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andrewmin writes with an enthusiastic pitch for Google's closed-beta call-aggregation service called GrandCentral, for which we non-beta-testers can at least reserve a number. Specifically, he's using GrandCentral in combination with Gizmo5 to make free VoiP calls. Excerpted: "Most of the time, I'm at my computer. Or near it. And if I had an internet device like a Nokia N810 or an iPod Touch, I'd have it with me 24/7. And since most of the time I'm at a place where there's a WiFi network, it makes sense for me to use VoIP rather than a regular phone line. ... I'm talking about making and receiving calls that are completely free (that is, $0.00/minute) forever (that is, no 30-day demo) for as much as you want (that is, no 30-day trial or five hour/week limit)."

Alice G writes "Have you been watching Battlestar Galactica? If so, you will notice that they show a beautiful and multi-colored space, much like NASA's Hubble photographs. I took a screengrab, above, to illustrate the point. But is that how space would really look to the human eye, as suggested by BSG? This bugged me to no end, so I did a little research. Explanation and comparative photos after the jump."
http://funvampires.com/2008/04/23/are-battlestar-galactacas-epic-space-views-accurate/

pumpkinpuss writes "Boeing has been awarded a $3.8 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract for Phase 1 of the Vulture air vehicle program, an effort to create a new category of ultra-long-endurance aircraft. The Vulture vehicle's goal is to be capable of carrying a 1,000-pound, 5-kilowatt payload and have a 99 percent probability of maintaining its on-station position. "Such a 'pseudo-satellite' system, like Vulture, could provide compelling operational advantages in terms of persistent intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communications,""
http://boeing.com/news/releases/2008/q2/080421d_nr.html

WikiWatcher writes "Online news service ElectronicIntifada (EI) breaks a story that an organization called the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) had been planning a long-term infiltration of Wikipedia in order to control content on articles related to Israel and Palestine. With a series of e-mail's (means of acquisition are not clear in the article), EI exposes a plot that was coordinated Gilead Ini of CAMERA, with the cooperation of an editor on Wikipedia named Zeq, who since has been blocked from Wikipedia for a period of one full year as well as topic-banned on issues related to Israel for a period of one year. According to EI's e-mails, Zeq had advised the group to avoid editing Israel-related articles for a period of time, writing "We will go to war after we have build our army, equiped it trained [sic],So please if you want to win this war help us build ou[r] army. let's not just rush in and achieve nothing, or abit more than nothing [sic].""

X writes "In what has to be the most inane reason for the fork of a major open source project, Funpidgin has forked Pidgin, formerly known as Gaim. The reason for the fork: 2.4.x Pidigin removed the ability to resize the input box. That's it. That's the whole reason."
http://xblog.xman.org/

cwolfsheep writes "Windows XP SP3 RTM has been leaked to the web. The posting site also has a torrent link, and a user there also pointed out a download page from Softpedia."
http://www.9down.com/Windows-XP-Service-Pack-3-Build-5512-Final-25164/

An anonymous reader writes "We've known for ages that IPv4 was going to run out of addresses — now, it's happening. IPv6 was going to save us — it isn't. The upcoming crisis will hit, perhaps as soon as 2010, but nobody can agree on what to do. The three options are all pretty scary. This article covers the background, and links to a presentation by Randy Bush (PDF) that shows the reality of the problem in stark detail."

eternalnyte writes "The US Military claims to have succeeded in striking a stray spy satellite with a missile fired from a Nave ship, story here:
WASHINGTON — A missile launched from a Navy ship struck a dying U.S. spy satellite passing 130 miles over the Pacific on Wednesday, the Pentagon said. It was not clear whether the operation succeeded in its main goal of destroying a tank aboard the satellite that carried a toxic fuel that U.S. officials said could pose a hazard to humans if it landed in a populated area. "Confirmation that the fuel tank has been fragmented should be available within 24 hours," the Pentagon said in a written statement."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/20/AR2008022002323.html?hpid=topnews

colenski writes "Reuters is reporting that the missile shot to bring down an errant U.S. spy satellite was successful, countering earlier stories indicating that the seas were too rough to safely fire a Standard-3 missile into an object orbiting at 275km. AP is confirming the successful shoot-down. The northwestern continental United States and Canada should have clear views of the debris field with an orbit of 58 degrees. The STS-122 NASA briefing touched on whether ISS was safe, and if they were in a position to photograph the debris."

hansguckindieluft writes "de.indymedia.org reports:
The internet group Anonymous that recently declared war on Scientology has published documents and instruction videos (Link to the german newssite with downloads (in english)) reserved for high ranking Scientologists. This has reportedly been made possible by the hack of a scientology server a week ago.
Translated from german:
"The documents include handbooks for the highest OT-levels that normally require investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars into scientology"
"Furthermore CD's for selfindoctrination at 900$ a piece have been 'liberated'"
"Other 'hot stuff' are the OECs (Organization Executive Courses). That tell Org-leaders how to keep, acquire and financially exploit followers"

Other documents contained in the download bear titles like "All about radiation", "Child Dianetics", "The OT Levels" (800 pages), "The Axioms of Scientology" (6 pages), "Advanced Procedures and Axioms" (58p)."
http://de.indymedia.org/2008/01/206064.shtml?c=on#c478362

jaraxle writes "The CBC (and probably other news sources) is reporting that Bobby Fischer has died at age 64. The Register has their story here."

"A Texas museum that teaches creationism is counting on the auction of a prehistoric mastodon skull to stave off extinction. The founder and curator of the Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum, which rejects evolution and claims that man and dinosaurs coexisted, said it will close unless the Volkswagen-sized skull finds a generous bidder. "If it sells, well, then we can come another day," Joe Taylor said. "This is very important to our continuing.""

A few friends and I have been working for several months now on Hack Wars, an interesting (and exceptionally nerdy) MMO. Found Here: http://www.hackwars.net/stats.php I am not a stranger to developing educational games, having helped conceive of the game 'Speare. Developing the game Hack Wars, however, was a much less bittersweet experience. Granted, Hack Wars is not as explicitly an educational game as 'Speare. This having been said, Hack Wars is a great and fun way to learn the basics of programming -- in an environment that combines aspects of both event-driven and procedural programming paradigms. The game also encourages players to learn the basics of web-design, giving players daily votes to spend on promoting each other's websites. Now, don't get me wrong, Hack Wars is designed from the ground up to be a fun and competitive MMO; it is, however, neat to be able to imbue it with an actual grounding in computer-science -- a field I am quite passionate about.
-Ben

Shanghais' Fudan University have made some considerable progress in their endeavors in learning robots, with their new "Fudan Intelligent Robot" looking a whole lot more polished than their previous Fudan-1 model. The goal is for the robot to learn new tasks by following voice commands, which the researchers hope could eventually allow the robot to help the elderly or become a "good household mate" for families. Among other things, the bot can currently can plot out its own map of its surroundings and remember specific locations and, of course, change TV channels at your command (or, as you can see above, even serve as a TV itself).
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2007/200711/20071108/article_337360.htm

Jon Golden writes "Source: Kashmir Newz Written by Haroon Mirani Desperate to boost the image of the Chief Minister of Indian administered Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad, the region's Department of Information has turned to graphic software to project a mass support for him. The daily press releases and pictures sent by the Information department off late include doctored photographs showing mammoth crowds at the chief minister's rallies. A keen look at the photographs, however, betrays the computer skills of the department. See larger versions of the retouched images http://www.kashmirnewz.com/n000246pic1.html"
http://www.kashmirnewz.com/n000246.html