Comment Re:A big chunk? (Score 1) 80
I think it's actually more significant that it was not 'large'; it was almost an accidental targeted attack.
I mean, sure, 1% is a lot depending on how you want to look at it.
Submission + - Sweden defends Wiki sex case about-face (skunkpost.com) 1
crimeandpunishment writes: "Mistake? We didn't make a mistake." That's what Swedish prosecutors said Sunday as they defended their handling of a rape allegation against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The Swedish Prosecution Authority said the prosecutor who issued the arrest warrant Friday did not make a mistake, even though a higher-ranked prosecutor withdrew the warrant the next day. A spokesperson for the Authority said "The prosecutor who took over the case yesterday had more information, and that is why she made a different assessment than the on-call prosecutor". Assange, who was in Sweden seeking legal protection for the site as it prepares to leak more Afghan war documents, told a Swedish tabloid newspaper "I don't know who's behind this but we have been warned that for example the Pentagon plans to use dirty tricks to spoil things for us".
Submission + - Ancient Nalanda University to be resurrected
An anonymous reader writes: Nalanda University [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda] — "one of the first great universities in recorded history" — an ancient Indian center of advanced learning (427-1193CE) that attracted pan-Asian scholars is planned to be resurrected by Indian Government through passage of a parliamentary bill. Nalanda Mentor Group has been constituted to which is headed by Nobel laureate Professor Amartya Sen. It will act as its Interim Governing Board.
The University was visited by Buddha Himself in His lifetime, and served as major center of Budhdhist teachings throughout its existence. It was finally sacked and its library burned down by Moghuls. The library is recorded to have burned for three months, with precious materials lost forever.
Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/recreating-nalanda-an-indian-renaissance-46197?cp
The University was visited by Buddha Himself in His lifetime, and served as major center of Budhdhist teachings throughout its existence. It was finally sacked and its library burned down by Moghuls. The library is recorded to have burned for three months, with precious materials lost forever.
Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/recreating-nalanda-an-indian-renaissance-46197?cp
Iran Opens Its First Nuclear Power Plant 496
pickens writes "VOA reports that Russian and Iranian engineers have begun loading fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant located in the southern city of Bushehr amid international fears that Iran will use the facility to make nuclear weapons, a charge both Tehran and the Kremlin vehemently deny. Officials say it will take about two to three months for the plant to start producing electricity once all of the fuel rods have been moved into the reactor. The production capacity of the plant will initially be 500 megawatts, but will eventually increase to 1,000 megawatts. Earlier this year, Washington criticized Russia for going ahead with the planned opening of the plant amid global disagreement and concern over Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. Moscow did, however, back a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran, which called for Iran to stop uranium enrichment."
Submission + - Look-Alike Tubes Are Killing Hospital Patients (nytimes.com) 1
Hugh Pickens writes: "The NY Times reports that in hospitals around the country nurses connect and disconnect interchangeable clear plastic tubing sticking out of patients' bodies to deliver or extract medicine, nutrition, fluids, gases or blood — sometimes with deadly consequences. Tubes intended to inflate blood-pressure cuffs have been connected to intravenous lines leading to deadly air embolisms., intravenous fluids have been connected to tubes intended to deliver oxygen leading to suffocation, and in 2006 a nurse at in Wisconsin mistakenly put a spinal anesthetic into a vein, killing 16-year-old who was giving birth. "Nurses should not have to work in an environment where it is even possible to make that kind of mistake," says Nancy Pratt, a vocal advocate for changing the system. Critics say the tubing problem, which has gone on for decades, is an example of how the FDA fails to protect the public. "FDA could fix this tubing problem tomorrow, but because the agency is so worried about making industry happy, people continue to die," says Dr. Robert Smith."
Submission + - Voting Researcher Arrested Over Anonymous Source (freedom-to-tinker.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Alex Halderman writes on Freedom-to-Tinker:
About four months ago, Ed Felten blogged about a research paper in which Hari Prasad, Rop Gonggrijp, and I detailed serious security flaws in India's electronic voting machines. Indian election authorities have repeatedly claimed that the machines are "tamperproof," but we demonstrated important vulnerabilities by studying a machine provided by an anonymous source. The story took a disturbing turn a little over 24 hours ago, when my coauthor Hari Prasad was arrested by Indian authorities demanding to know the identity of that source. At 5:30 Saturday morning, about ten police officers arrived at Hari's home in Hyderabad. They questioned him about where he got the machine we studied, and at around 8 a.m. they placed him under arrest and proceeded to drive him to Mumbai, a 14 hour journey. The police did not state a specific charge at the time of the arrest, but it appears to be a politically motivated attempt to uncover our anonymous source. The arresting officers told Hari that they were under "pressure [from] the top," and that he would be left alone if he would reveal the source's identity. Hari was allowed to use his cell phone for a time, and I spoke with him as he was being driven by the police to Mumbai.
The whole story and audio of that phone call with Hari in the police car are at Freedom-to-Tinker.com.
Submission + - Is Your Sloppy Code Killing Polar Bears?
theodp writes: Better go over that Java code again, Bunky, lest IBM accuse you of stranding polar bears on melting ice with your sloppy coding. Big Blue has filed for a patent on its Program Development Tool Configured to Compile Source Code According to Energy Consumption Requirements. The invention of four IBM'ers purports 'to determine energy requirements associated with specific elements of the source code, and to present graphical indications of energy requirements along with those code elements.' Time to start pricing carbon offset credits, programmers?
Submission + - Distributed secure networking closer yet 1
paxcoder writes: FreedomBox, a convenient personal server may be a step closer to reality than skeptics imagine. While Diaspora is arguably vaporware at this point, another distributed social network project, GNU social has recently hit alpha (preview) and as announced by Tim Berners-Lee(!), is now organizing a theme design contest.
In the same time, Debian is considering a special distro that would run on 'plug computers' for which some of the goals, along with the wiki and the mailing list have been set at Debconf 10, as early as 3 days after the now-famous Moglen's talk (first link). At present stage, developers are still proposing hardware and software which will make FreedomBox a reality, and particular attention is now being given to yet another GNU project, GNUnet, a versatile secure peer-oriented networking framwork.
In the same time, Debian is considering a special distro that would run on 'plug computers' for which some of the goals, along with the wiki and the mailing list have been set at Debconf 10, as early as 3 days after the now-famous Moglen's talk (first link). At present stage, developers are still proposing hardware and software which will make FreedomBox a reality, and particular attention is now being given to yet another GNU project, GNUnet, a versatile secure peer-oriented networking framwork.
Submission + - Germany to roll out ID cards with embedded RFID
An anonymous reader writes: The production of the RFID chips, an integral element of the new generation of German identity cards, has started after the government gave a 10 year contract to the chipmaker NXP in the Netherlands. Citizens will receive the mandatory new ID cards from the first of November. The new card allows German authorities to identify people with speed and accuracy, the government said. These authorities include the police, customs and tax authorities and of course the local registration and passport granting authorities. here are some concerns that the use of RFID chips will pose a security or privacy risk, however.
Early versions of the electronic passports, using RFID chips with a protocol called "basic access control" (BAC), where successfully hacked by university researchers and security experts.
Early versions of the electronic passports, using RFID chips with a protocol called "basic access control" (BAC), where successfully hacked by university researchers and security experts.
Submission + - Australian Elections Result In Hung Parliament (abc.net.au) 1
ajdlinux writes: For the first time since World War II, Australia has a hung parliament. The future of the Government now lies in the hands of the five independent and Green MPs, who will decide over the next few days which party they will back to form the next government. The Labor Party's National Broadband Network is now in doubt, but it at least seems the internet filter won't go ahead now that the Greens have the balance of power in the Senate.
Submission + - Researchers zero in on protein that destroys HIV (physorg.com)
Julie188 writes: Using a $225,000 microscope, researchers have identified the key components of a protein called TRIM5a that destroys HIV in rhesus monkeys. The finding could lead to new TRIM5a-based treatments that would knock out HIV in humans, said senior researcher Edward M. Campbell, PhD, of Loyola University Health System.
Comment Re:Good luck with that. (Score 1) 39
Nah, you misunderstand Decatur, which is actually part of Atlanta. Decatur disagrees with this notion despite being inside the perimeter, and therefore this is merely one of a number of attempts to be "different" and to distinguish itself as the odd child out-- which it's been trying to do pretty much since being the only town in Georgia to vote against secession during the civil war.
There are even more technological oddities in Decatur that make people want to become Amish, for instance pay parking that requires text messaging to use.
Comment Not news for shocking and obvious reasons (Score 1) 562
Given that many Americans are completely unaware of what Roe Versus Wade is, who the president is at any given time, or how many justices sit on the supreme court, this result is not terribly shocking. It's easy to pick on Texas but It's sort of silly. All you've discovered is that a more rural state is about 10% off of the mainstream.
Submission + - Why are some HD shows S T R E T C H E D? (newteevee.com) 1
Chris Albrecht writes: "There's some science behind some TV networks distorting their shows to fit a widescreen format. TBS uses an algorithm to determine where the action is taking place. It keeps that ratio normal and stretches the rest of the image to fit the screen. Research also says people prefer the stretched image to the original. What do you think?"
Journal Journal: Run "ads by Google"? Get taxed for more than you earned
Antwerp Calling writes (about me): Bruno Lowagie, a Belgian non-profit blogger writing free open-source software [iText], got this year's most unusual Christmas gift: a letter from the Belgian tax authority informing him that putting "ads by Google" on his local blog turned him into an overnight "independent e
