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Comment Re:Options (Score 1) 222

by Sterling Christensen (#25737115) Attached to: Mars Rover "Spirit" In Danger

4. Spend the remaining energy teaching the rover to do the Hammer Dance with it's eight independently swiveling wheels. If you got to go down, go down doing the Hammer Dance that's what I always say which is maybe why nobody sits with me in the cafeteria.

Or we could teach it Daisy Bell

Or give it a frisbee and have it dance to Put On Your Sunday Clothes.
Transportation

"Roadable Aircraft" Moving Towards Launch 186

Posted by kdawson from the move-over-bob-cummings dept.
We discussed Terrafugia's plans for what they don't like to call a "flying car" — rather a "roadable aircraft" — last spring. The Boston Globe has an update on Massachusetts-based Terrafugia and its fight to get airborne in these parlous times. "The last serious attempt to bring a car-airplane hybrid to market was the Aerocar, in 1949. According to Carl Dietrich, chief executive of Terrafugia, that company built six prototypes. It needed 500 orders in order to gear up for mass production, but it never got there... 'It can be hard to explain the value of this to non-pilots,' Dietrich says, 'but when you're a pilot, the problems of high costs, limited mobility on the ground, and weather sensitivity are in your face, all the time.' The company says more than 50 of the vehicles have been pre-ordered. The target price is $198,000."
Software

Submission + - Slutbot passes turning test. (roughtype.com)

Submitted by
dotancohen
dotancohen writes: "
Russian crooks have unleashed an artificial intelligence, called CyberLover, that poses as a would-be paramour in sex chat rooms, enticing randy gentlemen to reveal personal information that can then be put to criminal use. Amazingly, the slutbot appears to be successful in convincing targets that it's a real person.
Even CmdrTaco hasn't yet convinced me that [it||he] is a real person. I can't wait to get scammed by this thing."
Editorial

Submission + - Ron Paul recieves a record $4.2 million in 24 hrs

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From FOXNews.com:

Ron Paul, the Texas congressman with a libertarian tilt and an out-of-Iraq pitch, entered heady fundraising territory with a surge of Web-based giving tied to the commemoration of Guy Fawkes Day. The $4.2 million represented online contributions from more than 37,000 donors.

Paul advocates limited government and low taxes like other Republicans, but he stands alone as the only GOP presidential candidate opposed to the Iraq war. He also has opposed Bush administration security measures that he says encroach on civil liberties.
Space

Submission + - Dinosaurs fate sealed by giant asteroid collision

Submitted by
jkcity
jkcity writes: "The BBC is reporting that a giant space asteroid collision 160 mil years ago is what sealed the dinosaur's fate. Its research done by Southwest Research Institute by a US-Czech research team. It goes on to say that it caused a double of earths impact rate over the last 160mil years and fragments of the 3km a second collision would have struck Mars, Moon and Venus. 298 Baptistina is currently the largest surviving remnant of the Baptistina family of asteroids(game)"
Wireless Networking

Submission + - CSIRO's US win for 802.11a/g patent (news.com.au)

Submitted by
CRC'99
CRC'99 writes: "The Australian IT is reporting:

THE CSIRO has won another round in its lengthy battle in the US to collect millions of dollars in royalties for its 1996-patented Wireless LAN technology. Last Friday, a US federal court granted the science agency's application for an injunction to stop the Buffalo group of companies from infringing the CSIRO patent in the US. The injunction prevents the sale of products using CSIRO-patented technology until a licence is negotiated.
It's good to see that Australian Government research may finally get the rewards of inventing technology that is used by millions of people these days. The CSIRO however has yet to see a single cent from US companies using CSIRO patented technology without any licensing."
Privacy

Submission + - How to Stop Pirates: Ask Nicely

Submitted by BillGatesLoveChild
BillGatesLoveChild writes: When Trey Harrison found his music lighting software 'Salvation' had been pirated, he was taken aback. Being an Independent Software Developer, there wasn't much he could do. So he contacted the Warez Group and asked them nicely. They wrote back and said sorry, that they at least hoped more people got to see it and that in accordance with his wishes, they wouldn't release it again.

But what of the Anti-Piracy tool "Armadillo Software Passport" that was supposed to have protected Trey's Software? Unlike the Pirates who responded straight away, Trey says he never heard a peep back from Armadillo. Seems the Pirates have better "customer support" than the Anti-piracy agents!

Of course, "Ask Nicely" may not work for the RIAA who as Orson Scott Card's famous essay pointed out have perhaps irreversible ill-will due to their history of ripping off artists and consumers and buying off Congressmen. But for smaller companies and independents, perhaps it's worth a try? There's even hope for the industry heavies. Mark Ishikawa of Anti-P2P Company BayTSP says 85% of people he sends a gentle warning on behalf of the MPAA "do not come back, with no headlines and no public relations blowups."

Could a softly-softly approach work better for IP owners that heavy-handed threats and lawyers?
Novell

Submission + - openSUSE Hobbled by Microsoft Patents

Submitted by
kripkenstein
kripkenstein writes: "openSUSE 10.2 no longer enables ClearType (which improves the appearance of fonts). The reason given on the openSUSE mailing list for not enabling it is:

Note that this feature is covered by several Microsoft patents and should not be activated in any default build of the library.
As reported on and discussed here and here, this matter may be connected to the Microsoft-Novell deal. If so, Novell should have received a license for the Microsoft patents, assuming the deal covered all relevant patents. Does the license therefore extend only to SUSE, but not openSUSE?"
Windows

Submission + - Is Wine or Vista more Windows compatible?

Submitted by ZMXJ
ZMXJ writes: We've been hearing quite a few anecdotes & reviews that complain about poor compatibility of old hardware and pre-vista-windows software with Vista; and quite a few articles about improved compatibility of Wine.

My suspicion is that Linux has much better hardware compatibility with Win2K era PCs than Vista does; and my suspicion is that the software compatibility of Wine vs Vista for Win2K apps is about the same. But before I make a recommendation that upgrading to Wine would be better than upgrading to Vista in our company, I wanted to Ask Slashdot to see what other people's experiences with either transition have been like. So far our company has no experience with Vista nor Wine/Linux (quite a bit of Win2K & Linux experience, though). Any experience you guys had moving ot to Vista or to Wine would be of interest.

Would an upgrade from Win2K to Vista or an upgrade from Win2K to Wine/Linux be less painful?
Announcements

Submission + - Canadian Gov't Votes Down Anti-Terrorism Measures

Submitted by jon_anderson_ca
jon_anderson_ca writes: The CBC reports:

Opposition parties banded together Tuesday to defeat a controversial Conservative proposal to extend two anti-terrorism measures contained in the Criminal Code.
It should be noted that neither of these measures, put in place in December 2001, were ever used.

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