Slashdot

Fantastic Lad, among many others, points out another in a long series of claimed "powered by water" cars, this one by a Japanese company called "Genepax," which interestingly enough does not have so much as a Wikipedia entry. What's scary is the uncritical, even serious-sounding, presentation by Reuters of such extraordinary claims quite unbacked by extraordinary evidence. "Almost sounds too good to be true" isn't the half of it; if cars could be made which would run as "long as you have a bottle of water inside" to pour into the fuel tank ("even tea," repeats this report), not only would you know about the car, but you'd notice the long lines of people buying generators, laptops, and power tools that run on the same technology. The snippet Reuters is carrying says "Jun. 13 — Japanese company Genepax presents its eco-friendly car that runs on nothing but water. The car has an energy generator that extracts hydrogen from water that is poured into the car's tank. The generator then releases electrons that produce electric power to run the car. Genepax, the company that invented the technology, aims to collaborate with Japanese manufacturers to mass produce it." Fantastic Lad, deadpan, goes on: "Check out the Reuter's story and accompanying video. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there some sort of conservation of energy thing happening in the whole 'separating hydrogen from water' game? I wonder what the real story is on this. Investment fraud? Magic?" Show your work; bonus points if you use Haiku.

I posted in this thread before it dissolved into a religious flamewar and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.

Since you brought up religion ... I saw a quote in todays' paper asking about whether people believe in bad luck on Friday the 13th (Today is Friday the 13th, btw). One wman said "Oh no, I have God watching over me, I don't have to worry. I don't believe in superstitions."

My irony meter pegged. Of course, critical thinking and logic are anathema to anyone who believes in god.

jexrand recommends an interview with John De Goes in which he argues: "The tools market is dead. Open source killed it." The software developer turned president of N-BRAIN explains the effect that open source has had on the developer tools market, and how this forced the company to release the personal edition of UNA free of charge. According to De Goes, selling a source-code editor, even a very good one, is all but impossible in the post-open source era, especially given that, "Some developers would rather quit their job than be forced to use a new editor or IDE." N-BRAIN's decision is but one in a string of similar announcements from tools companies announcing the free release of their previously commercial development tools.

In an interview conceded last week to Consumer Eroski (Spanish, sorry), Tetris father, Alexey Pajitnov, claimed that "Free Software should have never existed", since it "destroys the market" by bringing down companies who create wealth and prosperity. When inquired about RH or Oracle's support-oriented model, he called them "a minority", and also criticised Stallman's ideas as "belonging to the past" where there were no software "business posibilities".
http://alx5000.net/

TechDirt is reporting that the recent block placed on The Pirate Bay torrent site is not only relatively ineffective, but actually driving more traffic to the site because of the attention. "The news from The Pirate Bay appears to confirm this suspicion. According to The Pirate Bay's new Court Blog, Danish traffic has not dropped since the implementation of the block. '...the number of visits from Denmark has increased by 12% thanks to IFPI,' the blog post reads. 'Our site http://thejesperbay.org is growing more because of the media attention than people actually coming to learn how to bypass the filter - our guess is that alot of the users on the site now run OpenDNS instead of the censoring DNS at Tele2.dk.' 'We also started tracking some stats before and after the block. There's no noticeable difference between the number of users from Tele2.dk before and after.'"

An anonymous reader writes "You're doing something interesting. The phone rings. You get up, pick up the phone, and hear only silence. It could be a slasher waiting outside your house, but it's probably an errant computer at a telemarketer. This article describes how some are fighting back by setting up websites to track the worst telemarketers by their caller ids. The article mentions whocalled.us (one of the funnier urls I've ever seen), 800notes.com and numberzoom.com . One intrepid guy is even writing a program to check these sites when the call comes in before ringing the phone."

cweditor writes "Rob Mitchell shows how he measured energy use of all his home office equipment, and then targeted the energy pigs for replacement. With better equipment choices, he'd save $90/year. If you've got more than a couple of computers and printers at home (and if you're a Slashdot reader, you probably do), the savings would be a lot higher. Includes detailed formulas as well as a spreadsheet on monitor energy usage."

Gustoman writes "A new device that hit the market this week may not be able to help you put in fewer hours in the office, but it can help you get a good cardio workout while you're troubleshooting that laptop or reviewing that spreadsheet. Gamercize, a British company, this week launched the GZ PC-Sport & Power Steppe, which is designed to fit underneath a standard-sized desk so someone can sit at their computer or talk on the telephone while using the stepper. Gamercize officials note that the machine is not just a small version of a StairMaster machine that you'd find at the gym. The machine can be hooked up to a keyboard or mouse through a USB port. The user can set it up so they can use the stepper whenever they want, or they can prevent their keyboard or mouse from working unless they're exercising. There are five settings on the under-desk step machine. The lowest setting lets workers simply exercise their legs at an easy pace whenever they want. At the top level, the work out is much harder and the user must exercise to keep his or her keyboard or mouse working. At the lowest setting, a user could burn 100 to 200 calories an hour. At the top level, it is possible to burn as many as 500 calories an hour. (That's like burning off the equivalent of an entire milk shake.)"

BOfH writes "The BBC is reporting that following a 14-year rebuild project, the Colossus computer is once again cracking codes at Bletchley Park." They will crack WWII-era encrypted messages, and compete against modern PCs. Fun stuff for crypto nerds and history buffs.

Attila Dimedici writes "Two thirds of the students at NYU would give up their right to vote in the next election for a full scholarship. Some would be satisfied with an ipod. A few would be willing to give up the right for the rest of their lives for one million dollars."

Snape kills Trinity with Rosebud writes "Apparently famous authors don't like it if you try to make a buck using their imaginary property because J.K. Rowling is suing the publishers of the Harry Potter Lexicon for infringement. This should prove an interesting test case for fair use given that the lexicon contains mostly factual information about the series, not copies of the books' text. Of course, both sides seem a bit touchy about imaginary property rights, with Rowling's lawyers being miffed after being told to print it themselves when they asked for a paper copy of the lexicon's website, and the lexicon website itself using one of those insipid right click disabling scripts."

kylehase writes "The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) is being used for the first time to force an animal activist to reveal encryption keys for encrypted files she claims to have no knowledge of. According to the article, she could face up to two years if she doesn't comply."

hoagiecat writes "Is Apple like all those bands who claim to be "huge in Japan"? Leopard accounted for 53 percent of boxed operating systems sold in Japan in October — even though it was only on sale for the last six days of the month. 'The software went on sale worldwide on Oct. 26 with sales kicking off at 6 p.m. local time in each country. Users in New Zealand and Australia got their hands on Leopard first, but Tokyo saw the first launch at an Apple retail store. About 200 people lined up in light rain to buy the software at Apple's store in the ritzy Ginza district of Tokyo. Lines also formed at other Apple stores across the country and at major electronics retailers, where special events were held to mark the start of sales. Combined with other sales of other operating systems including Tiger, Apple had an overall 60.7 percent share of the market in October -- that's a big jump from the 15.5 percent share it had in September, which was itself the highest share Apple had managed to get so far in 2007. '"

angryphase writes "The British Phonographic Institute (the UK's RIAA) has noticed a significant increase in the amount of encrypted torrents — from 4% of torrent traffic a year ago to 40% today. Whether it follows a trend for hiding suspicious activities or an increased awareness of personal privacy is up for (weak) debate. Either way, this change of attitude is catching the eye of ISPs, music industry officials, and enforcement agencies. Matt Phillips, spokesman for the UK record industry trade association explains, 'Our internet investigations team, internet service providers and the police are well aware of encryption technology: it's been around for a long time and is commonplace in other areas of internet crime. It should come as no surprise that if people think they can hide illegal activity they will attempt to.'"