Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
United States

Submission + - Global Warming Concerts May Do More Harm Than Good

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A column from the Guardian newspaper criticizes Al Gore's Live Earth rock concerts for being hypocritical. The rock concerts consume very large amounts of carbon-emitting energy, and the celebrities chosen to deliver the global warming message have wealthy extravagant lifestyles. Bob Geldof, who organized the Live Aid and Live 8 concerts, criticized its aims. 'We are all fucking conscious of global warming,' he said. 'It's just an enormous pop concert for the umpteenth time that, say, Madonna or Coldplay get on stage.'
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Russian Armoured Vehicle running on screws

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Here is Russian armored military vehicle from the seventies which runs on a pair of giant screws. It was an old russian prototype of off-road vehicle which never made it to the production line. From the video it looks to be more maneuverable than a modern tank.
Graphics

Submission + - Nvidia threatens website for hosting their drivers (ngohq.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We understand that you are distributing or facilitating the unauthorized distribution of NVIDIA's drivers for its GPU and/or MCP products. We are writing to remind you that these drivers constitute intellectual property ("IP"), including copyrights, of NVIDIA. As the exclusive owner of this IP, under Section 106 of the Copyright Act, NVIDIA alone has the right to authorize distribution. Since you are not authorized, we ask that you immediately stop all activities that distribute, allow or facilitate distribution of NVIDIA's drivers on your web site. Unauthorized distribution is a serious violation of NVIDIA's intellectual property rights and if it continues, we will take the necessary steps to prevent further unauthorized distribution.
Networking

Submission + - Charter ISP hijacking DNS

Submitted by
koalemos
koalemos writes: "Charter.net ISP is currently hijacking DNS queries a la Verisign's $100 million dollar bad idea. Any unresolved DNS request, e.g. "abc123.fred", is currently being resolved to Charter's web search feature at 206.112.100.132.

The short term way to fix the DNS hijack is to block access to 206.112.100.132 at your router and then to change your DNS servers from Charter's to more reputable ones, however, Charter's behavior is nonetheless completely dishonest and quite possibly illegal. My question is; how widespread is this practice of ISPs hijacking DNS?"
Announcements

Submission + - Tiny clique removes 45k Wikipedia spoiler warnings 1

Submitted by njyoder
njyoder writes: A small clique consisting mostly of former and current admins, some with "top level clique connections," has collectively removed all (about 45,000) spoiler warnings on Wikpedia articles. Spoiler warnings are normally used to warn the reader where spoiler(s) contained in an article about fiction exist.

The justification used by the anti-spoiler group is that because most of the articles don't have the removals reverted and that this is a de facto consensus that they're not wanted. Others counter-argue that many may not have seen them yet or may be afraid to revert because of them being afraid to get into a revert war with the anti-spoiler group who has invested much more energy in this.

In some cases, reverts were performed restoring the spoiler warnings, but they were quickly reverted back. There are also allegations of users being threatened by admins when reverting.

For more information, read the mediation page and talk page on spoiler warnings.
Patents

Submission + - A simple plan to defeat dumb patents (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
Steve Jones
Steve Jones writes: "With the EU being rumoured to look at software patents again I thought I'd have a look at the root of the problem — the US Patent Office — and work out if there is a simple way to defeat dumb patents, and I think there is... The big thing, as everyone knows, that defeats a patent is prior art, at the Patent Office they have the definition of Prior Art which includes the phrase

"known or used by others in this country, or was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country"


Which made me think. If every time we have an idea that we think is "obvious" but not done before, or something we think would be interesting (e.g. Using a PVR for targeted ads) but don't have the money to create, then we should always blog about that idea, tag it as "prior art" via Technorati thus giving people an RSS feed.

My argument is that by doing this we can, rightly claim, that the ideas have been described in the 21st Century version of a printed publication, and even if that is challenged, it is undeniable that by using the RSS feed it can be proven that people in a given country could have "known" about it.

I'm fed up thinking "bloody hell I did that ten years ago" or "I thought about doing that, its a bit obvious" when companies with as little intention as I had in developing the idea up start putting the squeeze on businesses and developers. What I've always lacked is the visible proof to submit against a claim. This is a simple suggestion about using the power of the web to create a massive prior art database. IANAL, but surely it can't be this simple?"
Power

Submission + - "Free Energy" claims ramp up

Submitted by AidoJC
AidoJC writes: Last August, Irish company Steorn claimed it had uncovered a mechanism of providing free and clean energy (which incidentally flies in the face of the law of conservation of energy) using magneto-mechanic technology, and placed a full page ad in the Economist for a panel of scientists to validate the claims. Well, it looks like the next phase in debunking (or otherwise!) their claim is about to kick off.

From the RTE website:

"An Irish company will today reveal controversial technology that allegedly defies basic laws of physics to produce free power... Today the invention will go on public display for the first time with a live working demonstration to be streamed on the internet from 6pm tonight... Steorn Chief Executive Sean McCarthy has said the demonstration will involve a 'very simplified version' of the technology and it will be open to the public from Thursday 5 July to Friday 13 July at the Kinetica Museum at Spitalfields Market in London. Sceptics can view the device lifting a weight from four different camera angles online... "

The whole story is available here.
Software

Submission + - What to Do if You Are Blacklisted (axigen.com)

Submitted by
AXIGEN
AXIGEN writes: "An introduction to blacklists

Distributed Mail Blacklists are databases used by different systems to decide if the IP connecting to a certain mail server is a known spammer/pharmer or one known to send invalid messages. These systems aim to improve mail security and integrity and most of them are community managed. If you (your mail server's IP) are listed in any of these databases and you try to send an e-mail to a server that uses that particular database to filter spam, you will find out that you cannot send e-mails to that host.

Another kind of blocklist/blacklist is the local list that can be used by any mail server administrator. The removal from such listing requires contacting the local administrator directly, by the usual means, e-mail or phone.

Knowing if you really are blacklisted

The most straight-forward method to find out if you are blacklisted is to look into the log file and establish the reason why your e-mail did not get delivered. Usually, servers enforcing Real-time Blacklists, DNS-BL, or RBL using a blacklist database will reply to your send request with an error message stating this particular event. In addition, most of these error messages also contain further details and, in many cases, a direct link to the site of the blacklist or to your particular IP details in their database. This second type of link provides you with details about the reason why your IP was added in their database and who submitted the request to block your IP, as well as the ways to get removed from the blacklist.

You must make sure to correctly identify the blacklist message. If you do not find such a blacklist entry in your logs, and still cannot connect to port 25 on a certain host, you should attempt a telnet connection to the server's port number 25 with this command:
telnet mail.example.com 25 In the case this command returns a “timeout” or a "connection refused" message, then you have encountered a connectivity problem, and you are not blacklisted. Another situation when you might be tempted to conclude that you have been blacklisted is when you receive a "deferral message". Such messages are used to prevent a large quantity of SPAM and they are based on the fact that spammers do not try to resend their messages if they are blocked or refused. Such a deferral error in your logs does not mean you are blacklisted. Your server will resend the message and it will ultimately get delivered. You can also prevent this behavior by reporting your IP to the administrators with complete details to prove that you are safe to be permanently added on their accept lists.

Lastly, you can use any of the blacklist search engines available on the Internet to lookup your IP/hostname. These sites search a number of blacklists to find out if you have been blacklisted by any of them. If you decide to use this approach, you should consult more than one blacklist search engine to make sure you cover as many blacklists as possible.

Clearing your name

Most of the times, you can remove your IP from any blacklist by visiting their site and submitting a removal form, after having filled in all the suggested details. Such information may include proof that you have ceased any actions that got your IP blacklisted in the first place, or may not require anything but your mere interaction, to demonstrate that you are not a robot or a script.

If the entity that blacklisted you does not have such a removal form on their site, you will need to send an e-mail to the abuse account or, when this one is also missing, to the postmaster/root. You can also try searching their site for contact information or any details related to blacklisting. It is fairly important to note that while being blacklisted is very frustrating, you should use a cordial tone in your e-mails. Always remember to be respectful and patient. Being removed from a blacklist can take some time and there is nothing you can do to speed up this process other than being as patient as possible.

References

The article is also available here: What to Do if You Are Blacklisted. To find out how to prevent being added to a blacklist, please check this article as well, available on our website: How to Avoid Being Blacklisted."
Microsoft

Submission + - National Archive File Format Time Bomb (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
geordie_loz
geordie_loz writes: "The BBC is reporting on the UK National Archive warning of old formats being a "ticking time-bomb" where data is going to be lost because of incompatability in newer versions of software, and software not existing at all.

More surprisingly, in a cheeky move Microsoft have offered a solution.. Buy some more software from us in the form of virtualisation so you can read these files.

So microsoft software was responsible for this tie in an dependence on them to read the data which is in essence the crux of the problem. Now the solution is to further enter into that dependence and make matters worse.

For a national archive they sure do seem to have short memories."
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - DVD Jon Unlocks the iPhone

Submitted by i_like_spam
i_like_spam writes: Jon Lech Johansen, aka DVD Jon, has struck again. On his blog, he claims to have activated an iPhone without intiating a contract with AT&T. The activated phone cannot be used for calls through AT&T's network, but all other functionalities are open (iPod, WiFi, etc). He's even created a package to activate your iPhone too!
Software

Submission + - Debian AMD64 ports use up MUCH more memory?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For example, miniserv.pl of Webmin uses up 3 times more ram, and cron constantly takes more than 10MB! From my understanding, 64bit is about longer bit lengths in load/store (Correct me if not true, I'm not good at these stuff).... The same applies to openssh-server and dropbear(a lightweight ssh2 server/client package), which use up to 10 times more ram... I've not run any benchmarks yet, but I believe the performance boost shouldn't exceed 5%... I'm using Debian distribution AMD64 port. The system is a fresh install. It makes me wonder, is this increased use of memory normal? If so, it seems not so wise to migrate to AMD64...?
Power

Submission + - Aluminum + H2O = Hydrogen (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by
dugjohnson
dugjohnson writes: "A Chinese scientist working in Portugal has come up with a way to combine modified aluminum and water to create hydrogen for fuel cells as reported in Science Daily The process uses less expensive materials at a lower temperature making for a potentially safer, cheaper fuel cell than has been previously available."
Businesses

Submission + - Pop a pill: forget bad memories

Submitted by wile_e_wonka
wile_e_wonka writes:
An amnesia drug that blocks or deletes bad memories is under development by researchers at Harvard and McGill University (in Montreal). The technique seems to allow psychiatrists to disrupt the biochemical pathways that allow a memory to be recalled.

In a new study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the drug propranolol is used along with therapy to "dampen" memories of trauma victims. They treated 19 accident or rape victims for ten days, during which the patients were asked to describe their memories of the traumatic event that had happened 10 years earlier. Some patients were given the drug, while others were given a placebo.

A week later, they found that patients given the drug showed fewer signs of stress when recalling their trauma.

I feel like I have seen this somewhere.

Slashdot Top Deals

Stellar rays prove fibbing never pays. Embezzlement is another matter.

Close