seanyboy - Slashdot User

Submission + - Blogger excised from popular blog. (valleywag.com)

Submitted by seanyboy on Tuesday July 01, 2008 @05:27AM

seanyboy writes: In a move which has libertarians and anti-cencorship types angrily scratching their heads, Boing Boing have, without explanation, excised all references to well known sex-blogger Violet Blue. This from the company that regularly likes to call out others for similar behaviour [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. As of now, there's a complete wall of silence over this issue at Boing Boing. Comments referencing Violet Blue are aggressively deleted and as yet Cory, Xeni or any of the Boing Boing "celebrities" have yet to give an explanation.

Feed Engadget: Japan's face-authorizing cigarette machines no match for Bruce Willis photo (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed on Tuesday July 01, 2008 @04:12AM

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Remember those Japanese vending machines that use face recognition to scan for wrinkles and saggy skin before authenticating cigarette purchases? Surprise, they're so easy to circumvent that even a nicotine-addicted kid can do it. Turns out the cameras will authenticate "a 15-centimeter (6-inch) wide magazine photo of a man who looked to be in his 50s." Smaller clippings work too as demonstrated by a successful cigarette vend using a 3-inch photo of a woman in her 30s -- a 1-inch wide photo failed, however. Still, only 4,000 of Japan's 570,000 cigarette vending machines feature the cams and these are due for a software update in response to the flaw -- the rest use RFID readers to check the smoker's Taspo age-verification card. Nevertheless, we don't think it's much of a stretch to predict that this system, like that of DRM controlled music, is destined to fail.

[Via The Raw Feed]

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Feed Shell House provides cheap, radio-equipped housing for homeless (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed on Sunday May 06, 2007 @07:52AM

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Hey, we can't all live in the pimped out mansions or nicely appointed lodges, but an NYU graduate student is making it her personal mission to do something substantial about it. The living portable project has yielded a cardboard-based Shell House contraption that requires just $35 worth of material, a bit of time, and a hearty dose of generosity. The DIY project allows interested citizens to build collapsible houses for homeless individuals, and moreover, gives them an opportunity to experience ubiquitous computing by way of an integrated radio network. Moreover, you can couple this with a homegrown solar heater, and you've got yourself a date with nature.

[Via Core77]
Read - Instructions on building a Shell House
Read - Shell House homepage

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Submission + - Why use wordprocessor?

Submitted by

iveqy

on Sunday May 06, 2007 @07:05AM

iveqy writes: "Word processors like MS word or OO writer belongs to the most used software programs in office enviroments today. They have evolutionized the paper handling and is very flexible.

But when are they the right tool to use? I can't figure it out, because they are never best on anything.

When writing plain text, many texteditors are much better. Textpad, vim, emacs and textmate are just a few examples on texteditor that are very good in handling text.

When it comes to fancy papers, like posters, school newspapers etc. Other programs like MS publicher and scribus are a much better tool.

When it comes to textlayout, longer texts, theises etc. latex or docbook are to prefer for a good and flexible format.

Despite this the wordprocessors are still very popular. Why? Because they can be used to everything with a good (but not best) result? Why do you use a wordprocessor?"

EMI May Sell Entire Collection as DRM-less MP3s 188

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 09, 2007 @10:23AM from the and-away-we-go dept.

BobbyJo writes "According to the Chicago Sun-Times, EMI has been pitching the possibility of selling its entire music collection to the public in MP3 form ... without Digital Rights Management protections. According to the article, several other major music companies have considered this same route, but none as far as EMI. The reasons, of course, have nothing to do with taking a moral stand; EMI wants to compete with Apple. 'The London-based EMI is believed to have held talks with a wide range of online retailers that compete with Apple's iTunes. Those competing retailers include RealNetworks Inc., eMusic.com, MusicNet Inc. and Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks. People familiar with the matter cautioned that EMI could still abandon the proposed strategy before implementing it. A decision about whether to keep pursuing the idea could come as soon as today.'"

Submission + - Vista has a speech recognition security hole

Submitted by NorbrookC on Friday February 02, 2007 @11:52AM

NorbrookC writes: The BBC is reporting that there is a security hole in Vista's speech recognition feature. Apparently, when the feature is activated, it is possible for a sound file to delete files and folders. Microsoft doesn't seem too worried about it. FTA: Microsoft said the exploit was "technically possible" but there was no need to worry. The firm has pointed out that in order for the flaw to be exploited the speech recognition feature would need to be activated and configured and both microphone and speakers would have to be switched on.

Scientists Offered Cash to Dispute Climate Study 668

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 02, 2007 @11:52AM from the you're-wrong-and-i-think-mr.-lincoln-knows-why dept.

w1z4rd writes "According to an article in the Guardian, scientists and economists have been offered large bribes by a lobbying group funded by ExxonMobil. The offers were extended by the American Enterprise Institute group, which apparently has numerous ties to the Bush administration. Couched in terms of an offer to write 'dissenting papers' against the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, several scientists contacted for the article refused the offers on conflict of interest grounds."

Submission + - Don't blame the Russian mafia for cybercrime spike

Submitted by

BobB

on Friday February 02, 2007 @11:47AM

BobB writes: "Eugene and Natalya Kaspersky, sort of the first couple of computer security (well, they are divorced, but work together), on why China is the real threat and the need for anti-anti-antivirus software to stop the bad guys. A wide-ranging interview with the Kaspersky Lab duo. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/020107-kaspe rsky-cybercrime.html"

Journal SPAM: HiROC Photos of Mars 3

Journal by stoolpigeon on Friday February 02, 2007 @11:39AM

The HiRISE Operations Center (HiROC) at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory is responsible for the majority of the ground data system work for the HiRISE instrument. Observation planning, uplink, downlink, data processing, and instrument monitoring are all performed at HiROC. The HiRISE camera is one of six instruments on board the Mars Reconnaiss

Submission + - Is Your Domain Registrar Free Speech Friendly?

Submitted by

WebHostingGuy

on Friday February 02, 2007 @11:36AM

WebHostingGuy writes: "In an interesting follow up to the recent censorship performed when GoDaddy shut down a site because of a complaint without a court order, CNET interviewed all major domain registrars concerning their policies about shutting down sites. In the survey CNET found that the French registrar Gandi.net and New Orleans-based DirectNIC offered the most extensive guarantees against unnecessary domain name suspension. The rest refused to respond or left much to be desired."

Submission + - Orange, Smelly Snow Falling in Siberia

Submitted by

Khakionion

on Friday February 02, 2007 @11:29AM

Khakionion writes: "According to the BBC, Russia's flying in scientists to determine why western Siberia has been getting smelly, orange snow. From the article: "Chemical tests were under way to determine the cause...residents have been advised not to use the snow for household tasks or let animals graze on it.""

Submission + - The Numbers Game

Submitted by

njkid1

on Friday February 02, 2007 @11:29AM

njkid1 writes: "Why doesn't the games press do a better job reporting the numbers that make up the basis of our industry? Media Coverage investigates. http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/media/?id=15140& ncid=AOLGAM000500000000002"

Submission + - Help with Linux Backup and Archive Solutions

Submitted by

earlshaw03

on Friday February 02, 2007 @11:27AM

earlshaw03 writes: "I work for a small independent phone company and have a few questions regarding one of our Linux boxes that is our customer email server. We are running Debian and are having some issues backing up every users email. We had about 90GB worth of mail on the server, so we deceided to implement a new policy that all email that was not popped would be deleted after 90 days. We scoured sourceforge, freshmeat, and google to find a good archiving program that would allow us to accomplish this. The only one we could find was archivemail, which worked somewhat well, but we keep getting an error that stops the program about half way through, on the same user. It also stalls on other users as well. We have managed to work around these accounts and get the size down to 55GB worth of email. We are currently using Vembu Technologies StoreGrid product to backup this server. The backup usually took anywhere from 3-4 days for a full backup. So finally I am asking the Slashdot Community what do you use to Backup and archive/delete mail?"

Submission + - The Email Problem and Solutions

Submitted by

nirkunwar

on Friday February 02, 2007 @11:19AM

nirkunwar writes: "More than 90% of the email in the internet today are abusive. So, how is today's technology dealing with this problem? This article points to different approaches taken to solve the problem, e.g. emails can be stopped at the source, at the gateways or at the user's desktop. Some experts propose to replace the SMTP with a new email protocol because they say, at it's current state it's broken and there's no point trying to patch it."

Submission + - Choosing the Right Registrar to Secure Your Domain

Submitted by madsheep on Friday February 02, 2007 @11:13AM

madsheep writes: Is your domain safe from deletion? In light of last weeks GoDaddy incident with Fyodor's seclists.org, you might be wondering what registrars will better serve you and protect your freedom of speech on the Internet. CNET sent a survey to twelve of the top registrars to find out information from them centering around what they do to protect domains from unnecessary suspension or deletion. Perhaps you should take this into consideration next time you purchase a domain.

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