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Comment: Re:new yorker (Score 3, Informative) 647

by nfras (#38444974) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Do You Like To Read?

John Brown is an amazing character that is held up as a hero by the far right and the far left and of whom even the "middle" stand in awe (if a bit uncomfortably). The things that happened at Harpers Ferry are still affecting us today.

If you like historical romps the whole "Flashman" series by George MacDonald Fraser are excellent, and they even include one that centres on the events of Harpers Ferry. The concept is that Flashman (the bully from "Tom Brown's School Days") is expanded on and his life after being expelled is explained. In his memoirs he describes how he became a hero and celebrated soldier all the while he was a scoundrel, coward and cad. Excellent series of books. Apparently when it was first published, at least one reviewer thought it was a real memoir.

Terry Pratchett, Robert Rankin, Jasper Fforde are all great, quite British but I'm sure an American wouldn't be too put off by anything in there.

Australia

iPhone Self-Combusts on Plane->

Submitted by nfras
nfras writes "The Melbourne AGE is reporting that an iPhone 4 was "glowing red hot and emitting a significant amount of smoke" on a plane in Australia. Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) are investigating."
Link to Original Source
Businesses

Europe's Largest IT Company to Ban Internal Email 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Thierry Breton, CEO of Atos, Europe's Largest IT Company, wants a "zero email" policy to be in place in 18 months, arguing that only 10 per cent of the 200 electronic messages his employees receive per day on average turn out to be useful and that staff spend between 5-20 hours handling emails every week. "The email is no longer the appropriate (communication) tool," says Breton. "The deluge of information will be one of the most important problems a company will have to face (in the future). It is time to think differently." Instead Breton wants staff at Atos, an international information technology corporation which operates in 42 countries worldwide, with over 78,500 employees, to use chat-type collaborative services inspired by social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter as surveys show that the younger generation have already all but scrapped email, with only 11 per cent of 11 to 19 year-olds using it,. For his part Breton hasn't sent a work email in three years. "If people want to talk to me, they can come and visit me, call or send me a text message. Emails cannot replace the spoken word.""
Google

Free Software activists take on Google search->

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes "Free software activists have released a peer-to-peer search engine to take on Google, Yahoo, Bing and others. The free, distributed search engine, YaCy, takes a new approach to search. Rather than using a central server, its search results come from a network of independent "peers," users who have downloaded the YaCy software. The aim is that no single entity gets to decide what gets listed, or in which order results appear. "Most of what we do on the Internet involves search. It's the vital link between us and the information we're looking for. For such an essential function, we cannot rely on a few large companies and compromise our privacy in the process," said Michael Christen, YaCy's project leader."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Been using it for years (Score 3, Interesting) 444

by nfras (#36521258) Attached to: Canada Rolls Out Plastic Money

Came to Australia in 1998 and thought the polymer notes looked like Monopoly money. Having used it for a while it's so much better than the paper stuff. Hardly ever tears, is easy to see how much you have in your wallet just by opening it. Stands out from a wad of receipts.
Whenever I have to go the US I hate having to use those crappy bits of toilet paper that feel like they been stuck to some homeless guy's arse since 1973.

Image

Inventor Creates Flotation Device Bazooka 144

Posted by samzenpus
from the point-shoot-and-save dept.
Australian inventor Sam Adeloju has won the £20,000 ($32,000) James Dyson Award for inventing the coolest piece of life-saving equipment ever. The Longreach is a modified bazooka which can fire an expanding flotation device up to 150m to a person in distress. From the article: "Mr Adeloju told NEWS.com.au that the Longreach was inspired by a grenade-launch training session with the Army Reserves. Weighing just 3.5kg, it shoots the rescue device 150m in a manner similar to the way the army uses a grenade launcher to deliver flares and aerial observation devices. Hitting the water activates an expanding foam unit in the Longreach rescue unit, which also incorporates LED illumination and a vortex air whistle."
Crime

Justice Not As Blind As Previously Thought 256

Posted by samzenpus
from the too-pretty-for-jail dept.
NotSoHeavyD3 writes "I doubt this is much of a surprise but apparently Cornell University did a study that seems to show you're more likely to get convicted if you're ugly. From the article: 'According to a Cornell University study, unattractive defendants are 22 percent more likely to be convicted than good-looking ones. And the unattractive also get slapped with harsher sentences — an average of 22 months longer in prison.'"

There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won't aggravate.