AZhun - Slashdot User

NASA Employee Suspended For Blogging At Work 211

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @11:00AM from the but-i-wanna-blog-now dept.

BobJacobsen writes "FCW has an article about a NASA employee that was suspended for blogging on government time. Seems the unnamed employee's 'politically partisan' blog entries were a violation of the Hatch Act. The article ends with a chilling quote from the government's Special Counsel in the case: 'Today, modern office technology multiplies the opportunities for employees to abuse their positions and — as in this serious case — to be penalized, even removed from their job, with just a few clicks of a mouse.'" Thing is, he was soliciting campaign donations and writing partisan stuff.

Submission + - Why is Firehose so hostile? 15

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Friday May 23, 2008 @10:18PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Can anyone explain to me why Slashdot's Firehose is made to be so unfriendly? It's a great idea, but in practice it's infuriating. If you see a submitted article, and click on one of the links, you can't go back to the story. You have to start all over again. If you set the filters to what you're interested in, you have to re-set them all over again. Even if you just RTFA you are punished by losing your settings. Why shouldn't Slashdot encourage people to participate in the Firehose. For a busy person, it's almost impossible to be involved. And this bizarre lack of 'stickiness' makes everything take 10 times as much times as it needs to."

Submission + - GameStop drops Microsoft's Zune (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by Maow on Friday May 23, 2008 @07:51PM

Maow writes: GameStop, which operates in Canada and other countries through its EB Games brand, has decided to stop selling Microsoft Corp.'s Zune digital music player because of a lack of demand.

Microsoft earlier this month announced it had sold two million Zunes since their launch in November 2006 ... Apple in its most recent quarter sold 10.6 million iPods, or more than five times Microsoft's cumulative total over a year and a half.

Submission + - Couple trys to name baby '@'

Submitted by linuxwrangler on Thursday August 16, 2007 @03:43PM

linuxwrangler writes: A Chinese couple has applied to name their baby @. The Chinese often use an English-like pronunciation of '@' with a pronounced 'T' which is similar in Mandarin to "love him". It is not-yet known if the government, which recently banned use of Arabic numerals, foreign languages, and non-Chinese symbols in names, will accept baby @.

Submission + - Scientists claim to have broken the speed of light (breitbart.com)

Submitted by GnarlyDoug on Thursday August 16, 2007 @03:40PM

GnarlyDoug writes: German scientists claim that they have broken the speed of light barrier while researching quantum tunneling. In effect they claimed that some photons traveled a greater distance than other photons in the same amount of time, and thus moved faster than the speed of light. Personally I'll wait to see what happens when their tests are peer reviewed and duplicated, but it's interesting.

Submission + - Skype goes dark, may be offline until Friday (computerworld.com)

Submitted by jcatcw on Thursday August 16, 2007 @03:35PM

jcatcw writes: Skype is blaming software issues for a lengthy outage that may last for more than 24 hours. Some users claims there's a log-in authentication failure. "Those that are in stay in and those trying to sign in can't get in," according to Tom Keating. In what maybe an implicit acknowledgment, the company is recommending that users leave their client software active.

Submission + - For Videotron, Unlimited Access now means 100Gb

Submitted by on Thursday August 16, 2007 @03:26PM

An anonymous reader writes: Canadian Internet access provider Videotron just sent a letter to all its "Extreme High Speed Unlimited Internet Access" customers announcing that, as of October the 1st, unlimited would mean 100Gb/month.

Over limit Gbs will cost 1.50$CA each.

The Videotron.ca Web site still advertizes the package as unlimited.

Submission + - Vatican edits Wikipedia article on IRA man (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16, 2007 @03:21PM

An anonymous reader writes: A new internet tool shows how a Vatican computer was used to edit a web entry about Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, American researchers have claimed. They said news reports alleging Mr Adams's fingerprints and handprints were found on a car used during a double murder in 1971 were edited. The Wikipedia page on Gerry Adams says it is "currently protected from editing until August 17, 2007 or until disputes have been resolved".

Submission + - TJX Security Breach described (techdirt.com)

Submitted by

Bunderfeld

on Thursday August 16, 2007 @03:14PM

Bunderfeld writes: "I was reading over at TechDirt and saw this story, thought everyone else would find it enlightening

"...The breach was apparently perpetrated by using poorly secured in-store kiosks, which were on the corporate network and not behind firewalls. Attackers stuck USB keys in the kiosks and loaded software that allowed them to be controlled remotely, and used as gateways onto the network.""

Submission + - German Scientists Claim to Break Speed of Light (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by Evil Adrian on Thursday August 16, 2007 @03:11PM

Evil Adrian writes: German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light. Using Einstein's famous equation, this feat would require an infinite amount of energy — so if this claim is true, it would stand to reason that our understanding of physics might be a wee bit inaccurate.

Submission + - Debian turns 14 today!

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16, 2007 @03:07PM

An anonymous reader writes: Debian, one of my long time favorite Linux distributions turned 14 today. Without the Debian project there would be no Ubuntu. Debian was begun in August 1993 by Ian Murdock, as a new distribution which would be made openly, in the spirit of Linux and GNU. Debian is pronounced /de.bi.n/. It comes from the names of the creator of Debian, Ian Murdock, and his wife, Debra. Happy 14th birthday Debian!

Submission + - Watermarking to replace DRM? 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16, 2007 @02:54PM

An anonymous reader writes: News.com has an article on the announcement of Microsoft and Universal to introduce watermarking technology into audio files. The technology could serve several purposes including tracking file sharing statistics and insertion of advertisements into audio tracks. The article goes on to suggest that watermarking could possibly replace DRM in the near future.

Submission + - No RealID? You'll Need a Passport (cnn.com)

Submitted by mmurphy000 on Thursday August 16, 2007 @02:47PM

mmurphy000 writes: According to CNN:

Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act.

Note that these are the same passports which are already shipping with RFID tags.

Submission + - Is Wikipedia Corrupt? (digg.com)

Submitted by

on Thursday August 16, 2007 @02:40PM

An anonymous reader writes: Almost a year ago, Wikipedia was forced to admit corruption among its volunteer administrator team when it became known that Wikipedia administrator Essjay (Ryan Jordan), had falsified his credentials online, and to the New Yorker magazine (after which he'd been hired by Jimbo Wales, who had full knowledge of the falsifications). This caused a public outcry resulting in Wales request for Jordan's resignation.

Today, new allegations of rampant Wikipedia administrator abuse have become prominent. Longtime Wikipedia administrator, Durova, one of Wikipedia's most abusive administrators has been identified as having taken a Wikipedia dispute case off-wiki, by relating false allegations of alleged editor misconduct to AP journalist Brian Bergstein. Durova is known for her recent submissions to SEO websites and other publications, exhorting them to join Wikipedia, and to seek non-legal remedies to libel on Wikipedia. Her suggestions caused an outcry from persons she'd damaged in her own right. Ross Dunn provides a report from the sidelines. Caveat Wikipedian.

Submission + - RIAA Defendant Cross-Sues Kazaa and AOL

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Thursday August 16, 2007 @02:37PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In what appears to be a first, RIAA defendant Michelle Santangelo, the 20-year old daughter of Patti Santangelo, has made a motion for leave to serve a third party complaint against Kazaa and AOL, as well as against someone who installed Kazaa software, in Elektra v. Santangelo II. Her proposed third-party complaint (pdf) alleges that any injuries plaintiffs might have sustained were the result of the third party defendants' "negligence and breaches... in the defective design of Sharman Network's program, "Kazaa" which was a dangerous instrumentality in its each and every use as it existed in 2002-2004; the trespassing and reckless installation by Matthew Seckler [the person who allegedly installed the software without authorization] of such program; the failure to warn by AOL and Sharman; the failure to block the downloading of such files by AOL; the improper blocking of alleged (RIAA) warning messages by AOL and Sharman; and, the secretive file sharing system of and by Kazaa.""

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