rar42 - Slashdot User

DIY Space Photography 106

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 18, 2009 @04:33PM from the exploring-on-a-budget dept.

Four Spanish teenagers sent a camera-operated weather balloon into the stratosphere. The boys built the electronic sensor components from scratch. Gerard Marull Paretas, Sergi Saballs Vila, Marta Gasull Morcillo and Jaume Puigmiquel Casamort attached a £56 camera to a heavy duty £43 latex balloon, and sent their science project 20-miles above the Earth. Team leader Gerard Marull, 18, said, "We were overwhelmed at our results, especially the photographs, to send our handmade craft to the edge of space is incredible."

Submission + - Students space picture with a cheap camera (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by

Richard Rothwell

on Wednesday March 18, 2009 @08:22AM

Richard Rothwell writes: "Using a helium balloon and a cheap digital camera, four school students from IES La Bisbal school in Catalonia captured an image from 20 miles high — well into the stratosphere. The report, on the Daily Telegraph's website, includes one of the images they captured.

Building the electronic sensor components from scratch, Gerard Marull Paretas, Sergi Saballs Vila, Marta Gasull Morcillo and Jaume Puigmiquel Casamort managed to send their heavy duty latex balloon to the edge of space and take readings of its ascent. The total cost of this exercise was in the low hundreds of Euros, eat your heart out NASA!

Created by the four students under the guidance of teacher Jordi Fanals Oriol, the budding scientists, all aged 18-19, followed the progress of their balloon using high tech sensors communicating with Google Earth."

Submission + - Australia's net filter ruled by one bureaucrat (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by mask.of.sanity on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @11:09PM

mask.of.sanity writes: The accountability of the federal government's Internet content filter has been called into question following revelations that the decision to ban Web sites lacks consultation and can be made by a single staffer.

Media outlets everywhere were threatened with an $11,000 fine if they republished the link to the recently banned AbortionTV.com which was first published by a Whirlpool user who was merely quoting the blacklist watchdog's own public relations department. The watchdog yesterday banned Wikileaks for the same offence, and are now being goaded by clever users to blacklist their own Wikipedia site which contained the link for a time. No word on that yet, but the edits have been closed.

It is claimed the watchdog has "absolutely no review process whatsoever; the decision to ban content is final, and there is no judicial oversight.

Further, "the decision is made by a single staffer, even someone part of a graduate process, who assumes the classification board would not like [a Web site]."

Wikileaks Pages Added To Australian Internet Blacklist 437

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @09:41AM from the paging-dr-streisand-dr-streisand dept.

cpudney writes "The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has added several Wikileaks pages to its controversial blacklist. The blacklisted pages contain Denmark's list of banned websites. Simply linking to addresses in ACMA's blacklist attracts an $11,000 per-day fine as the hosts of the popular Australian broadband forum, Whirlpool, discovered last week when they published a forum post that linked to an anti-abortion web-site recently added to ACMA's blacklist. The blacklist is secret, immune to FOI requests and forms the basis of the Australian government's proposed mandatory ISP-level Internet censorship legislation. Wikileaks' response to notification of the blacklisting states: 'The first rule of censorship is that you cannot talk about censorship.'" So Australians aren't allowed to see what it is that the Danes aren't allowed to see?

Comment This has all the signs of paranoia (Score 1) 1

by rar42 on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @09:28AM (#27224151) Attached to: Wikileaks pages banned in Australia

For a supposed free state to take this action is appalling - mind you in the UK the courts (allegedly) hand out gagging orders to the press on a weekly basis which include a ban on mentioning the fact that there is a gagging order in place...

Submission + - Wikileaks pages banned in Australia (wikileaks.org) 1

Submitted by

cpudney

on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @12:10AM

cpudney writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has added several Wikileaks pages to its controversial blacklist. The blacklisted pages contain Denmark's list of banned websites. Simply linking to addresses in ACMA's blacklist attracts an $11,000 per-day fine as the hosts of the popular Australian broadband forum, Whirlpool, discovered last week when they published a forum post that linked to an anti-abortion web-site recently added to ACMA's blacklist. The blacklist is secret, immune to FOI requests and forms the basis of the Australian government's proposed mandatory ISP-level Internet censorship legislation. Wikileaks' response to notification of the blacklisting states: "The first rule of censorship is that you cannot talk about censorship.""

Comment Re:Good for them (Score 2, Interesting) 54

by rar42 on Sunday March 08, 2009 @05:23PM (#27114655) Attached to: UK Government To Back Off Plans To Share Private Data

Curiously enough, in the UK the Conservative politicians were very strongly against this proposal - it may have been expedience or principle, who can tell.

What the rank and file members thought is more difficult to tell.

Submission + - Microsoft Shoots Own Foot in Iceland (yaxic.org) 1

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Sunday March 08, 2009 @03:43PM

David Gerard writes: "The Microsoft Certified Partner model is: an MCP buys contracts from Microsoft and sells them to businesses as a three-year timed contract, payable in annual instalments. Iceland's economy has collapsed, so 1500 businesses have gone bankrupt so aren't paying the fees any more. But Microsoft has told the MCPs: "Our deal was with you, not them. Pay up." The MCPs that don't go bankrupt in turn are moving headlong to Free Software. Taking most of the country with them. (Warning: link contains salty language and vivid imagery.)"

Submission + - Verizon Intends to Share Your Personal Information (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by

hyades1

on Sunday March 08, 2009 @02:31PM

hyades1 writes: "Gizmodo reports that Verizon is sending out notification letters infested with virtually-indecipherable legalese. In their sneaky, underhanded way, they're informing you that you have 45 days to opt out of their plan to share your personal data with "affiliates, agents and parent companies". That data can include, but isn't limited to, "services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), billing info, technical info and location info."

If you view your statement on-line, you won't even get the letter. You'll have to access your account and view your messages. However, Read Write Web says the link provided there, called the "Customer Proprietary Network Information Notice", was listed as "not available."

No doubt Verizon would like to reassure you that everyone they're going to hand your personal data over to will have your best interests at heart."

Submission + - Did Slashdot cause a UK Government U-turn? (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

Richard Rothwell

on Sunday March 08, 2009 @09:43AM

Richard Rothwell writes: "Jack Straw has announced today a back down on plans to exempt the UK Government from the Data Protection Act. The announcement was made to the Daily Telegraph initially — saying that it will completely remove the offending clause from the Coroners and Justice Bill. The effect of this clause was reported earlier on Slashdot.

In the report, Jack Straw's minions seem to underplay the impact of the Slashdot article and mass Facebook/NO2ID campaign. Is this because they are worried that this sort of campaign could be launched at any time to keep them honest?"

Comment Did Slashdot cause the UK Government U-turn? (Score 1) 262

by rar42 on Sunday March 08, 2009 @09:11AM (#27111789) Attached to: UK Government Wants To Bypass Data Protection Act

The UK Government has announced today - to the Daily Telegraph initially - that it will completely remove the offending clause from the Coroners and Justice Bill.

In the report, Jack Straw's minions seem to underplay the impact of the Slashdot article and mass Facebook/NO2ID campaign. Is this because they are worried that this sort of campaign could be launched at any time to keep them honest?

Submission + - UK Government to bypass the Data Protection Act (facebook.com) 1

Submitted by

rar42

on Monday March 02, 2009 @12:50PM

rar42 writes: "Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill — currently being debated by the UK Parliament — would allow any Minister by order to take any information gathered for one purpose from anywhere, and use it for any other purpose.

Personal information arbitrarily used without consent or even knowledge. The very reverse of 'Data Protection'.

An 'Information Sharing Order', as defined in Clause 152, would permit personal information to be trafficked and abused, not only all across government and the public sector — it would also reach into the private sector. And it would even allow transfer of information across international borders.

NO2ID has launched a Facebook group to challenge this threat to data protection."

Comment Complete uncertainty. (Score 1) 873

by rar42 on Saturday December 20, 2008 @07:15AM (#26182909) Attached to: The US economy is heading toward ...

World wide we have leaders and their pet economists planning solutions to problems they didn't expect. They can 't predict what will happen next week, let alone in a year. All we can say is that their is a slim chance they will do the right thing.

Submission + - Aldermaston and the Edge of Darkness (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

rar42

on Saturday December 20, 2008 @07:05AM

rar42 writes: "Is the British government working to promote the planned release of the film of the Edge of Darkness? As discussed in the Cockspiracy blog, and more solidly reported on the BBC, "The move means Britain no longer has any stake in the production of its Trident nuclear warheads." Truth seems to be stranger than the fiction first shown in 1985."

Submission + - BBC iPlayer open for Linux (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

rar42

on Thursday December 13, 2007 @01:50PM

rar42 writes: "Having burnt through hundreds of millions of pounds to develop an iPlayer application that allows Windows users to download programmes to their PCs with all the DRM fun, the BBC seems to have got the cross-platform flash streaming version up and running in a few weeks and without cries of agony from the production companies.

The BBC still needs to provide equality across platforms by allowing non-Windows users to download programmes to our computers. Apparently, to their credit, the BBC Trust have made no bones about this requirement.

So why not take a stroll over to the BBC Website , sit back and watch a BBC programme or two.

Much credit should go the The Open Source Consortium and The Open Rights Group for all their work on this."

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