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Comment Re:Ban guns (Score 1) 2166

by SkeeZerD (#34809248) Attached to: Congresswoman and Staff Gunned Down

Banning the possession of firearms by civilians will ensure that only tyrants and criminals will have them.

Not only that, but what a dangerous precedent! The right to bare arms is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. If the precedent is set for overturning that, what happens next? The freedom of press dies? Right to assembly gone? Illegal search/seizure free for all? State sponsored religion?

We have a right to militia and bare arms so that when/if We The People decide the only way to affect change in our government is through violence, we have the means to do so.
Security

Submission + - Owning Android (immunityinc.com)

Submitted by daveaitel
daveaitel writes: Immunity has posted a great video of how easy it is to own Android remotely. Most of the video is commentary, but the demo is fairly substantial!
Science

Submission + - Bill O'Reilly: science cannot explain the tides (huffingtonpost.com) 1

Submitted by tverbeek
tverbeek writes: David Silverman of the American Atheists was a guest on The O'Reilly Factor to talk about the billboards the AAG has put up recently, including one declaring the Christian Nativity story a myth. O'Reilly, playing to his home-field advantage, figured he could show up his guest by citing a daily miracle that proved the legitimacy of religion, a mystery beyond the ability of science to grasp: "The tide comes in and it goes out, Mr. Silverman," he lectured. "It always comes in, and always goes out. You can't explain that."
Linux

Submission + - Cedega Being Replaced By GameTree Linux (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Transgaming Cedega, the software forked from Wine that allows running Windows games under Linux, is being discontinued and replaced by TreeGame Linux. This new software is also free. From the new website: "TransGaming is pleased to announce the continued development of Cedega Technology under the GameTree Developer Program. This repositioning of the technology that powered the Cedega Gaming Service will allow the entire Linux community to gain free access going forward. Cedega is a cross-platform enablement technology that allows for Windows-native games to be executed on both the Linux desktop and embedded Linux platforms."
Government

Submission + - Leaked: US government strategy to prevent leaks

Submitted by Steve
Steve writes: The US government's 11-page document on how to get various US government agencies to prevent future leaks has been leaked to MSNBC. It doesn't get any more ironic than that. After the various leaks made by WikiLeaks, the US government understandably wants to limit the number of potential leaks, but their strategy apparently isn't implemented yet. The memo was sent this week to senior officials at all agencies that use classified material.

It's clear that the Obama administration is telling federal agencies to take aggressive steps to prevent further leaks. According to the document, these steps include figuring out which employees might be most inclined to leak classified documents, by using psychiatrists and sociologists to assess their trustworthiness. The memo also suggests that agencies require all their employees to report any contacts with members of the news media they may have.
Idle

Submission + - pantomime dress broke Geneva Convention (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by RockDoctor
RockDoctor writes: No, it is a serious news story, honestly. Copyright, protecting trademarks or losing them, yadda yadda.

The Red Cross (as in ICRC, etc) has certain symbols reserved unto it by international conventions and agreements, including, unsurprisingly, the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of warfare. Which is not, in itself unreasonable. But reasonable things can lead to unreasonable consequences, in this case having to threaten to shut down a show designed for children's entertainment on account of it including a character in a nurse's uniform replete with red crosses. Which is unreasonable. Particularly unreasonable considering that the show apparently includes a much better reason for keeping children away, in that it's a pantomime including cross-dressing men, other men in tights, and quite bizarre practices with Little Johnny and a long bow.
Censorship

Submission + - Pirate Party Members Kidnapped by Tunisia Police (facebook.com) 1

Submitted by juicegg
juicegg writes: Currently the government of Tunisia, a small country on the north coast of Africa, is facing intense protests against corruption, lack of freedom and unemployment. The government has responded by tightening it's censorship of the Internet and with repression against the protesters. Yesterday, three member of Tunisian Pirate Party, which is currently fighting to circumvent censorship, were arrested without a warrant and their computers were confiscated. No one, including their families, knows where they are being held and there are reasons to believe they could be tortured.

More information about Tunisian protests can be found here.
Science

Submission + - Hypersonic Radio Black-Out Problem Solved (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: Russian physicists have come up with a new way to communicate with hypersonic vehicles surrounded by a sheath of plasma. Ordinarily, this plasma absorbs and reflects radio waves at communications frequencies leading to a few tense minutes during the re-entry of manned vehicles such as the shuttle. However, the problem is even more acute for military vehicles such as ballistic missiles and hypersonic planes. Radio black out prevents these vehicles from accessing GPS signals for navigation and does not allow them to be re-targeted or disarmed at the last minute. But a group of Russian physicists say they can get around this problem by turning the entire plasma sheath into a radio antenna. They point out that any incoming signal is both reflected and absorbed by the plasma. The reflected signal is lost but the absorbed energy sets up a resonating electric field at a certain depth within the plasma. In effect, this layer within the plasma acts like a radio antenna, receiving the signal. However, the signal cannot travel further through the plasma to the spacecraft. Their new idea is to zap this layer with radio waves generated from within the spacecraft. These waves will be both absorbed by the plasma and reflected back inside the spacecraft. However, the key point is that the reflected waves ought to be modulated by any changes in the electric field within the plasma. In other words, the reflected waves should carry a kind of imprint of the original external radio signal. That would allow the craft to receive external signals from GPs satellites or ground control. And the same process in reverse allows the spacecraft to broadcast signals too.
Open Source

Submission + - Ubuntu 11.04 to include LibreOffice (h-online.com)

Submitted by mvar
mvar writes: Following previous reports that Ubuntu sponsor Canonical was looking to replace Oracle's open source OpenOffice.org office suite, the Ubuntu developers have confirmed that the LibreOffice community fork will be included in Ubuntu 11.04, code named "Natty Narwhal". According to a post on the Ubuntu mailing list by developer Matthias Klose, the developers have already started the transition of removing outdated OpenOffice.org packages based on version 3.2.1.
Microsoft

Submission + - Fake Microsoft Security Update Brings Autorun Worm (net-security.org)

Submitted by Orome1
Orome1 writes: An e-mail supposedly coming from Microsoft and urging the recipients to update their Windows has started making rounds yesterday. It comes with KB453396-ENU.exe, which is an Autorun worm. There are a lot of people out there who will immediately recognize this message for what it is, since Microsoft isn't in the habit of sending critical security patches via e-mail. But, there are also those who don't remember such things, and might be fooled by the timing (Tuesday is the usual weekday when Microsoft issues security patches) or by the signature (the real Steve Lipner is actually a senior member of Microsoft's security team).
Firefox

Submission + - Firefox overtakes IE in Europe (reuters.com)

Submitted by mu22le
mu22le writes: According to figures from Statcounter firefox took 38.1% of European market share, while Internet Explorer's share slipped to 37.5%. "This appears to be happening because Google's Chrome is stealing share from Internet Explorer while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share," Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter chief executive, said in a statement. Reuters thinks part of the problem might be the March 2009 agreement between the European Commission and Microsoft to allow European Union users a choice of browsers.

 
Idle

Submission + - Dead Birds Fall from the Sky (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by SkeeZerD
SkeeZerD writes: Wildlife experts are trying to determine what caused more than 1,000 blackbirds to die and fall from the sky over the town of Beebe in Arkansas.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said it began receiving reports about the dead birds at about 11.30pm on Friday.

The birds fell over a one-mile area, and an aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found outside that area. Ornithologist Karen Rowe said the the birds showed physical trauma, and she speculated that "the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail". The dead birds have been sent for testing. The commission said that New Year's Eve fireworks celebrations could have startled the birds from their roost and caused them to die from stress. The dead birds have been sent for testing.

Submission + - Thousands of blackbirds fall from sky dead (reuters.com) 1

Submitted by Dan East
Dan East writes: In a fashion worthy of a King or Hitchcock novel, yesterday blackbirds began to fall from the sky dead. Somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 birds rained down on the small town of Beeb, Arkansas, with no visible trauma. Officials are making wild guesses as to what happened — lightning strike, high-altitude hail, or perhaps trauma from the sound of New Year's fireworks killed them.

Submission + - University of Glasgow pioneers 1000 core processor (dailymail.co.uk) 2

Submitted by Crudely_Indecent
Crudely_Indecent writes:

Scientists have created an ultra-fast computer chip which is 20 times faster than current desktop computers. Modern PCs have a processor with two, four or sometimes 16 cores to carry out tasks. But the central processing unit (CPU) developed by the researchers effectively had 1,000 cores on a single chip. The developments could usher in a new age of high-speed computing in the next few years for home users frustrated with slow-running systems.

1000 cores could make short work of the video encoding that I'm doing tonight. Lets hope they finish their research soon and put a price tag on this technology!

Comment Re:You thought the GOP/TP represented regular peop (Score 1) 528

by SkeeZerD (#34597122) Attached to: Republicans Create Rider To Stop Net Neutrality
I tried to set this as my sig, but it was too long. think it says it all.

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that
unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of
my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and
an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the
money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its
reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until
all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic
is destroyed."

-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw
(Macmillan, 1950, NY)

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