kramer - Slashdot User

Submission + - Video of wild crow tool use caught with tail cams

Submitted by

willatnewscientist

on Friday October 05, 2007 @07:08AM

willatnewscientist writes: "Scientists from the University of Oxford have recorded New Caledonian crows using tools in the wild for first time after attaching tiny cameras to their tail feathers. The wireless cameras weigh just 14 grammes and can be worn by the crows without disturbing their natural behavior. The trick has provided the first direct evidence of the birds' using tools in the wild and may represent an important development in animal behavior studies."

Submission + - Gas Station in Space Could Change NASA's Moon Plan (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by mattnyc99 on Monday September 24, 2007 @09:21PM

mattnyc99 writes: Rand Simberg has a report from the Space 2007 conference about a new proposal from Boeing that would upend NASA's expensive plan to return to the moon by building a propellant refueling depot in sub-orbital space—saving tons more time, weight and money for the new lunar base. From the article: "How the propellant would reach such a pitstop in the sky is really the beauty of Boeing's concept. NASA has been seeking ways to involve both international partners and the commercial sector — Michael Griffin, the agency's administrator, said recently that such a 'private/public synergy' was 'crucial for the future' — but NASA has been reluctant to put any partner on the critical path. The good news? Anyone can make propellant, and anyone can deliver it." Sounds like NASA and the space billionaires might finally be able to help each other...

Submission + - New city law impounds cars with loud stereos 3

Submitted by SaDan on Sunday September 23, 2007 @08:41PM

SaDan writes: On August, 20th this year, a new law was passed in Rockford, IL, that grants police the authority to impound any vehicle reported for having a stereo turned up too loud:

"Cars taken will be held until fines of $150 to $750 are paid — in addition to a $75 towing fee, a $15 to $20 per day storage fee and a $60 per hour charge if the police officer has to wait more than an hour for the tow truck."

Anyone who has their car impounded is in for a long wait, in addition to the fees previously mentioned. After requesting a hearing, the city can wait up to 45 days before going to trial, accumulating around $1100 in impound fees. An article, with PDF of the recently passed law, can be found here.

Submission + - Heinlein archives to go online (mercurynews.com)

Submitted by

RaymondRuptime

on Thursday September 20, 2007 @08:23PM

RaymondRuptime writes: "Good news for fans of the late SF master Robert Heinlen, 2 months after his 100th birthday celebration. Per the San Jose Mercury News, "The entire contents of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Archive — housed in the UC-Santa Cruz Library's Special Collections since 1968 — have been scanned in an effort to preserve the contents digitally while making the collection easily available to both academics and the general public... The first collection released includes 106,000 pages, consisting of Heinlein's complete manuscripts — including files of all his published works, notes, research, early drafts and edits of manuscripts." You can skip the brief article and go straight to the archives."

Submission + - Autopatcher shut down by Microsoft? (autopatcher.com)

Submitted by

kimvette

on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @04:13PM

kimvette writes: "Apparently Microsoft wants users to choose alternatives to Windows, since they are now shutting down third-party tools which help make deployments and maintenance of Windows easier. From autopatcher:

Sad day Posted by Antonis Kaladis on August 29th, 2007 | Today we received an e-mail from Microsoft, requesting the immediate take-down of the download page, which of course means that AutoPatcher is probably history. As much as we disagree, we can do very little, and although the download page is merely a collection of mirrors, we took the download page down. We would like to thank you for your support. For the past 4 years, it has been a blast. Unfortunately, it seems like it's the end of AutoPatcher as we know it. Antonis Kaladis

If you're on dialup in rural areas and want to update Windows, or are in a commercial setting where you have a Cable connection with an unpublished cap, you're pretty much screwed when it comes to Windows updates.

Thanks, Microsoft. It's great to know that you have your paying customers in mind, as usual. Making the Windows experience worse, that is."

Submission + - Data breach generates class action lawsuit (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @11:55AM

coondoggie writes: "The fallout from Certegy Check Services (CCS) data breach has reached the courts. A class-action lawsuit has been filed by a California law firm against Fidelity National Information Services, accusing it and its CCS subsidiary of negligence, invasion of privacy and breach of implied contract, on behalf of the 8.5 million customers whose sensitive information was sold to direct marketers by a former employee of the check verification service. The complaint alleges that Certegy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), did not institute adequate security controls to prevent the breach. The suit does not specify damages. William Sullivan, the former Certegy senior-level database administrator alleged to be responsible for the theft. Sullivan is named in the legal complaint as one of the defendants, as is a Largo, Fla.-based company he reportedly owns, S&S Computer Services.Data breaches have maddeningly become commonplace. Some 85% of 700 C-level executives, managers and IT security officers revealed in a recent survey they had experienced a data breach event, and about half of those admitted they had no incident response plan in place. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18598"

Journal SPAM: Escape Finding Oneself in the Ranks of the Insane! 5

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday August 18, 2007 @09:42PM

Before Gore

D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."

Submission + - Endeavour's Thermal Tiles Completely Breached (www.cbc.ca) 2

Submitted by

jhylkema

on Sunday August 12, 2007 @07:58PM

jhylkema writes: "The CBC is reporting that the previously reported gouge in the Space Shuttle Endeavour's thermal tiles is complete and exposes the underlying insulation. This is similar to the damage that caused the Space Shuttle Columbia to break up on reentry, killing all aboard."

Submission + - Barry Bonds' HR Record Tainted by Elbow 'Armor'? (editorandpublisher.com)

Submitted by

solitas

on Monday August 06, 2007 @09:38PM

solitas writes: "An interesting article for the mechanical engineers and baseball fans on /. about the guard Bonds wears on his right elbow, and the possible physical and mechanical advantages it gives his swing.

Beyond his alleged steroid use, Barry Bonds is guilty of the use of something that confers extraordinarily unfair mechanical advantage: the "armor" that he wears on his right elbow. Amid the press frenzy over Bonds' unnatural bulk, the true role of the object on his right arm has simply gone unnoticed."

Submission + - Court: Web contracts can't be changed w/o notice (computerworld.com)

Submitted by RZG on Saturday July 28, 2007 @11:49PM

RZG writes: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on July 18th that contracts posted online cannot be updated without notifying users. "Parties to a contract have no obligation to check the terms on a periodic basis to learn whether they have been changed by the other side", the court wrote. This ruling has consequences for many online businesses, who took for granted their right to do this. (See for example item 19 in Google's Terms of Service)

Submission + - Lawyers shafted by windows on NY bar examination

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 28, 2007 @11:18PM

An anonymous reader writes: Over 5000 aspiring lawyers who took the New York bar examination on laptops using windows, word and a software from a company called SecureExam ended up with lost essays and computer problems. The New York Board of Bar Examiners released a statement and the company responsible released a second statement. Possibilities at this point might entail a software company being held liable for licensed software under a EULA for the first time. Bar examinations in Georgia reportedly had problems as well. It seems the software created a single file with all the answers and either discarded the file rather than upload it or mixed parts of the essays together.

Submission + - Bussard to get fusion funding from California

Submitted by KNGPaul on Tuesday July 24, 2007 @06:59PM

KNGPaul writes: Polywell fusion to get funding from the state of California. http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/nextnews7.24b. html

Submission + - UK Government rejects copyright term extension (culture.gov.uk) 1

Submitted by

e6003

on Tuesday July 24, 2007 @06:34PM

e6003 writes: "The UK Government has responded to a report from the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee which (inter alia) had backed the extension of phonographic performance copyright from its present 50 years. The Government response [PDF document] notes (in response to paragraph 28 on page 15 of the PDF) that the Gowers Report considered the call for a term extension on economic and moral grounds but rejected all the arguments in favour of term extension, as did an EU Commission report. The Response concludes, "Taking account of the findings of these reports, which carefully considered the impact on the economy as a whole, and without further substantive evidence to the contrary, it does not seem appropriate for the Government to press the [European] Commission for action at this stage." Pleasingly, the Response also notes "The Government will undertake a public consultation this Autumn about making an exception to copyright legislation to allow format-shifting for private use." It's technically an infringement of copyright in the UK to rip CDs to your iPod and even the music industry has agreed something needs to be done about this."

Submission + - NFL Will Force Press To Wear Sponsor Logos

Submitted by i_like_spam on Sunday July 22, 2007 @11:36AM

i_like_spam writes: In a story covered by the National Press Photographers Association, photojournalists are protesting a new rule for the upcoming NFL season that will force them to wear red vests emblazoned with the corporate logos of Reebok and Canon during televised games. The chair of the NPPA's Ethics & Standards Committee responds

'It totally goes against our Code of Ethics to force photographers to advertise as if they were some sort of NASCAR vehicle. We are independent gatherers of news, storytellers with no agendas. Our integrity comes from objectivity. Do reporters put up with this kind of disrespect from the NFL?'

In a related incident, photographers covering the Fiesta bowl earlier this year were told to wear vests with the Tostitos logo. They retaliated by wearing the vests inside out.

Submission + - Boeing Helping to Develop Algae-based Jet-Fuel (stuff.co.nz)

Submitted by jon_cooper on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @09:13PM

jon_cooper writes: Air New Zealand, Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation and Boeing are working together to develop and test a bio-fuel derived from algae. Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation began operating in May last year after it met a request from the local council to deal with excess algae on sewage ponds. Boeing's Dave Daggett was reported this year as saying algae ponds totalling 34,000 square kilometres could produce enough fuel to reduce the net CO2 footprint for all of aviation to zero.

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