AhtirTano - Slashdot User

Submission + - Icelandian calls White House, labelled a terrorist (go.com) 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10, 2007 @07:47PM

An anonymous reader writes: A 16-year-old boy in Iceland called a secret government phone number, which he thought was Bush's private number, and posed as the president of Iceland. After passing some impromptu security questions, such as President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson's birth date (which he answered with Wikipedia), Bush's secretary told him to expect a call back. Instead, police surrounded his house and interrogated him on where he got the number, threatening to put him on a no-fly list if he didn't tell. He claims he can't remember where he got the number, but says "I must have gotten it from a friend when I was about 11 or 12."

Submission + - BBC refuses to publish Stallman article (gnu.org) 8

Submitted by

Richard Stallman

on Wednesday October 24, 2007 @02:59AM

Richard Stallman writes: "The BBC invited me to write an article for their column series, The Tech Lab, and this is what I sent them. (It refers to a couple of other articles published in that series.) But the BBC was unwilling to publish it with a copying permission notice, so I have published it here."

Submission + - Solar powered aircraft breaks record (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

BigBadBus

on Sunday September 09, 2007 @08:18PM

BigBadBus writes: "British firm QinetiQ have announced that their Zephyr solar powered aircraft has broken the world record for long duration flight. The flimsy craft made an unnofficial record of 54 hours non-stop flying, but because the flight was an unnounced secret voyage, this record will not stand. A second, 33 hour flight may just claim the record though. Zephyr flies at 58,000 feet."

Submission + - French Threat to ID Secret US Satellites (beskerming.com)

Submitted by

SkiifGeek

on Sunday September 09, 2007 @07:24PM

SkiifGeek writes: "Space.com has reported that the French have identified numerous objects in orbit that do not appear in the ephemeris data reported by the US Space Surveillance Network. Since the US has claimed that if it doesn't appear in the ephemeris data, then it doesn't exist, and the French claim that at least some of the objects have solar arrays, it seems that the French have found secret US satellites.

While the French don't plan to release the information publicly, they are planning to use it as leverage to get the US to suppress reporting of sensitive French satellites in their published ephemeris.

The Graves surveillance radar (the French system) and a comparable German system may form the basis of a pan-European Space Surveillance network — another system that the Europeans don't want to rely on the US for."

No More TV Listings For MythTV Users 346

Posted by kdawson on Sunday September 09, 2007 @06:46PM from the elephino-what's-on dept.

Ryan Brown writes "As of September 1, the free XML TV guide service at zap2it labs has shut its doors due to misuse issues, as well as internal business issues. Now that Linux users, and most PVR users for that matter, are nearing the end of their last fetched TV guide, what free alternatives exist that can replace this much-needed service?"

Submission + - Washington Post Notices Ron Paul Exists, Won Poll (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by

MBCook

on Sunday September 09, 2007 @05:55PM

MBCook writes: "Today the Washington Post printed an article titled "Ron Paul Takes the Ribbon in State Fair's GOP Straw Poll" in which they point out that not only did he win the Maryland straw poll by 43 votes, but how well his grass-roots campaign is run. The article quotes state Republican party vice-chair Chris Cavey: "The final vote showing Ron Paul won is a lesson for all campaigns of how grass-roots politics can make all the difference.""

Submission + - Northwest Passage Now Open

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 09, 2007 @05:36PM

An anonymous reader writes: The Guardian is reporting that the Northwest Passage is now navigable due to arctic sea ice melting much faster than previously. This will only continue to get worse next year as the additional open water absorbs more heat and delays the refreezing of the water this winter.

Submission + - Record Industry Woes Aggravated by Years of Bad PR

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04, 2007 @01:00AM

An anonymous reader writes: Richard Menta makes a strong case on MP3 Newswire that bad public relations stirred by the open conflict between the record industry and the consumer is a heavy contributor to the crumbling fortunes of the major labels. In his analysis he contrasts how the NFL and Major League baseball tread gingerly with the Michael Vick and steroids scandals respectively to avoid further raising the ire of sports fans, while the major labels and the RIAA openly antagonize music fans who dare embrace new technologies they don't have full control of. From the article" Today the major record labels don't have a positive brand image and the very public actions they have taken to control the rise of digital media and the Internet over the last several years is at the very heart of their fall from grace. To some the big labels are an anachronism. To others they are anti-consumer. The erosion of their image is dramatic..." Menta then lays out 17 public events that have chipped away at the image of the recording industry including those that show them as bullies (RIAA sues little girls), as incompetent (RIAA sues the dead), as oppressors of the artist (Courtney Love, Janis Ian, and Grey Tuesday), as greedy (that's what Steve Jobs called them), and as practitioners of unauthorized access (Sony rootkit scandal). Consumer perception can be a bitch and the end result here is that many consumers probably don't feel as good about buying a CD anymore.

Submission + - FTC wants to hear your comments on SSN use (commentworks.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04, 2007 @12:24AM

An anonymous reader writes: The FTC is allowing people to voice their concerns and opinions on the private sector's use of SSNs (Social Security Numbers). The page to voice your comments can be found here: https://secure.commentworks.com/ftc-SSNPrivateSect or/ Note that the only required fields are: Last name, state, and country.

Submission + - NASA to build largest Supercomputer ever (linuxworld.com.au) 1

Submitted by Onlyodin on Friday August 03, 2007 @09:04PM

Onlyodin writes: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has given the green light to a project that will build the largest ever supercomputer based on Silicon Graphics' (SGI) 512-processor Altix computers.

Called Project Columbia and costing around $160-million, the 10,240-processor system will be used by researchers at the Advanced Supercomputing Facility at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

What makes Project Columbia unique is the size of the multiprocessor Linux systems, or nodes, that it clusters together. It is common for supercomputers to be built of thousands of two-processor nodes, but the Ames system uses SGI's NUMAlink switching technology and ProPack Linux operating system enhancements to connect 512-processor nodes, each of which will have more than 1,000G bytes of memory.

Full Story at Linuxworld

Submission + - Multiformat Listening Test at 64kbps 1

Submitted by

prospective_user

on Thursday August 02, 2007 @08:09PM

prospective_user writes: "Do you think you have good ears? Think again.

The community at Hydrogenaudio has prepared a Public Listening Test for comparison of the most popular audio codecs (AAC, Vorbis, and Microsoft's WMA included) in a battle to see how they stand at compressing audio at 64kbps.

Many of the participants right now have expressed their surprise at being unable to determine which is the original and which is the compressed version of 18 samples covering a vast amount of musical styles.

The results of this test (and other that are conducted at Hydrogenaudio) will be used by the developers of the codecs to further improve the "transparency" and let this kind of test be even harder.

Everyone is invited to participate and show how good your listening is!"

Submission + - Chernobyl Mushrooms Feeding on Radiation

Submitted by cowtamer on Thursday August 02, 2007 @07:52PM

cowtamer writes: According to a National Geographic Article certain fungi can use ionizing radiation to perform "radiosynthesis" using the pigment melanin (the same one in our skin that protects us from UV radiation). It is speculated that this might be useful on long space voyages where energy from the Sun is not readily available.

Submission + - First production flying car to be built

Submitted by Tookis on Sunday July 22, 2007 @05:58PM

Tookis writes: The first production flying car is being designed to be a vertical take-off and landing vehicle. The flying car, under production for consumer purchase, is called the M200G. Its cost to customers is estimated to be at least $90,000 (in U.S. dollars). The M200G uses eight low-emission Rotapower engines (Wankel rotary engines, produced by Freedom Motors). Its advanced cooling system allows it to be a fairly lightweight vehicle. Its projected cruising speed is about 50 miles per hour at about 10 feet off the ground. A Mark II version under development will have a cruising speed of 300MPH at an altitude of more than 6 miles. http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/13627/1066/

Submission + - Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb' (cbs5.com)

Submitted by

mikesd81

on Thursday June 14, 2007 @11:47PM

mikesd81 writes: "CBS has an article that states a Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Apparently, Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb." Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

The Air Force wanted 7.5 million dollars to develop this weapon, nicknamed The Gay Bomb. The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviewing the documents. "The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soldiers would become gay," explained Hammond. The DOD says the idea was quickly dismissed, however Hammond said the government records he obtained suggest the military gave the plan much stronger consideration than it has acknowledged. "In fact," he says, "the Pentagon has used it repeatedly and subsequently in an effort to promote non-lethal weapons, and in fact they submitted it to the highest scientific review body in the country for them to consider.""

Submission + - Using virtual reality to prevent wildfires

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Saturday June 09, 2007 @12:53PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "University of Central Florida (UCF) researchers want to immerse people in a virtual wildfire to encourage them to invest in prevention. The UCF research team has developed an interactive virtual reality simulation of a wildfire spreading through Volusia County. Participants will receive $100 of real money to be immersed in an environment which will cover about 30 years in an hour. They'll have to decide how much they want to invest in prescribed burns and insurance, and will keep some of the money depending on the final value of their land. The goal of the researchers is to demonstrate that virtual reality can be an effective public policy tool. Interesting concept... Read more for additional references, including a 92-page report on the subject, and pictures of wildfires in which participants will be immersed."

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