Asher - Slashdot User

Submission + - What Geeky Things Must Be Done? 2

Submitted by John on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @04:36PM

John writes: A few weeks ago, my friends were discussing "The Princess Bride", and most of the references went completely over my head — I've not seen it all the way through, nor read the book. Naturally, revealing this fact made these people look at me as if I'd just moved into town from under some rock. This led into a discussion of the things that most general geeks should be expected to know; for example, reciting the inscription on the One Ring, or (apparently) quoting "Princess Bride" on-demand. The suggestions we came up with ranged from personal things, like having one's movie/game library in an online database, to big, world-scoped things like contributing to an open-source project of your choosing. I'm curious to know what the general consensus is on the most obvious or biggest geek/nerd things that should be seen, done, or read/watched/heard.

Submission + - Jack Hansen and Politicization of Science

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27, 2007 @12:30AM

An anonymous reader writes: When Jack Hansen bashed the Bush administration over the politicization of science and being censored, perhaps he wasn't the unbiased scientist he presented himself to be. At a blog of the Daily Tech, Michael Asher points out that Open Society Institute, a George Soros supported organization, secretly funded Hansen's media campaign bashing Bush and NASA to the tune of $720,000. Jack Hansen also received a $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation (run by Kerry's wife), after which Hansen endorsed Kerry for President.

Submission + - Hackers Cause Generator to Self-Destruct

Submitted by on Thursday September 27, 2007 @12:22AM

An anonymous reader writes: It has been revealed that in a U.S. Department of Homeland Security exercise codenamed "Aurora" conducted in March of this year, researchers were able to cause a power generator to self destruct remotely via a "cyber attack" which changed the operating cycle of the generator. "Government sources said changes are being made to both computer software and physical hardware to protect power generating equipment."

Full Story

Justice Department's Bio-terror Mistake 477

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @11:53PM from the more-deadly-than-the-mooninites dept.

destinyland writes "University professor and artist Steve Kurtz publicizes the history of chemical weapons with performance art pieces. The day his wife died of a heart attack, 911 responders mistook his scientific equipment for bioterrorism supplies. After he was detained for 22 hours, Homeland Security cordoned off his block, and a search was performed on his house in hazmat suits, they found nothing. Now they're prosecuting him for "mail fraud" for the way he obtained $256 of harmless bacteria."

Submission + - Coveo Wins U.S. Patent for Audio-Video Search (coveo.com)

Submitted by

Coveo

on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @11:49PM

Coveo writes: "Coveo Solutions Inc., a global provider of secure enterprise search solutions, announced today that it won a U.S. patent for technology it developed to automatically train the language model and modify the dictionary of a speech recognition engine used with its award-winning Coveo Audio-Video Search (CAVS) technology. Coveo's speech recognition training capabilities 'self-learns' by leveraging relevant contextual content related to the audio and video files, allowing it to better model the enterprise language. Working in unison with CAVS, the solution converts speech found within audio and video files into text, so that the text can be indexed to more accurately match user queries and offer a more productive search experience. With the integration of these new and innovative speech recognition training capabilities, Coveo offers a unique search tool that helps businesses and their customers more easily find content, texts and video simply through textual queries. "Speech recognition is becoming the standard for audio-visual search, as recently noted by Google's executives," said Laurent Simoneau, Coveo's chief executive officer. "But while others in the market are setting the stage, we are thrilled that Coveo is the first to market with a patented solution that not only retrieves relevant audio and video, but does so by integrating smart speech recognition technology capabilities." "Text search is a problem that is addressed by many products in the market, but as more enterprise as well as Web information is stored in audio or video files, we are losing access to the great swathes of information," said Sue Feldman, IDC's VP for Search and Digital Marketplace Technologies. "Speech recognition technologies like Coveo's give us visibility into this growing collection of non-text information." Introduced in February as the sole property of Coveo, and recently named one of KMWorld magazine's "Trend-Setting Products of 2007," Coveo's audio-video technology leverages the successful platform of its flagship product, Coveo Enterprise Search (CES), to improve search precision and allow users to quickly and easily retrieve audio and video files in the same process in which they currently find data such as PDF files, emails, etc. The search experience has proven to be unlike anything users have known in the rich media field — enabling proper names, employee names and domain terms to be automatically recognized. Noted by IDC as one of the Top 10 Companies to Watch in Canada, Coveo is driving a market that is considered a gate keeper to unleashing business success. With a business initiative focused on collaboration, Coveo's search technology also delivers proven organizational efficiencies for knowledge management, risk management, IP protection, compliance and improved customer experience. For more information, and to test drive Coveo Enterprise Search free for 30 days, please visit http://www.coveo.com./"

Submission + - Parts of Patriot Act ruled Unconstitutional (cnn.com)

Submitted by neapolitan on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @11:48PM

neapolitan writes: Parts of the Patriot Act have been ruled unconstitutional. This is in response to the FBI wrongly spying on an attorney, with subsequent legal action and criticism of the law that allowed the incorrect surveillance. The summary judgment of Justice Aiken is available.

From the text:
Aiken ruled that FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act], as amended by the Patriot Act, permits the government to conduct surveillance and searches targeting Americans without satisfying the probable-cause standard in the Fourth Amendment.
"Prior to the amendments [to FISA], the three branches of government operated with thoughtful and deliberate checks and balances — a principle upon which our nation was founded," Aiken wrote. But the Patriot Act, she said, eliminated "the constitutionally required interplay between executive action, judicial decision and Congressional enactment."

Submission + - RIAA Tries to Stop RICO Class Action 1

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Monday September 17, 2007 @12:26PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Last month an Oregon woman, victimized by the RIAA for two years, retaliated by bringing a class action for fraud, RICO, malicious prosecution, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, misuse of copyright law, civil conspiracy, and other assorted wrongs, against the record companies, the RIAA, their investigators, and their 'enforcers', in Andersen v. Atlantic. The opening gambit of the record companies, the RIAA, and the enforcers (Settlement Support Center LLC), all of whom are being represented by the same law firm, has been to file a motion to dismiss Ms. Andersen's complaint. The RIAA's unlicensed "investigators", MediaSentry/Safenet, presumably represented by separate counsel, have yet to respond to the amended complaint. Ms. Andersen is the disabled single mother, who together with her 10 year old daughter, had been pursued by the RIAA for two (2) years, despite the fact that neither of them had ever engaged in file sharing."

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