Comment: Re:A bit of common sense here (Score 1) 175
If you rip your CDs to an MP3 player, and don't share the files, the RIAA will never know.
Thats what they want you to think!
Facebook Censoring Mothers' Breastfeeding Photos->
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NewsCloud
NewsCloud writes "Some Facebook moms report having their accounts deleted for uploading photos of breastfeeding their newborns. 'Photos containing an exposed breast do violate our Terms and are removed,' says Facebook. In response, more than 33,431 concerned Facebook members created the "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!" [group req. reg.]. Facebook's censorship thresholds were covered earlier on Slashdot. Meanwhile, Flickr's foot fetish groups are going strong."
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Link to Original Source
Wal-Mart's $200 Linux PC Sells Out->
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hankmt
hankmt writes "About a week ago Wal-Mart began selling a $200 linux machine running on a 1.5 ghz Via C7 processor and 512 megs of RAM. While the specs are useless for vista, it works blazingly fast on Ubuntu with the Enlightenment Window Manager. The machine is now officially sold out of their online warehouses, and the product sales page at WalMart.com is full of glowing reviews from new and old linux users alike."
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Link to Original Source
Software for reverse engineering the human brain->
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An anonymous reader writes "In his book, "The Singularity is Near", Ray Kurzweil says the future of artificial intelligence may be in reverse engineering the human brain. Now, scientists at the University of Colorado have released software, dubbed "Emergent," that is aimed at allowing you to do just that. Using the ODE library for realistic physics, you can construct a robot with a simulated brain in a simulated world with a simulated body. I've seen neural network software before, but seeing a robot with his brain hovering over his head in 3D was a bit..shocking to say the least. Especially in light of this recent Oxford paper which asks, "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?." I was even able to "lesion" his brain and see his performance go down. Could this approach possibly bootstrap us into real artificial intelligence? Will these new simulated robotic overlords someday assimilate us?"
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Link to Original Source
Space Shuttle Endeavour Lands Safely
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Limburgher
Limburgher writes "I just watched her land on NASA TV. What a relief! I'm glad they all made it back safely. Still think they should have patched, but it looks like NASA's decision was justified."
Rare dead star found near Earth
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mernil
mernil writes "Astronomers have spotted a space oddity in Earth's neighbourhood — a dead star with some unusual characteristics. [...] If confirmed, it would be only the eighth known "isolated neutron star" — meaning a neutron star that does not have an associated supernova remnant, binary companion, or radio pulsations."
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Breakout
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simoniker
simoniker writes "How much is there to learn about Breakout-style brick-bustin' games? A heck of a lot, according to LEGO Bricktopia level designer Nelson, who has written possibly the definitive genre overview over at Gamasutra, complete with design specifics, interviews, and much more. He starts with history, noting that after Pong: "Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow, along with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (of Apple fame) took paddle & ball game play a step further when they designed and developed Breakout (Atari, 1976). This was the first game to include the "paddle & ball vs. blocks" game mechanic integral to subsequent games in the Breakout genre.""
Super Mario World Rube-Goldberg machines-> 1
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fedxone-v86
fedxone-v86 writes "Modding a game to make it glitch out and do freaky shit is one thing. Modding a game and turning it into an amazing work of art is quite another. Take, for instance, these clips of various user created worlds in Super Mario World. In each of them, a sort of Rube Goldberg machine is set into motion, allowing the "player" to do absolutely nothing to get from point A to B. Not only is it hypnotic, it cripples the mind."
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Link to Original Source
The United States Space Arsenal 297
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the Q-36-explosive-space-modulator dept.
from the Q-36-explosive-space-modulator dept.
ntmokey writes "When China tested a missile on its own satellite in January, the nation's aggressive statement immediately raised eyebrows among the world's other space-faring nations. Popular Mechanics looks at the implications of a conflict in space — including debris that could render space unusable for decades — and examines the United States' own space arsenal."
Delete 'em all and let god sort it out-> 2
Submitted
by
Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Exetel, an Australian ISP, has a novel approach to the possibility that copyright material might be hosted on its servers.
It just runs a cron job every night to silently delete all media files.
Yes, you read that right, all .avi, .mp3, .wmv, and .mov files, plus files on another sekrit list of extensions which you're not allowed to know about. "All formats are fair game", warn their admins.
And users don't even get notified it's happened. You wake up in the morning, the files are gone. Then I guess you have to find your way to "Why do my media files keep getting deleted from my free web space?" in their FAQ and take it from there.
Talk about a chilling effect. You can be exempted from their Kafaesque cron job if you sign a kind of Loyalty Oath swearing you own the copyright or have the permission of the owner. So, no fair use then?
They say they're doing it to avoid legal problems, quoting universal v cooper where an Aussie ISP was found liable for encouraging piracy. Only thing is, that case involved a commercial website called mp3s4free which did nothing but offer copyrighted material, and the hosting indisputably company knew all about it, choosing to fight the case on the basis that they didn't host the files, just linked to them.
Copyright law and the internet is a complex subject, but hell, this is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut."
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It just runs a cron job every night to silently delete all media files.
Yes, you read that right, all
And users don't even get notified it's happened. You wake up in the morning, the files are gone. Then I guess you have to find your way to "Why do my media files keep getting deleted from my free web space?" in their FAQ and take it from there.
Talk about a chilling effect. You can be exempted from their Kafaesque cron job if you sign a kind of Loyalty Oath swearing you own the copyright or have the permission of the owner. So, no fair use then?
They say they're doing it to avoid legal problems, quoting universal v cooper where an Aussie ISP was found liable for encouraging piracy. Only thing is, that case involved a commercial website called mp3s4free which did nothing but offer copyrighted material, and the hosting indisputably company knew all about it, choosing to fight the case on the basis that they didn't host the files, just linked to them.
Copyright law and the internet is a complex subject, but hell, this is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut."
Link to Original Source