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Comment: Re:Silk was used in a simlar way (Score 3, Funny) 213

by Fruny (#31805628) Attached to: Scientists Turn T-Shirts Into Body Armor

The Huns wore silk to protect themselves in battle. There were no bullets back then, just arrows and blades. While the arrows could still penetrate the flesh, they often did not cut through the silk which made it easier to remove the arrows and stem the bleeding. BTW, like tee-shirts, silk is imprintable -- "We're on the run, we're lotta fun, we are the Huns!"

Yes, that's actually true! They also wore silk scarves to prevent neck chops, because "there can be only Huns!"

Comment: Re:Not *slightly* altered (Score 1) 159

by Fruny (#28674555) Attached to: French "3 Strikes" Law Returns, In Slightly Altered Form

My personal opinion is that this is a face-saving law. The new law is 99.9% inapplicable in practice. There is just no way thousands of people can go through the court system every month as is the government's plan. Plus people are *very* likely to put up a good fight, like they have done everywhere. There are no possible settlement.

As I understand it, the plan is to use the same expedited process as for parking or speeding tickets, which has little trouble dealing with thousands of violations each month. In that regard, IP logs might be admitted in the same way as photographic evidence from speed-trap cameras.

Biotech

Resurrecting the Mighty Mammoth, Cheaply 322

Posted by timothy
from the when-faster-and-cheaper-are-synonymous dept.
somanyrobots writes with an interesting followup in the New York Times to the earlier-reported substantial reconstruction of the woolly mammoth genome: "Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this staple of science fiction is a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million. The same technology could be applied to any other extinct species from which one can obtain hair, horn, hooves, fur or feathers, and which went extinct within the last 60,000 years, the effective age limit for DNA." (The Washington Post article linked from the earlier post was much more skeptical, calling such an attempt "still firmly the domain of science fiction." The New York Times article, while describing the process in similar terms, also calls attention to recent advances in sequencing DNA, as well as recoding DNA for cloning.)
Censorship

Australian Government Censorship 'Worse Than Iran' 516

Posted by timothy
from the but-the-people-there-are-so-nice dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Australian Government's plan to Censor the Internet is producing problems for ISPs, with filters causing speeds to drop by up to 86% and falsely blocking 10% of safe sites. The Government Minister in charge of the censorship plan, Conservative Stephen Conroy, has been accused of bullying ISP employees critical of his plan: 'If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree.'" Read on for more, including an interesting approach to demonstrating the inevitable collision of automated censorship with common sense.
Earth

Arctic Sea Ice Rallies a Bit 152

Posted by timothy
from the mysterious-ways dept.
radioweather writes "Like the recent stock market rebound, Arctic sea ice is making a big rally over the record low set last year. According to the Alaskan IARC-JAXA website, satellite data which shows sea ice extent as of 10/14/08 was 7,064,219 square kilometers, when compared to a year ago 10/14/08 it was 5,487,656 square kilometers. The one-day gain between 10/13/08 and 10/14/08 of 3.8% is also quite impressive. On May 5th, The National Snow and Ice Data Center suggested the possibility of an ice-free north pole in 2008, but so far, this year has been a banner year for sea ice recovery."
The Internet

LHC Flips On Tomorrow 526

Posted by Soulskill
from the nice-knowing-you-all dept.
BTJunkie writes "The Large Hadron Collider, the worlds most expensive science experiment, is set to be turned on tomorrow. We've discussed this multiple times already. A small group of people believe our world will be sucked into extinction (some have even sent death threats). The majority of us, however, won't be losing any sleep tonight." Reader WillRobinson notes that CERN researchers declared the final synchronization test a success and says, "The first attempt to circulate a beam in the LHC will be made this Wednesday, Sept. 10 at the injection energy of 450 GeV (0.45 TeV). The start up time will be between (9:00 to 18:00 Zurich Time) (2:00 to 10:00 CDT) with live webcasts provided at webcast.cern.ch."
United States

Is America still free?

Submitted by chameleon3
chameleon3 writes "Slashdotters are wont to bemoan the slow erosion of personal freedoms in the United States, and I am not inclined to disagree. My question is: how will you know that America is no longer the Land of the Free? What event would be necessary for you to declare Freedom officially dead in America? Or, if you believe it has already occurred, what event caused it?"
Portables (Apple)

Excite News - Apple: iTunes Glitches Remain on Vis

Submitted by
mikesd81
mikesd81 writes "AP news reports that an update to Apple's iTunes music software still hasn't resolved some of the compatibility problems with Microsoft's new operating system. From the article: "But in addition to the iPod-ejection problem, Apple warned that iTunes 7.1 may still exhibit difficulties synchronizing Windows contacts with an iPod. The text and graphics of iTunes running on a Vista machine also may not be correctly displayed, though resizing the iTunes screen should correct the issue."

According to a post in Apple's website: The previous glitch that prevented Vista users from playing music or video purchased from the online iTunes Store is no longer an issue. Also iTunes is not supported on 64-bit version of XP or Vista. Microsoft has said it is working with a long list of partners, including Apple, to make sure their software is compatible with Vista."
Enlightenment

Decline In Pet Ownership Because Of Videogames

Submitted by
Gerard Fuller
Gerard Fuller writes "A new study by the Australian Veterinary Association claims that children are increasingly choosing computer games over pets, and that this is a major factor in the decline of pet ownership.

But can't pet simulators offer all the good lessons of owning a pet (caring for an animal, discipline) without the drawbacks (poo on the sofa, barking and howling at 3am)?

Fortunately the study also identifies the trend toward medium-density living as a major factor in the findings. See, games aren't all bad."
Communications

Contact Information Management

Submitted by nnkx00
nnkx00 writes "Between all my peripherals and all my applications (across more than one operating system), I have a lot of places I need to keep various contact information. Unfortunately, its currently spread across all the aforementioned devices and locations. I'm looking to consolidate. How do you guys and gals keep your contact data up-to-date?"

People tend to make rules for others and exceptions for themselves.

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