lixlpixel - Slashdot User

Submission + - The Ultimate Blooper?

Submitted by WerewolfOfVulcan on Tuesday February 27, 2007 @04:04AM

WerewolfOfVulcan writes: This video appears to be evidence that the BBC was reporting on the collapse of WTC Building 7 approximately 23 minutes before it actually collapsed. Given that no steel frame building had ever collapsed due to fire prior to 9-11, it raises considerable questions. Still more interesting is that Google Video seems to be removing copies of the video as fast as it's posted. Link after link gave me an error. The one in this message is working as of 1:55 am CST.

Prison Planet has several downloadable versions, but they don't have the annotation.

Submission + - Faulty Chips Could Cripple U.S. Attack On Iran

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25, 2007 @03:58AM

An anonymous reader writes: Is this at all possible or verifiable? http://www.willthomas.net/Convergence/Weekly/Fault y_Chips_US_Military.htm

Submission + - SWIFT applies for Safe Harbor Protections

Submitted by KDR_11k on Sunday February 25, 2007 @03:42AM

KDR_11k writes: The Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT, the system used for all international bank transfers) is now applying for Safe Harbor protections in the US following a dispute with the EU over handing data to US authorities (of course with subpoenas). EU data protection laws don't allow giving peronal information to other entities without the consent of the person the information is about which already caused the dispute over handing passenger data to US authorities. SWIFT hopes that with these Safe Harbor protections they will no longer be forced to give up information they aren't allowed to but Safe Harbor does not apply to banking organizations. Now it depends on whether SWIFT is a banking institution (they claim they aren't) and whether they are a data processor or controller (they claim the former, apparently data protection laws only apply to the latter).

The EU's proposed solution is that SWIFT should abandon its US data center to bring its data out of range of US officials.

Submission + - Second Google Desktop vulnerability uncovered

Submitted by

zakkie

on Saturday February 24, 2007 @11:41AM

zakkie writes: "According to InfoWorld, Google's Desktop indexing engine is vulnerable to an exploit (the second such flaw to be found) that could allow crackers to read files or execute code. By exploiting a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on Google.com, an attacker can grab all the data off a Google Desktop. Google is said to be "investigating"."

Amazon Launches Answers Service Beta 66

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday February 23, 2007 @07:22AM from the more-you-know dept.

Fennec writes "Amazon.com has launched a beta of a new service called Askville, yet another online answers service, flavored with "Experience Points, Levels, and Quest Coins." These coins will supposedly become useful some day on another Amazon service that's not actually open yet, Questville. If this virtual currency becomes useful, could Askville fill a place between strictly volunteer systems and pay-for-answer services like the now-defunct Google Answers? Or is it destined to fail in the already-saturated online Q&A market?"

Submission + - Old islamic tile patterns show modern math insight

Submitted by

arbitraryaardvark

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @08:06PM

arbitraryaardvark writes: "Reuters reports Medieval Muslims made mega math marvel.
Tile patterns on middle eastern mosques display a kind of quasicrystalline effect that was unknown in the west until rediscovered by Penrose in the 1970s.
"Quasicrystalline patterns comprise a set of interlocking units whose pattern never repeats, even when extended infinitely in all directions, and possess a special form of symmetry."
It isn't known if the mosque designers understood the math behind the patterns.
page 2 of story."

Submission + - Microsoft Vista-Live Combo Impacts Google

Submitted by

ReadWriteWeb

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @07:34PM

ReadWriteWeb writes: "Windows Vista is finally out and along with that Microsoft seems to have kick-started its Vista-Live joint initiative. Which means that Microsoft makes its Windows Live web properties the default in Windows Vista PCs, where possible — for example Live Search is the default search engine in IE7 on new Vista machines. Stats from Alexa show that after Vista's release, traffic on Live.com and MSN rose sharply. And interestingly, both tangents have the same slope: Live's slope is 0.79 and MSN's is 0.76. On the other hand, Google's Alexa chart shows the reverse trend. There is a significant fall in Google's traffic after Vista was released and Google's slope is a negative 0.5. Is this an early indication that new Vista users are happy with what is given as the default — that for example Live Search is 'good enough' compared to Google search?"

Submission + - Microsoft Tells Some Users No on Vista

Submitted by kog777 on Thursday February 22, 2007 @12:59PM

kog777 writes: After years of delays and billions in development and marketing efforts, it would seem that Microsoft Corp. would want anyone who possibly can to buy its new Windows Vista operating system. Yet Microsoft is making it hard for Mac owners and other potentially influential customers to adopt the software. Microsoft says the blockade is necessary for security reasons. But that is disputed. The circumstances might simply reflect a business decision Microsoft doesn't want to explain.

Feed HTML Needs a License Attribute (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @11:12PM

It can be difficult to determine who owns pictures on the web. Why not create an attribute for the image tag that clarifies the confusion? In Monkey Bites.

Submission + - Fast Regexes

Submitted by Watson Ladd on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @10:50PM

Watson Ladd writes: Perl, Python, and many other languages claim string processing, and in particular pattern matching, as an application they were designed for. But this article shows how slow most of the regex engines now used are due to the use of Henry Spencer's regex package as inspiration. How many more performance losses are due to historical accident.

Submission + - iTunes detects musical hoax

Submitted by holy_calamity on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @02:10PM

holy_calamity writes: iTunes habit of accessing CDDB has bust open a musical fraud in the usually quiet world of classical piano. Albums by the much vaunted British pianist Joyce Hatto are identified by the player as belonging to other performers. A more scientific analysis by an audio remastering firm has found that none of Hatto's works appear to be hers.

Submission + - BBC Debunks Itself

Submitted by

Pixelpump

on Monday February 19, 2007 @02:57PM

Pixelpump writes: "The BBC has proven itself to be a shill for the status quo with the release of it's documentary "9/11: The Conspiracy Files." The documentary builds strawman after strawman and then valiantly knocks them down, all the while leaving the real questions unanswered and unexplored. http://www.factivism.com/content/view/77/33/"

Submission + - World's largest tropical glacier is vanishing.

Submitted by Socguy on Sunday February 18, 2007 @06:20PM

Socguy writes: "Ohio State glaciologist Lonnie Thompson and a team of scientists said they have found evidence the Qori Kalis glacier of the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes could lose half its mass in 12 months and could be gone five years from now."
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/02/16/scie nce-glacier.html

Submission + - Translation of Macrovision Response to Jobs on DRM

Submitted by BoboB-69 on Sunday February 18, 2007 @08:01AM

BoboB-69 writes: Daring Fireball has posted a humorous, and accurate PR-speak to Plain English translation of Macrovision's CEO's response to Steve Jobs' Open Letter on DRM. Highly recommended reading for slashdotters everywhere.

Submission + - Where Digg Failed

Submitted by

legoburner

on Friday February 16, 2007 @11:28AM

legoburner writes: "An interesting op-ed piece has appeared detailing the author's belief that Digg is so fundamentally flawed that it is only a matter of time before it completely collapses. Why Digg Failed has some choice quotes and analysis of why Digg's popularity has caused it to become too similar to tabloids in gaining attention and how quality has fallen drastically as usage has increased. Take note slashdot/firehose!"

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