Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
NASA

NASA Delays Discovery's Final Launch To February 62

Posted by Soulskill from the hope-you-brought-a-blanket,-keith dept.
Velcroman1 writes "NASA has postponed the launch of space shuttle Discovery's final mission to no earlier than early February — the latest in a long string of delays that have kept the spacecraft grounded for more than a month. Discovery is now slated to launch no earlier than Feb. 3, with the delay allowing NASA engineers more time to analyze why small cracks developed in the shuttle's huge external fuel tank. The cracks have since been repaired, but NASA wants to make sure similar issues don't pose a future concern."
Security

TSA Pats Down 3-Year-Old 1135

Posted by samzenpus from the security-theater dept.
3-year-old Mandy Simon started crying when her teddy bear had to go through the X-ray machine at airport security in Chattanooga, Tenn. She was so upset that she refused to go calmly through the metal detector, setting it off twice. Agents then informed her parents that she "must be hand-searched." The subsequent TSA employee pat down of the screaming child was captured by her father, who happens to be a reporter, on his cell phone. The video have left some questioning why better procedures for children aren't in place. I, for one, feel much safer knowing the TSA is protecting us from impressionable minds warped by too much Dora the Explorer.
Graphics

The First Photograph of a Human 138

Posted by samzenpus from the fist-cheese dept.
wiredog writes "The Atlantic has a brief piece on what is likely to be the first photograph (a daguerreotype) showing a human. From the article: 'In September, Krulwich posted a set of daguerreotypes taken by Charles Fontayne and William Porter in Cincinnati 162 years ago, on September 24, 1848. Krulwich was celebrating the work of the George Eastman House in association with the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Using visible-light microscopy, the George Eastman House scanned several plates depicting the Cincinnati Waterfront so that scholars could zoom in and study the never-before-seen details.'"

Comment Re:I'd rather make peanuts telecommuting (Score 1) 470

by Geek_Cop (#33899626) Attached to: IT's Last Hope — a Job In the Boonies?
I'm in Boone, NC. I moved here to be "in the mountains" from "the city". Now that my kids are in college, I want to get the hell out of here where I can be anonymous. My kids were terrorized in this town because they weren't "religious". They are in college now, in bigger cities. They had the advantage of a good school system here, but all their friends are either pregnant or driving pick up trucks. Since I work from home it doesn't matter where I live anymore, but driving an hour to get to Moe's really, really sucks. I feel really sorry for anybody that takes one of the Google jobs in Lenoir, NC...that place is the Fast Food capital and gourmet food is Ruby Tuesday's!

Comment Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score 0, Flamebait) 851

by Geek_Cop (#33836876) Attached to: College Student Finds GPS On Car, FBI Retrieves It
They are usually from lower income backgrounds, with a chip on their shoulder. They love to look at gun magazines and porn, yet they are super religious. Cops take the low pay given to them because the job is fun and they don't normally have the intellectual capacity to do anything but be a cop. It is a tight knit group with much bravado. Don't forget they take every crime you commit, personally.

Comment Re:What happens if you destroy it? (Score 5, Informative) 851

by Geek_Cop (#33836736) Attached to: College Student Finds GPS On Car, FBI Retrieves It
You would hope that they would charge you for it, meaning they will just put an entry into the US Treasury to withhold your next 10 tax returns until the unit is paid for. Otherwise they can simply put you on the "No Fly List" ..that is what they mean by "making it difficult for you". They will simply label you a terrorist or send your name to ICE..the world is their oyster, and you are nothing but a pawn. As a (former) cop, I've watched other cops label innocent people as "Scumbags" and their life was hell in this jurisdiction from then on. A cop just has to "say" you did something to cause you irreparable grief. He doesn't have to prove anything until you go to court. I could only imagine an FBI agent and what his ego could do. Anybody in law enforcement, at every level, is an infantile egomaniac.
Government

College Student Finds GPS On Car, FBI Retrieves It 851

Posted by Soulskill from the everybody-gets-one-in-the-tailpipe dept.
mngdih writes with this excerpt from Wired: "A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do. It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back ... His discovery comes in the wake of a recent ruling by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals saying it's legal for law enforcement to secretly place a tracking device on a suspect's car without getting a warrant, even if the car is parked in a private driveway. ... 'We have all the information we needed,' they told him. 'You don't need to call your lawyer. Don't worry, you're boring.'"

Comment Filtering (Score 1) 107

by Geek_Cop (#33740852) Attached to: Most Readers Don't Like Customized News
Slashdot is about the only news I will read anymore because it has a minimal amount of political and entertainment news, the two things I could really care less about, and the comments I find are very entertaining. I had set Google News, at one point, as my home page but not being able to remove categories is a very big negative. Not all of us care to feel manipulated by article titles written to inspire hatred, greed and ignorance. So now I bounce back and forth between Slashdot and HappyNews.com lol Ahhh yes, ignorance, to a point, is bliss!!
Idle

Paleontologists Discover World's Horniest Dinosaur 109

Posted by samzenpus from the overcompensatesaurus dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes "The Guardian reports that paleontologists have uncovered the remains of an ancient beast called Kosmoceratops richardsoni that stood 16 feet tall with a 6-foot skull equipped with 15 horns and lived 76 million years ago in the warm, wet swamps of what is now southern Utah. 'These animals are basically over-sized rhinos with a whole lot more horns on their heads. They had huge heads relative to their body size,' says Scott Sampson, a researcher at the Utah Museum of Natural History."

Slashdot Top Deals

If you think the system is working, ask someone who's waiting for a prompt.

Close