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Technology

Why LEDs Don't Beat CFLs Even Though They Should 685

Posted by samzenpus from the light-it-up dept.
TaeKwonDood writes "LEDs don't beat CFLs in the home yet, but it's not simply because PG&E is getting rich making people feel like they are helping the environment buying CFLs made in China that are shipped to the US using a lot more fossil fuels than they save. It's a problem of indication versus illumination. However, some new discoveries are going to change all that."

Comment Re:Been there, done that... (Score 1) 626

by Auraiken (#26096293) Attached to: Followup To "When Teachers Are Obstacles To Linux"
I know and it's fucking embarrassing. I stayed on slashdot for the collective experience (more critical to my life than most of the book learning i've ever had) and the neat stories about future tech (which always seem to be off about 5-10 years ;D) but now it's got a section for crap that's been part of online culture for years just being reposted. I've even seen entire threads being censored with -1 mods so they don't show to everyone else reading. I miss my slashdot. :/

Comment Thanks (Score 5, Insightful) 626

by Auraiken (#26094525) Attached to: Followup To "When Teachers Are Obstacles To Linux"
Sorry to hijack your thread, but I'd like to say that this is what I'd like to see more of on /. We have too many stories indicating that things are one way only to be found otherwise and not corrected on at all. There were a lot of people in other stories lately who've been saying how wrong mass media is in how they 'report' on stories that are just there to make money. IT also shows that the open source community needs to stop attacking the ignorant people... I mean they might be stupid and annoying sometimes but we aren't going to get anywhere unless we educate them. /rant
Image

Students Are Always Half Right In Pittsburgh Screenshot-sm 881

Posted by samzenpus from the think-of-the-children dept.
Pittsburgh Public Schools officials have enacted a policy that sets 50 percent as the minimum score a student can receive for assignments, tests and other work. District spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said, the 50 percent minimum gives children a chance to catch up and a reason to keep trying. If a student gets a 20 percent in a class for the first marking period, he or she would need a 100 percent during the second marking period just to squeak through the semester. The district and teachers union issued a joint memo to ensure staff members' compliance with the policy, which was already on the books but enforced only at some schools. At this rate, it won't be long before schools institute double extra credit Mondays and Fridays to ensure students don't take three day weekends.
Security

BBC Profiles Extradited Cracker Gary McKinnon 315

Posted by timothy from the well-he-is-pale dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has published a very good profile of Gary McKinnon. It discusses his motives and methods as well as raising the question as to whether he is a malicious 'hacker' or whether he was simply obsessed with finding info about UFOs and should be praised for finding security faults in what should be extremely secure systems. This should provided stimulus for some interesting discussion on Slashdot especially between us Brits and our American friends following the confirmation of his extradition to the USA."
The Courts

Submission + - Atlanta Police Arrest Anonymous for Protesting (youtube.com) 4

Submitted by TheSpoom
TheSpoom writes: During the worldwide Anonymous protests against the Scientology organization yesterday, police in Atlanta, GA arrested a protester who had simply delivered a speech given around the world. They then proceeded to ticket any vehicles passing by that honked their horns in support of the protest. As Anonymous has no leader (as nobody knows the identity of anyone else), this action seems fruitless and one questions the motives of these policemen. Police in Los Angeles were more supportive.
Government

Submission + - Church of Scientology violates Federal Law (rapidshare.com) 5

Submitted by
FreedomToThink
FreedomToThink writes: "This is a very long story I'm sure the editors will have fun with, but I couldn't see how to cut it down at all.

On the eve of the Ides of March protest, from the source of the recent 'Anonymous' submitted CCHR leak on wikileaks, comes this message

"Dear $cientology,You attempt injunctions.I respond.Shall we continue the game? Much Love, DEEP CLAM"

Included was yet another PDF this time including yet more emails leaked from a Church of Scientology front group.

Vote Rigging?

From: "Mike Kaplan" <mkaplan@tampabay.rr.com>
To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Subject: Fw: RE-ELECT FRANK HIBBARD, MAYOR OF CLEARWATER
Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 11:53:07 -0400

See below. Everyone in Clearwater MUST vote. Every vote will be needed to be
sure Hibbard gets re-elected. The alternative is Rita Garvey who is an SP.

— Original Message —
From: Shelly <mailto:shelly.bauer@Earthlink.net> Bauer
To: Shelly Bauer <mailto:shelly.bauer@earthlink.net>
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2008 8:09 AM
Subject: RE-ELECT FRANK HIBBARD, MAYOR OF CLEARWATER

DO YOUR PART
RE-ELECT FRANK HIBBARD
MAYOR OF CLEARWATER
VOTE!!!
JANUARY 29TH
TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED!

Lunch with your preferred Presidential candidates for a high price?

ONE SEAT LEFT

I have arranged a private one-hour luncheon with Ron Paul on 11/28 in St.
Pete when he will be in town for the CNN/YouTube Republican debate.

This luncheon is reserved for $1000+ donors to Ron Paul's presidential
campaign. 19 people so far have paid and confirmed and will have the honor
and pleasure of having lunch and communicating with Ron Paul directly.


From the head of the "Non Proffit" CCHR Bruce Wiseman

Go the the HELP committee website. The link is here.
http://help.senate.gov/About.html
Here you will see the names of the Committee members on the left hand
side
of the page. Please go to the individual websites of the Republican =
members
(this will take just a bit of leg work on your part by putting their =
name
into Google) and calling their office or sending a fax to them (email is =
the
least effective) stating your opposition to S. 1375 The Mother's Act.


Currently, the law prohibits political campaign activity by charities and churches by defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one "which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."

An OCMB (Operation Clambake Message Board)regular adds :

I downloaded myself a copy and started looking through them. I found an interesting one on pages 47-48.
http://rapidshare.com/files/99292051/CCHRLeak3.pdf.html

Karin Pouw of OSA of CofS writes a message.
It's forwarded by Michael Genung. He's the guy who runs ACSR, Association for Citizens Sociel Reform. http://www.citizensforsocialreform.org/ ["CSR Background and Philosopy: CSR was founded in 2001 by a group of Scientologists and other like-minded individuals concerned with the escalating social ills in society. CSR's purpose is to work with in the field of public policy to bring about more effective and humane solutions to these social ills of illiteracy, criminality substance abuse and general decay of character."]

Then it's forwarded by Doyle Mills, of LEAF fame (Letters to the Editor Attack Force).
Then it's forwarded by Mary C. (possibly one of two Mary C's I'm thinking of, but unsure).
Then it's forwarded by Mike Kaplan, another person who runs an email list and forwards CCHR type stuff to CofS members.

If that ain't stringing a line from the CofS to CCHR and the CofS front group ("grassroots") movements, then I don't know what is!


Apologies in advance as the Enturbulation servers will not be up to a slashdotting so the Coral Cache link is here Enturbulation Discussion (already cached for you)

ANYONE CAN REPORT TAX FRAUD DIRECTLY TO THE IRS : http://www.irs.gov/compliance/enforcement/article/0,,id=106778,00.html It does require that you print out and mail in an actual hardcopy, but it does not require you to identify yourself.

Just a casual user passing on a message from the Enturbulation forum, this is already out there, there's no reason to attack the messenger."
Education

Submission + - Banning internet programming in schools 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Clark County School District in southern Nevada is proud to be the fifth largest school district in the U.S. In the past 5 years they have spent dozens of millions of dollars to build out a state of the art fiber network to deliver cutting edge media delivery to most schools in the district. They are trying to move every school onto their district-wide VoIP telephone system. They are aggressively pursuing grants and other sources of funding to keep their extensive computer labs stocked with modern hardware. In the district's Technology Plan, the introductory Vision Statement states, " Through the effective integration of technology, our schools will provide learning experiences which are active, personalized, involve teamwork, and focus on solving real-world problems." In enumerating the district's goals, the Technology Plan further states, "Goal 1: All students and teachers will have access to information technology in their classrooms, schools, and communities."

Over the last two years the principal at the local high school banned all computer programming classes. The school's technical computer efforts have been decimated. Now that the principal has been promoted to another school, some in the community are trying to rebuild. However, word comes that the school district has banned all "web programming" education. Any programming classes related to the internet are forbidden. This doesn't seem to line up with Goal 3: "All students will have technology and information literacy skills as aligned with national/state standards and district goals."

The Clark County High School Curriculum Guide certainly neglects technology and information literacy completely. What national standards are there for "technology and information literacy skills"? What standards should there be?

Real Life Spy Gadgets That Anyone Can Buy 171

Posted by CmdrTaco from the show-cams-and-pen-grenades dept.
Ant writes "Here is a collection of "spy equipment" found for sale around the Internet. Everything listed is completely real, is sold at online stores, and almost any item listed here costs less than $500, and often times can be bought for less than $200. Seen on Compfused."

Study Explains Evolution's Molecular Advance 477

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the good-for-some-bad-for-others dept.
pnewhook writes "The New York Times is reporting that 'by reconstructing ancient genes from long-extinct animals, scientists have for the first time demonstrated the step-by-step progression of how evolution created a new piece of molecular machinery by reusing and modifying existing parts. The researchers say the findings, published today in the journal Science, offer a counterargument to doubters of evolution who question how a progression of small changes could produce the intricate mechanisms found in living cells.'"

Neutrino Mass Confirmed 318

Posted by Zonk from the they-do-exist dept.
biohack writes "BBC News reports that results from the MINOS experiment have confirmed that neutrinos have mass. To look for neutrino oscillations, scientists created muon neutrinos in a particle accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). After passing through a particle detector at Fermilab, a high intensity beam of neutrinos travelled to another particle detector 724km (450 miles) away in a disused mine in Soudan, US. The set up established that fewer particles were being detected at the Soudan site than had been sent from Fermilab, which confirmed that some neutrinos changed their flavor on the way - an effect called neutrino flavor oscillation, which requires them to have mass. 'To put it simply, if they are heavy, it means that there is a lot more mass in the Universe than we thought there was,' said Professor Jenny Thomas from University College London."

ICANN Meeting Puts Off XXX Domain Again 157

Posted by Zonk from the porn-still-easy-to-find dept.
An anonymous reader wrote to mention an International Herald story about a recent ICANN meeting on the proposed .XXX domain. Australia, the U.S., and the EU have moved to block the idea, with most commentators surmising this will prevent the concept from ever moving forward. From the article: "Some people maintain that a triple-x domain name, and the ability to enforce rules to qualify for it, would rein in an out-of-control Internet phenomenon. In registering, a company could have to abide by ratings agency standards, require proof of age for entrants, maybe even pay for Internet filtering research. The company pushing the idea, ICM Registry, also argues that dot-xxx would be good for customers of pornography sites, assuring them of certain business benchmarks, like being free of adware or computer viruses."

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