Comment Video on Demand - Australia? (Score 1) 1115
Are there any video on demand services available in Australia then? If not, then they can't be to blame, at least not here.
Comment Video stores... (Score 1) 1115
Not exactly what asked for, but, video stores in my local area that have been there for years have all of a sudden all gone out of business. Pretty sure bittorrent had something to do with it!
Comment hosts file (Score 1) 92
I just now put an entry in my hosts file:
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
Hopefully that will do the trick.
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
Hopefully that will do the trick.
MST3K is Back, Sort Of 264
Polar Star writes "Retrocrush reports that Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett are back making fun of crappy movies again in a new incarnation called The Film Crew. In the first of many new DVDs to be released, they take on a 1969 abomination called Hollywood After Dark which features a still-not-very-young Rue McClanahan as a down-on-her-luck actress who becomes a stripper. Needless to say, it's one of the scariest movies you'll ever see. There's plenty of funny jokes throughout, and they definitely prove themselves worthy of carrying on the MST3K tradition." Update 1925 GMT by SM: Corrected a few oversights and pointed to The Film Crew's actual website.
Submission + - Make GPLv2 and GPLv3 coexist in the same project? (blogspot.com)
cyclop writes: "I am coding a data analysis application in my laboratory that I would like to release as free (as in freedom) software. Moreover I am going to begin a small OSS game that will be based, in part, on GPLv2 libraries. Problem is: in both cases, I'd like to be able to exchange code both with GPLv2 and (future) GPLv3 projects. I have no particolar passions about both licences, only thing is I don't want BSD-style "do anything you want" licensing but a copyleft license. I know that GPLv2 and GPLv3 are not compatible. What can I do? Double-licensing? Is there a compatible-with-both licence? Adding exceptions? What do you think is the best way to address the GPLv2-to-GPLv3 transition without ending in one of the two sides of the barricade?"
Submission + - GPLv2 vs. GPLv3 (fsf.org)
Submission + - Wi-Fi Hack Aids Boarding Parties
Kage-Yojimbo writes: The U.S. Navy has adapted civilian wi-fi (wireless networks) for
use at sea during boarding operations. By modifying off-the-shelf wi-fi gear,
the navy increased the range to over 700 meters. The main reason for all this
was to speed up the transmission of passport photos and other personal data back
to the ship, so that it could be run through databases to check for terrorists
or criminals. This wi-fi hack cut several hours off the time required to check
documents. The Expanded Maritime Interception Operations (EIMO) wireless system
was developed last year, to provide several kilometers of range to the original
wi-fi gear (which has been in use for over three years). Each pair of wi-fi
units costs about $1400 to construct, using common parts to add more powerful
antennae to standard 802.11g wi-fi equipment.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/200 70525.aspx
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20
Submission + - $16,000 Bounty for Sendmail, Apache 0Day Flaws
Famestay writes: Verisign's iDefense is putting up a $16,000 prize for any hacker who can find a remotely exploitable vulnerability in six critical Internet infrastructure applications. The bounty is for a zero-day code execution hole on the following Internet infrastructure technologies: Apache httpd, Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) daemon, Sendmail SMTP daemon, OpenSSH sshd, Microsoft Internet Information (IIS) Server and Microsoft Exchange Server.
Submission + - Google to be our Web anti virus protector ?
cyberianpan writes: For some time we've noticed warning on Google searches that "this site may harm your computer" when Google has tagged the site as containing malware. Now Google is further publicising the level of infection in a paper titled: The Ghost In The Browser. Google are now promising to "identify all web pages on the internet that could be malicious"- Google with its powerful crawling abilities & data centres is best positioned to do this. This is potentially a very useful service but not all URLs we visit are from Google searches, some we still type in, others as links from pages. However could we soon expect a Firefox add in that will filter all http requests through Google ? So then our new overlords will indeed know everything about our web-habits ?
Submission + - No Competition Between Open and Closed Source
techie writes: MadPenguin.org writes to highlight the lack of competition between open and closed source applications. The author writes, "Is there really the level of competition in the open source world that we see in the closed source world? This is something that has been stuck in my mind lately as I have been told so many times by closed source developers that by opening the code you are creating your own competition. Today, I'm here to explore this theory and hopefully prove why it's false.
Submission + - Boredom Drives Open-Source Developers?
Henry McClyde writes: Chris Anderson of The Long Tail posted an article yesterday in which he claims that "spare cycles" — or boredom and the tons of people who wish they had something better to do — is what drives Web 2.0.... and the open source development community. While Web 2.0 in general is driven by "the long tail," NeoSmart seems to have taken up issue with Anderson's claims that open source developers (and other freeware programmers in general) do what they do because they're bored and have nothing better to spend their time on. Same with Wikipedia contributors, and bloggers in general.
I feel it's a mix between the two. It may have started off as boredom and ended up as a real passion for helping people out and making a difference. But definitely interesting that Anderson of all people would compare a Linux kernel developer to a bored sheriff watching a DVD or a travel playing Solitaire.
I feel it's a mix between the two. It may have started off as boredom and ended up as a real passion for helping people out and making a difference. But definitely interesting that Anderson of all people would compare a Linux kernel developer to a bored sheriff watching a DVD or a travel playing Solitaire.
Submission + - Bill Gates' Management Style
replicant108 writes: Tom Evslin gives a fascinating account of working for Microsoft in the early 90s:
"So you're in there presenting your product plan to billg, steveb, and mikemap. Billg typically has his eyes closed and he's rocking back and forth. He could be asleep; he could be thinking about something else; he could be listening intently to everything you're saying. The trouble is all are possible and you don't know which. Obviously, you have to present as if he were listening intently even though you know he isn't looking at the PowerPoint slides you spent so much time on.
At some point in your presentation billg will say "that's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft." He looks like he means it. However, since you knew he was going to say this, you can't really let it faze you. Moreover, you can't afford to look fazed; remember: he's a bully."
"So you're in there presenting your product plan to billg, steveb, and mikemap. Billg typically has his eyes closed and he's rocking back and forth. He could be asleep; he could be thinking about something else; he could be listening intently to everything you're saying. The trouble is all are possible and you don't know which. Obviously, you have to present as if he were listening intently even though you know he isn't looking at the PowerPoint slides you spent so much time on.
At some point in your presentation billg will say "that's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft." He looks like he means it. However, since you knew he was going to say this, you can't really let it faze you. Moreover, you can't afford to look fazed; remember: he's a bully."
Journal SPAM: US war on terror is a war on tourists, too 15
America is rated the world's most unfriendly destination for foreign travellers in a recent global poll. The War on Terror (which includes a $15 billion fingerprinting program that humiliates every visitor to America's shores and has yet to catch a single terrorist) has destroyed America's tourist industry, killing $94 billion worth of tourist trade, and 194,000 American jobs.
Feed Gowers Admits That Evidence Suggests UK Should Shorten Copyright Length, Not Ext (techdirt.com)
Late last year in the UK the infamous "Gowers Report" on intellectual property was issued, while it recommended not extending copyright terms on performances, some of us felt that the report was too balanced for its own good. Gowers seemed to go out of his way to make sure the report gave a little to everyone -- and therefore basically gave nothing to anyone. Rather than looking at the fundamental issues, it just tried to give a little bit here to one side and a little bit there to another. Of course, the copyright term extension got the most attention -- with supporters of term extension mistakenly thinking that copyright is a welfare system to perpetually support musicians rather than an incentive system for the creation of new content. Now that the report is all published and done with, apparently Andrew Gowers is willing to admit that when they did their actual research and investigation, they found that the economic evidence supported making copyright terms even shorter than the existing 50 years. However, recognizing that decreasing the length would have created howls of outrage from the industry that still thought it had a chance for extending the term, he simply recommended leaving it alone. Of course, it should come as no surprise to those of us around here that the economic evidence would suggest society is better off with shorter copyright terms -- but it's disappointing that Gowers had to wait until well after the report was released to even make that basic point. At least it's one more hole in the myth that longer copyrights must be good for society. The entire interview makes for an interesting read, though (as fits with his report) Gowers keeps focusing on the importance of "balance" between two opposing extremes, as if they're competing. At some point it would be nice for people to realize that there are solutions where everyone can benefit.
Feed 'Artificial snot' enhances electronic nose (theregister.com)
Nothing to sniff at
Researchers at the University of Warwick and Leicester University have used what they refer to as "artificial snot" (nasal mucus) to significantly boost the performance of electronic noses.
Slashdot Top Deals
Civilization, as we know it, will end sometime this evening. See SYSNOTE tomorrow for more information.
