An anonymous reader writes, "At 2:46 CST today, the game Second Life was hit by a massive attack by a rogue programmer. Spinning gold rings began to appear in the air and on the ground, and as users interacted with them they began to chase and replicate. Apparently, most people are willing to touch an object they've never seen before and this invoked a worm script that was designed to multiply and spread across the 2,700+ servers run by Linden Labs in California, the game's owner. Many of the six hundred thousand active users experienced serious lag and lost connectivity to the servers, making it one of the largest known denial-of-service attacks in an online game. Linden Labs had to invoke martial law and lock out all logins by users except their staff as they began the task of cleaning the servers of what they began to term 'the grey goo.'" Comments in the SL blog entry indicate that Linden Labs had already deployed a "grey goo fence" before this worm struck, but someone found a hole in it.

klippoth writes, "I just thought I would let you guys know, not only do I have Fedora Core 5 for PPC installed on my Playstation 3, but I video-captured running through the boot loader to demonstrate how it works. And yes, I am selling the PS3 on Ebay, although that was not my original intention. But hearing about people making ten grand... well, let's just say my love for my PS3 is NOT unconditional. Metal Gear Solid 4 doesn't come out for another year anyway! (Although it seems that sales of PS3s are starting to slow down... oh well, I can think of worse things to be stuck with!!)"

pospisil writes to point us to an enthusiastic writeup on Tech.blorge.com about a 3D display technology just launched at the eGames Expo in Melbourne. The technology, from a company called Fountain Consulting, is set to ship in January. From the article: "The Vortex Home Entertainment System isn't just set to revolutionize 3D forever, they have revolutionized it. With a library of 500 current PC-based games titles converted to flawless 3D, and even the ability to convert 2D live television into 3D live television, as well as pre-recorded movies on DVD, Blu-ray and HD-DVD." There is no second source for this story. Exciting news if it pans out.

ccozan writes to tell us of a law being rushed through the Australian legislature that would criminalize great swaths of the citizenry. The Internet Industry Association of Australia is posting warning scenarios spelling out how far-reaching this law would be. From the release: "A family who holds a birthday picnic in a place of public entertainment (for example, the grounds of a zoo) and sings 'Happy Birthday' in a manner that can be heard by others, risks an infringement notice carrying a fine of up to $1,320. If they make a video recording of the event, they risk a further fine for the possession of a device for the purpose of making an infringing copy of a song... The US Free Trade Agreement does not require Australia to go down this path, and neither US nor European law contain such far-reaching measures. We are at a total loss to understand how this policy has developed, who is behind it and why there is such haste in enacting it into law — with little if any public debate."

lkypnk writes, "The AP is reporting that Nobel Prize winning scientist Paul Crutzen has suggested deliberately spreading a layer of particulate matter in the upper atmosphere to help reflect some of the sun's energy in an effort to combat global warming. He reminds us that the eruption of the volcano Pinatubo in 1991 cooled the planet by as much as 0.9 degrees; he believes his computer simulations show a similar effect from deliberate injection of sulfur into the atmosphere by humans. Whatever the feasibility of the idea, as the president of the National Environmental Trust has said, 'We are already engaged in an uncontrolled experiment by injecting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.'" From the article: "'It was meant to startle the policy makers,' said [Crutzen]. 'If they don't take action much more strongly than they have in the past, then in the end we have to do experiments like this.' ... Serious people are taking Crutzen's idea seriously."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes, "The RIAA seems to have a fear of counterclaims. In Elektra v. Schwartz, a case against a woman with Multiple Sclerosis, the RIAA is protesting on technical grounds Ms. Schwartz's inclusion of a counterclaim against them for attorneys fees. This counterclaim includes as an exhibit the ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen brief in Capitol v. Foster, which decried the RIAA's tactics as a 'driftnet.' In prior email correspondence between the lawyers Ms. Schwartz's attorney had offered to withdraw the counterclaim if the RIAA's lawyer could show him legal authority that its assertion was impermissible, saying 'I wouldn't want to get into motion practice over a mere formality.' The RIAA lawyer's response was 'I will let you know.'"

zuikaku writes, "Der Spiegel has an article titled European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs reporting that seven cities and regions in Europe are doing away with traffic signs, signals, painted lines, and even sidewalks. With the motto 'Unsafe is Safe,' the idea is that, when faced with an uncertain, unregulated situation, drivers will be naturally cautious and courteous. Then again, they may end up with streets jammed with pedestrians, bicyclists, and cars like some places in India and China." I can't see this idea getting traction in the U.S.

Jupix writes, "After almost a year and a half of public development, the Optimus OLED keyboard is nearing completion. According to the project blog, pre-orders for the Optimus-103 will start on December 12. The price is unspecified at this time, but Art Lebedev has said the keyboard will cost 'less than a good mobile phone' (probably about $400). Don't expect to see those 10 programmable function keys on the left on this first version, though, as they will not make their debut until the Optimus-113, released later."

theodp writes, "'The IT work force is not skilled enough and almost never can be skilled enough,' said Robert Cresanti, Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology. So what does the Poli Sci grad and ex-General Counsel for the ITAA think is the answer? Open the gates to more foreign workers, urged Cresanti, including H-1B holders."

robotsrule writes "The battle lines between skeptic and evangelist are already drawn. Either way, Web 3.0 will either be the new face of the Web that launched a thousand empty business plans, or the tipping point into a vastly more exciting phase of the Web. This Web 3.0 article asserts that the marraige of artificial intelligence to the infrastructure of Web 3.0 will dramatically accelerate our capacity for distributed problem solving. However, it also issues dire warnings on the potential hyper-euphoria that will accompany it."

Tom writes "Everyday objects can produce interesting effects when you stick them in a standard microwave. Grapes spark, matches create superheated plasma fireballs, mini lightning-bolts arc between sheets of aluminum foil, and soap both splits open and puffs up, creating a somewhat vulgar spurt of bubbly excrement that has to be seen to be fully appreciated. However, as cool as microwave experimentation can be, balls of plasma and the like are bad for both your eyes and your microwave, so it's probably best not to try these things at home. update This site apparently is behind a really nasty popup that I missed (yay Firefox) the first time through. You've been warned... here it is but given the overall rottenness of the pop-up, I guess I wouldn't bother. Some folks know no shame. My apologies to the readers.

Mudzy writes "In an effort to handle its nighttime public urination problem, Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is considering installing high-tech urinals that disappear below street level during the day. Then at night, an operator comes by with a remote and the Urilift hydraulically lifts to sidewalk level in about two minutes. Then the unit is ready to serve all the nighttime party animals who don't mind peeing in a very exposed public urinal. The $75,000 system has been installed across the Netherlands, and have spread to London and Belfast, but Victoria will be the first North American city to try them out."

tibbar66 writes, "This sounds like an invention that has been invented many times before (e.g. Skype). Yet on October 10, 2006 Intel was granted a patent for a 'digital browser phone.' The patent was filed on Feb. 25, 2000. Here's the abstract: 'A telephone system wherein all the functions of a digital telephone can be accessed and implemented on a personal computer alone, thereby eliminating the need for a telephone set. By means of the computer display and mouse, keyboard or other input/output command devices, a user accesses and implement all digital telephone functions without the physical telephone set, the personal computer also providing the audio function. A graphical representation of a telephone set or other telephone-related form is provided on the computer display and accessed by the mouse, keyboard or other command device, this being accomplished by a computer program providing graphical interface implementation. A significant advantage of the system is computer access to and utilization of digital telephone functions from a remote location with communication via Internet, LAN, WAN, RAS or other mediums.'"

md8mart writes to let us know about the imminent shutdown of the site that distributes Pine patches. From the RSS feed of Patches for Pine we read the following bad news for all Pine users: "The Department of Mathematics of the University of Washington will close the account that hosts my Patches for Pine site. I would like to thank the Department of Mathematics for having hosted this site for so many years. I do not have current plans to move this site, but this site will disappear on December 15, 2006. Thank you to everyone who supported me by positive feedback and encouragement to do this work through the years. I will update this information as it becomes available."

An anonymous reader writes, "Symlinks haven't really been added to Windows Vista. It seems that the calls to the Windows Vista symlink API only occur during the creation of such files or when accessing them from Windows Explorer. What this means is, you can't access symlinks from another OS. To be fair, you probably didn't expect to be able to dual-boot into XP and suddenly have access to the symlinks you created on the Vista partition earlier that day. But then again, you probably expected to be able to access these symlinks through a network share/UNC path or as files on a webserver. But you can't." From the article: "Clearly, Vista's symlink API isn't complete — hopefully this is something that can be patched via a hotfix and that we don't have to wait for Fiji to get something as simple as UNC support built in."