Comment Will Google.com in US be affected (Score 1) 224
Will Google forget european results for US customers as well? If I use Tor from EU with exit node in US, and do a Google.com search, will they censor the results?
Comment Re: as they say (Score 3, Insightful) 197
Better to have firewall of EU than global jail by US.
Comment FUD and BS (Score 1) 364
So there is an unofficial network of european police depts called ENLETS (European Network of Law Enforcement Technology Services). They have a wish that something like this could be put into cars.
To post this into Slashdot as real news story means, that the editors have no understanding of how the EU works. It's a strong democracy with powerful member states. To pass this proposal is as probable as to ban hand guna in Texas. Someone might plan it, but it does not mean they'll succeed.
Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol. 1 Released in HTML Format 129
Dr. Richard Feynman's lectures on physics have been iconic standards of physics education for the past five decades. Videos of the series were put online at Microsoft Research a few years ago, but now the entirety of Volume 1 is available over simple HTML (mirror). In a letter to members of the Feynman Lectures Forum, editor Mike Gottlieb said, "It was an idea conceived many years ago, when through FL website correspondence I became aware of the many eager young minds who could benefit from reading FLP, who want to read it, but for economic or other reasons have no access to it, while at the same time I was becoming aware of the growing popularity of horrid scanned copies of old editions of FLP circulating on file-sharing and torrent websites. A free high-quality online edition was my proposed solution to both problems. All concerned agreed on the potential pedagogical benefits, but also had to be convinced that book sales would not be harmed. The conversion from LaTeX to HTML was expensive: we raised considerable funds, but ran out before finishing Volumes II and III, so we are only posting Volume I initially. (I am working on finishing Volumes II and III myself, as time permits, and will start posting chapters in the not-too-distant future, if all goes as planned.)"
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How do you secure your communications? 3
emakinen writes: NSA and British intelligence have been monitoring data from major US companies and overseas internet traffic, as many of us have thought even before the media reports. I'm wondering, how fellow slashdotters have secured their communications. Email encryption? What mobile OS to use and not to use? Best VOIP service? Instant messenger? TOR, proxies, VPN? What options are there for a person with moderate tech skills and willingness to spend time on open source software?
Comment No, this is incorrect (Score 2) 103
There is an citizen's initiative to change the law and if they manage to gather 50000 signatures, the parliament must vote on it. No crowdsourcing (at least any more) and slim change of this initiative passing through the parliament and actually becoming a law.
Submission + - Why Commercial Aircraft Are Not Equipped With Ejection Seats (aviatime.com)
emakinen writes: "Aviatime has an article explaining why there are no ejection seats in commercial aircraft. The main reasons are high costs and the risk of having explosives under every chair in plane."
Submission + - Candidate Selection Engine for the US Presidential Election (www.hs.fi)
emakinen writes: "In Finland, web-based candidate selection engines are mainstream. The idea is that first the candidates answer some twenty to thirty questions. Then the voters answer the same questions. The selection engine suggests candidates that best match the replies given by the candidates. Finland's main newspaper Helsingin Sanomat has now published a candidate selection engine for the US Presidential election. This candidate selection engine is far simpler than the standard selection engines, and the answers have been deduced from the public statements made by the candidates."
Comment Swedish aid to Cambodia began in 1979 (Score 2) 250
Swedish development aid to Cambodia began in 1979.
Since then Sweden has given millions of dollars to Cambodia. The article by The Next Web and Torrent Freak have no evidence at all to back their claim. It's biased reporting, based on no research and strong prejudice.
It is ridiculous to claim that Sweden would use millions of dollars to arrest a man, who is, from government perspective, a petty criminal.
Submission + - Oil Company Neste Tries to Shut Down Parody Site (greenpeace.org)
emakinen writes: "Environmental NGO Greenpeace has been campaiging against Finnish oil company Neste Oil. Recently, they published a parody site www.nestespoil.com about Neste biofuel impact on rain forests. Neste is now trying to shut the parody site down using a trademark complaint to WIPO. Furthermore, the Swedish ISP for Greenpeace, Loopia, has today shut down the original site, according to a newspaper Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). In a game of cat and mouse, Greenpeace has already opened a mirror site."
Submission + - Open Ministry crowdsources laws in Finland (www.hs.fi)
emakinen writes: "From today, the new Citizens’ Initiative Act will come into force in Finland. According to the new law, a required minimum of 50,000 citizens of voting age can launch a bill that Parliament then has to process. On the Open Ministry website, anyone can present an idea for a law initiative. If the idea wins enough support, the ministry’s volunteer workers will work on it and turn it into a presentable bill for the MPs to chew over. The site www.avoinministerio.fi is founded by NGO."
Comment It's not that serious (Score 2) 95
You can read the full draft proposal of CleanIT project here: http://www.cleanitproject.eu/CLEAN%20IT%20DRAFT%20DOCUMENT%2002.doc
Although the draft itself seems bad, this CleanIT is basically wishful thinking by some police organizations. It's far from becoming a law, or even a proposal for a law.
Submission + - Finnish Home Secretary wants police to use biometr (www.hs.fi)
emakinen writes: "Finnish Minister of the Interior would give the police the right to use the database of fingerprints collected for biometric passports in investigating serious crime. According to her, this would be necessary because of the public interest. In practise, this would mean that in three years every Finn with a passport would have their fingerprints registered by the police."
European Pirates Arrested in Massive Police Operation 278
freedumb2000 writes "Europe just witnessed one of the largest piracy-related busts in history with the raid of the popular movie streaming portal Kino.to. More than a dozen people connected to the site were arrested after police officers in Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands raided several residential addresses and data centers. Kino.to hosted no illicit content itself, but indexed material stored on file-hosters and other streaming services."
Upscaling Retro 8-Bit Pixel Art To Vector Graphics 325
An anonymous reader writes "Two researchers — Johannes Kopf from Microsoft, and Dani Lischinski from The Hebrew University — have successfully created an algorithm that depixelizes and upscales low-resolution 8-bit 'pixel art' into lush vector graphics. The algorithm identifies pixel-level details (original paper — PDF) to accurately shade the new image — but more importantly, the algorithm can create smooth, curved contour lines from only-connected-on-the-diagonal single pixels. At long last, we might be able to play Super Mario Bros. on a big screen without stretching our beloved plumber's pixels to breaking point. You really must look at the sample images." Scroll down in the paper to see how their technique stacks up against some others, including Adobe's Live Trace.
