Comment: Re:Why can't we all get along? (Score 4, Insightful) 248
It's more than that, It's the people _becoming_ the Thought Police.
Comment: Re:Warrant only applies to France (Score 1, Insightful) 259
I'm French, and I'm baffled. How can this kind of comment make it to Insightful ? In case you're not aware, the French have no cyclists to be proud of. None. Why we would kill an American's career to facilitate the win of a Spanish, Netherlander, another American, a British, another Netherlander, a German, an Italian... shall I go on ?
Oh... right, because we're proud.
Comment: Re:Not news (Score 1) 374
The "subtitle" is spot on:
> But seriously, there's loads of intelligent life. It's just not screaming constantly in all directions on the handful of frequencies we search.
Comment: Peter Fleischer's blog on this... (Score 5, Informative) 197
He's been commenting on the case itself a little bit here:
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/ciao-italia.html
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/today-in-milan.html
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/european-law-on-hosting-platforms.html
This last one actually has law information in it.
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/ciao-italia.html
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/today-in-milan.html
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/european-law-on-hosting-platforms.html
This last one actually has law information in it.
LHC physicist arrested on terrorism charges
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ErichTheWebGuy
ErichTheWebGuy writes "A nuclear physicist working on the "large collider" experiment to simulate the Big Bang has been arrested in France on suspicion of advising al-Qa'ida on possible terrorist targets.
The 32-year-old French scientist, of Algerian origin, is being held with his younger brother after being trailed, and bugged, by French anti-terrorist police for more than a year.
A judicial source told the newspaper Le Figaro: "This is very high level." The French Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, said that the investigation "may perhaps show that we have prevented the worst".
The scientist, who was not immediately named, was arrested alongside his brother near Lyons on Thursday on suspicion of having contacts with al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb, or Aqim. He was said to have been suspected of giving advice on possible nuclear targets within France."
The 32-year-old French scientist, of Algerian origin, is being held with his younger brother after being trailed, and bugged, by French anti-terrorist police for more than a year.
A judicial source told the newspaper Le Figaro: "This is very high level." The French Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, said that the investigation "may perhaps show that we have prevented the worst".
The scientist, who was not immediately named, was arrested alongside his brother near Lyons on Thursday on suspicion of having contacts with al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb, or Aqim. He was said to have been suspected of giving advice on possible nuclear targets within France."
Comment: Re:Its been done for years already (Score 1) 711
how many bites in a terabyte.
That one is easy: a mouthful.
Sony PlayStation 3 Slim Unveiled and Price Slashed
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An anonymous reader writes "The rumors of a Playstation 3 being slashed from $399 to $299 is here and K-Mart let the cat out of the bag as it features an ad on its home page that reveals the price cuts as well as the announcement of a new Sony PS3 Slim edition, priced at only $299. You can go ahead and preorder the new PS3 Slim for $299 and it will be available on August 24th, 2009. Sony has a press event today, which I'm sure will announce the details of the new PS3 Slim as well as the price reduction. Perhaps there will be even more news to be had."
i4i Says OpenOffice Does Not Infringe Like MS Word-> 2
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I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "With all the armchair lawyers and pundits out there, it's interesting to see that i4i believes that OpenOffice does not infringe upon their patent. As you may remember, i4i's patent is the one that lead to a permanent injunction barring Microsoft from selling, using, encouraging the use of, testing, marketing or supporting any copies of Microsoft Word which can open files containing custom XML, subject to a bit of leniency for supporting infringing copies already sold and with respect to removing the feature in future versions. Lest anyone think that the ODF will win over OOXML because of this, keep in mind that Microsoft has its own broad XML document patent, which issued just two weeks ago (and filed in December 2004), and they're telling the Supreme Court to apply the Bilski ruling narrowly, so that it doesn't invalidate patents like theirs (and i4i's). After all, Microsoft can afford $280 million infringement fines in ways that most companies and individuals cannot. Then again, given that Microsoft's new patent has only two independent claims (claim #1 and claim #12), and both of those claims 'comprise' something using an 'XML file format for documents associated with an application having a rich set of features', maybe they wouldn't be that hard to work around if you just make sure any otherwise infringing format is only associated with an application that doesn't have a rich set of features."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
The problems with porting games->
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mr_sifter
mr_sifter writes "There's a large lexicon of monosyllabic, four-letter words for describing something you don't like — but only PC gamers use the word "port" with such a fervent degree of repulsion. Common complaints about console ports include meagre graphics options, dodgy third-person camera angles, poorly thought-out controls and sparsely distributed save points.
In this feature, bit-tech.net talks to developers of games such as Dead Space, Red Faction and Tales of Monkey Island to find out why porting games between the three current consoles and the PC is so difficult. Radically different CPU, graphics and memory architectures play their part, as do the differences in control methods and the rules the Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo set about how games should work on their systems."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Researchers Say Wikipedia May Be in Slow Decline
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Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes "New research shows that Wikipedia's ascendancy to the top of a large pool of online reference sites has come to an end as growth has leveled and the nature of the community has made it less welcoming to new contributors. "It's easy to say that Wikipedia will always be here," says Dr. Ed Chi, a senior scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center. "This research shows that is not a given." While the site is still wildly popular for those trying to figure out who played in Super Bowl XXII, the name of Pink Floyd's original frontman, or how a convection oven works, the explosive growth that characterized its early years leveled in 2006 at around 60,000 new articles per month, declining by nearly a third since then. But the trends within the community itself are far more troublesome. The year after the amount of new content flattened, the number of edits per month plateaued as well at around 5.5 million. Meanwhile, the number of users making edits leveled off at around 750,000 monthly. Data also suggests the Wikipedia community is becoming resistant to new content and new editors with passive editors who make just a single change per month seeing around a quarter of their changes erased or modified by other, more active editors. "This is evidence of growing resistance from the Wikipedia community to new content," says Chi. The resulting exclusion of more varied contributions shifts the balance of power on Wikipedia to those fewer active editors, and in turn could make Wikipedia more like a fraternity than a community-driven social encyclopedia. Wikipedia's growth "is consistent with a growth processes that hits a constraint — for instance, due to resource limitations in systems," writes Chi. "Rather than exponential growth, such systems display logistic growth.""