Slashdot

arbitraryaardvark writes "A semi-secret cabal of NASA engineers is working in their spare time to build a rocket, the Jupiter, to compete with NASA's official Ares rocket, reports the Houston Chronicle's chron.com. mirror. By day, the engineers work on NASA's new Ares moon rockets. By night, some go undercover to work on a competing design. These dissenting scientists and their backers insist they have created an alternative rocket that would be safer, cheaper and easier to build than the two Ares spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle. It's like something out of a Varley novel."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/5887332.html

arbitraryaardvark writes ""Spam King" Robert Soloway has plead [pled?] guilty to violating the CanSpam Act, and some tax evasion, and faces 2 to 20 years jail time, reports SeattlePI.com. It's only the second conviction under the statute. Soloway ignored huge civil judgments against him and kept spamming, using spambots and forged headers. Soloway, wiki, has Tourette's and issues with authority figure types. Sentencing Law and Policy Blog is running a contest to suggest an appropriate sentence, notes Instapundit. 20 years, 90 million emails, I leave it to slashdot to do the math."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/370341_spamking11.html

Ok, seriously...if you're going to moderate posts, READ THE CONTEXT. I'm tired of being labeled a troll because I make a legitimate reply to an article, some clown comes along with a pithy "RTFA" reply, and when I respond, I get nabbed for it. Moderators, do your job.

Yahoo's Ecogeek blog is reporting that Mercedes will phase out petroleum-powered cars by 2015. Vehicles will be powered by electricity, biodiesel, or hybrid flying monkeys. Story is unconfirmed but well sourced. Mirror of TFA.
Mercedes to cut petroleum out of lineup by 2015
In less than 7 years, Mercedes-Benz plans to ditch petroleum-powered vehicles from its lineup. Focusing on electric, fuel cell, and biofuels, the company is revving up research in alternative fuel sources and efficiency.
http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/603/mercedes-to-cut-petroleum-out-of-lineup-by-2015.html

Ha ha ha ha
Ha ha ha ha
(catches breath)
Ha ha ha
...

Physorg reports that NASA will launch a solar sail around the end of July. C-net It'll be the first of its kind; a previous attempt blew up. It's a small proof-of-concept gizmo, not a full-on spaceyacht. Solar sails operate on photon pressure from sunlight. They are well known to science fiction readers, otherwise not so much.
http://www.physorg.com/news133794632.html

Yahoo! does this already.

arbitraryaardvark writes "Dean Kamen, Creator of Segway, Unveils New Invention, a robotic arm. Cnet. Youtube."
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/22574/Dean-Kamen-Creator-of-Segway-Unveils-New-Invention?tickers=

arbitraryaardvark writes "Clever Nick Name aka Wil Wheaton sez "Oh! I have a bet with Greg and Kim that we can make the YouTube "most viewed" page before Friday night. I looked at my stats and saw that there's a little over a million people (holyshitomg) reading my lame blog . . . i can haz most views?"
The clip is Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show on C-Spot — Garden Party.
Furries or something."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhKkO1fbq4&eurl=http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/

arbitraryaardvark writes "A year ago New York Attorney General Cuomo sued Dell in state court on for bad customer service, overcharging and overpromising for repair contracts. A New York court agreed today, reports Fortune Magazine's tech blog. AP has a similar story. Meanwhile, my Walmart laptop came with a 15 day warranty and broke on day 18."
http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/27/dell-deceived-customers-says-ny-judge/

Mega-spammer Jeremy Jaynes was convicted in Virginia of spamming in '05, sentenced to 9 years, and lost his appeal, 4-3, at the Virgina Supreme Court. But the court has just ordered a new hearing on whether the anti-spam statute is unconstitutional under the First Amendment, reports How Appealing.
We previously covered the appeal and the conviction.
http://vark.blogspot.com/

arbitraryaardvark writes "tfa Flying car readies for takeoff in New York, reports cnet news.com. Nice photos, handwaving as to price or availablity. www.milnermotors.com"
http://www.news.com/2300-11389_3-6235005.html?tag=ne.gall.rbcs

arbitraryaardvark writes "National Geographic reports that Titan may have an ocean. The Cassini photographs indicated that Titan isn't rotating as expected, and one theory is that an ocean of water and ammonia might account for the observations. AP has a similar story, both based on a Science magazine article out today."

A new mathematical object has been discovered by Bristol University student Ce Bian. The Riemann hypothesis, unproven since 1859, has something to do with the distribution of primes, and something called L-functions. Bian has demonstrated the first known third degree transcendental L-function.
This apparently opens up a new way to go about looking for proofs of Riemann's hypo.
There is an unclaimed $1 million prize for a valid proof.
Slashdot has covered a couple of earlier attempts to claim the prize.

The Seattle Times reports that spammer Robert Soloway has pled guilty to mail fraud and tax avoision, in exchange for the state dropping multiple iffy counts of identify theft. Wikipedia. Slashdot previously covered his arrest and mention in the New Yorker. The wire fraud felony count is based on selling $500 packages to wannabe spammers.
http://vark.blogspot.com/