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I'm sure Googlegemeinschaftelektronischepostsystem will be just as catchy.

Linker3000 writes "When the Irish local newspaper "Mayo Echo" published an article (readable online as a set of PDFs through the link) referring to gays as "perverts", it sparked lively debate in the forums at castlebar.ie , one of the region's most active online communities, but things took a turn for the worse when the paper's editor objected to some of the comments and contacted the site's editors. Under threat of legal action, the site's editors bowed to pressure and all material referring to the Mayo Echo was removed and an apology published, but then the newspaper's editor decided to not accept the apology and is maintaining his threat of legal action.

In light of this, the entire castlebar.ie site has been shut down and replaced with a one page commentary [Coral Cache] on the situation, stating: "...The view of the moderators was that it is no longer possible to have a reasonably robust discussion where opinions are expressed such as people stating that they do not like the slant of a particular article or newspaper as in this case without opening themselves up to legal action. The bulletin boards were effectively the heart of the site generating the bulk of over 3.8 million hits to Castlebar.ie last month for example.

Castlebar.ie has therefore ceased operating as a direct result of this ongoing threat of legal action and the possibility that under the current Irish legal system the same thing could happen at any stage. It is no longer possible to run a voluntary website such as Castlebar.ie on a server based in Ireland regardless of where the moderators actually live..."

Regrettably it's not possible to see any of the allegedly offending forum material (unless someone wants to unearth cached copies!?), but according to one moderator, although some of the reaction to the newspaper's article were 'passionate' — on both sides of the argument — all material specifically referred to in the newspaper's correspondence was removed upon request.

Is shutting down the entire site a wise precaution or totally unnecessary and extreme? And how does the editor of the Mayo Echo — a member of the estate that champions 'freedom of the press' — justify the threat of legal action against public commentary on one of their published articles, especially since the site's editors more than complied with the takedown request irrespective of whether they were obliged to or not?"

ribasushi writes "The last open day at the Large Hadron Collider is one week away. While I have a solid chance to go, I am dumbstruck by the insane amount of things to see during the 10 hours of the event. Since I do not know all that much about physics, I am turning to the knowledgeable crowd here at Slashdot — what do you think are the most awesome 5 must-see things on the agenda next Sunday?"

Patchw0rk F0g sends in an article from MSNBC on how some environmentalists are having second thoughts on compact fluorescent bulbs. Their relative energy efficiency is unquestioned. The problem is the mercury — enough in one bulb to contaminate 1,000 gallons of water, even in newer low-mercury bulbs. The EPA has an 11-step cleanup process to follow when you break a CFL in your home. The specialized recycling facilities that are needed are thin on the ground — about one per county in California, one of seven states where it is illegal to dispose of CFLs in the general waste stream.

Jonathan writes "Today, the 14th of March, is Pi Day 2008. Pi Day is internationally celebrated in honor of the mathematical constant "Pi," who's actual value will — now and forever — remain unknown. NeoSmart Technologies has a run-down on the history of Pi, Pi Day, and the significance of Pi and other such "magical numbers" to science and technology. 'Pi isn't just a number that you can use to calculate circle-related mathematics, it's a symbol of something by far greater. Pi is one of many "magic" numbers that are found everywhere — if you know where to look. These magic numbers can't be explained, they just are. And if you use them right, they make it a lot easier to do a lot of really complicated things... In a way, they're a testimony to technology and computers (or vice-versa, depending on how you look at it).'"

DavidHumus writes "According to a Wall St. Journal article top executives at most companies fail to recognize the value of IT, having a tendency to think of information technology as a basic utility, like plumbing or telephone service. The article lists five primary reasons for 'the wall' between IT and business: 'mind-set differences between management staff and IT staff, language differences, social influences, flaws in IT governance (defined as the specification and control of IT decision rights), and the difficulty of managing rapidly changing technology.' Does this fully explain the extreme lack of understanding of IT at high executive levels? The article is even-handed in apportioning blame but touches on a few good points. In particular, how '[m]ost top executives ... think of IT as an expensive headache that they'd rather not deal with.'"

USA Today is running a story about the emergence of robots in common aspects of life in Japan. Many simple yet social jobs are being filled by robots of increasing sophistication. The article suggests that Japanese culture is more open to such interaction than the majority of other cultures. Quoting: "For Japan, the robotics revolution is an imperative. With more than a fifth of the population 65 or older, the country is banking on robots to replenish the workforce and care for the elderly. The government estimates the industry could surge from about $5.2 billion in 2006 to $26 billion in 2010 and nearly $70 billion by 2025. Besides financial and technological power, the robot wave is favored by the Japanese mind-set as well. Robots have long been portrayed as friendly helpers in Japanese popular culture, a far cry from the often rebellious and violent machines that often inhabit Western science fiction."

yorugua writes "Furniture trembled as Steve Ballmer was to be interviewed by InformationWeek. He then went on to talk about Linux: 'How does Microsoft beat Linux? The same way "you beat any other competitor: You offer good value, which in this case means good total cost of ownership," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says.', Embrace-Extend-Extinguish: 'We say when we embrace standards, we'll be transparent about how we're embracing standards. [...] If we have deviations, we'll be transparent about the deviations.'"

fab writes "Italian car designer Leonardo Fioravanti (who worked for Pininfarina for a number of years) has developed a car prototype without windshield wipers. This amazing technological feat is made possible thanks to the use of 4 layers of glass modified using nanotechnology. The first layer filters the sun and repels the water. The second layer, using 'nano-dust' is able to push dirt to the side. The third layer acts as a sensor that activates the second layer when it detects dirt, while the fourth layer is a conductor of electricity to power this complex mechanism. I haven't been able to find an English article, but there is always a google powered translation of the Italian article."

Tom's Hardware is reporting that the Optimus keyboard that everyone was so anxious for (although maybe less so when they saw the price tag) started shipping this week. "According to an announcement made on the Optimus project blog, keyboards are now shipping to customers who pre-ordered the $1564 keyboard nine months ago. Keyboards with passive keys are delayed and will be shipping in about a month, the manufacturer said. [...] Earlier this month, one of the first Optimus Maximus keyboards was sold for $2750 on Ebay." Engadget even got the chance to test one of these expensive toys out.

coondoggie writes to mention that a new optical technique for sensing small amounts of molecules in a person's breath has been developed by a researcher for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The goal is to create a fast, low-cost method for detecting disease. "In this approach, NIST researchers analyze human breath with 'frequency combs,' which are generated by a laser specially designed to produce a series of very short, equally spaced pulses of light. Each pulse may be only a few million billionths of a second long. The laser generates light as a series of very narrow frequency peaks equally spaced, like the teeth of a comb, across a broad spectrum."

An anonymous reader writes in with news from the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco of a new energy-efficient chip designed by researchers at MIT. It's said to be able to run on 1/10 the power of current chips. Texas Instruments worked with MIT on the design, which is maybe five years from production. "The key to the chip's improved energy efficiency lies in making it work at a reduced voltage level, according to... a member of the chip design project team. Most of the mobile processors today operate at about 1 volt. The requirement for MIT's new design, however, drops to 0.3 volts."

Lucas123 writes "According to a Reuters' story, Dutch inventors today took the wraps off a $110,000 car-fueling robot they say is the first of its kind. (It was inspired by a cow milking robot.) After registering the car as it pulls up to the pump, the machine matches your fuel cap design with those in a database and your car's fuel type, and then a robotic arm fitted with multiple sensors extends from a regular gas pump, 'opens the car's flap, unscrews the cap, picks up the fuel nozzle and directs it towards the tank opening, much as a human arm would, and as efficiently.' Wait till Hollywood gets hold of this scenario."

The two companies announced today that NVIDIA will acquire PhysX maker AGEIA; terms were not disclosed. The Daily Tech is one of the few covering the news to go much beyond the press release, mentioning that AMD considered buying AGEIA last November but passed, and that the combination positions NVIDIA to compete with Intel on a second front, beyond the GPU — as Intel purchased AGEIA competitor Havok last September. While NVIDIA talked about supporting the PhysX engine on their GPUs, it's not clear whether AGEIA's hardware-based physics accelerator will play any part in that. AMD declared GPU physics dead last year, but NVIDIA at least presumably begs to differ. The coverage over at PC Perspectives goes into more depth on what the acquisition portends for the future of physics, on the GPU or elsewhere.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property brings us a Washington Post story which discusses how scientists are finding surprises among the pictures sent back from Mercury by the Messenger spacecraft. In particular, images depicting a crater with over 100 troughs radiating out from it are stumping researchers. The crater is referred to as 'The Spider', and it occupies a basin that has turned out to be larger than once thought. NASA also has a discussion of the crater. The Messenger craft began taking the up-close photos earlier this month. From the Post: "Scientists were also surprised by evidence of ancient volcanoes on many parts of the planet's surface and how different it looks compared with the moon, which is about the same size. Unlike the moon, Mercury has huge cliffs, as well as formations snaking hundreds of miles that indicate patterns of fault activity from Mercury's earliest days, more than 4 billion years ago."