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Comment I'd LOVE to Rip This Apart in Court (Score 1) 594

If you read the "statement of claims", you'll find that some of the assertions are just ludicrous. An example: maskedtruther is named as John Doe #22, and is being sued for a million dollars for posting the following statement "A lot of police today were originally criminals." While this may be a stereotype, it certainly is not equivalent to maskedtruther stating that "Joseph is a criminal." Yet this is exactly what this court document asserts!

P.S. - If you examine the numbering of "John Does", you'll find that both sweeteventhorizon and ecofrog1 are listed as John Doe #12 - guess some lawyer can't count, either.

Comment Re:Science Fiction? (Score 1) 782

I wear glasses, and these new 3-D glasses are like the big Terminator-like "Solar Shield" sunglasses wrap around and over regular glasses. They are not uncomfortable, and no longer have the colour distortion of the red/green ones of yore. Also, Cameron was very careful to have the majority of the 3-D effects go deeper into the screen as opposed to "jumping out" of the screen at you (as is the case for most 3-D slasher flicks).

Comment Re:Say goodbye for XML (Score 1) 272

Are you serious? What kind of small company actually designs "...software...which they showed to Microsoft..." and doesn't expect

          a) the ideas to be stolen by Microsoft.

          b) be bought out by Microsoft.

          c) be "corporate cannibalized" by Microsoft.

          d) ALL OF THE ABOVE!

Security

Submission + - Symantec CEO: "We don't employ hackers" (computerworld.com.au)

Sharky2009 writes: Symantec's CEO says his company has a standing policy of not hiring known hackers, yet still offers a vulnerability testing service. He won't admit that the company trains up its own white hat hackers, just that:

"We train people on the best techniques to detect vulnerabilities. That's a very clear point of view on how our job is to protect customers and data, and what you want is that no-one can compromise your websites."

He also says that he views ethical hacking as no more than quality assurance.

Submission + - Russia confirms failed missile launch (barentsobserver.com)

Ch_Omega writes: According to this article over at BarentsObserver, the giant spiral seen on the sky over Norway wednesday morning local time, has been confirmed to be be the result of a failed Russian missile launch. Russia now confirms that "...the missile was launched from submerged position in the White Sea by the nuclear submarine "Dmitri Donskoy". Studies of the telemetric data from the launch show that the two first stages of the missile functioned as they should, and that a technical malfunctioning occured during the third stage.."

There is also and article on this over at The Daily Mail.

Hardware

Submission + - Nano-Material Paves Way for Self-Washing Windows (inhabitat.com)

MikeChino writes: While working on a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, researchers at Tel Aviv University recently discovered a new nano-material that repels dust and water. It's created by placing peptides (short polymers) in a vacuum under high pressure, which creates "forests" of self-assembling nanotubes. Because the nanotubes are resistant to water and heat, researchers figure that the nano-material would be an ideal coating for windows and solar panels, essentially creating products that clean themselves. Once commercialized, the material could be applied as a sheer coating, creating self-washing windows and solar panels.
Transportation

Submission + - The Lotus Omnivore engine

JohnnyBGod writes: Lotus claim to have invented a new, more efficient engine design. The two-stroke, flex-fuel engine can achieve, according to the surprisingly technical press release,"approximately 10% better [fuel consumption] than current spray-guided direct injection, spark ignition engines".

The engine has a sliding puck arrangement to control its compression ratio, and has direct injection and a wet sump, to eliminate fuel leakage to the exhaust and the need to mix oil with the fuel, two common problems with two-stroke engines. Lotus engineering have released a video explaining the engine's operation.

Comment Why not do like the South Park creators? (Score 1) 277

When they filmed their marionette sex scene for "Team America", Trey Parker and Matt Stone put in some crazy shit - literally. (And this was prior to the "Two Girls One Cup" phenomena :) They knew that the censors would not allow it, but they never intended them to allow it. They realized that the censors feel the need to remove something from these cutting edge films in order to sleep well at night.

Similarly, software designers could put some crazy stuff in (i.e. the airport scenario from "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2", or "hot coffee" from GTA: San Andreas), and then submit the software for review, while they could automatically have the "censored" version ready for production or even shrink wrapped.

Comment Re:Call the cops (Score 1) 1127

My brother worked at a local mom & pop computer store here in Canada. He was asked to repair a PC for a family acquaintance. The "gentleman's" computer was acting up because he had tried installing a freeware (or malware) utility to create hidden partitions. My brother found all kinds of kiddie porn, all young males, some even the same age of his own son (who was 8 years old) and younger. He reported to the police, they confiscated the computer, and charged him to the fullest extent of Canada's child pornography law at the time (around 1999).

The result?

Despite the judge ruling that he could no longer possess any computers in his home, he actually studied computer science in jail, paid for by the Canadian taxpayer. My brother was harassed by some people in our small community who did not realize what kind of depraved photos and videos he found - and he was not allowed to tell anyone by police order. He claims that he would not report such finds again to the authorities.

And the pervert?

Out of jail after just a year (long enough to get his training finished) and has moved out West, making big bucks in IT. Now he has the knowledge to hide his child porn himself thanks to the Canadian penal system!

Submission + - Franhofer Improving Electric Car Battery Tech (cnet.com)

pky666 writes: The Franhofer Institute in Germany has been working on improvements to a redox flow battery. When such a battery runs low on power in an electric car, you could pull up to a service station and have the discharged electolytic fluid pumped from the car and replaced with charged fluid. Then the station could recharge the electrolytic fluid, on-site, by solar power, or other green tech."

I just hope they get to perfect this tech before Haliburton drops a bomb on their ass!

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