ultramutalisk - Slashdot User

Comment Re:No anomalies detected (Score 1) 222

by ultramutalisk on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @12:20AM (#21734696) Attached to: Black Hole Blasts Neighbor Galaxy with Deadly Jet

I think it's perfectly possible for an advanced civilization to survive in that energy beam. A an engineer, one way I would approach the problem would be to use this deadly beam as a ultra massive energy resource. With that much energy coming one's way, I'm sure it's possible to create a massive electromagnetic field around the planet that would divert all harmful sub atomic particles. All it would require would be research and economic resources to pull it off.

Submission + - Consumers Denied Right to Sue

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15, 2007 @04:44PM

An anonymous reader writes: Slyck.com is reporting that a recent ruling by the Canadian courts suggest that consumers of online stores are being denied the right to sue the stores in the first place. While laws are being put in place in some provinces to over-ride future similar cases, citizens in some provinces will be "left to fend for themselves".

Submission + - 72-year-old's dating site bans short people, gays (blorge.com)

Submitted by

destinyland

on Friday June 01, 2007 @09:08AM

destinyland writes: "There's 14-million registered users on eHarmony — but none of them are gay. A lawsuit filed today charges eHarmony discriminates against same-sex dateseekers. Earlier complaints said the site's algorithm also rejected men who were too short. Will California's law trump the entrepreneur's protocol? The 72-year-old who founded the site is an evangelical Christian with ties to a conservative political group. One lawsuit even charged that they refused services to a man who was "legally separated" from his wife because they were technically still married."

Submission + - Ontario Government Blocks Facebook

Submitted by

choongiri

on Friday May 04, 2007 @05:20PM

choongiri writes: "The Government of Ontario has blocked access to Facebook for all government employees. Since Tuesday, any employee trying to access the site has instead received an "access denied" message. According to Government Services Minister Gerry Phillips, "Our IT (information technology) people are pretty broadly familiar with the marketplace and they said, `Here's a website that's going to be increasingly more popular for the OPS (Ontario public service). Is this an appropriate website to be spending time on?'" MySpace has not been blocked."

Submission + - The Great Firewall of Utah (and Banning Open Wi-Fi

Submitted by njdube on Friday April 27, 2007 @03:31AM

njdube writes: The Utah legislature has been considering a proposal that would require the state's ISPs to ensure that minors are unable to access explicit material on the Internet [1] [2]. The scheme would also make open wireless networks illegal (!) unless they are restricted to only allow connections on certain, censored, "community ports".

Giving ISPs the responsibility and incentives to censor a paricular subset of the web is precisely the same architecture that the Chinese Communist Party uses for their "Great Fireall of China". The communists use it to filter news and political information as well as porn — but in neither case is it particularly effective. Users who are either knowledgeable or motivated quickly learn that there are easy ways around these filters.

The absurd Utah proposal has been pushed by the CP80 Foundation, which pedals fanatasies of a world where certain TCP ports (80, for instance) are free of any material that they consider "indecent". The group is fronted by SCO Chairman Ralph Yarro. Yes, that SCO.

The chance that a state or even federal statute could (practically or constitutionally) prevent sexually explicit content from being transmitted through port 80 is approximately zero point zero zero zero percent. The chance that politicians could pass foolish laws that cause needless headaches and court battles for ISPs and users, however, is significantly higher.

Complete Story

Submission + - Astronomers find potentially habitable planet

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Tuesday April 24, 2007 @08:25PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe." The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a "red dwarf," is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun. "It's a significant step on the way to finding possible life in the universe," said University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor, one of 11 European scientists on the team that found the planet. "It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions.""

Submission + - Possibly habitable extrasolar planet?

Submitted by icebrain on Tuesday April 24, 2007 @08:15PM

icebrain writes: Astronomers say they may have discovered an extrasolar planet that is habitable for humans — and may even have liquid water.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070424/D8ON8OSG0 .html

The new planet, called GL-851c, orbits a red dwarf star a "mere" 20.5 light-years away. Further research is needed to determine if it is actually an Earth-like planet, but it is definitely the best candidate so far.

Submission + - Earth II located, ships to begin boarding soon

Submitted by Ptahian on Tuesday April 24, 2007 @08:11PM

Ptahian writes: The first Earth like exoplanet has been located by our European friends at ESO:

The planet was discovered by the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile, which has a special instrument that splits light to find wobbles in different wave lengths. Those wobbles can reveal the existence of other worlds. What they revealed is a planet circling the red dwarf star, Gliese 581. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070424/D8ON8OSG0 .html

Investment Companies Backing Patent Trolls 147

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 24, 2007 @08:01PM from the arms-merchants-in-the-patent-wars dept.

greenbird sends us to Forbes for an account of billions in investments flowing to US patent troll companies. One example is DeepNines, who is suing McAfee over a patent that covers combining an IDS and firewall in a single device. The patent was filed on May 17, 2000 and issued on June 6, 2006. No prior art for that, no siree. DeepNines is funded by "an $8 million zero-coupon note to Altitude Capital Partners, a New York City private equity firm, promising in return a cut of any winnings stemming from the lawsuit. The payout is based on a formula that grants Altitude a percentage that decreases with a bigger award."

Submission + - The Rise of Bionic Eyes

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 24, 2007 @07:59PM

An anonymous reader writes: The trick to restoring vision in people blinded by injury or disease may be to bypass the eyes entirely. By establishing a connection between a video device and the part of the brain that receives visual stimuli, researchers have shown that the brain can interpret electronic signals in the same way it interprets light waves. http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/ 2007/424/2

Feed U. Texas to unveil its Supercomputer on a chip (com.com)

From feed by cnetfeed on Tuesday April 24, 2007 @07:52PM

Blog: It's slightly less super than promised but it's pretty much a supercomputer on a chip.

Submission + - "Two-factor" bank authentication foiled ag

Submitted by CheckeredShirt on Wednesday April 04, 2007 @12:37PM

CheckeredShirt writes: A couple of articles, one from Computer Weekly and one from SC Magazine, briefly discuss the recent compensation given by ABN Amro to four of it's customers that were the victim of a phishing attack. The real kicker is that the attack easily foiled the "two-factor" authentication that was mandated by the FFIEC but correctly predicted to be ineffectual. The good news is that ABN Amro is "taking this incident very seriously" and using it as an opportunity to remind users that online banking is safe "provided users take the right precautions."

Feed Poor brains light up with small cash rewards (pheedo.com)

From feed by nsfeed on Wednesday April 04, 2007 @12:32PM

A brain scan study involving rich and poor university students may provide biological evidence that money means less to the rich

Submission + - Logitech G5 Laser Gaming Mouse Rev2 -review

Submitted by

dampeal

on Wednesday April 04, 2007 @12:28PM

dampeal writes: "How can you possibly make one of the greatest gaming mice out there better? Add another button, that's how! I'm talking about the Logitech G5 Laser gaming Mouse, which is what is up on the review block for today. Adding an additional side button to the G5 is something that was very much needed and will be welcomed by all, including me. The G5 even got a cool face lift, with an interesting texture/paint job that Logitech calls 'Cracle Blue', they added some new features in the software control panel as well, and did a bit of a change up with the weight kit as well... So, click HERE to learn more about the new Logitech G5 gaming mouse..."

The Coop, Social Networking For Mozilla 67

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday April 04, 2007 @12:25PM from the what-your-friends-are-watching dept.

smileham noted a story about Mozilla developers considering work on a "social networking" Firefox extension called the "Coop" to take up where Flock left off. Also here is a wiki on the subject.

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