only be described as a case of the pot calling the kettle black, Zynga has launched and settled a lawsuit against Brazilian game developer Vostu after accusing Vostu of copying their games. The settlement resulted in the loss of jobs for many Vostu employees. How Zynga managed to carry out such actions while keeping a straight face after dealing with similar allegations remains to be seen."

Comment Re:I miss the good old days (Score 1) 281

Hmm, mine lasts two to three weeks, but I only make one fifteen second phone call five days a week and use it as a clock about ten times a day on those same five days. I guess if I turned it off when I wasn't using it I could extend that to an extreme amount, but for those emergency situations... foreveralone.

Comment Re:NoScript! (Score 1) 225

http://browserfame.com/38/firefox-addon-usage-stats
85% Firefox users have at least one add-on installed

http://blog.chromium.org/2010/12/year-of-extensions.html
one-third Chrome users use extensions

I can't find any data about IE "add-on/extension" usage nor could I locate a place on their site to look for plugins and as I do not run Windos not IE I do not know if it is in some menu somewhere, though I can get to chrome's and firefox's add ons from any browser. I know some exist and I have found few sites with lists of them, but due to the lack of ease finding them I figure most users wouldn't use them. (not that my guesses are worth much)

It would more accurately represent the browsers if firefox and chrome were tested with popular extensions installed as they could cause more security threats or in the case of noscript or adblock plus lessen them. (though noscript only has around a million users and adblock plus only eleven million.

Yes if it was a test between the vanilla browsers to see those differences then add ons and extension should of course not be included, but as it was a test of security their data is possibly skewed in favor of firefox and/or chrome/chromium/iron.

Comment Re:All Open Source projects must reject "designers (Score 1) 378

I'd like to know what version of Firefox you are using where the tabs moved and the search and url bars are combined. Tha Help: About section in Firefox says my version is 8.0, whereas the most recent version from Mozilla is 8.0.1.

I'd like a search urlbar combination, though I would like one that uses Google Instant.

Comment Re:It's special the same way every baby is a mirac (Score 1) 745

I am not sure why redefining the lower bound of "special" is necessary. Out of all the planets scientists have observed, Earth is the only one that can support our form of life. Would that not make Earth a special planet, at least from our perspective?

Though after the 0.5 baby joke I am unsure if your were joking.

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