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Sci-Fi

The Real Monsters Behind Godzilla 243

Posted by kdawson from the radioactively-enhanced-cash-cow dept.
eldavojohn writes "A Wired blog looks at the real monsters behind Godzilla: his lawyers. Do you think Godzilla is basically a glorified T. Rex? Guess again, as his lawyers have tirelessly argued: 'He's erect-standing. He's got muscular arms, scaly skin and spines on back and tail and he breathes fire and has a furrowed brow, he's got an anthropomorphic torso. The T. rex has emaciated bird-like arms and stands at a 45-degree angle.' Read on to find out why they targeted the site davezilla.com but not mozilla.org. Another abuse of the American trademark & copyright system? You decide — just don't make a float of him or you'll find yourself paying an undisclosed sum to Toho Co. Ltd."

Comment Re:Sounds to me (Score 1) 245

by cephalien (#25834627) Attached to: CRTC Rules Bell Can Squeeze Downloads

Of course not, but this isn't competition. Bell -owns- this infrastructure, and they shape all traffic going through their lines.

I -do not- agree with this practice, but I also don't see how these small-time resellers should be exempt just because they feel like it.

Somehow, I fail to see how any of that smacks of wanting to reduce competition. Really, I think all of the copper should be owned by government and treated as a community commodity, like power is (at least where I live).

Comment Sounds to me (Score 1, Interesting) 245

by cephalien (#25834425) Attached to: CRTC Rules Bell Can Squeeze Downloads

Like a bunch of middlemen whining because they want Bell to stop doing what it's been doing just because it hurts their already shoddy business model. Unless, of course, these are last-mile providers who extend the Bell network into areas it doesn't already service.

While I don't think that they should be traffic-shaping anyway, the fact is that they are, and asking them to stop doing it just for these companies is unreasonable. What they should be asking for is Bell to cease this practice altogether.
Displays

Building a Video Wall out of Old Laptops? 52

Posted by Cliff from the that's-one-use-for-'em dept.
alphakappa asks: "I am interested in building a video wall as a personal project using recycled old laptops so that I can make use of the display controllers that are already present. Is there free or cheap software that can extend the display on Windows and still be capable of showing different videos on different zones (like, say run a video in one zone while showing a powerpoint presentation in another one) What tools would you use?"
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - iPods helping conservation

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Sunday Star Times is reporting that the New Zealand Department of Conservation is using iPods to help resettle moved birds. The problem is that the rare Kakapo's call is localised (just as accents differ), so moving them to safer, predator-free, areas presents quite a challenge. DoC decided on using iPods to help 'anchor' the Kakapo into their new environment — and seems to be working. The Department is looking at using similar techniques for the native whitehead.
Power

Journal Journal: Freetricity? Small-scale wind & solar generator 1

Journal by zmef420

OK, so a while back now I was working on a business plan and stumbled across the website of a startup company offering a very intriguing product, a small wind and solar generator system. The product is about the size of a digital satellite dish and the basic unit is claimed to produce 300 watts and includes a 700 watt inverter. Being the impulse buyer that I am, I quickly purchased some of these units but sadly they still haven't arrived. I'm starting to worry that I've been duped. My questio
Privacy

Subliminal Messages Might Actually Work 172

Posted by kdawson from the buy-popcorn-now dept.
GrumpySimon writes "New research indicates that subliminal messages may actually work. In a paper titled Attentional Load Modulates Responses of Human Primary Visual Cortex to Invisible Stimuli, Bahrani et al. demonstrate that even though stimuli may not be available to consciousness, they are processed by the visual cortex. While I'm sure that marketing agencies all over the world are rubbing their hands in glee at this news, the authors report that there's no evidence that this can make people buy things against their will. So with any luck the use of subliminal messages in advertising will remain an urban legend."

Telecoms Facing $50 Billion Lawsuit for Wiretaps 585

Posted by Zonk from the answer-to-the-people dept.
hdtv writes "According to a MarketWatch article, BellSouth Corp and Verizon Telecommunications are facing lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages for the decision to turn over calling records to the government. The damages amount to $1,000 per person, whose records were turned over to Feds. According to the article, 'consumers could sue the phone service providers under communications privacy legislation that dates back to the 1930s. Relevant laws include the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, and a variety of provisions of the Electronic Communications and Privacy Act, including the Stored Communications Act, passed in 1986.'"

Slashback: OpenSSH, Falwell, OpenDRM 302

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the calling-it-open-makes-it-cool dept.
Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including the Supreme Court declines Falwell's appeal, GP2X now shipping in the US, a new version of Systrace released, Lessig and Stallman look back at Sun's OpenDRM, NASA jumps on the anti-matter propulsion bandwagon, GoDaddy donates $10,000 to OpenSSH, Ellison explains why he would NOT acquire Novell or Red Hat, and pictures of the Ball State wireless 'sculpture' -- Read on for details.

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