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Submission + - Keep your friend close and your enemies closer. (enemybook.info)

An anonymous reader writes: Enemybook is a Facebook app that allows you to manage your enemies as well as your friends. With Enemybook you can add people as Facebook enemies, specify why they are your enemies, notify your enemies, see who lists you as an enemy, and even become friends with the enemies of your enemies. Ever wanted to "enemy" somebody instead of friend them? Finally you can. This app remedies the one-sided perspective of Facebook.
Censorship

Submission + - Google Bans Anti-MoveOn.org Ads

Whip-hero writes: "Citing copyright infringement, Google has removed a Republican candidate's ads attacking MoveOn.org. "Internet giant Google has banned advertisements critical of MoveOn.org, the far-left advocacy group that caused a national uproar last month when it received preferential treatment from The New York Times for its 'General Betray Us' message." The article goes on to state that "Google routinely permits the unauthorized use of company names such as Exxon, Wal-Mart, Cargill and Microsoft in advocacy ads. An anti-war ad currently running on Google asks 'Keep Blackwater in Iraq?' and links to an article titled 'Bastards at Blackwater — Should Blackwater Security be held accountable for the deaths of its employees?'""
Enlightenment

Submission + - Can Transhumanism Survive W/o Libertarianism? (functionalisminaction.com)

IConrad01 writes: "From Functionalism In Action: Can A Transhuman Future Survive Without Libertarian Ideals?:

As a transhumanist, I am all too keenly aware of the good and the ill that can come of technology. One technology, however, that seems to have only ills springing from it these days is that of surveillance technology. Consider, for example the perhaps not so infamous as it ought to be 'dragonfly spy':
[...]

This becomes all the more troublesome when we consider that — regardless of Ray Kurzweils's 'law' of accelarating returns — technological development is outstripping society's ability to regulate our machines. There's nothing really new about that idea — but still; it is strongly worth paying attention to when we consider the advocates of regulation for new, 'existentially risky' technologies — such as molecular manufacturing, or synthetic biology, or viral engineering, or... well, by now the point is clear.
Click the link to read the article in full."

Programming

Submission + - Parallellism, Math, and the Curse of the Algorithm (blogspot.com)

An anonymous reader writes: From the article: Adding more processing cores to a CPU should have been a relatively painless evolution of computer technology but it turned out to be a real pain in the ass, programming wise. Why? To understand the problem, we must go back to the very beginning of the computer age, close to a hundred and fifty years ago, when an Englishman named Charles Babbage designed the world's first general purpose computer, the analytical engine.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Russian "Father of All Bombs" = Fake? (wired.com) 1

mytrip writes: "Remember Russia's "Father of All Bombs," reportedly the most powerful thermobaric weapon in the world? Turns out it's at least partially a fraud. I've got the scoop over at Wired News:

Father of All Bombs "has no match in the world," a military officer boasts in the official video. ... But close analysis of the video reveals inconsistencies that have led some U.S. experts to question the veracity of the Russian claims, and to downgrade assessments of the weapon. It's possible, they say, that the video was partially faked, and that the test was hyped for political reasons.

The Father of All Bombs, as shown, would not fit in a Tu-160's bomb bay, as it features a horizontally deploying drogue parachute that would be fouled by the aircraft if released vertically."

Digital

Submission + - Nanotube forests grown on silicon chips for future (physorg.com)

Tjeerd writes: "Engineers have shown how to grow forests of tiny cylinders called carbon nanotubes onto the surfaces of computer chips to enhance the flow of heat at a critical point where the chips connect to cooling devices called heat sinks."
Enlightenment

Submission + - Ice Chunks Fall From Blue Skies (sfgate.com)

wximagery95 writes: Some scientists believe that there is a larger, more sinister type of ice-chunk precipitation besides hail which can form outside of storms, making even the largest hailstones look puny in comparison. There is a great deal of disagreement in the scientific community regarding the origin of these falling slabs of ice, but it is certain that something is causing massive frozen chunks (weighing between 6 pounds to as much as 400 pounds) to occasionally drop from seemingly clear blue skies. The objects are called megacryometeors.

If these things are forming on, and then becoming dislodged from large aircraft, you would think there is the potential for a massive lawsuit should one of these ice chunks actually kill someone. Is the FAA and the airline industry really covering up the source of these ice chunks (AKA; megacryometeors)?

The Internet

Submission + - ISPs Blocking Bulk Solicited Email & Workaroun 1

moogle10000 writes: I've recently encountered an issue where large ISPs (such as AOL, Earthlink, Roadrunner, etc.) are blocking email coming from our private mail server. To rectify that, we enlisted the services of a mail security company — not only do they filter SPAM, but they also relay our outgoing mail so we can avoid the mass-block from the major ISPs. However, we send out a solicited mass emailing that is prohibited by the Terms of Service of our mail security company. What is a sysadmin to do? Should I simply send them direct and then hunt down each of the ISPs individually? The mass-blacklisting of mail servers seems to be a BIG problem for small businesses (big businesses are immune)... What do you think?
Power

Submission + - Radioactive Boy Scout At It Again (foxnews.com)

Whip-hero writes: "'Authorities were concerned he was trying to obtain a radioactive isotope from the smoke detectors... Authorities first learned of Hahn's obsession with radioactivity in 1994 after he told a health official that he hoped to earn an Eagle Scout badge by producing energy, according to an article in Harper's Magazine...'

Check out the story to see a picture of what I can only guess is some stage of radiation poisoning."

Security

Submission + - Feds bust botnet boss (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: "According to court documents, a California man this week was indicted on four counts of electronic transmission of codes to cause damage to protected computers. Greg King, also known as "Silenz, Silenz420, sZ, GregK, and Gregk707, " allegedly controlled over seven thousand such "bots" and used them to conduct multiple distributed denial of service attacks against websites of two businesse — CastleCops and KillaNet. The botnet attacks on KillaNet took place between July 2004 and February 2007 causing at least $5,000 in damage. KillaNet said on its Web site today that "King caused thousands of dollars in losses of time and content through many attacks against our webserver." In addition King allegedly taunted KillaNet in a series of emails during the attacks. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20231"
Unix

Submission + - UNIX V7 ported to i386 (nordier.com)

Seth Morabito writes: "Ever wanted to run the classic original AT&T UNIX V7, but just couldn't bring yourself to fire up that PDP-11 you have in your garage? Robert Nordier has recently announced a port of the V7 source to Intel. It supports ATA disks, ATAPI CD drives, 1.44M floppy disks, and standard PC serial ports. Robert describes the port as “stable and quite generally usable”. Fun for anyone wanting to play with a piece of UNIX history."
The Internet

Submission + - Software For Virtual Teams

Ricmac writes: "Virtual team technology has evolved a lot over the past few years, enabling more and more companies to go virtual. But in order for working from home to be effective, certain things need to be in place. The most critical is technology — a set of tools, along with the infrastructure, that can replace the traditional office. Using these tools it is possible for team members to connect, communicate and execute as effectively as a traditional company. This Read/WriteWeb article looks at software that makes virtual companies possible — examples include Skype, GoToMeeting, Basecamp, Google Calendar, CVSDude, ElephantDrive and QuickBooks."
Education

Submission + - BBC Micro: Britain's First PC Hit

An anonymous reader writes: North American children grew up with the Apple II. Across the Atlantic, the BBC gave its blessings to the unreleased Acorn Proton (another 6502 micro) and it became the standard in education and home for almost a decade as the BBC Micro, even though there were cheaper, more capable machines on the market. Read about how Acorn won the lucrative contract and slowly disintegrated after their RISC home computer (released in 1987) failed to catch on.

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