Comment Re:KryoFlux - High Definition Flux Sampler for USB (Score 1) 375
KryoFlux looks very interesting, mod up please.
Comment Lesson not learned (Score 1) 1
From 1985 to 1988, the British government attempted to stop people from reading the autobiography Spycatcher, by Peter Wright, a senior intelligence officer with the MI5, the Security Service. The result was pretty much predictable: it was the Streisand effect many years before it became known as the Streisand effect. Which US newspaper will be the first to print a story like the one the Daily Mirror ran at the time, in response to the censorship?
Find the book and read it, it's interesting with plenty of geek material. More than 2 million copies have been sold.
Submission + - US firewall coming, 15 year jail terms for leaking (rumormiller.com) 1
vinsci writes: [...] Congress began debating a bill which would impose a mandatory 15 year federal jail term for leaking internal banking documents. At press time the bill was expected to pass after House Democrats agreed to a clause calling for construction of a firewall that would prevent Americans from accidently reading leaked banking documents published by websites hosted in other countries. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to criticism that the bill would violate the principles of open communication on which the internet was founded by saying "When this bill passes there will be serious jail time for reading leaked documents; if the firewall saves just one child from having to spend time in prison then it's worth it."
Comment WikiLeaks hosts file for mirrors (Score 0, Offtopic) 383
Slightly off-topic: get your hosts file with IP-addresses for each of the WikiLeaks mirrors here:
WikiLeaks hosts file for mirrors
This is a complete list of IP addresses and host names for all WikiLeaks mirrors, in standard hosts file format. You can add the contents of the file to the hosts file already on your computer. The advantage of this is that you are no longer dependant on external DNS service providers in order to access WikiLeaks, as the file provides the necessary domain name to IP address mapping needed to access the sites.
Comment Re:Security? (Score 1) 154
Reverse engineer a simple CPU? That's so elementary.
Indeed it is. And why not emulate it at the bare metal level in JavaScript, while you're at it?
Submission + - 1200 new species found in Amazon rainforest
vinsci writes: The vital importance of the Amazon rainforest is
well known. As the largest tract of tropical
rainforest in the world, the region has unparalleled
biodiversity. It harbours one in 10 known species in
the world and one in five of all birds. The Amazon
rainforest supports the highest diversity of plant
species on Earth: depending where you are, you
can find from 150 to 900 individual trees per
hectare. The Amazon is also home to a diverse
array of indigenous communities, and its rich
natural resources base provides a source of
livelihoods for many both within and outside the
region.
However, this treasure trove of our planet has not escaped the gigantic appetite of unsustainable development. At least 17% of the Amazon forest has been destroyed, and much more is severely threatened as the destruction continues. In the words of the respected Amazon ecologist Dan Nepstad, “The Amazon is a canary in a coalmine for the Earth.”
The loss of tropical rainforest has a profound and devastating impact on the world because rainforests are so biologically diverse. The 1,220 new species in this report illustrate the richness of biodiversity found in this the world’s largest rainforest and river basin, and also how much there is still to learn about this incredible biome.
The new species were found over the last 10 years, or about one new species every three days.
However, this treasure trove of our planet has not escaped the gigantic appetite of unsustainable development. At least 17% of the Amazon forest has been destroyed, and much more is severely threatened as the destruction continues. In the words of the respected Amazon ecologist Dan Nepstad, “The Amazon is a canary in a coalmine for the Earth.”
The loss of tropical rainforest has a profound and devastating impact on the world because rainforests are so biologically diverse. The 1,220 new species in this report illustrate the richness of biodiversity found in this the world’s largest rainforest and river basin, and also how much there is still to learn about this incredible biome.
The new species were found over the last 10 years, or about one new species every three days.
Submission + - Amazon Quietly Censoring Bookcovers 1
Nom du Keyboard writes: It seems that Amazon has embarked on a new policy of quiet bookcover censorship. It's possible that they were spooked by this hit piece in Slate, or there may be some other reason, but bookcovers featuring even tasteful nudity have been removed from the "All Departments" general search. Of course they never made this a public announcement; books just started disappearing from their general search without notice. Authors and publishers are being left with two choices: 1) Redo the cover to remove the nudity. 2) Have your title relegated to only Erotica searches for now. Their alleged excuse is that some minor might accidentally stumble upon an offending cover, but this seems to overlook the obvious fact that even with the cover changed Amazon is still selling the same unaltered content to that, or any other, purchaser. And is this only the first step for them? So far this hasn't apparently spread to other eTailers such as Fictionwise, making it possible to compare erotic titles on the two sites and see the Amazon required censorship in the changed cover art. So how do you feel about Amazon setting these rules for everyone?
Comment Re:Emacs? WTF? (Score 1) 139
Well, you're in luck. The N900 comes with vi pre-installed. Personally, I prefer Emacs of course. After all, the N900 is much more powerful than the desktop computers that existed in the first 10-15 years of Emacs.
Comment perfect bomb triggers (Score 5, Interesting) 235
The new card allows German authorities to identify people with speed and accuracy, the government said.
Unfortunately, they will also make perfect bomb triggers, when the target walks by.
Comment Re:Finally, something to do with this phone (Score 3, Interesting) 139
Probably Mappero. or if you want to edit OpenStreetMap, OSM2GO. These are golden. The Nokia Maps application has one big plus, though: you can store complete maps for the whole world on the N900 device (free downloads from Nokia, in case you managed to miss the commercials) so you don't need Internet access while finding your way. I still prefer Mappero though and simply zoom in to the required detail level and go over the route I intend to take in advance, so that Mappero downloads and caches the maps and I can do without Internet access again. Only if I get truly lost, i.e. when I am outside the cached maps in Mappero, do I switch over to the Nokia Maps application. Now if we could have the wonderful Mappero combined with the pre-downloaded Nokia Maps map database, it would be perfect.
Comment Interesting Q&A session with WikiLeaks founder (Score 4, Interesting) 438
An interesting question & answer chat with Julian Assange, who founded WikiLeaks was published (in English) by Dagens Nyheter, the biggest morning newspaper in Sweden, today.
It gives some insight into his thinking as well as the seriousness of their task — two of their contributors have already been assassinated.
Churchill Accused of Sealing UFO Files, Fearing Public Panic
615
Newly released secret files show that Winston Churchill ordered a cover-up of an alleged encounter between a UFO and a RAF bomber because he feared public panic. From the article: "Mr Churchill is reported to have made a declaration to the effect of the following: 'This event should be immediately classified since it would create mass panic among the general population and destroy one's belief in the Church.'"
KDE SC 4.7 May Use OpenGL 3 For Compositing 187
An anonymous reader writes "KDE SC 4.5 is about to be released and KDE SC 4.6 is being discussed. However, Martin Graesslin has revealed some details about what they are planning for KDE 4.7. According to Martin's blog post, they are looking at OpenGL 3.0 to provide the compositing effects in KDE SC 4.7. OpenGL 3.0 provides support for frame buffer objects, hardware instancing, vertex array objects, and sRGB framebuffers."
Nuclear Energy Now More Expensive Than Solar 635
js_sebastian writes "According to an article on the New York Times, a historical cross-over has occurred because of the declining costs of solar vs. the increasing costs of nuclear energy: solar, hardly the cheapest of renewable technologies, is now cheaper than nuclear, at around 16 cents per kilowatt hour. Furthermore, the NY Times reports that financial markets will not finance the construction of nuclear power plants unless the risk of default (which is historically as high as 50 percent for the nuclear industry) is externalized to someone else through federal loan guarantees or ratepayer funding. The bottom line seems to be that nuclear is simply not competitive, and the push from the US government to subsidize it seems to be forcing the wrong choice on the market."
Comment Re:Actually, here's how Commodore died (Score 1) 2
Also see the Slashdot discussion The Rise and Fall of Commodore, prompted by the book review of On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of Commodore (557 pages).
