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S1mmo+61 (1125433)

S1mmo+61
  (email not shown publicly)

S1mmo+61 (1125433)

Submitted by S1mmo+61 on Tuesday March 18, @07:49AM
Time Magazine claims that Americans do not care about the domestic spying carried out by the Bush administration
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/17/time/index.html
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 [+] , politics, privacy

  PS3 SDK price slashed[->] 2007-11-19 21:00 gaffle

Submitted by gaffle on Monday November 19 2007, @09:00PM
gaffle writes "PS3 SDK price cut in half internationally; ~10k is pretty damn cheap. They must be hurting for developers. As an aside, wasn't the Wii SDK real cheap right off the bat? Those PS3 developers that paid high prices for their SDK licenses must be kind of pissed. I know I would be cranky if I picked up an expensive SDK license, found it a pain to develop for, the console sucks for sales, and now they drop the price? I know I'd probably be wishing I had just gotten that inexpensive Wii SDK."
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Japan-PlayStation.html?ref=technology
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 [+] submission, games, playstation
Submitted by Arashtamere on Monday November 19 2007, @08:12PM
Arashtamere writes "If Samy Kamkar plays his cards right, he may be allowed to visit MySpace again in just a few months. For the time being, however, he's not even allowed to touch a computer, following a January 2007 guilty plea for creating what many consider to be the first Web 2.0 worm: the Samy worm. Samy's worm wasn't malicious, but it did force News Corp.'s MySpace social-networking site to shut down in late 2005 after forcing more than 1 million users to declare Samy a "hero" on their profile pages. Last week, Samy, who is now 21, made his first public appearance since his conviction, attending a conference hosted by eBay in California. He was treated like a celebrity at the show, but there were some complications. Under the terms of his plea agreement, he can only use computers for work, so he was forced to show slides that he'd dictated to a friend on a computer that was operated by a conference staffer. "When I wrote the worm, it initially wasn't a worm. Initially I was just trying to spruce up my MySpace profile. I also wanted to show off to a couple of friends...So I wrote a little code and what ended up happening is whenever someone viewed my profile, they would automatically add 'But most of all, Samy is my hero' at the end of their hero section on their profile. And after that, I thought, 'If I can make this person my friend, if I can make myself their hero, couldn't I just copy this code onto their profile?' I didn't think this would be a big deal, so I tried it out. I thought maybe I'll get one friend tomorrow and a few in maybe a few days. It went quickly. Apparently, MySpace is a bigger place than I assumed.""
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;2033178109;fp;16;fpid;1
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 [+] submission, interviews, security

  Hardware: The Fastest Processor You Can't Run 2007-11-19 18:00

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday November 19 2007, @06:00PM
from the testing-untapped-potential dept.
auld_wyrm writes "Intel is trying to push the news of AMD's Barcelona launch out of the headlines with the release of the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770, a 3.20 GHz CPU that runs on a 1600 MHz front-side bus. It is the fastest consumer level processor that has come out, but don't plan on running it anytime soon. The ~$1200 price tag, and the lack of any motherboards that support a 1600MHz FSB will stop this unneeded answer to Barcelona from appearing in enthusiast's PCs for Christmas. Still, the benchmarks from this powerful CPU are something awesome to behold."
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 [+] story, hardware, intel, jealousslashdotters, pissingcontest, advertisment

  Politics: Congressman Tells Comcast, Hands Off BitTorrent 2007-10-25 12:34

Posted by kdawson on Thursday October 25 2007, @12:34PM
from the but-we-won't-make-no-laws dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Just a few months back, the Net Neutrality debate was all but dead. Luckily for fans of a free Internet, the telcos are their own worst enemies. Recent stories involving Verizon Wireless blocking pro-choice groups, AT&T censoring Pearl Jam's anti-war comments from a streaming concert, and most recently, Comcast finally admitting to using anti-BitTorrent filters. The Net Neutrality debate would appear to be alive and kicking, with Congressman Rick Boucher (D-VA) being the first politician to make a public statement sharply criticizing Comcast's actions."
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 [+] story, politics, internet, qosisnotnetneutrality, !qos, !netneutrality
Journal by smooth wombat on Thursday October 25 2007, @12:31PM
After making one-too-many comments regarding the evolutionary development of humans, Nobel winner Dr. James Watson, co-discoverer of the double-helix structure of DNA, has stepped down from his post at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island.


His most recent comments regarded the supposed difference in intelligence between blacks and other races. In essence, his comments intimated that their intelligence is not equal to other races and that people who have worked with blacks find this true.

Dr. Watson has made other comments which have gotten him in hot water. Those include:

If a gene for homosexuality were discovered, women should be allowed to have an abortion if their unborn child was found to have the gene.

He has suggested there might be links between skin color and sexual prowess, and between a person's weight and their level of ambition.

He considers stupidity a disease and should be treated as such.

Stupidity a disease? Sure, why not. We have plenty of people in this country to do studies on to prove or disprove this line of thought.

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 [+] journal, announcement, interesting

  Dell pulls support for x64 Vista?[->] 2007-10-25 12:21 leighklotz

Submitted by leighklotz on Thursday October 25 2007, @12:21PM
leighklotz writes "This message is getting forwarded about with some concern by those who have to validate software on multiple platforms...it looks like Windows is beginning to see the fragmentation that Linux is so often accused of.

A user named "Morpheus Phreak" wrote on neowin:

I do a fresh install of Windows Vista Ultimate x64 Edition. The install finishes and my system reboots with in-box drivers for almost all of my hardware. The first thing I do is go to the Dell Support site and download drivers, or do I? It seems that Dell has decided to stop supporting all 64-bit editions of Windows, thus nothing to download.

I make a post on their forums asking if anyone knows if it's temporary and I receive this response from a Dell employee:

"It cost us in time and money to validate drivers. We built PCs with specific operating systems in mind. That is all we will support."


I mention to the Dell employee that he must be mistaken as that would violate their Vista Logo contract with Microsoft. At this point the Dell employee replied tersely with the following:

"Be assured, our legal team is on top of this decision."


At this point I'm stumped and a bit angry. After all the OEM Logo requirements state, "OEMs using x64 implementations must have signed drivers available to end users if shipping a 32-bit version of Windows Vista on the system."

By removing their x64 driver support they have now violated their contract with Microsoft. Any x64-based systems they sell now with the logo are illegal. One can only help but wonder, why would Dell put themselves in this position?

I'll kindly step down from my Soapbox now, but I ask one question to all of you.

Where do we go from here?
"
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/07/10/24/dell-no-longer-supports-vista-x64and-other-rants
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 [+] submission, it, windows

  Humans not evolved for IT security 2007-10-24 00:51 Stony Stevenson

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Wednesday October 24 2007, @12:51AM
Human beings aren't evolved for security in the modern world, and particularly the IT security world, according to security guru Bruce Schneier. He told delegates at the 2007 RSA Conference that there is a gap between the reality of security and the emotional feel of security due to the way our brains have evolved. This leads to people making bad choices.

He says our brains evolved to deal with the reality of security, but emotional aspects also have a big role. Because of this, too often in the industry, products appealed to people's emotions rather than addressing business facts and that was hurting the industry.
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 [+] , security

  Sorry Ninjas, Pressure Points are Phony 2007-10-24 00:48 Anonymous Coward

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2007, @12:48AM
An anonymous reader writes "Weeks after the news that it doesn't matter where you stick acupuncture needles, Wired Science has challenged the timeless ninja skill of pressure point fighting. When martial artists show off their fancy skills, they usually work with compliant subjects. During pressure point demonstrations, they build up to the finale of knocking people out with mind waves and gentle slaps after several hours of conditioning. The underlying principle at work during a pressure point lesson is the power of suggestion rather than causing an overload to the nervous system or using a jedi mind trick. Faith healers do the same thing. Even Borat played along."
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 [+] submission, science, scifi, interesting

  OLPC Give 1 Get 1 May Be Delayed 2007-10-24 00:22 Anonymous Coward

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2007, @12:22AM
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is reporting that Mary Lou Jepsen, chief technology officer for the One Laptop per Child Foundation, has said that because of production delays it would now be tough to fulfill overseas orders for the $188 laptop and also meet orders for the foundation's Give 1 Get 1 scheme for people in the United States and Canada."
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 [+] submission, hardware, business, slownewsday

  Oink.CD Shut Down 2007-10-24 00:19 Marie

Submitted by Marie on Wednesday October 24 2007, @12:19AM
Marie writes "Looks like popular invitation-only BitTorrent tracker Oink.cd (formerly Oink.me.uk) has finally been shut down. The homepage reads that the shutdown was due to an investigation by IFPI, BPI, Cleveland Police and the Fiscal Investigation Unit of the Dutch Police. Sounds like it took an international effort to take them down (and no, that's not the International Federation of Pirates Interests). The most worrisome part? "A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site's users.""
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 [+] submission, yro, music, interesting

  European physicists take photo of neutrino 2007-10-23 15:31 Anonymous Coward

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2007, @03:31PM
An anonymous reader writes "European physicists said Tuesday they had sent an elusive particle known as a neutrino on a 730-kilometer (456-mile) trip under the Earth's crust and taken a snapshot of the instant it slammed into lab detectors. In the October 2 event, a neutrino hit one of the 60,000 bricks that had been installed in San Grasso, leaving a tell-tale track of a muon on the film. The experiment is important, say the investigators, as it could help explain one of the biggest mysteries about the Universe — its missing mass. When scientists tot up the mass of all the visible matter in the Universe, they arrive at a total of just 10 percent of what they know to exist. For years, neutrinos were not thought to have any mass, although that theory has been challenged by experiments at Japan's SuperKamioKande lab, which suggested that they may have a mass, albeit a very tiny one."
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 [+] submission, science, space

  Walmart forcing Black Friday sites to remove ads[->] 2007-10-22 15:35 Anonymous Coward

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2007, @03:35PM
Anonymous Coward writes "As a mid-sized shopping website with a niche Black Friday ad following every year, I was surprised to find that Walmart took notice of our site and sent us a letter informing us that we cannot post their Black Friday 2007 ads without "giving rise to liabilities and severe legal penalties." I read /. nearly every day and come across people's legal queries all the time. I never thought my website would be subject to a possible suit, but it's a very real possibility if and when someone comes across Walmart's Black Friday 2007 ad and posts it in our forum. As a "little guy," I'm sure I don't have the budget to fight this in court, which gives rise to several questions. What sorts of rights do I have as a website publisher to display a company's ads? Do my rights to free speech come into play here? I can't police my forum 24/7, so is there any kind of wiggle room within the law if I don't take it down immediately because I am not aware of it?"
http://www.daddyodeals.com/phpBB/official-black-friday-2007-ads-black-friday-rumors-black-friday-2007-black-friday-flyers-black-friday-deals-f23.html
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 [+] submission, yro, court

  The Truth of An Inconvenient Education 2007-10-10 17:52 nibbles2004

Submitted by nibbles2004 on Wednesday October 10 2007, @05:52PM
nibbles2004 writes "According to the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7037671.stm Al Gore's film on the Environment "An Inconvenient Truth" can now only be shown in UK schools if accompanied by guidance giving the other side of the argument after a Judge ruled the film contained "nine scientific errors". What criteria should be in place if schools are to show such films and what precautions should be inplace that all relevant sides of the argument are presented."
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 [+] submission, science, education

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