A_linux_covert - Slashdot User

Lizard Previously Unknown To Science Found On Vietnam Menu 133

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday November 11, 2010 @04:08PM from the try-the-bigfoot-burger dept.

eldavojohn writes "A lizard long served on the menu in the Mekong Delta has recently caught the attention of scientists when it was noted that all animals in the species appeared identical as well as female. The species appears to be a hybrid of two other species (like a mule or liger). But the curious thing is that this hybrid isn't sterile — it reproduces asexually. The species, known for some time in Vietnam, has now officially been named Leiolepis ngovantrii."

Amazon Reviewers Take on the Classics 272

Posted by samzenpus on Monday April 05, 2010 @12:47PM from the eye-of-the-beholder dept.

Not everyone is a fan of great literature. In particular, reviewers on Amazon can be quite critical of some of the best loved classics. Jeanette DeMain takes a look at some of the most hated famous books according to some short tempered reviewers. One of my favorites is the review of Charlotte's Web which reads in part, "Absolutely pointless book to read. I felt no feelings towards any of the characters. I really didn't care that Wilbur won first prize. And how in the world does a pig and a spider become friends? It's beyond me. The back of a cereal box has more excitement than this book. I was forced to read it at least five times and have found it grueling. Even as a child I found the plot very far-fetched. It is because of this horrid book that I eat sausage every morning and tell my dad to kill every spider I see ..."

Killer Convicted, Using Dog DNA Database 97

Posted by timothy on Thursday March 18, 2010 @03:04PM from the what-about-concealed-dog-licenses? dept.

lee1 writes "It turns out that the UK has a DNA database — for dogs. And this database was recently used to apprehend a South London gang member who used his dog to catch a 16-year-old rival and hold him while he stabbed him to death. The dog was also accidentally stabbed, and left blood at the scene. The creation of human DNA databases has led to widespread debates on privacy; but what about the collation of DNA from dogs or other animals?"

Minnesota Introduces World's First Carbon Tariff 303

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @05:29PM from the hey-cut-that-crap-out dept.

hollywoodb writes "The first carbon tax to reduce the greenhouse gases from imports comes not between two nations, but between two states. Minnesota has passed a measure to stop carbon at its border with North Dakota. To encourage the switch to clean, renewable energy, Minnesota plans to add a carbon fee of between $4 and $34 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions to the cost of coal-fired electricity, to begin in 2012 ... Minnesota has been generally pushing for cleaner power within its borders, but the utility companies that operate in MN have, over the past decades, sited a lot of coal power plants on the relatively cheap and open land of North Dakota, which is preparing a legal battle against Minnesota over the tariff."

Living In Tokyo's Capsule Hotels 269

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @05:34PM from the living-in-the-hive dept.

afabbro writes "Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 once offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home. Now with Japan enduring its worst recession since World War II, it is becoming an affordable option for people with nowhere else to go. The Hotel 510’s capsules are only 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide. Guests must keep possessions, like shirts and shaving cream, in lockers outside of the capsules. Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas says, 'It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep. You get used to it.'”

Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Released 272

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 08, 2009 @06:48PM from the hot-bits dept.

supersloshy writes Today Mozilla released Thunderbird 3. Many new features are available, including Tabs and enhanced search features, a message archive for emails you don't want to delete but still want to keep, Firefox 3's improved Add-ons Manager, Personas support, and many other improvements. Download here."

Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight 140

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 25, 2009 @01:32PM from the a-jetwing-and-a-prayer dept.

Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."

US Air Force Buying Another 2,200 PS3s 144

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday November 25, 2009 @05:02AM from the quick-who-knows-a-good-ps3-flight-sim dept.

bleedingpegasus sends word that the US Air Force will be grabbing up 2,200 new PlayStation 3 consoles for research into supercomputing. They already have a cluster made from 336 of the old-style (non-Slim) consoles, which they've used for a variety of purposes, including "processing multiple radar images into higher resolution composite images (known as synthetic aperture radar image formation), high-def video processing, and 'neuromorphic computing.'" According to the Justification Review Document (DOC), "Once the hardware configuration is implemented, software code will be developed in-house for cluster implementation utilizing a Linux-based operating software."

Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday November 24, 2009 @07:07PM from the snack-is-going-to-be-on-the-floor-today dept.

Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."

10 Worst Evolutionary Designs 232

Posted by samzenpus on Monday August 10, 2009 @06:35PM from the everyone-makes-mistakes dept.

JamJam writes "Besides my beer gut, which I'm sure has some purpose, Wired is running a story on the 10 Worst Evolutionary Designs. Ranging from baby giraffes being dropped 5-foot during birth to Goliath bird-eating spiders that practically explode when they fall from trees."

Comment Re:You're stupid! (Score 3, Insightful) 301

by A_linux_covert on Thursday July 30, 2009 @06:54PM (#28889813) Attached to: Arizona Considers Selling Capitol Buildings

Then riddle me this, from the New Deal until Reagan and the tax cutters at all costs, we were the envy of most of the world. I know you are going to hit back with the stagflation of the '70's, but that was more a product of the oil shock and paying for Vietnam. Until Reagan screwed up CA's higher ed, college was free and most of the country was headed down the same road. I live in CA, what we are experiencing now is a direct result of prop 13. If it were repealed tomorrow, a year from now we would be ok, not great but ok. The other half of the equation is the insane trade policies we(the upper class) have forced upon most of the world that is eating we (the middle and lower classes) alive. A protectionist trade policy was put into place by Hamilton and it worked for over 200 years. A progressive tax system forces a more egalitarian society to arise. It also tends to encourage reinvestment in the company, rather than exorbitant CEO salaries. Why pay someone $50 million when 49 of it is going to be taxed at %90, better to put it back into the company. Everything the Right wing GOP has done to this country has been nothing but deleterious to it. I arrive at this conclusion by simply looking at history. I remember when this country was full of hope and a chance to have a better life than your forebears. Now I fear for my grandchildren, at best they will be wage slaves to some faceless corporation.

Comment Re:You're stupid! (Score 0, Flamebait) 301

by A_linux_covert on Thursday July 30, 2009 @05:57PM (#28889063) Attached to: Arizona Considers Selling Capitol Buildings

Dude, it has been limited, the effects have just been hidden until now by borrowing. This is Reagan's reward to all of the Right thinking knuckleheads heads. Welcome to a the third world. Taxes are the price of civilization.

Submission + - Internet censorship in the US "Red States"

Submitted by

A_linux_covert

on Wednesday October 03, 2007 @05:37PM

A_linux_covert writes: "I am a consultant that travels frequently. This week I am in scenic Bismarck North Dakota and have found that selective packet shaping is occurring whenever I attempt to access progressive/liberal websites. This is a first for me, but it is disconcerting. The hotel that I am staying in utilizes Basin Telecommunications, Inc for connectivity. What I have found is that if I attempt to hit sites such as crooksandliars.com,thinkprogress.org,huffingtonpost.com and rawstory.com the sites load, but any multimedia clips or youtube video links just don't work. Throughput is 1-2k. Yet if I connect up to the corporate vpn without a split tunnel, these sites are usable and have decent throughput. If I hit foxnews.com, redstate.org, powerline.com, etc. the throughput is just fine and all resources have enough bandwidth be usable. The gist is that if you are interested in what the conservatives have to say, you can listen to their point of view with ease. If you are interested in any other point of view and don't have a way to tunnel around the isp's filters, you are out of luck. This is effectively censoring what the users of the internet in North Dakota can see or get to. Has anyone else ran into this crap or is it an isolated edge case?"

Submission + - Don't Google 'How To Commit Murder' Before Killing

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @08:50PM

An anonymous reader writes: Techdirt has the story of a woman whose Google searches were used against her in a murder trial recently. Her husband was killed and it didn't look good that days before the murder she was found to have searched Google for the phrase "How To Commit Murder".

Submission + - Two new FBI Whistleblowers Confirm MAJOR news

Submitted by

Chris West

on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @08:36PM

Chris West writes: "National Security Whistleblowers Coalition www.nswbc.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- March 5, 2007 Contact: Sibel Edmonds, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, sedmonds@nswbc.org or William Weaver, wweaver@nswbc.org Two FBI Whistleblowers Confirm Illegal Wiretapping of Government Officials and Misuse of FISA State Secrets Privilege Was Used to Cover Up Corruption and Silence Whistleblowers The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) has obtained a copy of an official complaint filed by a veteran FBI Special Agent, Gilbert Graham, with the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ-OIG). SA Graham's protected disclosures report the violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in conducting electronic surveillance of high-profile U.S. public officials. Before his retirement in 2002, SA Gilbert Graham worked for the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO) Squad NS-24. One of the main areas of Mr. Graham's counterintelligence investigations involved espionage activities by Turkish officials and agents in the United States. On April 2, 2002, Graham filed with the DOJ-OIG a classified protected disclosure, which provided a detailed account of FISA violations involving misuse of FISA warrants to engage in domestic surveillance. In his unclassified report SA Graham states: "It is the complainant's reasonable belief that the request for ELSUR [electronic surveillance] coverage was a subterfuge to collect evidentiary information concerning public corruption matters." Graham blew the whistle on this illegal behavior, but the actions were covered up by the Department of Justice and the Attorney General's office. Click here to read the unclassified version of SA Graham's Official Report. The report filed by SA Graham bolsters another FBI whistleblower's case that became public several months after Graham's official filing with the Justice Department in 2002. Sibel Edmonds, former FBI Language Specialist, also worked for the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO), and her assignments included the translations of Turkish Counterintelligence documents and audiotapes, some of which were part of espionage investigations led by SA Graham. After she filed her complaint with the DOJ-OIG and Congress, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Court proceedings in Edmonds' case were blocked by the assertion of the State Secrets Privilege by then Attorney General John Ashcroft, and the Congress gagged and prevented from investigating her case through retroactive re-classification of documents by DOJ. To read the timeline on Edmonds' case Click here. Edmonds' complaint included allegations of illegal activities by Turkish organizations and their agents in the United States, and the involvement of certain elected and appointed U.S. officials in the Department of State, Pentagon, and the U.S. Congress in these activities. In its September 2005 issue, Vanity Fair ran a comprehensive piece on Edmonds' case by reporter David Rose, in which several former and current congressional and Justice Department officials identified former House Speaker Dennis Hastert as being involved in illegal activities with the Turkish organizations and personnel targeted in FBI investigations. In addition, Rose reported: "...much of what Edmonds reportedly heard seemed to concern not state espionage but criminal activity. There was talk, she told investigators, of laundering the profits of large-scale drug deals and of selling classified military technologies to the highest bidder." In January 2005, DOJ-OIG released an unclassified summary of its investigation into Edmonds' termination. The report concluded that Edmonds was fired for reporting serious security breaches and misconduct in the agency's translation program, and that many of her allegations were supported by convincing evidence. Another Former Veteran FBI Counterintelligence and Espionage Specialist at FBI Headquarters in Washington DC also filed similar reports with DOJ-OIG and several congressional offices regarding violations of FISA implementation and the covering up of several espionage cases involving FBI Language Specialists and public corruption cases by the Bureau. The cases reported by this whistleblower corroborate those reported by SA Graham and Sibel Edmonds. In an interview with NSWBC investigators the former FBI Specialist, who wished to remain anonymous, stated: "...you are looking at covering up massive public corruption and espionage cases; to top that off you have major violations of FISA by the FBI Washington Field Office and HQ targeting these cases. Everyone involved has motive to cover up these reports and prevent investigation and public disclosure. No wonder they invoked the state secrets privilege in Edmonds' case." William Weaver, NSWBC Senior Advisor noted that,"These abuses of power are precisely why we must pay attention to whistleblowers. Preservation of the balance of powers between the branches of government increasingly relies on information provided by whistleblowers, especially in the face of aggressive and expanding executive power. Through illegal surveillance members of Congress and other officials may be controlled by the executive branch, thereby dissolving the matrix of our democracy. The abuse of two powers of secrecy, FISA and the state secrets privilege, are working hand in hand to subvert the Constitution. In an abominably perverse arrangement, the abuse of FISA is being covered up by abuse of the state secrets privilege. Only whistleblowers and the congressional and judicial oversight their revelations spawn can bring our system back into balance." Several civil liberties and whistleblowers organizations have joined Edmonds and NSWBC in urging congress to hold public hearing on Edmonds' case, including the supporting cases of SA Graham and other FBI witnesses, and the erroneous use of state secrets privilege by the executive branch to cover up its own illegal conduct. The petition endorsed by these groups is expected to be released to public in the next few days. About National Security Whistleblowers Coalition National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), founded in August 2004, is an independent and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward to address our nation's security weaknesses; to inform authorities of security vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear power plants and weapon facilities, in airports, and at our nation's borders and ports; to uncover government waste, fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal conduct. The NSWBC is dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers through a variety of methods, including advocacy of governmental and legal reform, educating the public concerning whistleblowing activity, provision of comfort and fellowship to national security whistleblowers suffering retaliation and other harms, and working with other public interest organizations to affect goals defined in the NSWBC mission statement. For more on NSWBC visit www.nswbc.org © Copyright 2007, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. # # # #"

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