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Submission + - WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange is On Run (indiatimes.com)

freakxx writes: Times of India reports that WikiLeak's chief Julian Assange is now on run after the release of the Iraq's War Diary on his website. He is reported to be moving from one place to another (Stockholm, Berlin, London), paying money in cash that is mostly borrowed from his friends, changing hair color, and sleeping on sofa or on the floor, mostly due to the possibility of getting arrested or more likely to be extradited to the USA. In his own words: "being determined to be on this path, and not to compromise, I've wound up in an extraordinary situation".

As the documents are ultimately going to be good for us, the public, and he now seems to be in a deep trouble due to revealing the ugliness of the war, do we, as the public, also have some responsibility to help him out during this bad time, and set a good example for other such people in future? If so, what are the ways we can possibly do it, other than donating money on the WikiLeaks website?

Comment Re:Yes, but... (Score 0, Troll) 246

> Can it help me find the holy-grail?

Listen, VIM is a text editor, and if u expect it to find u the holy-grail, u r a complete moron. However, there is something out there to help u in your quest. It's called EMACS. Happy now?

Submission + - Extinction of an ancient language (discovery.com) 6

freakxx writes: As Boa Sr., 85, the last speaker of a 65000 years old language died in Andaman Islands of India, the ancient language "Bo" also goes extinct. She was the last speaker of the language since last 30-40 years since her parents died.

Her ancestry trees can be traced back to Africa as her tribe was one of the 10 Great Andamanese Tribes, who very first paved their ways to this region directly from Africa.

Stephen Corry, the director of Survival International, summaries it as a great loss to the human history and it should not be allowed to repeat: "Boa's loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands". However, the fact is that the surviving number of people belonging to these tribes are now only 52 and it may not be that far when we see these other tribes also go extinct.

The biggest question that comes along is whether we should let the evolution follow its course of "only the fittest can survive" or should we intervene and protect these ancient treasures! What is even more important is "how ?", because according to the article, when the British came, they tried to civilize these tribal people by putting few of them in modern houses but non of the 150 children born could survive more than 2 years.

Comment Re:Did Tokyo lose because of this as well? (Score 1) 1040

As a visitor entering Japan, you are subject to being fingerprinted and having your picture taken at border control as well as a bunch of harassing questions such as, "Where are you staying and who are you staying with?"(I always make up a fake address). I don't know how much different it is compared to the US, but if they rejected Chicago because of these restrictions, they probably rejected Tokyo for a lot of the same reasons.

I live in Japan from last 5 years and I disagree with you. They do ask some questions but the way they ask is so polite and humane that you would be "willing" to give them more information that they are asking for. They also have concerns about their security. This not like some rude US officer is harassing you. Most probably, you will encounter a cute Japanese lady there giving you an unforgettable smile you might ever have encountered. The attitude of the officers as well as the local people are very very polite and honest.

Submission + - Is Windows 7 designed to spy on us? 11

freakxx writes: "An article on cnet.com has invited some concerns about spying nature of Windows 7 in form of a comment. His claims seems to be quite genuine as he is asking others to confirm it by checking themselves. In his words:

What I did notice was that Windows 7 is the NSA's most comprehensive Spyware Platform to date.. Thats why Russia, France, China, Cuba and most other Countries are moving to Open Source for Security! Thats why Microsoft needs to scare you off of XP Thats why Outgoing Data is not blocked by default in the firewall Thats why antiviruses like AVG were rewritten to prevent you from blocking Internet access by programs on your computer like Firefox for example! (You no longer get popups from your firewall asking if you want firefox and other programs to connect to the Internet — they just connect without your OK) Thats why encryption programs rewritten for Vista and Windows 7 give you no indication of trouble yet trusted encryption programs give you warning that the contents of RAM are being copied to your hard drive ONLY after you open an encrypted disk and thereby compromising your encryption key which was located in RAM. Thats why Windows 7 runs to the Internet to find a solution to the problem listed above after rebooting from a bluescreen! To aquire your encryption keys! Download Drivecrypt 4.0 from 2cows if you doubt me and test it yourself. DC-4.0 Installs correctly without errors, creates an encrypted volume without errors and only Bluescreens AFTER your encryption key is in RAM and can be copied to your hard drive to be transferred accross the Internet the next time you have Net access! Thats why Windows 7 can send your wireless network encryption key accross the Internet as well as your disk encryption keys stated above. By transferring your wireless encryption key without your knowledge, local authorities can access your wireless network and access your encrypted data even after you disconnect from the Internet Thats why wireless networking hardware will soon be built into future netbooks and notebooks to prevent removal Thats why nobody is even covering these problems in the press but instead are removing my posts from over 50% of other sites on the Internet If they doubt me, they should at least investigate these problems, don't you think?

I think this is indeed something that should be checked by the Slashdot community to shed more light on legitimacy of the claim, because if it is true, it's a very big concern for everyone. The cnet.com article is here and the comment is here. The user, who is making the claim, has his cnet.com profile here. He is also claiming that his comments are getting regularly deleted on Internet by the admins."

Comment Re:not a "real" monopole (Score 1) 256

From common sense, it seems pretty hard to accept the existence of magnetic monopoles, unless there also exists some "fundamental" monopole-particles. I think so because all the fundamental particles what we know until now are magnetic dipoles, e.g. electron, protons etc. (please correct me if I am wrong). Therefore, any physical object consisting of these fundamental magnetic dipoles, will either be a magnetic dipole or neutral. So, how can a magnetic monopole exist in reality if there is no "fundamental" particle that is a magnetic monopole?

(The field lines, electric or magnetic, are non-physical (this is just a concept that ease up the process of understanding). So, although it is acceptable from theoretical point of view to have a magnetic field line spreading from or converging into a magnetic monopole, I seriously doubt its physical existence.)

Would you mind shedding some light about it in simple terms?

Space

Submission + - India eyeing for Mars by 2013-2015 (indiatimes.com)

freakxx writes: "After the (partial?!) success of Chandrayaan-1, and the Chandrayaan-2 mission by 2012, ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair announced today that India is looking forward to take its next space mission to Mars, somewhere between 2013-2015. He said that the mission is now at a conceptual stage and will be taken up after the Chandrayaan-2. If the Mars becomes a success, this will be a giant step for the India to step into the outer space as well as to establish itself as one of the very few space-superpowers. It will further enable the country to attract a bigger chunk of the billions of $$$ of international satellite launch market. Ultimately, this may turn out to be beneficial for the whole country in a long term, both in terms of prestige and technology."

Comment Re:Scary (Score 1) 573

But since they must exist, it's better if everybody have them. Deterrence.

ummmm...no, irresponsible countries should certainly not have it (as it is possible for the terrorists to have their hand on these weapons).

Well, at the same time, the responsible countries also don't have any reason to possess it!!

Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft's Price Fixing: Slapped with 9mn Euros (cnet.com)

freakxx writes: "CNET reports that the Microsoft has been slapped with a fine of 9 million Euros by German regulators over illegally fixing the price of its Office-suit in an anticompetitive manner during a retail-promotion fair. According to a press release by the regulators:

"Even before the launch of the advertising campaign in mid-October 2008, employees of Microsoft and the retailer in question had agreed on at least two occasions on the resale price of the software package. Not every contact between supplier and retailer regarding resale prices constitutes an illegal concerted practice within the meaning of Section 1 ARC. However, this must not lead to a form of coordination where the supplier actively tries to coordinate the pricing activities of the retailer and thus retailer and supplier agree on future actions of the retailer. In the present case, this boundary has been crossed."

The Microsoft has accepted the fine and decided not to take this issue to any higher level."

Comment Re:Reality is different. Re:Morality police (Score 1) 292

Lalu Prasad Yadav has been in jail for 6 months or so in the fodder scam. Therefore, u can say that we have an active judiciary system who doesn't hesitate to put high-profile politicians into jail. Him getting convicted or not is not dependent only on the court, rather, as I said in my previous comment, it also depends on how much the police and investigation agencies are willing to collect and produce evidences. In absence of evidences, court can't do anything, be it a politician or anyone ordinary. It's the police to blame, not the judiciary system. I believe, we have got one of the best judiciary systems in the world.

Comment Re:Reality is different. Re:Morality police (Score 1) 292

"Really ? Name 10 'biggest politicians' arrested/imprisoned/convicted by the Supreme Court in India ?"

As an example, what do u think about Lalu Prasa Yadav?

If you are pointing to some cases where big politicians couldn't get prosecuted, like Narendra Modi, it's not courts' fault. Instead, this is all about the unwillingness of police or investigation agencies to collect evidences against such high-profile politicians. A court can't do anything without strong evidences in a criminal case.

However, challenging a policy in court is a different issue. The judges can look into the constitution by themselves and then decide if the policy in question is favorable to the people of India or not. And perhaps, that is the reason we have witnessed the RTI act coming into effect in a useful form.

Comment Re:Morality police (Score 1) 292

If this act starts getting misused on a large scale, the possibility of it being challenged in a court in India is quite high. Nowadays, in India, awareness among people is growing very fast and challenging a government policy in court is not very uncommon. Also, many NGOs are strongly raising the issues of human-right abuses and individuals freedom. To exemplify, RTI [http://www.rtiindia.org] can be cited as one of the big outcomes in recent days. Also, the Gujrat government is brought to its knees by a court for unfair treatment of minorities. There are many other examples too.

I can't say 'when', but, chances of it being challenged in some court is pretty high.

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