Sorry, no time for fancy formatting. Here's the article... I don't keep up with the topic, so I don't know why it got yanked. Here's the link, in case it comes back: http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/16/1945246 Enjoy!

The Long Term Impact of Jacobsen v. Katzer
Posted by timothy in The Mysterious Future!
from the stabs-in-the-dark dept.

snydeq (http://www.infoworld.com/) writes
"Lawyer Jonathan Moskin has called into question the long-term impact (http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/does-court-ruling-raise-risks-open-source-687) last year's Java Model Railroad Interface court ruling will have on open source adoption among corporate entities. For many, the case in question, Jacobsen v. Katzer (http://jmri.sourceforge.net/k/docket/index.shtml), has represented a boon for open source, laying down a legal foundation for the protection of open source developers (http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/03/1447248&tid=185). But as Moskin sees it, the ruling 'enables a set of potentially onerous monetary remedies for failures to comply with even modest license terms, and it subjects a potentially larger community of intellectual property users to liability (http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1202429618746).' In other words, in Moskin's eyes, Jacobsen v. Katzer could make firms wary of using open source software because they fear that someone in the food chain has violated a copyright, thus exposing them to lawsuit. It should be noted that Moskin's firm has represented Microsoft in anti-trust litigation before the European Union."

Ghosts of Slashdot: 11/13/2008
[This looked like an awesome story, and it's a new discovery, so I wondered why it got yanked. Turned out there was an even more awesome version in the pipeline, that referenced not one but two extraterrestrial systems being imaged, and threw in a jab at the Hubble to boot. Plus, this story linked to a page on the KeckObservatory.org site that doesn't have any actual content (perhaps it was about to get Slashdotted and they blanked it to avoid meltdown?).]

First Picture of an Alien Solar System
Posted by ScuttleMonkey in The Mysterious Future!
from the say-cheese dept.

dtolman writes

"Astronomers at the Keck Observatory have announced that they have taken the first image of an alien solar system. 'The new solar system orbits the dusty young star named HR8799, which is 140 light years away and about 1.5 times the size of our sun. Three planets, roughly 10, 9 and 6 times the mass of Jupiter, orbit the star. The sizes of the planets decrease with distance from the parent star, much like the giant planets do in our system.'"

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! And it's not the same as seeing an article come close-but-not-close-enough on the Firehose. These stories were accepted, posted on the front page for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 10/24/2008
[Finally, I think this one will *stay* dead! No idea what it's all about, or why it didn't stay on the front page. Probably a dupe, but it's far enough outside my sphere of knowledge that I wouldn't know exactly what to search on. And, I have to admit, I'm not interested enough to find out...]

Antitrust Working For Samba and FSFE
Posted by kdawson in The Mysterious Future!
from the in-an-ideal-world dept.

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes

"It's now just over a year since Microsoft lost their final court case in the EU regarding breaches of antitrust regulation. Samba developer Andrew Bartlet writes in his blog that the documentation and help MS was forced to deliver is proving truly useful: '[T]he bottleneck is our own pace of implementation and comprehension, not missing documentation or the difficult task of network analysis so often required in the past.' FSFE blogger Ciaran O'Riordan also explains the motivations for those years of work. Hint: it wasn't about fines."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! And it's not the same as seeing an article come close-but-not-close-enough on the Firehose. These stories were accepted, posted on the front page for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 10/08/2008
[They're rarer, but sometimes the ghosts still make it to red-link front page status before they're hosed away. Not sure why this one got doused, but I suspect it's a dupe.]

Recovering Blurred Text Using Photoshop
Posted by Timothy in The Mysterious Future!
from the careful-how-you-hide-stuff dept.

An anonymous reader writes

"There's been a lot of talk about recovering blurred or pixelated text, but here's an actual implementation using nothing but Photoshop and a little JavaScript. Includes a Hollywood-esque video showing the uncovered letters slowly appearing."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! And it's not the same as seeing an article come close-but-not-close-enough on the Firehose. These stories were accepted, posted on the front page for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 08/20/2008
[Wow, it's been forever! But I finally caught one. I was going to send a note to the DaddyPants address warning them that this was a dupe, but I couldn't find the article it was a duplicate *of*. Someone did, though. Oh, and it's "Caucasus", not "Caucuses". It's Georgia, not Iowa.]

ISS Threatened by War in The Caucuses
Journal written by Presto Vivace (882157) and posted by samzenpus in The Mysterious Future!
from the no-space-for-you dept.

According to this report in the Washington Post, the ISS program could become a casualty of the war in the Caucuses. Our current space shuttle craft will be retired in 2010, with no replacements until 2015. In the meantime, in order for NASA to contract with Russia's Soyuz spacecraft, Congress would have to pass a waiver to a 2000 law forbidding government contracts with nations that help Iran and North Korea with their nuclear programs, as Russia has done. Even before the war in the Caucuses this was controversial, now the ISS mission is at great risk. It would be a shame if the ISS mission were jeopardized over this, a real shame.

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

By the way, any Subscriber can join the Ghost Hunt, but so far only morcheeba has shown the requisite sensitivity to ectoplasmic vibrations.

The BBC has an article about research from the Radiological Society of North America, which proves that advice to "sit up straight" is wrong:

"Sitting up straight is not the best position for office workers...the best position in which to sit at your desk is leaning slightly back, at about 135 degrees."

So next time you are told to sit up and stop being lazy, you can point out that you are in fact sitting correctly (as for disproving being lazy, you're still on your own on that one).

Not that it's an earth-shattering development -- I'm not creating miniature black holes or anything, but I did re-up my Slashdot subscription.

The first potential ghost article: Engineers Make Good Terrorists?. I don't think that one will get canned! Though it sure seems like a leftover April Fool's gag. Sadly, it's not... the source article is dated 4/3, not 4/1. Of course, the past seven-and-a-half years have been an extended April Fool's Day... but on the bright side, there are only 9 months 19 days 17 hours 3 minutes before the foolishness finally ends.

My journal's moving. The new URL is http://lottadot.blogspot.com/

You can pick it up via RSS at http://lottadot.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Why stop posting here? Simple, I can include images, slashdot javascript, digg javascript, embed javscript (ie slide shows), google ads, voting polls, as well as control the "slashboxes" that appear with my journal/blog articles elsewhere. I get traffic-stats (analytics).

While I do absolutely love Slashot's (and Slashcode's) discussion system (D2 rocks), as well as the friend's-journal-notification system, the other benefits outweigh it. More and more people are using RSS to know when their friends post something at {insert site/system here} such that the friend's notification isn't really needed all that much, except for the very novice user. And that type of user, maybe except for my Mom, couldn't care squat about my journal/blog entries. After-all, most people don't comment at all, though they are assumedly reading my ramblings.

And the best part, is I don't have setup another VM or web-head-machine or special blogging software to make it happen. I just use a free blogging service. Am I entirely reliant up on it? Yup. Am I that concerned that Google would go away tomorrow and my journal would disappear? nah.

I haven't been able to take my usual peek behind the curtain of Slashdot, because my subscription has lapsed and I haven't been able to renew it. Woe is me!

I'm sure I'll get around to it again sometime soon. Heck, it's not like five or ten bucks will make the rent check bounce. But it would buy a used GameCube game for the little gamerz at home. If anyone wants to finance my ghost hunting exploits, please feel free... clicky the linky above and pop "622190" into the "Buy Gift Subscription For" box. I'm certain to think very fondly of you for at least five minutes.

I saw this Saudi King Tries to Grow Modern Ideas in Desert. It caught my eye because:

Saudi Arabia has been sending people to the US for education training, conferences and even ncaete. Infact, they've been hiring people from the upper-educational world and paying *big* money for help (ie consulting).

Personally, I think you'll see Jordan doing this next. Because some of these countries are finally realizing if they don't reinvest all the oil money they've made off of us, they're screwed.
 

I'd completely forgotten I wrote this three years ago:

Joshua Kinsberg has been released. But his bike and invention are impounded, at least until his court date on Friday (after the RNC is over).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5850151/

NYC's anti-graffiti law is very strict:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nograffiti/html/legislation.html

"No person shall write, paint or draw any inscription, figure or mark of any type on any public or private building or other structure or any other real or personal property owned, operated or maintained by a public benefit corporation, the city of New York or any agency or instrumentality thereof or by any person, firm, or corporation, or any personal property maintained on a city street or other city-owned property pursuant to a franchise, concession or revocable consent granted by the city, unless the express permission of the owner or operator of the property has been obtained."

I wonder if the framers of that law realized they were banning kids from chalking hopscotch onto their schools' playground or onto the sidewalks in front of their houses. I wonder how many children have been arrested for chalking up a 4-square game.

One important point: the police did not see the chalk-spraying invention being _used_. So the inventor probably could not have been charged with the above law. But the only other anti-graffiti laws describe "aerosol spray paint cans," and the video of the arrest clearly shows the inventor explaining to the police that it uses chalk, not paint. Predictably, the New York Post gets that wrong, describing the invention as "a convoluted spray-paint mechanism": http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/29532.htm

Earlier this month, a family was threatened with a $300 fine for their 6-year-old girl's drawing with sidewalk chalk.

On her own front step.

It's legal of course. The police screwed up. Notice the final clause from the law as of 2004 ("unless... permission of the owner... has been obtained") and the similar clause from the 2005 law Natalie Shea was threatened with (only if "not consented to by the owner").

But a street artist was later arrested for drawing on the sidewalk with chalk (while being filmed by PBS about his artwork!). And I won't be surprised if sooner or later some kid literally chalking hopscotch onto the sidewalk or a school playground gets arrested.

That's the law, after all. We had to make sure nobody chalked anti-Bush slogans while the RNC was in town. And the law's the law.

The $150 laptop was apparently too good to be true. 2Checkout has suspended all sales of it, refunded all orders that were marked shipped, and allowed all authorizations not charged to expire. An email from 2CO said there may be a time in the future when saleswill resume but its mentioned as a "when and if" situation.

The Oregon Brewers Festival was interesting. I attended with out at OSCON 2007. Lots of tents. Lots of beer. Lots of people.

But the most odd thing of all was the 'beer growl'. Seriously, people would just kinda do this. It was like a roaring growl. I hear this unique "thing to do when drinking good bear" was invented in Portland and is a common thing at this festival.

On my trip out there I had a number of local beers. I don't recall finding a single one I didn't like. I should have kept the labels, because I now remember none of their names :( Aw well, maybe next year :)

Again, no formatting, just saving the story and links. This article got pulled because it's a dupe of one from several weeks back, maybe even a few months ago. I remember seeing it; it may have been this February article on Graphene Transistors, but I thought it was more recent than that.

Edit: The article has been restored. I guess the previous article was way back in February, so this one adds useful information.

Science: Replacing Copper With Pencil Graphite
Posted by kdawson in The Mysterious Future!
from the carbon-all-the-way-down dept.
Late-Eight writes
"A key discovery at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could help advance the role of graphene as a possible heir to copper and silicon in nanoelectronics. Researchers believe graphene's extremely efficient conductive properties can be exploited for use in nanoelectronics. Graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, eluded scientists for years but was finally made in the laboratory in 2004 with the help of everyday, store-bought transparent tape. The current research, which shows a way to control the conductivity of graphene, is an important first step towards mass producing metallic graphene that could one day replace copper as the primary interconnect material on nearly all computer chips."
Researchers are now hot to pursue graphene for this purpose over the previous favorite candidate, buckytubes (which are just rolled-up graphene). Farther down the road, semiconducting graphene might take over from silicon at the heart of logic chips.

Links:
Story: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/24/2123225
Submitter: http://www.shellscript.co.uk/
"graphene as a possible heir to copper and silicon in nanoelectronics": http://www.physorg.com/news104473084.html

(By the way, it's strange that I can't get a Science icon. I went for the Sci-Fi icon instead, for lack of anything more appropriate.)

I'm signed up for EcoTours of Oregon's Columbia River Gorge Waterfalls
and Mount Hood Loop Tour.

I had contacted them months ago, when I knew I was going to OSCON (ie, when the payment check was cut). The guy from EcoTours who responded was nice, but informed me they have a minimum-party requirement. One, well, just wasn't enough. But he said he had any one else inquire about doing that tour, that day, he'd let me know.

He called sometime today while I was in bed (the flu). The tour is on! I'm psyched! Geek to the woods, here I come!! ha ha

I've never done anything like this before. I figure I'll take my camera (wide angle lens and a 70-200) and my hiking stick/mono-pod, along with hiking boots and hat. Add in an extra battery and an extra CF-card too. That should do the trick I suppose.