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Submission + - Police issue Death Threats to Man with Camera 9

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Cops in St. Louis have taken objection over a local man filming their abuses of power, and have responded with death threats, and stalking. The guy they're harassing installed a pretty neat video system in his car after having received a speeding ticket that he that was unfair. What he ended up catching on tape was far worse than a speeding ticket. Luckily the news has picked up on it, so he is probably out of immediate danger.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Mark your calendar: Pretend to be a Time Traveler (koalawallop.com)

Submitted by Iron Condor
Iron Condor writes: Dresden Codac comes up with this clever idea for a "Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day" (Dec-08) on the Koala Wallop forum.

"Remember, the only real rule is staying in character and try to fit in. Never directly admit you're a time traveler, and make really, really bad attempts at keeping a low profile."
Some of the suggestions include such gems as "Show extreme ignorance in operating regular technology. Pay phones should be a complete mystery (try placing the receiver in odd places). Chuckle knowingly at cell phones." or "Stand in front of a statue (any statue, really), fall to your knees, and yell "NOOOOOOOOO" ".

I figured the /. crowd would be exactly the kind of folks who'd get into that kind of thing (I know that I do).
Space

Submission + - We have broken the speed of light

Submitted by maththaios
maththaios writes: A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light — an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time. According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles per second. However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.
Space

Submission + - faster than the speed of light (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by mistahkurtz
mistahkurtz writes:
A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light — an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time.


what sort of implications could this have? it's hard to tell if they really mean that the particle travelled in a (presumably) straight line like a normal object travelling thru space/time, or if it "teleported" from point a to point b 3ft away. either way, (assuming the story is true) the story is interesting, but should we file this with the stories of scientists "altering" or "slowing" the speed of light?
Software

Submission + - Linux tool identifies software "hotness"

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: "Computer Science researchers at Virginia Tech have set their sights on determining software "hotness". In 2006, Prof. Kirk W. Cameron, director of the SCAPE Laboratory and an Associate Professor at VT, began a project to determine just how much heat software produces. Prof. Cameron and student Hari K. Pyla designed a software tool called Tempest (for Temperature Estimator) that creates a thermal profile of an application and correlates temperatures obtained from thermal sensors in the system to source code."

Read more at: http://www.cs.vt.edu/whatsnews/how_hot_is_your_cod e__2.html
United States

Submission + - Congress trying for another database

Submitted by grag
grag writes: CNET News.com reports that the US Congress, in their quest for immigration reform, seek to force employers to utilize a database to determine a person's eligibility for employment. The Department of Homeland Security would operate the database and would be given access to IRS records for this purpose.

The article also mentions similarities between the no-fly list and difficulties the proposed database could pose to valid people seeking employment.
Censorship

Submission + - ABC Censorship

Submitted by
tres3
tres3 writes: "ABC News is in a running battle right now to censor Dr. Paul and his supporters from their online activities. Their phones are flooded (Call 212-456-2700 and ask to be connected with "dot com". Talk to the gentleman there about it.) and they are scrambling to remove posts that support Dr. Paul as fast as they can. The site in question is changing constantly as people are trying to get their comments reposted. The story is also all over Digg and the Digg Bury brigade 2 3 is in overdrive trying to stop it but the submission keep coming in ( 1 2 3 4 5 6) This stated with ABC leaving Dr. Paul off of their online poll. We have managed to get them to adjust that but he still isn't in their candidate guide so please call ABC's Dot Com desk and explain to them that this is why they are loosing the hearts and minds of their listeners/readers. This is the Internet generation and people want to be heard!"
Power

New Solar Panel Design Traps More Light 334

Posted by CowboyNeal from the thousand-points-of-light dept.
GoSun wrote in with an article about new solar panels that opens, "Sunlight has never really caught fire as a power source, mostly because generating electricity with solar cells is more expensive and less efficient than some conventional sources. But a new solar panel unveiled this month by the Georgia Tech Research Institute hopes to brighten the future of the energy source." The new panels are able to produce sixty times the current of traditional models.
Software

Submission + - New sort, quicker than QuickSort

Submitted by
ThomasCR
ThomasCR writes: "AI goes unexpected directions. Here, in a collaboration of humans and a program, a new sorting algorithm has been developed. Considerably faster than the well known QuickSort, for which it has been long thought, that it is the fastest way to order an array of integers or floating point numbers. Apparently not, according to this site: http://critticall.com/underconstruction.html Is something like that possible at all?"
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Brussels Wants to Tax WiFi Antennas

Submitted by
mernil
mernil writes: "According to brusselsjournal.com "Olivier Maingain, the mayor of Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe, one of the 19 Brussels boroughs, is planning to tax all "antennas for the transmission of data". Each antenna will be taxed a staggering 4,000 euros per year. [...] While the small antenna on your wireless router could theoretically be taxed, the new tax seems to target WiFi-antennas that can be seen from the outside, i.e. that are positioned on the outside of buildings. If the owner of the aerial cannot be identified the owners of the buildings have to pay the new tax.""
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Phillips invent dynamic pants

Submitted by
Matthew Sparkes
Matthew Sparkes writes: "Philips has come up with a way to change the size and shape of clothes by weaving "muscle wires" into the fabric. The wires are made of shape-memory alloys that change length according to the small current passed through them. The idea is that you can try on a pair of trousers and change the length of the wires in the fabric until the trousers have the correct waist size, inside leg and width — then simply try the real trousers in exactly that size. Dynamic pants could also be useful for those Slashdotters with dynamic waist measurements..."
Announcements

Submission + - From Hyperlinks to Hyperwords.

Submitted by
DataSurge
DataSurge writes: "From an academic research project at University College London to a commercial product used by thousands, Hyperwords 2.1 is now available.

Computer pioneer Doug Engelbart, who invented personal computing (including the mouse, word processing and more) says that “this is definitely the way the Web should be expanding.” Ted Nelson, who coined the term Hypertext, feels that “Hyperwords gives a lot more power to the user.”

The simplicity of the concept belies its power; with Hyperwords all the words on the web, not just links, become interactive.

Users can select any word on the Web and choose from many powerful commands including search, references (definitions & Wikipedia etc.), maps, shop, email, tag, blog and more.Version 2.1 introduces translation and conversion directly in the page as well as technical & usability enhancements and full customizability. This is more than the left click menu, more than dynamic links.

Demonstration video is available on YouTube.com

The company site is Hyperwords.net

Hyperwords is an Extension for the Firefox web browser and is available immediately for free."
Graphics

Submission + - strange attractor [butterfly effect] visualized

Submitted by Anomalyst
Anomalyst writes: Browsing the POVray.org site led me there. Fascinating images. The math as way beyond me, the introduction forewarns of describing the Lorenz attractor, space of lattices, modular dynamics and its periodic orbits. Equations are knot funny (pun, RTFA) but there for your edification anyway. Dunno if it's art, but I know what I like. http://www.ams.org/featurecolumn/archive/lorenz.ht ml
I was not successful in getting a Coral Cache, URL is reported as blacklisted, so that's the live site, be gentle.

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