Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Networking

Submission + - US Gov't Seizes 130+ More Domains In Crackdown (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The DoJ and ICE have once again taken up the banner of anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting by seizing over 130 domains allegedly involved in those activities. TorrentFreak points out that this newest digital raid happened just before 'Cyber Monday,' a time when consumers are encouraged to do a bunch of online shopping. From the article: 'Compared to previous seizure rounds, there are also some notable differences to report. This time the action appears to be limited to sites that directly charge visitors for their services. Most of the domains are linked to the selling of counterfeit clothing (e.g. 17nflshop.com), and at least one (autocd.com) sold pirated auto software. Last year several sites were taken down because they allowed their users to access free music and movie downloads, and these were followed by several streaming services a few months later. No similar sites have been reported in the current round.'
IT

Submission + - Why everyone hates the IT department (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "Why are IT staff treated with near universal contempt? PC Pro has investigated why everyone hates the IT department. From cultivating a culture of "them and us", to unrealistic demands from end users and senior management, to the inevitable tension created when employees try and bring their own equipment into the office, PC Pro identifies the key reasons for the lack of respect for IT."
The Media

Submission + - Wounded Copyright Troll Still Alive and Kicking

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Steve Green writes that even as defendents who defeated Righthaven in court and won their attorney’s fees complain they haven’t been paid a total of $216,000 and try to seize Righthaven assets, the copyright troll proved that it is alive and kicking by filing a brief that District Judge James Mahan in Las Vegas was wrong to find an Oregon nonprofit was protected by fair use in posting an entire R-J story on the relationship between immigrants and Las Vegas police. A key factor in Mahan’s decision was that the defendant, the Center for Intercultural Organizing in Portland, couldn’t harm the market for a copyright to the story Righthaven obtained for lawsuit purposes from Stephens Media. Mahan also “found that because the work was a news article, the totality of its content was informational and permissible for productive use by others,” Righthaven's outside attorney Shawn Mangano wrote in his brief that "in reaching this erroneous conclusion, the district court failed to accord any degree of creative effort to the work (story) whatsoever.” In a second appeals brief, Mangano appeared to face an uphill challenge in arguing that Righthaven had standing to sue or should have been allowed to sue after amending its Stephens Media lawsuit contract to fix defects — assertions rejected so far by six Nevada judges. The defendants in the appeals have not yet filed their briefs, and it’s likely to be months before the appeals court hears arguments on the cases."

Submission + - ReplayTV discontinuing TV program guide (digitalnetworksna.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: ReplayTV is turning off the built-in TV guide at the end of July. There will be no program listings, so the only way to record a program will be by manually selecting a channel number and time. No more selecting a program by name. This will turn many units into bricks. I have several early units that included a lifetime subscription to the program guide. I guess my lifetime has expired.

Submission + - Mis-read IP almost lands Australian man in jail (superuser.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This writer on the Super User Blog was approached by police who suspected him of impersonating somebody online and hacking into their Facebook account to post defamatory content. In reality, it turns out that it was a different user with the same TeleCo. When police requested the IP address of the hacker, a representative at the user's iPhone carrier accidentally swapped two numbers in his IP address, leading police to the wrong suspect. Fortunately, this user escaped without any charges, and received a discount from the TeleCo for his troubles, but it's a grave warning of what can happen when information is misread in the digital era.
Books

Submission + - RMS: Throw Down Your e-Book Chains!

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Richard Stallman is kind of a Ralph Nader for our digital world, so his latest essay — The Danger of E-books — might be thought of as kind of an Unsafe at Any Speed for e-books. CNET reports that RMS is bemoaning the e-book's loss of freedoms that most of us take for granted with physical books and placing the blame on corporate powers. 'Technologies that could have empowered us are used to chain us instead,' RMS writes. 'We must reject e-books until they respect our freedom...E-books need not attack our freedom, but they will if companies get to decide. It's up to us to stop them. The fight has already started.' Them there's fightin' words, right Steve?

Submission + - State-changing metallic material developed (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: We may not yet have the liquid metal depicted in the Terminator movies, but scientists have now developed something that's vaguely along the same lines. German materials scientist Dr. Jörg Weißmüller and Chinese research scientist Hai-Jun Jin have created a metallic material that can change back and forth between being strong but brittle and soft but malleable, via the application of an electrical current.

Comment Gedankenexperiment (Score 1) 315

by polymath69 (#34150904) Attached to: Going Faster Than the Wind In a Wind-Powered Cart

Suppose we imagine the following: a large room with a level floor, with no open windows and still air all around. Put the proposed cart down somewhere. From the cart's point of view, there is a prevailing wind of zero no matter what direction you've placed it.

Now the claim is that the cart can go faster than the prevailing wind. So once you place the cart down, it should move on its own. Now just where did it get the energy to do that??!

Submission + - How Star Wars trumped Star Trek for scientific acc (shadowlocked.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When George Lucas added the 'ring around the Death Star' effect to his 1997 re-release of Star Wars episode IV: A New Hope, the revision was almost as hated as Greedo shooting first, and to boot was seen as a knock-off of the seminal 'Praxis effect' in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). But a debunking astronomer claims that the Federation got it wrong and the fan-boys should thank Lucas for adding some scientific accuracy to his fictional universe.

Submission + - Futurama Writer Creates New Math Theorem (geekosystem.com)

Submitted by kevin_conaway
kevin_conaway writes: In the latest episode of Futurama, writer Ken Keeler wrote and proved a new math theorem based on group theory. From the article:

We all knew the writing staff of Futurama was brainy, but this is something else. In the episode “The Prisoner of Benda,” the Professor and Amy use a new invention to switch bodies. Unfortunately, they discover that the same two brains can’t switch twice and have to come up with some equation to prove that, with enough people switching, eventually everyone will end up in their rightful form. To work out the ridiculous brain switching plot line, writer Ken Keeler (who also just happens to have a PhD in mathematics) ended up writing and proving an entirely new theorem

Slashdot Top Deals

People will buy anything that's one to a customer.

Close