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Communications

FBI Violated Electronic Communications Privacy Act 285

An anonymous reader writes to tell us of a report from the Washington Post which alleges that the FBI "illegally collected more than 2,000 US telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records." The report continues, "E-mails obtained by The Washington Post detail how counterterrorism officials inside FBI headquarters did not follow their own procedures that were put in place to protect civil liberties. The stream of urgent requests for phone records also overwhelmed the FBI communications analysis unit with work that ultimately was not connected to imminent threats. ... FBI officials told The Post that their own review has found that about half of the 4,400 toll records collected in emergency situations or with after-the-fact approvals were done in technical violation of the law. The searches involved only records of calls and not the content of the calls. In some cases, agents broadened their searches to gather numbers two and three degrees of separation from the original request, documents show."

Comment Re:Do the studies apply? (Score 1) 394

My opinion is like the parent's, I really can't stand the lack of vertical alignment, same length text should display in same width.
This code should have the same width no matter what:
arrayOne[1010] = 'lll'
arrayTwo[1010] = '111'

I personally use DeJavu Sans Mono, on all OSes. The (0,O) and (1,l) distinctions are very clear to me, and I like the curves it have.

I actually had to put it on my pendrive, along with gVim portable, as I will not stand notepad with his blocky console font.

Debian

FreeNAS Switching From FreeBSD To Debian Linux 206

dnaumov writes "FreeNAS, a popular, free NAS solution, is moving away from using FreeBSD as its underlying core OS and switching to Debian Linux. Version 0.8 of FreeNAS as well as all further releases are going to be based on Linux, while the FreeBSD-based 0.7 branch of FreeNAS is going into maintenance-only mode, according to main developer Volker Theile. A discussion about the switch, including comments from the developers, can be found on the FreeNAS SourceForge discussion forum. Some users applaud the change, which promises improved hardware compatibility, while others voice concerns regarding the future of their existing setups and lack of ZFS support in Linux."
Input Devices

Nintendo Working On Football Controller 123

Siliconera found patent filings from Nintendo for a football controller addon that will work with the Wii. After tucking the Wii Remote into a lateral slot on the football, you slip your hand through a strap so that your fingers touch the Remote's buttons. Then you mimic running and throwing, which is interpreted by the accelerometer. 'The pitch angle and force of the throw determines the trajectory arc of the throw. Side to side motion determines the yaw angle. Pressing buttons on the Wii remote can adjust other options.' The device is described as 'squishy,' so your TV is probably safe, but I'd try it at a friend's house first.
Announcements

Submission + - tr.im url shortener closes it's doors. (tr.im)

sukotto writes: "The popular url-shortener tr.im (primarily used by Twitter users) has closed its doors citing lack of funding and inability to find someone to buy them out. Too bad. It was a great service.

Here's the press statement:
tr.im is now in the process of discontinuing service, effective immediately.

Statistics can no longer be considered reliable, or reliably available going forward.
However, all tr.im links will continue to redirect, and will do so until at least December 31, 2009.
Your tweets with tr.im URLs in them will not be affected.

We regret that it came to this, but all of our efforts to avoid it failed.
No business we approached wanted to purchase tr.im for even a minor amount.

There is no way for us to monetize URL shortening — users won't pay for it — and we just can't
justify further development since Twitter has all but annointed bit.ly the market winner.
There is simply no point for us to continue operating tr.im, and pay for its upkeep.

We apologize for the disruption and inconvenience this may cause you."

Movies

Submission + - Top 10 fun computing films (pcauthority.com.au)

Slatterz writes: News of the death of John Hughes has many people bemoaning the lack of films that understand and appeal to the geek audience. This list of the top 10 "fun" computing films has been compiled in honour of Hughes, and focuses on those that have used computers as a narrative arc to their characters. Some left of field choices, considering this is a list that goes from Tron to WALL-E, though nostalgia does tend to make people enjoy things more fondly than they really did the first time.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Critical flaw discovered in dd-wrt

MagicM writes: A critical flaw has been discovered in DD-WRT, a Linux based alternative OpenSource firmware for WLAN routers such as the fan-favorite Linksys WRT54GL. The flaw can give an attacker instant root access to the router merely by embedding an image with a specially crafted URL in a webpage (CSRF attack).
Data Storage

How Do You Sync & Manage Your Home Directories? 421

digitalderbs writes "A problem plaguing most people with multiple computers is the arduous task of synchronizing files between them: documents, pictures, code, or data. Everyone seems to have their own strategies, whether they involve USB drives, emailed attachments, rsync, or a distributed management system, all of which have varying degrees of success in implementing fast synchronization, interoperability, redundancy and versioning, and encryption. Myself, I've used unison for file synchronization and rsnapshot for backups between two Linux servers and a Mac OS X laptop. I've recently considered adding some sophistication by implementing a version control system like subversion, git, or bazaar, but have found some shortcomings in automating commits and pushing updates to all systems. What system do you use to manage your home directories, and how have they worked for you for managing small files (e.g. dot configs) and large (gigabyte binaries of data) together?"

Comment Re:Efficiency? (Score 1) 184

From TFA:
"For the Intel project, the large coil was hooked up to electronics that produced a current oscillating at seven megahertz. The receiving coil was tuned to the same frequency, and thus is able to accept an energy transfer with about 80 percent efficiency within a range of about a meter, says Josh Smith, the lead researcher on the project."

Comment Re:Now for a better scheduler (Score 1) 61

Here goes... If *I* know how to add a scheduled task to windows scheduler at install time (when I have the god-admin-rights) - how google does not? Oh yes, it knows... but it does not want it to be simple. Do no evil. I always put a (unchecked) .CMD file backup task to the whathever-install that I make. Could not google do the same? Yes.

Toys

A Monster LED Array For Irresponsible Fun 225

Tesladownunder writes "This huge LED is on steroids and then some. It is intended for use as a streetlight. It has a 7000 lumen output at 100W and will burn a hole in a CD case without focusing. And that's without the infrared that a halogen or discharge lamp has. Very efficient and low maintenance. Stronger than HID car headlights or a 500W halogen. Hit the site for lots of data and pics of it in action including burning and irresponsible bicycle luminosity. You'll want one to attach to your keyring, too."
Image

The Smell of Space Screenshot-sm 70

According to NASA scientists, space smells a lot like my uncle's workshop. One can detect hints of fried steak, hot metal, and the welding of a motorbike. They have hired Steven Pearce, a chemist and managing director of fragrance manufacturing company Omega Ingredients, to recreate the smell in a laboratory. NASA will use his research to help train potential astronauts. Steven said, "I did some work for an art exhibition in July, which was based entirely on smell, and one of the things I created was the smell of the inside of the Mir space station. NASA heard about it and contacted me to see if I could help them recreate the smell of space to help their astronauts."

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