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Life-size Eva Unit 01 Being Built In Japan Screenshot-sm 80

Posted by samzenpus from the summon-godzilla dept.
JoshuaInNippon writes "Japan has gone life-size anime model crazy. Last year there was the robotic 1:1 Gundam model that guarded Tokyo for a few months in the summer to mark the series' 30th anniversary, and then there was the giant Gigantor moment that opened in Kobe in the fall in honor of the city's rejuvenation from the devastating 1995 earthquake. Now, an amusement park near Mt. Fuji named Fuji-Q Highland is building an Eva Unit 01 from the popular Neon Genesis Evangelion series, or at least a bust of it, in conjunction with the series' recent movies. The bust will sit in a replica hanger, and reportedly stand around 9 meters tall. Visitors will have the chance, for a little extra money, to have their photo taken in the unit's cockpit, where the series' protagonist-of-sorts Shinji Ikari normally sits. The attraction is set to a cost of over US$1.6 million to build, and open on July 23 of this year. It will also undoubtedly be swamped by crazed fans looking the opportunity to bring their anime dreams to life."
The Almighty Buck

Ars Technica Inveighs Against Ad Blocking 1051

Posted by kdawson from the paying-the-piper dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica recently conducted a 12-hour experiment in which story content was hidden from users of popular ad blocking tools. Explaining the experiment, Ken Fisher appealed to Ars's readership: 'My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We've all seen it happen. I am very proud of the fact that we routinely talk to you guys in our feedback forum about the quality of our ads. I have proven over 12 years that we will fight on the behalf of readers whenever we can. Does that mean that there are the occasional intrusive ads, expanding this way and that? Yes, sometimes we have to accept those ads. But any of you reading this site for any significant period of time know that these are few and far between. We turn down offers every month for advertising like that out of respect for you guys. We simply ask that you return the favor and not block ads.'"
Microsoft

Microsoft Sends Flowers To Internet Explorer 6 Funeral 151

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the sorry-about-your-loss dept.
Several readers have written with a fun followup to yesterday's IE6 funeral. Apparently Microsoft, in a rare moment of self-jest, took the time to send flowers, condolences, and a promise to meet at MIX. The card reads: "Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven. The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft."
Linux Business

US Postal Service Moves To GNU/Linux 477

Posted by kdawson from the cobol-package-management dept.
twitter writes "The US Postal Service has moved its Cobol package tracking software to HP machines running GNU/Linux. 1,300 servers handle 40 million transactions a day and cost less than the last system, which was based on a Sun Solaris environment." The migration took a year. The USPS isn't spelling how big the savings are, except that they are "significant."
Transportation

Bugatti's Latest Veyron, Most Ridiculous Car on the Planet? 790

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the gas-guzzlers-that-make-your-eyes-bleed dept.
Wired has an amusing writeup that accurately captures the most recent ridiculous addition to Bugatti's automobile catalog. The $2.1 million Veyron sports over 1,000 horsepower, a 16-cylinder engine, and a top speed of 245 mph. The guilty conscience comes for free. "That same cash-filled briefcase could buy seven Ferrari 599s or every single 2009 model Mercedes. You could snap up a top-shelf Maybach and employ a chauffeur until well past the apocalypse. Hell, in this economy, $2.1 million is probably enough to make you a one-man special-interest group with some serious Washington clout."

Comment Hmmm... (Score 1) 174

by noirsoldats (#28559417) Attached to: Your Browser History Is Showing
Has it been forgotten that a few weeks ago a more advanced form of this 'sniffing' was shown NOT using javascript? http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/06/13/2125211/Sniffing-Browser-History-Without-Javascript So, y'all that thing 'Oh, No Script protects me' think again.. This exploit has been around for years and I'm pretty sure it's been used for quite some time as well. Maybe I'm just apathetic about people knowing what sites I visit but... Meh, let them know, what harm could it do? (Yea, I know, I don't visit child porn so what do I have to hide?) :)
PC Games (Games)

Dave Perry Shows Off Cloud Gaming Service "Gaikai" 79

Posted by Soulskill from the all-things-through-the-browser dept.
jasoncart writes "Veteran gaming man Dave Perry has shown off his OnLive-rivalling, cloud gaming service called Gaikai in a new video that is drawing a lot of attention. As you can see from the video, Perry plays World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Mario Kart 64, Spore and more — all running on a bog-standard computer through the Gaikai website, itself running in a normal version of Firefox." More details about the service are available at Perry's website. He spoke about Gaikai in an interview a few months ago, and he seems confident that this will work better than OnLive (which we've discussed in the past).
Idle

Submission + - Lost Ark of the Covenant discovered? (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by
Conundrum
Conundrum writes: "seems they might have found the Lost Ark of the Covenant, in Ethiopia. according to some theories the structure of the Ark stores electrical energy like a Leyden Jar (a form of capacitor) and explains how people were "struck dead" as touching one will cause death if the charge is strong enough (more than 30 Joules or so) so maybe they used it for buffering the power flow from static collectors, and running primitive silicon carbide/gold wire based lamps.. who knows."
Censorship

Submission + - Hackers Work To Get Information Out of Iran (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Here's a story by the AP which mentions NedaNet, a loose organization of hackers that are providing more secure channels of communication for Iranian citizens, with the goal of "supporting the democratic revolution in Iran". (from their website ) The idea is to get information about what is really happening on the streets of Iran, including the most recent protests, to the global community though the usual channels (like Twitter, Email, etc), by providing Iranian citizens with tools to evade their government's internet censorship software.
Education

Submission + - Important Lessons for the Next Gen of Geeks?

Submitted by
MrAndrews
MrAndrews writes: "My kids have had a fairly geeky upbringing so far, learning the evils of DRM at a young age, configuring new drives of anime for XBMC, and Creative Commons licensing their crayon drawings. But I feel like there's more education I could be doing, so I'm planning to create a series of short digi-fables that will prime them for life. I've already done DRM, patents, censorship and bullying, but there are probably lots of other topics out there that need covering, like net neutrality. Or SQL injection. Or... stuff. I've heard rumours that Slashdot is a fairly geeky place, so I put it to you: what are the most important lessons you can teach a geek-in-training?"
Music

Submission + - Artists Attack RIAA after Thomas-Rasset Verdict (rollingstone.com)

Submitted by gzipped_tar
gzipped_tar writes: Last week a judge ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset owes the RIAA a $1.92 million fine for illegally downloading 24 songs. Richard Marx — one of the artists whose music Thomas-Rasset downloaded via P2P network Kazaa — spoke out against the court's verdict, saying he's "ashamed" to be associated with the massive fine.

"As a long-time professional songwriter, I have always objected to the practice of illegal downloading of music. I have also always, however, been sympathetic to the average music fan, who has been consistently financially abused by the greedy actions of major labels," Marx said in a statement. "These labels, until recently, were responsible for the distribution of the majority of recorded music, and instead of nurturing the industry and doing their best to provide the highest quality of music to the fans, they predominantly chose to ream the consumer and fill their pockets."

He continued, "So now we have a 'judgement' in a case of illegal downloading, and it seems to me, especially in these extremely volatile economic times, that holding Ms. Thomas-Rasset accountable for the continuing daily actions of hundreds of thousands of people is, at best, misguided and at worst, farcical. Her accountability itself is not in question, but this show of force posing as judicial come-uppance is clearly abusive. Ms. Thomas Rasset, I think you got a raw deal, and I'm ashamed to have my name associated with this issue."

Marx isn't the only artist to take umbrage with the ruling against Thomas-Rasset. Writing on his official Website, Moby said, "What utter nonsense. This is how the record companies want to protect themselves? Suing suburban moms for listening to music? Charging $80,000 per song? Punishing people for listening to music is exactly the wrong way to protect the music business."

In related news, Nate Anderson on ArsTechnica noted that "In the wake of the RIAA win, the organization's legendarily poor public image somehow got even worse". He quoted the words from a music critic Jim DeRogatis: "[the Thomas-Rasset ruling is] infamous as one of the most wrong-headed in the history of the American judicial system--not to mention that it will forever stand as the best evidence of the contempt of the old-school music industry toward the music lovers who once were its customers."

On the other side of the story, an RIAA spokesperson recently commented about their victory: "This group of 12 Minnesotans showed us that, despite the protestations of some pundits who suggest that the digital world should resemble some kind of new wild west, the majority understands and believes that the same laws and rules we follow every day apply online. Not just in theory, but in practice. Another group of 12 people presented with similar questions said the same thing two years ago. That makes a sample size of only 24, but it's certainly enough to learn from."
Idle

Submission + - Chip in soap causes panic in Indian village

Submitted by
sayanchak
sayanchak writes: "The Bangalore Mirror reports,

"People of a village near Bajpe were in a panic, after they found a chip resembling a pen drive in their toilet soaps.

As rumours spread that the chip was a bomb or was inserted to make blue films, the villagers made a beeline to the police station. Police investigated and found that the chip was installed for collecting data. A team from Hindustan Lever Limited was conducting studies related to Lifebuoy soap and its usage in the village.""

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