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Comment Re:No (Score 1) 671

All of you who have replied to this are missing something crucial.

Sure he might have some silly ideas on what to do, that's why he is asking for your advice. But saying he should take a personal laptop isn't the solution. The reason he is probably looking for an answer is because he doesn't want to lug two laptops around!

I would think if your company denies you access to news sites and facebook etc. while you're away in your own time, that's a little harsh. But if the OP is just wanting to look at porn while he is away... come on, surely you can go without a few days!

Comment Good for business (Score 0) 155

While clearly Google could just turn around and canibalise the idea, this may help Canonical's growth with businesses.

A company could provide certain employees who don't need fast machines a simple work phone. Anywhere they could communicate and work on the same device.

Lets face it, the idea of the pocket computer is the future. The people who will be most happy if this succeeds would probably be ARM chip makers. Maybe Mark Shuttleworth is trying to setup his company to be bought by Google now.

Ubuntu

Banshee, Mono May Be Dropped From Ubuntu Default 255

itwbennett writes "The Banshee music application, and Mono, the open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET framework, on which Banshee is dependent, may be excluded from the next release of Ubuntu. In 'a blog entry titled Bansheegeddon,' Banshee and Mono developer Joseph Michael Shields says the reasons given for the change are that Banshee is 'not well maintained' and 'porting music store to GTK3 is blocked on banshee ported to GTK3.' Other reasons mentioned but not in the session logs are complaints that it doesn't work on ARM. Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon pointed out in a blog post that the decision to drop Banshee, Mono or other apps that are dependent on Mono has not been finalized. But the blogosphere is lit up with speculation that this is a deliberate move to exclude Mono because of its emulation of Microsoft .NET."

Comment Re:and where's heisenberg? (Score 1) 566

I don't know how it is done in America but where I am from there is essentially a 9km/h grace. This means while and where the speed limit is 50km/h, you will never get a ticket for less than 60km/h (except for public holidays where the grace is switched to 4km/h in an effort to curb the road toll). Part of the reason for the grace (apart from allowing for normal human error) is to account for possible errors that may occur in the measurement.

Now that makes me think that if his average speed between the two points is estimated at 35mph and the areas speed limit is 50mph, with a similar grace that is one giant error in the system. (Since typing I've gone on to read that the grace is 12mph, which converts to 19km/h... in my opinion a huge leniency). The reason I feel it must be a glaring error is that the calibration of these devices, which I presume are radar would be far more precise than 19km/h. I would go on to guess that the 0.363 seconds between the photos is fairly accurate too, given that these devices are designed to be evidentially sound.

So he's worked out he's going 35mph, he must have been going at least 62mph to activate the camera. 35mph is 15.6464m/s meaning that in 0.363 seconds he would have travelled 5.67m, 62mph is 27.71648m/s which would indicate he travelled 10.06m. There would also me a small amount of error in the reading due to the doppler shift going on in the radar that records his speed. The favour of the cosine coefficient from the doppler effect always goes to the advantage of the motorist. It seems to me that with all the possibilities to cause error, there is still one huge difference. So while I think that the error is actually in his use of photogrammetry, he must have done one big error and fooled the judge on it. He's worked it out too. As per the article "Mr. Foreman said he is awaiting trial on about 40 more tickets, all of which he called “bogus.”" He worked out he get off the tickets and now he speeds everywhere like a maniac no doubt. I just do not believe that there can be that large errors in the system so that leaves him behaving like an arrogant tosser who is a danger to all other drivers and especially pedestrians.

The odd thing is the manufacturer of the camera says:
"Optotraffic representatives said the photos are not intended to capture the actual act of speeding, and are taken nearly 50 feet down the road from sensors as a way to prove the vehicle was on the road.

“No one has come to us with a proven error,” company spokesman Mickey Shepherd said Tuesday. “Their speed is not measured by the photos. The speed is measured before the photos are taken.”"

I would have thought that would be enough to get his style of defence thrown out of court. Are the judges in America trained lawyers or are they political monkeys? The company should be making everything as evidentially sound as possible though.

Submission + - Outrage as New Zealand Passes Anti-Filesharing Law (pirateparty.org.nz) 2

master5o1 writes: "The Pirate Party of New Zealand is disappointed that the Government used urgency to pass the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill after the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill.

"Not only is the urgency process being abused," party secretary Noel Zeng stated, "but our government is also exploiting the people of Christchurch by using their unfortunate situation to pass underhanded legislation.""

DRM

Cable Channels Panic Over iPad Streaming App 346

jfruhlinger writes "Time Warner Cable this month released an iPad app that would allow its subscribers to stream (some of) the channels they already pay for to their iPad, so long as they're connected to home Internet service provided by Time Warner Cable. The app probably seems like a baby step to most Slashdotters, and was extremely popular among subscribers — but it's thrown the owners of those channels into a panic, and they're threatening lawsuits. Time Warner says the contracts they've signed with the channels allow broadcast to any device in the home — 'I don't know what a TV is anymore,' says one company exec — but the channel owners fear that this will disrupt current and future revenue streams and that they need to stop it now. 'If we allow this without litigation, everyone will do it tomorrow,' says an anonymous source. 'If we litigate, we have a chance to win.'"

Comment Internet Addict Parents. (Score 1) 278

Is it possible that kids using the computers isn't the problem? Perhaps it is that their parents monopolize the devices and spend all their time on the internet instead of interacting with their kids. It's a parent's involvement with their children that has the largest effect on their school work.

Censorship

Pentagon Seeking Out Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange 628

a user writes "The Pentagon is desperately seeking the 'cooperation' of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in order to stop him from releasing over 250,000 pages of confidential foreign policy documents. The documents were allegedly provided to Assange by Bradley Manning, the same solider who leaked a video showing a US Army helicopter killing unarmed civilians and international press correspondents."
Image

The Race To Beer With 50% Alcohol By Volume Screenshot-sm 297

ElectricSteve writes "Most of the world's beer has between 4% and 6% alcohol by volume (ABV). The strength of beer achieved by traditional fermentation brewing methods has limits, but a well-crafted beer that is repeatedly 'freeze distilled' can achieve exquisite qualities and much higher alcohol concentrations. An escalation in the use of this relatively new methodology over the last 12 months has seen man's favorite beverage suddenly move into the 40+% ABV realm of spirits such as gin, rum, brandy, whiskey, and vodka, creating a new category of extreme beer. The world's strongest beer was 27% ABV, but amidst an informal contest to claim the title of the world's strongest beer, the top beer has jumped in strength dramatically. This week Gizmag spoke to the brewers at the center of the escalating competition. New contestants are gathering, and the race is now on to break 50% alcohol by volume."
PC Games (Games)

Blizzard Boss Says Restrictive DRM Is a Waste of Time 563

Stoobalou writes "Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce reckons that fighting piracy with DRM is a losing battle. His company — which is responsible for one of the biggest video games of all time, the addictive online fantasy role player World of Warcraft — is to release StarCraft 2 on July 27, and Pearce has told Videogamer that the title won't be hobbled with the kind of crazy copy protection schemes that have made Ubisoft very unpopular in gaming circles of late. StarCraft 2 will require a single online activation using the company's Battle.net servers, after which players will be allowed to play the single-player game to their hearts' content, without being forced to have a persistent Internet connection."

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