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Education

Submission + - A Visit from MPAA Senior VP Rich Taylor

Submitted by tedswiss
tedswiss writes: Fate has dropped a unique opportunity upon my lap: I teach at a moderately small independent school who has as one of its alums Richard Taylor. Mr. Taylor is both speaking at our start-of-year festivities and being honored with this year's "Distinguished Alum Award." Having followed and been disgusted by the MPAA's corporate practices regarding DRM and government lobbying in the past (Anyone remember DeCSS?), I would love to make his visit help to truly educate our student body, not just indoctrinate them. The school administration is sympathetic to my plight, but I want to present them with more than just my complaints. To the /. community: How would you best make use of this opportunity if you found yourself in my shoes?
The Internet

Submission + - Rural broadband crisis hurts residents & compa (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
Ian Lamont
Ian Lamont writes: "Thanks to profit-oriented telco industry in the U.S., rural residents don't have as much access to broadband services as those who live in urban or suburban areas. According to the federal government, just 17% of rural U.S. households subscribe to broadband service. But the problem is more than a conflict between Wall Street and small-town residents wanting to surf the 'Net or play Warcraft — the lack of broadband access prevents many businesses from growing and diversifying rural economies, as it's expensive or impossible to get broadband:

Soon after moving to Gilsum, N.H. (population 811), [Kim] Rossey learned that he couldn't get broadband to support his Web programming business, TooCoolWebs. DSL wasn't available, and the local cable service provider wasn't interested in extending the cabling for its broadband service the three-tenths of a mile required to reach Rossey's house — even if he paid the full $7,000 cost. Rossey ended up signing a two-year, $450-per-month contract for a T1 line that delivers 1.44Mbit/sec. of bandwidth. He pays 10 times more than the cable provider would have charged and receives one quarter of the bandwidth.
The author also notes that larger businesses are being crimped, from a national call center to a national retailer which claims 17% of its store locations can't get broadband."
Mozilla

Submission + - Adblock Hindering Firefox? (whyfirefoxisblocked.com) 1

Submitted by
Firegen
Firegen writes: "Seems that traversing the web using Firefox and Adblock plus is running into the proverbial stonewall. This being broght to everyones attention over at http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/

  "The Mozilla Foundation and its Commercial arm, the Mozilla Corporation, has allowed and endorsed Ad Block Plus, a plug-in that blocks advertisement on web sites and also prevents site owners from blocking people using it. Software that blocks all advertisement is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers. Numerous web sites exist in order to provide quality content in exchange for displaying ads. Accessing the content while blocking the ads, therefore would be no less than stealing. Millions of hard working people are being robbed of their time and effort by this type of software. Many site owners therefore install scripts that prevent people using ad blocking software from accessing their site. That is their right as the site owner to insist that the use of their resources accompanies the presence of the ads."

So when did Ad's become intellectual of the site owner."
Media

Submission + - Journalist attempts to hack, gets caught (valleywag.com)

Submitted by
wawannem
wawannem writes: "I know that fark is not likely considered the serious news institution that slashdot is... In fact, I've heard of it referred to as slashdot's immature, mentally handicapped, younger stepbrother. Whatever it is, it appears that it drew some attention from a Fox news affiliate. Enough attention that it seems a reporter may have tried to hack into their servers.
FTA — Curtis believes that Phillips, or someone working with Phillips, sent him and several other Fark employees deceptive emails in an attempt to get them to download a trojan, a form of computer virus. The Trojan was designed to capture their passwords and give the author access to Fark's servers. In one case, it succeeded, giving a hacker passwords to a file server and one Fark employee's email account; he tried, but failed, to break into Fark's Web servers and email.
The article goes into some other speculation about the reporter's intentions, but I would imagine that the title of journalist should not exempt him from punishment in this case."
Biotech

Submission + - Antiperspirants Do More Than Block Sweat (sciam.com)

Submitted by
Charles Betz
Charles Betz writes: "For some, the thought of abandoning antiperspirants gives them the cold sweats. For others, its the thought of using them. Underarm antiperspirants guard against odor and wetness, but could the aluminum-based compounds that reduce sweat actually cause Alzheimers disease and breast cancer? The latest edition of the Scientific American adresses the smelly issue."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Mac Leopard Server preview (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
johannacw
johannacw writes: "This operating system could open a whole new market for Apple — as a small-business and home-office server that intuitively supports both Mac and Windows clients. But large companies have lots to like, too; our writer believes Leopard Server's directory services pieces could be "revolutionary.""
Input Devices

Submission + - Tivo your day

Submitted by ZeroMaker
ZeroMaker writes: Apparently Apple filed for a patent for "Presentation of audible media in accommodation with external sound". With this system you would be able to hear external sounds while wearing your iPod earbuds but it also offers this tidbit. "...stored external sound can be presented with a full range of media playback features (e.g., forward, backward, pause, replay)". All the parts already exist someone just needs to make it easy to tivo (verb) your day. humm...
Software

Submission + - DUI Defendant Wins Right to Source Code

Submitted by freshman_a
freshman_a writes: The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in favor of a man, charged with a DUI, who claimed he needed the source code to the Intoxilyzer 5000EN to fight charges in court. From an article at the Pioneer Press:

"That's the gist of the decision, that it's discoverable," said Underdahl's attorney, Jeffrey Sheridan, of Eagan. "The problem is, the manufacturer of the thing thinks they can hold it back and not tell anybody how it works. For all we know, it's a random number generator."
Censorship

Submission + - AT&T Removes anti-Bush Lyrics From Webcast (rollingstone.com)

Submitted by
Walter Wart
Walter Wart writes: "AT&T removed the lyrics ""George Bush, leave this world alone." and "George Bush find yourself another home." from Pearl Jam's Lollapalooza broadcast. AT&T claims that its content monitor had done so "by mistake". This has serious implications for political expression in an increasingly corporatized Internet. Pearl Jam said that it highlights the need for Net neutrality."
Microsoft

Submission + - Mac users' Internet experience to remain seamless 2

Submitted by thefickler
thefickler writes: Mac users will continue to see the Internet as it was intended, thanks to the renewal of a font licensing agreement between Microsoft and Apple. At TypeCon2007 Microsoft and Apple announced they have renewed their font licensing agreement, giving Apple users ongoing use of the latest versions of Microsoft Windows core fonts.

Back in 1996 Microsoft started the "Core fonts for the Web" initiative. The idea of this initiative was to create a a standard pack of fonts that would be present on all or most computers, allowing web pages to be displayed consistently on different computers. While the project was terminated in 2002, some of the fonts defined as core fonts for the web have gone on to become known as "web safe fonts", and are therefore widely used by Internet developers.
Biotech

Submission + - New antibiotics for pathogenic attacks of bacteria (heraldbiz.com)

Submitted by
allengineering
allengineering writes: "A team of research directed by the pr. KIM Kyung-Gyu of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Sungkyunkwan discovered the structure of the protein Rse B playing an essential part in the transmission of the signals of stresses resulting from the pathogenic attacks of bacteria. The article is been published in the edition of May of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the the USA (PNAS). This projection should make it possible to develop new antibiotics."
The Courts

US Attorney General Questions Habeas Corpus 1151

Posted by kdawson from the exact-words dept.
spiedrazer writes "In yet another attempt to create legitimacy for the Bush Administration's many questionable legal practices, US attorney General Alberto Gonzales actually had the audacity to argue before a Congressional committee that the US Constitution doesn't explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights on US citizens. In his view it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the rights are granted. The Attorney General was being questioned by Sen. Arlen Specter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18. THe MSM are not covering this story but Colbert is (click on the fourth video down, 'Exact Words')." From the Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel commentary: "While Gonzales's statement has a measure of quibbling precision to it, his logic is troubling because it would suggest that many other fundamental rights that Americans hold dear (such as free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to assemble peacefully) also don't exist because the Constitution often spells out those rights in the negative. It boggles the mind the lengths this administration will go to to systematically erode the rights and privileges we have all counted on and held up as the granite pillars of our society since our nation was founded."
Nintendo

Submission + - Wiitar Hero

Submitted by
Tiger
Tiger writes: "I've YouTubed some videos to demonstrate a script I wrote for GlovePIE, which lets you use a Wii Remote and Nunchuk to play Frets On Fire (a PC Guitar Hero clone). I've got a link to download the GlovePIE script at my site, RhythmGamer, as well as links to everything else needed to become a "Wiitar Hero."

Here are the videos:
"You Really Got Me"
"Stellar"
"Fat Lip"
"Bang Bang"
"Take Me Out"
"Ace of Spades""
Education

Submission + - Better than a TI?

Submitted by
aaronbeekay
aaronbeekay writes: "Hey guys, I'm a sophomore in high school taking an honors chem course. I'm being forced to buy something handheld for a calculator (I've been using Qalculate! and GraphMonkey on my Thinkpad until now). I see people all around me with TIs and think "there could be something so much better." The low-res, monochrome display just isn't appealing to me for $100-150. Is there something I can use close to the same price range with better screen, more usable, and more powerful? Which calcs do you guys use? I'm hoping for this to last through college."

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