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John McCain's MySpace Page "Pranked" 503

Posted by kdawson from the careful-who-you-leach-from dept.
Several readers let us know about a little problem with presidential hopeful John McCain's MySpace page. Looks as though some staffer didn't read the fine print of the "credit" clause when selecting a template for the page. The template author and CEO of Newsvine, Mike Davidson, noticed this and didn't care too much. But the McCain page was pulling an image from Davidson's site, costing him bandwidth every time someone visited the candidate's MySpace page. So Davidson changed the image in question to read: "Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage... particularly marriage between two passionate females." Here is Davidson's account of the "immaculate hack".
Republicans

Journal Journal: John McCain, MySpace, and Code Theft 2

Journal by janeowit

At first I thought the "prank" on a presidential candidate John McCain seemed a bit petty, making his myspace page say he has reversed his position on gay marriage just because someone in his campaign used some code without crediting the author.
But McCain doesn't seem to know his own position regarding contraceptio
Windows

Submission + - Windows Vista - 19 months of usage and counting

Submitted by MyStuff
MyStuff writes: ZDNet blog Hardware 2.0 looks at the effect of having been using Windows Vista for over 18 months. It Windows Vista the indispensable upgrade that Microsoft wants you to think it is? This quote says it all:

Having been using Vista for over 18 months I believe that it's a huge improvement over XP and even though I still use XP I find that I miss many of the features that Vista offers.

However, I wouldn't call any of the changes earth-shattering. When I'm using XP systems I miss some of the features but not so much that they push me to upgrade any faster. Microsoft wants users to put down a lot of money for Vista when XP still has plenty of life in it. If you like living on the edge and want the latest then Vista is a must, but if you're happy with XP or you are the kind of person that doesn't actually use the OS that much, then you're probably safe holding back and waiting until you buy a new PC before getting Vista.
Businesses

Submission + - How safe is your employment application data?

Submitted by
Carlos
Carlos writes: "I recently returned to the U.S. after working overseas for the past 16 years. As I visit job sites and corporate sites, I'm finding two issues with applying online I hope Slashdot readers could comment on. I understand security and background checks are important to most employers, however, it seems to me that far too many online applications are asking for sensitive data, such as my social security number and driver's license number. How long is my data stored in their database? Who has access to such data? It seems that every month we hear about a company that has customer/client data stolen or mishandled. I feel that such data shouldn't be required during "step one" (ie filling out the initial online account in the career section). I'll provide such data when I've been contacted by a staff for an interview. Do Slashdot readers simply bypass such employers, or do they just hand over their identity? The second point relates to the pages upon pages we have to endure with an online application. Some companies make the process smooth, for example using a form of OCR with an uploaded resume. There's nothing worse than getting to step 9 (out of 20 steps) and getting a timeout error in your browser! I hope HR people who are reading this, will take a closer look at their employment process. I'm sure some readers might say, "They make the process hard on purpose — weeding out the lazy applicants." I fully understand this point and I'm not looking for an easy way into a company, but filling out 20 step applications at 30 companies a day, everyday, can eat a lot of time when hunting for a position."
Robotics

Submission + - Street Fighting Robot Challenge

Submitted by ianchaos
ianchaos writes: There's no better way to assure the eventual destruction of mankind then by the event sponsored by Singapore's Defence Science and Technology Agency. Newscientist has a good writeup of the robot challenge, which is to build a robot that can operate autonomously in urban warfare conditions, moving in and out of buildings to search and destroy targets like a human soldier.
Power

Submission + - Big Red Button disasters

Submitted by FredDC
FredDC writes: The Daily WTF? has a story about a Big Red Button disaster. What Big Red Button disaster have you experienced? caused? heared about? Or can happen any day now?
The Matrix

Journal Journal: Man kicked off Quantas flight for bush-bashing Tee Shirt 13

Journal by drinkypoo
Reuters Reports that a man wearing a Tee Shirt with a picture of Dubya and subtitled "World's number 1 terrorist" was ejected from a Quantas flight from Melbourne to London simply for his dress. Quantas' statement was that "comments made verbally or on a T-shirt which had the potential to offend other tra
Music

Music Companies Mull Ditching DRM 318

Posted by Zonk from the dogs-and-cats-living-together-mass-hysteria dept.
PoliTech writes to mention an International Herald Tribue article that is reporting the unthinkable: Record companies are considering ditching DRM for their mp3 albums. For the first time, flagging sales of online music tracks are beginning to make the big recording companies consider the wisdom of selling music without 'rights management' technologies attached. The article notes that this is a step the recording industry vowed 'never to take'. From the article: "Most independent record labels already sell tracks digitally compressed in MP3 format, which can be downloaded, e-mailed or copied to computers, cellphones, portable music players and compact discs without limit. Partially, the independents see providing songs in MP3 as a way of generating publicity that could lead to future sales. Should one of the big four take that route, however, it would be a capitulation to the power of the Internet, which has destroyed their monopoly over the worldwide distribution of music in the past decade and allowed file-sharing to take its place."
Google

Google Looking to Join In-Game Ad Arena 52

Posted by Zonk from the soon-to-be-seen-outside-the-thunderbrew-distillery dept.
njkid1 writes "As part of a plan to expand its advertising efforts to all forms of media, it would appear that Google is actively seeking to get involved in the in-game ad business. A Wall Street Journal report states that the company is in talks to acquire Adscape Media. From the article: 'If Google does purchase Adscape, it would give the web company an opportunity to leverage a whole other medium, one that Google has apparently been interested in for some time now ... Interestingly, Google had apparently considered an acquisition of in-game ad firm Massive Inc. last year before Microsoft came along and bought Massive for around $200 million. The Journal report suggests that an acquisition of Adscape would only fuel the long-standing competition between Microsoft and Google, as Google could potentially form an alliance with Microsoft's video game rival Sony.'"
Privacy

Journal Journal: TSA Follies

Journal by vague_ascetic

Making a List, Checking it Twice; Going to Find Out Who's Naughty and Nice...

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