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Comment Re:Goog Grief! (Score 2, Insightful) 216

by MathFox (#26015781) Attached to: RIAA's Oppenheim Tries To Protect MediaSentry
There is two issues with websites: content and presentation. Let me say that the content of RIAAvsPeople is unique and worthy of a mention in "History of the Internet". The presentation is acceptable, as you work within some Blogspot limitations. If you spent a few 100 dollar on website design and your personal education (Ray, you are a very good amateur web-publisher), it would look better, more professional. I am not convinced that your message would hit harder; my philosophy is that, for websites like yours, design can distract from the message. Keep it simple, concentrate on the message! You have something to tell that is important.

Comment Re:Short answer: (Score 1) 604

by MathFox (#25897135) Attached to: Rewriting a Software Product After Quitting a Job?
Most job contracts contain some form of an NDA and a non-compete clause. Both may apply when you start making "better widgets" than your former employer. Review the contract you signed when you got your job, preferably with a lawyer.

Starting a new company is easy, the hard part is getting the revenue to keep it going. A lawsuit will cost you time and money and is a great distraction from doing business. Even if you win the lawsuit, the company may go under due to the legal costs. I would recommend making "something completely different" to avoid a lot of problems with (soon) former employers.
Government

New Jersey E-Voting Problems Worse Than Originally Suspected 118

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the lazy-or-shady-it's-still-evil dept.
TechDirt is reporting that the New Jersey e-voting troubles are even worse than originally thought. Apparently the "minor bug" which was supposed to be fixed is still not corrected, suggesting that Sequoia still doesn't know what is going on. "Ed Felten has received a bunch of 'summary tapes' from the last election in New Jersey, and while many of them do have the vote totals matching up correctly at the end at least two of the summary tapes simply don't add up, meaning that Sequoia's explanation of what went wrong is incorrect. Given how often the company has denied or hidden errors in its machines, despite a ton of evidence, we shouldn't be surprised that it was inaccurate in explaining away this latest problem as well. However, we should be outraged that the company refuses to allow third party researchers to investigate these machines. It's a travesty that any government would use them when they've been shown to have so many problems and the company is unwilling to allow an independent investigation."
Security

Griefers Assault Epileptics Via Message Board 621

Posted by kdawson from the not-funny-mcgee dept.
An anonymous reader tips us to a story up at Wired reporting on what may be the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on victims. Last Saturday, griefers posted hundreds of bogus messages on the support forums of the nonprofit Epilepsy Foundation that used JavaScript and strobing GIFs to trigger migraines and seizures in users. For about 3% of the 50 million epileptics worldwide, flashing lights and colors can trigger seizures. "'I don't fall over and convulse, but it hurts,' says [an IT worker in Ohio]. 'I was on the phone when it happened, and I couldn't move and couldn't speak.' ... Circumstantial evidence suggests the attack was the work of members of Anonymous, an informal collective of griefers best known for their recent war on the Church of Scientology. The first flurry of posts on the epilepsy forum referenced the site EBaumsWorld, which is much hated by Anonymous. And forum members claim they found a message board thread — since deleted — planning the attack at 7chan.org, a group stronghold."

C# Memory Leak Torpedoed Princeton's DARPA Chances 560

Posted by Zonk from the omg-a-tumbleweed dept.
nil0lab writes "In a case of 20/20 hindsight, Princeton DARPA Grand Challenge team member Bryan Cattle reflects on how their code failed to forget obstacles it had passed. It was written in Microsoft's C#, which isn't supposed to let you have memory leaks. 'We kept noticing that the computer would begin to bog down after extended periods of driving. This problem was pernicious because it only showed up after 40 minutes to an hour of driving around and collecting obstacles. The computer performance would just gradually slow down until the car just simply stopped responding, usually with the gas pedal down, and would just drive off into the bush until we pulled the plug. We looked through the code on paper, literally line by line, and just couldn't for the life of us imagine what the problem was.'"
Education

Call For Halt To Wikipedia Webcomic Deletions 720

Posted by kdawson from the deletionism-rampant dept.
ObsessiveMathsFreak writes "Howard Tayler, the webcomic artist of Schlock Mercenary fame, is calling on people not to donate money during the latest Wikimedia Foundation fund-raiser. This is to protest the 'notability purges' taking place throughout Wikipedia, where articles are being removed en-masse by what many see as overzealous admins. The webcomic community in particular has long felt slighted by the application of Wikipedia's contentious Notability policy. Wikinews reporters have recently begun investigating this issue, but are the admins listening?"
Privacy

Terror Watch List Swells to More Than 755,000 512

Posted by samzenpus from the a-list-you-don't-want-to-be-on dept.
rdavison writes "According to a USA Today story, the terror watch list has swollen to 755,000 with 200,000 people per year being added since 2004. Adding about 548 people daily every day of the year does not seem to lend itself to a manual process with careful deliberation given or double checking being done for each person added. It seems to suggests that data is being mined from somewhere to automatically add names to the list."
Linux

The Linux Identity Crisis 364

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wants-to-be-called-linuxette-now dept.
Jayze Calrtini writes "From an article from ZDNet:"If you've been following the current rift in the Linux community between Linus Torvalds and his minions squaring off against Con Kolivas and the mainstream Linux fanatics, you probably know that it's getting quite heated. You also probably know that these two entirely different ideas could create three possible paths Linux can take for the future: stay geeky and appeal to the advanced tech guru in all of us; go mainstream and leave the advanced functionality and reliable kernel behind to compete with Microsoft and Apple; or face a "civil war" that could lead to total Linux annihilation."
Education

MIT Student Arrested For Wearing 'Tech Art' Shirt At Airport 1547

Posted by Zonk from the don't-be-a-jerk-to-the-police,-they-have-guns dept.
SuperBanana writes "According to a report by the Boston Globe, MIT Student Star Simpson was nearly shot by Logan Airport police who thought she was armed with a bomb. She approached an airline employee wearing a prototyping board with electronic components, crudely attached to the front of her sweatshirt and holding 'putty' in her hand. She asked about an incoming flight, and did not respond when asked about the device. Armed police responded. 'Simpson was charged with possessing a hoax device and was arraigned today East Boston Municipal Court. She was held on $750 cash bail and ordered to return to court Oct. 29. "Thankfully because she followed our instructions, she ended up in our cell instead of a morgue," Pare said. "Again, this is a serious offense ... I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport."'"
Linux

Linus on Subversion, GPL3, Microsoft and More 350

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
victor77 writes "Linus has repeatedly slammed Subversion and CVS, questioning their basic architecture. Subversion community has responded...how valid is Linus's statement?" This and many other subjects are covered in this interview with Linus.

US Slips Again In Freedom of the Press Ranking 989

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the gosh-at-least-citizen's-rights-aren't-being-eroded dept.
npwa writes to tell us Reporters Without Borders has released their annual worldwide press freedom index. While developing nations like Haiti and Mauritania continue to gain ground developed nations like France, Japan, and the US continue their downward spiral. From the article: "The United States (53rd) has fallen nine places since last year, after being in 17th position in the first year of the Index, in 2002. Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of 'national security' to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his 'war on terrorism.' The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media's right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism."

3-D Flexible Computer Chips 85

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the new-lego-on-the-block dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have isolated a single-crystal film of semiconductor from the substrate on which it is built. Then they transferred this very thin film — 200 nanometers thick — on plastic. Both sides of the film can host active components and several layers can be stacked, opening the way to very powerful 3-D flexible computer chips. Besides computer chips, this technique could be used for solar cells, smart cards, RFID tags or active-matrix flat panel displays."

Anna Konda, the Robotic Firefighter 94

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the civil-serpent dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In fact, Anna Konda is a robotic fire hose moving like a snake. This robot, which has been developed in Norway by SINTEF, is 3 m long and weighs 70 kg. The snake contains 20 water hydraulic motors that move the robotic joints. And the energy needed to power these motors comes from water pressurized to 100 bars and already available inside the fire hose. This gives enough energy to this water-powered robot to climb up stairs, to lift a car up off the ground or even break through a wall. Very clever design! The designers think that this robot could not only replace humans to fight fires when it's too dangerous for them, but could also be used for subsea operations or explosion prevention. An additional overview contains more details and pictures of this snake robot."

The Worst Tech of Q2 2006 106

Posted by Zonk from the top-ten-each-quarter dept.
ClickOnThis writes "CNET has an article on the Worst tech of Q2 2006. Their rogue's gallery includes: Segway Polo, the 'Nyko Intelligent Remote 360', and a dishonorable mention for the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray format war. My personal (un)favorite is the appropriately-named Pantech 300 mobile phone, which is so small you could almost swallow it. From the article: 'When it's in your hand, you will feel like Gigantor. But it's a trick. You are not Gigantor. And if you're at a monster truck rally, bully convention, or Hell's Angels hangout while you're using it, you'll catch some hell for being Mr. Fancy Li'l Mini Phone. A wedgie, Kick Me sign, or stop-hitting-yourself situation might ensue.'"

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