deusdiabolus - Slashdot User

Facebook Will Shut Down Beacon To Settle Lawsuit 101

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday September 19 2009, @12:22PM
from the strategic-retreats dept.

alphadogg writes "Facebook has agreed to shut down its much-maligned Beacon advertising system in order to settle a class-action lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed in August of last year, alleged that Facebook and its Beacon affiliates like Blockbuster and Overstock.com violated a series of laws, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Video Privacy Protection Act, the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and the California Computer Crime Law. The proposed settlement, announced late on Friday, calls not only for Facebook to discontinue Beacon, but also back the creation of an independent foundation devoted to promoting online privacy, safety and security. The money for the foundation will come from a US$9.5 million settlement fund."

Tomatoes thrive on urine, study finds-> 0

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2009, @11:45PM

An anonymous reader writes "Using human urine as a fertiliser produces bumper crops of tomatoes that are safe to eat, scientists have found. Their research was published last month in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry and may help cheaply boost crops in the developing world."
Link to Original Source

Fungus Treated Wood Beats $2 Million Strativarius -> 0

Submitted by Fluffeh on Tuesday September 15 2009, @11:03PM

Fluffeh writes "Violins made by the Italian master Antonio Giacomo Stradivarius are regarded as being of unparalleled quality even today, with enthusiasts being prepared to pay millions for a single example. Stradivarius himself knew nothing of fungi which attack wood, but he received inadvertent help from the âoeLittle Ice Ageâ which occurred from 1645 to 1715. During this period Central Europe suffered long winters and cool summers which caused trees to grow slowly and uniformly â" ideal conditions in fact for producing wood with excellent acoustic qualities. Now scientists are turning to fungi to recreate some of these amazing sounding instruments."
Link to Original Source

Medimmune Patented H1N1 Swine Flu Virus Back in 20-> 0

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Tuesday September 15 2009, @10:48PM

Anonymous Coward writes "According to Dr. Ott Medimmune Patent it is not for a vaccine, it is for the creation of the specific strain as well as a set of substrains and any splice of cells in the same regions."
Link to Original Source

Mafia Sinks Ships Containing Toxic Waste 2

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Tuesday September 15 2009, @09:42PM

Hugh Pickens writes "For years there have been rumors that the mafia was sinking ships with nuclear and other waste on board as part of a money-making racket but now BBC reports that a sunken vessel has been found 30km from the coast of the southwestern Italian region of Calabria and murky pictures taken by a robot camera show the vessel intact and alongside it are a number of yellow barrels with labels on them that the contents are toxic. The ship's location was revealed by Francesco Fonti, an ex-member of Calabria's feared 'Ndrangheta crime group, who confessed to using explosives to sink this vessel and two others as part of an illegal operation to bypass rules on the disposal of toxic waste. Experts are now examining samples taken from the wreck and an official says that if the samples prove to be radioactive then a search for up to 30 other sunken vessels believed scuttled by the mafia would begin immediately. "The Mediterranean is 0.7 percent of the world's seas. If in this tiny portion there are more than 30 (toxic waste) shipwrecks, imagine what there could be elsewhere," says Silvestro Greco, head of Calabria's environment agency."

Birdsong Studies Lead To a Revolution In Biology 117

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday September 15 2009, @07:45PM
from the growing-a-new-one dept.

Smithsonian.com covers research that began with the study of birdsong and ended by overturning the common belief that adult animals can't produce new brain cells. "Deconstructing birdsong may seem an unlikely way to shake up biology. But [Fernando] Nottebohm's research has shattered the belief that a brain gets its quota of nerve cells shortly after birth and stands by helplessly as one by one they die — a 'fact' drummed into every schoolkid's skull. [Nottebohm] demonstrated two decades ago that the brain of a male songbird grows fresh nerve cells in the fall to replace those that die off in summer. The findings were shocking, and scientists voiced skepticism that the adult human brain had the same knack for regeneration. ... Yet, inspired by Nottebohm's work, researchers went on to find that other adult animals — including human beings — are indeed capable of producing new brain cells. And in February, scientists reported for the first time that brand-new nerves in adult mouse brains appeared to conduct impulses — a finding that addressed lingering concerns that newly formed adult neurons might not function."

Durian Film Project - coding, fame, fun-> 0

Submitted by LetterRip on Tuesday September 15 2009, @06:55PM

LetterRip writes "Blender Institutes next movie project Durian. has just released their feature wishlist, those who code new features used by the project typically get a mention in the credits. Also for those who want an easier way to fame and fortune (well fame anyway) they can prepay for their Durian DVD by the end of today and will get listed in the credits of the film as a sponsor. Previous projects by the Blender Institute are the open movie Big Buck Bunny and the game Yo Frankie! ."
Link to Original Source

Zero-Knowledge Coding: Am I Crazy For Deciding To 4

Submitted by

r0wan

on Tuesday September 15 2009, @06:35PM

r0wan writes "I maintain a blog and currently have a Blackberry 8310, for which there are zero Blogger mobile clients that work with the new GData Blogger API (and yes, I do know about Mail2Blogger, but until Blackberry coughs up a rich text mail client, it's not a great option). Being the type of person who unscrewed lightbulbs as a kid 'to see where the light comes from', I decided to write my own.

The problem? At the moment of my decision, the closest I'd ever come to programming was VBScripting a lot of admin scripts, and I knew absolutely zilch about Java or J2ME and less than that about object oriented programming.

That was about two weeks ago. Now I know fractionally more than zilch about Java and J2ME thanks to Sun's Java trails, and I've managed to install the Blackberry JDE, the Blackberry JDK, the J2ME 3.0 SDK and Eclipse. I've even successfully figured out how to open a few existing open source J2ME projects (MobileBlogger and Azure for those still reading) and build them, which required some minor troubleshooting that was major for me since I had to look up what a workspace was, and figure out that you can't use spaces for them.

My co-workers, however, think I'm crazy, stupid, or both and that I should either pay someone to write it for me or pay for hosting and PHP something that I can browse to on my Blackberry. I'm stubborn, so I'm ignoring them and reading up on What Is A Constructor during my lunch hours, but part of me wonders, are they right? Am I biting off way more than I should try to chew?"

Is Happiness Catching?-> 0

Submitted by chrb on Tuesday September 15 2009, @06:22PM

chrb writes "The New York Times has an interesting article about research into modelling of real world social networks, and how tendencies to be happy, to smoke, and to become obese, are passed between nodes in a directed graph in a way that suggests such concepts are "contagious". Well connected nodes in the graph (i.e. people with more friends) are more likely to be happier than less connected nodes, even when the edges represent more distant friendships. Individuals quitting smoking, or becoming obese, influence not only their immediately connected friends, but also friends of friends, with the effect sometimes skipping the intermediary node. The contagion effect is most noticable when a tendency is passed from one person to another of the same sex — friends of the opposite sex, including spouses, are not as influential."
Link to Original Source

"Right To Repair" Bill Advances In Massachusetts 478

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday September 15 2009, @05:55PM
from the not-open-source-but-it's-a-step dept.

Wannabe Code Monkey sends along an article from the Patriot Ledger about an effort in Massachusetts to pass a "Right to Repair" bill. "Since the advent of congressionally mandated computers in vehicles more than 15 years ago (for emissions), cars have evolved into complex machines that are no longer just mechanical. Computers now monitor and control most systems in the car from brakes to tire pressure and all the electronics and engine fluids... [and] car manufacturers continue to hold back on some of the information that your mechanic needs in order to properly repair your car and reset your codes and warning lights... Massachusetts is now poised to solve this problem and car-driving consumers should pay attention this fall when the Massachusetts Legislature takes up landmark legislation that would force manufacturers to respect the right of consumers to access their own repair information. The legislation, known as Right to Repair, is seen by car manufacturers as a threat to the lucrative service business in their dealerships and they are massing their lobbyists on Beacon Hill in an effort to defeat it."