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Sci-Fi

Joss Whedon Back on TV 289

Posted by Zonk from the dear-fox-please-don't-suck dept.
tokenhillbilly writes "Joss Whedon of 'Buffy' and 'Firefly' fame has signed on to do another TV series on Fox starring Eliza Dushku (Faith from 'Buffy'). The series is going to be called Dollhouse, and the story surrounds a group of people 'programmed' to do missions out of a sort of high-tech dorm. '[The series] follows a top-secret world of people programmed with different personalities, abilities and memories depending on their mission. After each assignment -- which can be physical, romantic or even illegal -- the characters have their memories wiped clean, and are sent back to a lab (dubbed the "Dollhouse"). [The] show centers on Dushku's character, Echo, as she slowly begins to develop some self-awareness, which impacts her missions.'"
IBM

Submission + - eComStation Release 2.0 RC3 available

Submitted by
Kim Haverblad
Kim Haverblad writes: "Serenity Systems has released eComstation v2.0 RC3 that is an OEM-version of IBM:s OS2 Warp v4.52. It's great news for the OS2 users still hanging around since it supports dual and quad core CPU:s which IBM original code didn't support. The full press release can be found at OS2 World.Com where there also are technical notes with more specific updates."
Education

Submission + - Pagan Holidays Allowed As Excused Absences (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Marshall University (in West Virginia) has started allowing students to apply for excused absences for pagan holidays. It is thought to be the first program in the US to explicitly include paganism with other religions.
The Internet

Submission + - Writers Guild May Strike Over Internet Residuals

Submitted by Dr. Eggman
Dr. Eggman writes: Ars Technica is reporting on rumblings out of the Writers Guild of America over Internet distributed video (called 'the new media') residuals. Writers get paid "residuals" whenever a show they've worked on or a movie they've helped write gets sold on DVD or aired in syndication, and these residuals can make up a healthy part of a working scriptwriter's income. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) insists that the residual rate for new media uses be fixed at the current DVD rate. The WGA, however, disagrees with the AMPTP and wants increases both DVD and new media residuals. Negotiation have been ongoing for months now, with no resolution and now the WGA are threatening with a strike. If a prolonged strike occurs, we run the risk of being flooded with even more reality TV, and less scripted shows.
Security

Submission + - Dislike a Relative? Turn Them in as a Terrorist! 9

Submitted by Stanislav_J
Stanislav_J writes: A Swedish man who had less than fond feelings for his daughter's hubby, took advantage of the son-in-law's trip to America by reporting him to the FBI as a terrorist. The e-mail, which the father-in-law admits to sending, earned him a libel charge after his poor son-in-law was arrested on his arrival in Florida, handcuffed, interrogated, and placed in a cell for 11 hours before being released.

It's a brief article, but dovetails nicely with the recent Slashdot story about "The War on the Unexpected." That article touched on many examples of well-meaning, but misguided and paranoid citizens reporting innocent activities to the authorities. In the current climate, the potential also exists for maliciously false and far from well-meaning reports made to the Feds about people one simply doesn't care for, or those made merely as a sick prank.

While the man admitted to sending the e-mail to the FBI, he claims he thought no harm would come from it because "he did not think the US authorities would be stupid enough to believe him." To quote the great philosopher Bugs Bunny, 'Nyahh....he don't know us very well, do he?'
Science

Volcanoes May Have Caused Mass Extinctions? 210

Posted by Zonk from the can't-breath-must-snack-on-mammals dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "According to recent research, huge amounts of sulphur dioxide released by volcanic eruptions may have had more to do with wiping out dinosaurs than the meteorite strike at Chicxulub on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. Marine sediments drilled from the Chicxulub crater have revealed that that the mass extinctions occurred 300,000 years after Chicxulub hit Earth. The Deccan volcanism was a long cumulative process that released vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. '"On land it must have been 7-8 degrees warmer," says Princeton University paleontologist Gerta Keller. "The Chicxulub impact alone could not have caused the mass extinction, because this impact predates the mass extinction."' Keller also postulates a second larger and still unidentified meteor strike after Chicxulub, that left the famous extraterrestrial layer of iridium found in rocks worldwide and pushed earth's ecosystem over the brink. But where's the crater? "I wish I knew," says Keller."
Software

Submission + - Transferring More Than Data, Why So Hard?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A friend of mine asked me how to transfer his data from his old laptop to his new laptop. In particular, he was interested in the big three types of files on most personal computers these days: documents, music, and photos. "I know where I keep all my files, so I just copy them over to where I want them on the new computer, right?" Well, he's right for one of three categories of files: documents. But when I asked him if he was interested in preserving his iTunes playlists, song ratings, and album art or his Picasa photo albums (basically, any of his "metadata"), he gave me the "of course" look. Little did he know the headache that awaited him, none of that information moves when you simply copy or backup files. http://www.techconsumer.com/2007/11/02/transferring-more-than-data-why-so-hard/
The Media

Submission + - An application for Berkeley's Nanotube radio

Submitted by jmichaelg
jmichaelg writes: Hot on the heels of yesterday's article about Berkeley's nanotube radio receiver comes this Los Angeles Times article about John Kanzius, a former radio technician who was diagnosed with cancer. Kanzius, who has no medical background, applied his radio skills to his cancer with the intent of baking the cancer. Between chemotherapy treatments, he built a radio transmitter in his garage. To find the ideal radio receiver, he teamed up with Richard Smalley , the 1996 Chemistry Nobel Prize winner, who was also being treated for cancer. Smalley gave him two vials of nanoparticles which, when heated by Kanzius' radio transmitter, destroyed 100% of cancerous cells in a petri dish. The task now is to design a delivery mechanism based on antibodies that'll transport the particles an in-vivo cancer. Kanzius is listed as a co-author on a peer-reviewed paper to be published in the December issue of Cancer.
Movies

Submission + - Netflix confirms it, Blockbuster is dying (cnet.com)

Submitted by Mattintosh
Mattintosh writes: So maybe it's not Netflix, just some blogger from C|Net, but it's still an external pundit's assessment that Blockbuster is failing as a company. Some notable highlights include heavy losses ($35 million), job cuts ($45 million worth), store closings (526 of them), a stock price in freefall ($5.06 at the end of Thursday), and an executive with his head in the sand.
Mozilla

MS, Mozilla Clashing Over JavaScript Update 521

Posted by Zonk from the minor-frustration-of-the-titans dept.
jfruhlinger writes "JavaScript has become a crucial part of Websites built on AJAX underpinnings, which makes the upcoming revision to the ECMAScript standard crucial for the future of the Web. But in today's browser environment, no one vendor can impose an update path — which may set things up for a nasty conflict. A fight is being fought on blogs between Mozilla Chief Technology Officer (and creator of JavaScript) Brendan Eich, who wants to the new ECMAScript standard to be a radical upgrade, and Chris Wilson, architect of MS's IE team, who would rather keep JavaScript as is and put new functionality into a brand-new language."
Privacy

Submission + - First RIAA case victim finally speaks out. (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It’s, “no secret that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has responded to the growth of online file sharing with a wave of copyright infringement litigation,” wrote James Alonso, Marc Friedenberg, Michael Nguyen, Shawn Oakley and Sarah Calvert from The Columbia Science & Technology Law Review.

“Often, the individuals targeted by the RIAA fear the overwhelming costs of defending themselves in court, and many have agreed to pay large settlements.”

Often, but not always.

Now, inspired by the examples of people such as the five very reluctant heroines mentioned below, increasing numbers of victims are deciding not to let themselves be terrorised into settling.

The five, courageous in every sense of the word, are:
  • Patti Santangelo, a New York mother of five children, two of whom have now become RIAA targets
  • Rae-Jay Schwartz, another mother, bound to a wheelchair by multiple sclerosis, the terrible central nervous system disease
  • Marie Lindor, a 57-year-old home health aid whose knowledge of computers and computer systems is zero
  • Tanya Andersen, a disabled mother living off a disability pension
  • Jammie Thomas, a young mother of two from Minnesota


But it’s Thomas, the first of the American RIAA victims to actually appear in court, who’s caught the attention of the international mainstream media for more than just a day or two.

Horrified by the negative (for them) PR the case has been generating, using their connections, political power and influence, the labels are doing their best to distort facts and spin Thomas as a cold schemer whose depredations forced the RIAA to take her to court.

Cary Sherman, the organisation’s chief spin doctor, said he was “surprised it took this long for one of the industry lawsuits to go to trial” when in fact, the organisation has done everything it can to stop any of these cases actually reaching a judge and jury.

Thomas has also achieved two other firsts:

As far as I know, she’s the first to launch her own forum, and for the first time since she was forced into the limelight, she’s telling her own story, in her own words.



One of the subjects she touches on was that it wasn't her decision to replace the harddrive. This fact was a major decision in her persecution.

also never dreamt how large of a story my case would become. Before I went to court, no one except those close to me knew of this situation I was dealing with. Now, I can Google my name and read articles about me. A very odd and surreal feeling for me as I never wanted this much notoriety, ever. Unfortunately, a lot of the articles I’ve read are full of half-truths, conjectures, and right out lies. I can understand media outlets having a deadline to meet, but I cannot understand media outlets filling the holes in their stories with incorrect information.

‘Best Buy made the decision to replace the hard drive’

I would like to now talk about some of that incorrect information which has plagued news articles and comments. First, I will finally set straight the issue with my computer hard drive, when it was replaced, why it was replaced, who replaced it and what might have happened to the old drive. I have read many comments and articles that I had my hard drive replaced after I learned of my suit. This could not be further from the truth. What most people don’t know, if I did have my hard drive replaced after I was served the initial complaint to this suit, that would be considered spoliation of evidence, which is a criminally prosecutable offense. All the following dates, keep in mind so you can see the timeline yourself.
Security

Submission + - Norton AntiVirus makes Mac OS X less secure.

Submitted by NAVwatch
NAVwatch writes: Symantec has known about a vulnerability in NAV for more than nine months now that allows any local program on Mac OS X to gain root access without any of the usual password prompts Mac OS X presents for gaining super-user access thus allowing worms to be installed undetected. Attempts to get Symantec to simply fix permissions on their application directories have largely resulted in Symantec saying other vendor's have insecure software too.
Input Devices

Submission + - Car locks other cars (bbc.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
lhorn
lhorn writes: "One car in a car park in Kent, UK was found by Ofcom to block other car keyfobs from working in a radius of 50 meter (164 feet of UK size) around it. Sadly the article has little detail other than 'small family car'.
The offending car's owner will be fixing the problem, but I would like more info — which brand of car to avoid buying as a start"

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