Slashdot

TomRC writes "Sadly, 'the Air Force and NASA cannot even get out of their own red taped way to launch a simple rocket made of balsa wood and paper'. And we're supposed to believe NASA will be able to return to the moon?"
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2008/01/usaf_red_tape_c.html

balloonpup writes "On February 23, 2007, the FCC dropped all requirements to learn Morse Code (warning, PDF) for all amateur license classes. All existing technicians will be upgraded to tech-plus privileges, and many others who have taken the General or Extra class written tests will be automatically updated to those classes without the code. More information can be found at the Amateur Radio Relay League's website."

Inviting the IAEA chief inspector to visit, North Korea signals it's willing to allow scrutiny of its nuclear program for the first time since 2003. By the Associated Press.

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/topheadlines/~3/95014703/KOREAS_NUCLEAR

jazzu writes "Are you working in one of those annoying open floor plan offices, where the Boss can observe anything and anyone without you noticing it? Need to check the latest gossip on Slashdot, but he's hovering over you because of the approaching TPS report deadline? Well, here's a solution: hide it in the plain open masked as a Word 2003 document. Nothing discourages curious onlookers like reams of text in a plain old word processor."

An anonymous reader writes "I saw this in the US ComputerWorld and thought it was perfect for this blog 'o mine. So here it is, as Don Tennant wrote it:- http://www.techworld.com/storage/blogs/index.cfm?e ntryid=390 The comment at the bottom is very interesting...."

edwardpickman writes "It reminds me of a scene out of Armaggedon, duct taping an unstable crewman or more recently crewwoman. Amazing how many applications duct tape has.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/02/23/astronaut .plan.ap/index.html"

schlick writes "When I watched the iPhone presentation I was pretty impressed. When I found out that it will only be available on the Cingular/Att network that pretty much killed any enthusiasim I had for the device. The fact that it is a closed platform is just another nail in the coffin. Despite what Jobs says, most of us geeks know that open==good. So what is the alternative? How about the OpenMoko Neo 1973? Sean Moss-Pultz explains the phone and some of the philosophy behind it. Their home page says they will be shipping devices this month, but I don't think that is likely. Open hardware, Open software, what's not to like?"

Vicious writes "Now you can finally stream other types of media files to your Xbox 360 besides just MP3, WMA, and WMV. Other supported file types include MPEG 1 and MPEG 2, DivX, VidX, and AVI. It's about time! http://www.gameshark.com/home/281/GameShark-Xbox-3 60-Media-Player-Released.htm"

An anonymous reader writes "A reader at The Register has reported that there are issues with renaming folders or files created on network drives with Vista. The affected systems contain pre-installed editions of Vista shipped on new PCs and Laptops. A number of manufacturers are affected and these issues have been reported in this thread on Microsoft's Technet forum well before Vista shipped to retail channels."

SpaceRanger writes "For those of you curious about the lawsuit filed against WoW Glider by Blizzard, The Escapist has an interview up with the famous Markee Dragon covering some aspects of it. "I think Blizzard has probably known about this since the beginning of WoW Glider, and a lot of companies will use irritation level before they take action. They'll poll their customers to see what's irritating them the most, and they'll pick the top 10 percent, and they'll address those issues. Maybe botting has come up to that — farming has probably been up there high on that list — that's probably what you hear about equally, farming and botting, and of course bots can be used to farm. I'm sure Blizzard's known about this a long time.""

wiggles writes "According to the Chicago Tribune, the recent surge of video sites such as Youtube and Google video are pushing the limits of the Internet's bandwidth, or soon will be. Pieter Poll, chief technology officer at Qwest Communications, says that traffic volumes are growing faster than computing power, meaning that engineers can no longer count on newer, faster computers to keep ahead of their capacity demands. Further, a recent report from Deloitte Consulting raised the possibility that 2007 would see Internet demand exceed capacity. Admittedly, this seems a bit sensationalist, but are we headed for a massive slowdown of the whole internet?"

A Colorado program may help with the balance and posture problems encountered by people suffering from Sensory Processing Disorder. In Bodyhack.

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/topheadlines/~3/94957150/hacking_my_chil_3.html

Chlorine tanks are everywhere -- and now, Iraqi insurgents are using 'em as weapons. It's time to learn more about the deadly gas. In Danger Room.

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/topheadlines/~3/94950451/chlorine_bombs__1.html

Michael writes "Opera CTO Håkon Wium Lie hit back today at Microsoft's push to fast track Office Open XML into an ISO standard in a blistering article on CNET. He also took a swipe at Open Document Format: "I'm no fan of either specification. Both are basically memory dumps with angle brackets around them. If forced to choose one, I'd pick the 700-page specification (ODF) over the 6,000-page specification (OOXML). But I think there is a better way.". The better way being the existing universally understood standards of HTML and CSS. Putting this to the test, Håkon has published a book using HTML and CSS."

Vengance Daemon writes "The New York Times and many other sources are reporting that Microsoft lost the patent case regarding "...the way the Windows Media Player software from Microsoft plays audio files using MP3..." They go on to say "If the ruling stands, Apple and hundreds of other companies that make products that play MP3 files, including portable players, computers and software, could also face demands to pay royalties to Alcatel."

At first glance, it appears that Fedora, and the other distributions that did not include MP3 capabilities in their products because of patent concerns were quite right. Ogg Vorbis works great for music, and many commercial players support it."