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Comment Re:And yet... (Score 1) 2987

by gdavidp (#42290777) Attached to: 27 Reported Killed In Connecticut Elementary School Shooting
Ya, you might manage to kill someone but not 20 people. Guns do not by themselves kill people... The same tired argument repeats itself over and over again. But it sure as hell makes it a whole lot easier to point and shoot a tool designed to KILL with little to no skill and in a very short period of time. Someone will stop you before you manage to kill 27 children with a keyboard.
Sony

Submission + - Judge orders IP logs released to Sony from PS3... (wired.com) 2

Submitted by masterwit
masterwit writes: A story on wired and also at The Registrar and also Wired tells of the following:
'A federal magistrate has awarded Sony a subpoena allowing the company to obtain the IP addresses of everyone who visited the personal website of PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George Hotz for the past 26 months.

Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero of San Francisco also granted Sony's request for subpoenas on Google, Twitter, and another service for information relating to accounts held by the 21-year-old Hotz, who goes by the moniker GeoHot. Thursday's move comes in a lawsuit Sony filed in January alleging that Hotz and more than 100 other other hackers violated US copyright law by showing others how to bypass technical measures built in to the game console so they would run games and software not authorized by Sony.'

This is not only a major change in policy on privacy but disturbing on a multitude of levels. Both of these articles are worth checking out.
Linux

Submission + - 35,000 Linux benchmarks in a week (openbenchmarking.org)

Submitted by G3ckoG33k
G3ckoG33k writes: Openbenchmarking.org has received 37,027 benchmarks (mainly Linux, and some Macs) in the first week since its inauguration. 241,384 completed tests using 468,344 components from 438 hardware vendors. All results submitted by end users. I guess the hardware support for Linux must become even better thanks to this effort. Yes, the benchmarks are easy to install and run, and you can readily compare your own system anonymously with the results already submitted, using any or all of hundreds of free applications in 47 categories.
NASA

Submission + - LED Technology Reduces Chemotherapy's Side Effects (ibtimes.com) 2

Submitted by
gabbo529
gabbo529 writes: "Medical researchers have developed a new technology that will help cancer patients stave off the effects of chemotherapy.

Called High Emissivity Aluminiferous Luminescent Substrate, or HEALS, it's a chip covered with hundreds of sand-grain sized light emitting diodes, each of which emits energy equivalent to 12 times that of the sun. The lights are in a small box that is held near the patient's head, while the light, which is in the far red and infrared part of the spectrum, shines on the skin.

The technology was originally developed by NASA for plant growth experiments on space shuttle flights."
The Military

Submission + - Highly capable military robots in development

Submitted by
Toe, The
Toe, The writes: "Discovery News reports on what it aptly calls Terror Bots. These include DARPA's Atlas and Cheetah, one which walks like a human over rough terrain, and another which is super fast like, well, a cheetah. Then there is the Army's mini-bot Cougar which can detect activity 65-feet away... through walls. But don't worry. The article points they are being developed 'not with directly malicious intentions.' What do you think are the chances these bots obey Asimov's laws?"

Submission + - 5 Exabytes of HDD Storage Shipped in 2010 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Sales of disk storage systems were up 55% last year compared with 2009, with more than 5,000 petabytes of hard disk drive capacity sold, according to a new report from market research firm IDC. Factory revenues for disk storage subsystems totaled $28.7 billion in 2010, an 18% year-over-year improvement. One stand-out market was IP-based network storage, such as iSCSI and NAS, which saw a 21% increase in sales for a total of more than $5 billion in revenue.
Security

Submission + - Oxygen masks removed from airplane toilets (uol.com.br)

Submitted by
funny_smell
funny_smell writes: "The FAA has quietly ordered the removal of oxygen masks and oxygen supply to the lavatories of commercial airliners in the USA. The agency and American government intelligence have identified the threat of the devices being used by terrorists as explosives. The FAA refrained from giving further details."
Apple

Submission + - Conan O'Brien Pokes Fun at iPad 2 (ispyce.com)

Submitted by
autospa
autospa writes: "Conan O'Brien takes on the iPad 2 with an amusing parody that pokes fun at the slick video presentations that peppered Apple's iPad 2 announcement and its reality distortion field. The video is located after the break for your viewing pleasure. Just a note for iOS users, the clip is hosted on Conan's website so it may not be streamed in an iPad-friendly format."
Image

Jordanian Mayor Angry Over "Alien Invasion" Prank 217

Posted by samzenpus from the war-of-the-worlds dept.
krou writes "Jordanian mayor Mohammed Mleihan has taken a dim view of local newspaper Al-Ghad's April Fools prank, which saw a front page story claiming that 'flying saucers flown by 3m (10ft) creatures had landed in the desert town of Jafr.' The paper claimed that communication networks had gone down, and people were fleeing the area. The mayor called the local security authorities, who combed the area, but they were unable to find any evidence of the aliens. Mr Mleihan is now considering suing because of the distress it caused to residents: 'Students didn't go to school, their parents were frightened and I almost evacuated the town's 13,000 residents. People were scared that aliens would attack them.'" I guess they've never heard of Orson Welles in Jordan.
United States

Submission + - The Chemistry of Firework Displays

Submitted by
Ponca City, We love you
Ponca City, We love you writes: "David Ropeik writes at MSNBC that there's a lot more to making a basic firework display than putting a fuel source and an oxidizer together. Pyrotechnic chemists, who are trying to create bedazzle instead of bang, don't want their work to explode but to burn for a bit so it gives a good visual show. To achieve the desired effect, the size of the particles of each ingredient have to be just right, and the ingredients have to be blended together just right. To slow down the burning, chemists use big grains of chemicals, in the range of 250 to 300 microns and they don't blend the ingredients together very well making it harder for the fuel and oxidizer to combine and burn, and producing a longer and brighter effect. Surprisingly few emitters are used in pyrotechnics and there are no commercially useful emitters in blue-green to emerald green in the 490-520 nm region. Energy from the fire in the basic fuel is transferred to the atoms of the colorant chemicals exciting the electrons in those chemicals into a higher energy state. As they cool down, they move back to a lower state of energy emitting light so you actually see the colors in fireworks as they're cooling down. To get the really tricky shapes, like stars or hearts, the colorant pellets are pasted on a piece of paper in the desired pattern. That paper is put in the middle of the shell with explosive charges above it, and below. When those charges go off, they burn up the paper, and send the ignited colorant pellets out in the same pattern they were in on the sheet of paper, spreading wider apart as they fly. Finally remember that in 2003, six deaths were linked to fireworks and hospital emergency departments treated 9,300 fireworks injuries so read these safety tips and enjoy the 4th."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft gets queasy over IE8 vomit advert (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "Microsoft has pulled an advert for Internet Explorer 8 which showed a woman borrowing her husband's laptop and being shocked at what she finds on screen, prompting her to repeatedly projectile vomit. "We created the OMGIGP video as a tongue-in-cheek look at the InPrivate Browsing feature of Internet Explorer 8, using the same irreverent humour that our customers told us they liked about other components of the Internet Explorer 8 marketing campaign," said a Microsoft statement. "While much of the feedback to this particular piece of creative was positive, some of our customers found it offensive, so we have removed it." The ad was one of a new series of off-the-wall adverts for the browser, which are being shown online."
The Internet

Submission + - Emoticons in the Workplace

Submitted by Platonic
Platonic writes: According to the New York Times, the Emoticon has become much more than something the kids do after school. The little guys seem to have found their way into the workforce: being used by stock brokers and even the U.S. Military.
From TFA: "I mean, it's ludicrous," said Ms. Feldman, 25. "I'm not going to feel better about losing hundreds of thousands of dollars because someone puts a frown face to regretfully inform me."
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Author: How cheaters are winning at online games

Submitted by BobB
BobB writes: An interview with security expert Gary McGraw, co-author of the new book "Exploiting Online Games," which explains how cheaters are winning at online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft where millions of players compete in the virtual world to win battles or treasure that is sometimes later sold to avid game players for real money. McGraw says cheaters use specialized "bots" that manipulate online gaming activity to their advantage. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/072707-onlin e-games-dirty-secrets.html

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