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Censorship

Australia Says No to Internet Censorship 209

Posted by timothy from the war-of-attrition dept.
Brenton Fletcher writes "A nationwide protest rally against the internet censorship filter proposed by the Australian Labor Government was held today. Over 9,000 people were slated to attend. I was fortunate enough to go to the rally on the steps of Parliament House in Adelaide, South Australia. I heard speeches from the Digital Liberty Coalition, the Green Left Weekly, and other concerned members of the public." Reader mask.of.sanity adds a link to ComputerWorld's photo-heavy coverage of the gatherings.

Comment Re:So they want GOV spyware? (Score 1) 545

by ATMD (#26082275) Attached to: UK Cops Want "Breathalyzers" For PCs

Assuming the rest of the system is functioning properly, I think it's a good idea. If we start to see events like the warrantless raiding of Damian Green's office becoming commonplace, I think irresponsibly designed "computer breathalysers" will be the least of our worries.

Comment Re:So they want GOV spyware? (Score 1) 545

by ATMD (#26081873) Attached to: UK Cops Want "Breathalyzers" For PCs

The summary suggested two things to me: either they have a problem with PCs (Police Constables) being drunk on the job, or they want to reimplement Google's "mail goggles" for some reason. Fortunately the summary clarified things somewhat.

I think it's a good idea, if executed responsibly: if they have a warrant to raid a property anyway, then a handy program on a USB key that automatically scans for things like kiddie porn or databases of credit card numbers seems like a pretty good idea. I'm for it as long as it doesn't try to install itself on the machine and keep watching the user even after the cops have gone away.
Space

A Telescope In a Cubic Kilometer of Ice 118

Posted by timothy from the from-the-research-group-that-brought-you-donvier dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "University of Delaware (UD) scientists and engineers are currently working at the South Pole under very harsh conditions. This research team is one of the many other ones working on the construction of IceCube, the world's largest neutrino telescope in the Antarctic ice, far beneath the continent's snow-covered surface. When it is completed in 2011, the telescope array will occupy a cubic kilometer of Antarctica. One of the lead researchers said that 'IceCube will provide new information about some of the most violent and far-away astrophysical events in the cosmos.' The UD team has even opened a blog to cover this expedition. It will be opened up to December 22, 2008. I guess they want to be back in Delaware for Christmas, but read more for additional details and references, including a diagram of this telescope array built inside ice."
Software

Google Native Client Puts x86 On the Web 367

Posted by timothy from the which-can-then-be-virtualized-ad-infinitum dept.
t3rmin4t0r writes "Google has announced its Google native client, which enables x86 native code to be run securely inside a browser. With Java applets already dead and buried, this could mean the end of the new war between browsers and the various JavaScript engines (V8, Squirrelfish, Tracemonkey). The only question remains whether it can be secured (ala ActiveX) and whether the advantages carry over onto non-x86 platforms. The package is available for download from its Google code site. Hopefully, I can finally write my web apps in asm." Note: the Google code page description points out that this is not ready for production use: "We've released this project at an early, research stage to get feedback from the security and broader open-source communities." Reader eldavojohn links to a technical paper linked from that Google code page [PDF] titled "Native Client: A Sandbox for Portable, Untrusted x86 Native Code," and suggests this in-browser Quake demo, which requires the Native Code plug-in.
Windows

Why Use Virtual Memory In Modern Systems? 983

Posted by timothy from the virtually-useless dept.
Cyberhwk writes "I have a system with Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit) installed on it, and it has 4GB of RAM. However when I've been watching system performance, my system seems to divide the work between the physical RAM and the virtual memory, so I have 2GB of data in the virtual memory and another 2GB in the physical memory. Is there a reason why my system should even be using the virtual memory anymore? I would think the computer would run better if it based everything off of RAM instead of virtual memory. Any thoughts on this matter or could you explain why the system is acting this way?"

Comment Re:Of course... (Score 1) 213

by ATMD (#25958227) Attached to: Study Confirms That Cars Have Personalities

Heh, cool. I did make sure I didn't have anything important open first, but a simple Ctrl-C sufficed to get rid of it. I figured it was probably something like a fork bomb before running it, so I'm pleased to find that modern Linux kernels do indeed have protection against unprivileged users bringing down a system with this sort of thing.
Earth

Acorns Disappear Across the Country 474

Posted by kdawson from the curiouser-and-curiouser dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Botanist Rod Simmons thought he was going crazy when couldn't find any acorns near his home in Arlington County, Virginia. 'I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe,' said Simmons. Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill. Simmons and Naturalist Greg Zell began to do some research and found Internet discussion groups, including one on Topix called 'No acorns this year,' reporting the same thing from as far away as the Midwest up through New England and Nova Scotia. 'We live in Glenwood Landing, N.Y., and don't have any acorns this year. Really weird,' wrote one. 'None in Kansas either! Curiouser and curiouser.' The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather and Simmons has a theory about the wet and dry cycles. But many skeptics say oaks in other regions are producing plenty of acorns, and the acorn bust is nothing more than the extreme of a natural boom-and-bust cycle. But the bottom line is that no one really knows. 'It's sort of a mystery,' Zell said."

Comment Re:FF 3 in portage (Score 1) 138

by ATMD (#25777951) Attached to: Firefox 2 and Gecko 1.8 End of Life

A simple 'emerge --sync --quiet && emerge -u =mozilla-firefox-3.0.4'

I'm a Gentooer myself, but I don't go round claiming things like that are simple. That road leads to madness. Specifically, the person whose box I've just installed Linux on gets mad at me.
Earth

Plasma Plants Vaporize Trash While Creating Energy 618

Posted by samzenpus from the Mr.-Fusion dept.
Jason Sahler writes "Recently St. Lucie County in Florida announced that it has teamed up with Geoplasma to develop the United States' first plasma gasification plant. The plant will use super-hot 10,000 degree Fahrenheit plasma to effectively vaporize 1,500 tons of trash each day, which in turn spins turbines to generate 60MW of electricity — enough to power 50,000 homes!"
Biotech

Frozen Mice Cloned 272

Posted by CmdrTaco from the science-fiction-will-be-real-in-our-lifetime dept.
m0rphin3 writes "Japanese scientists have cloned mice whose bodies were frozen for as long as 16 years and said on Monday it may be possible to use the technique to resurrect mammoths and other extinct species. Could we finally see Jurassic Park become a reality, or perhaps use this for colonizing other galaxies?"
Data Storage

Silencing a Hard Drive Using Household Items 275

Posted by kdawson from the bread-olives-and-silence dept.
Reader Justblair recommends his blog entry detailing how he made a hard drive silencer for a pittance. "This article demonstrates a very easy-to-make hard drive silencer that not only outperforms most commercially available devices, but is cheaper to implement as well. Requiring very little in fabrication skills, it is an ideal addition to a media PC or HTPC. It may even suit you if your head is aching after many hours of being whined at by your hard drive."

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