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Wikipedia

Submission + - Places with the most Wikipedia articles (kmjn.org)

Submitted by
Trepidity
Trepidity writes: "Wikipedia has been making an effort to mark up articles with latitude-longitude coordinates when they refer to a specific location. It's now done so for over a million articles (across all languages). I was curious which parts of the world have gotten the most coverage. The answer is: Florence, Italy has the most articles within a 1-km-diameter circle; and London tops both the 10-km and 100-km lists. Here are the full results."
Censorship

Submission + - Paul Haggis Vs The Church of Scientology (newyorker.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: It's a lengthy read but Lawrence Wright at The New Yorker has released a 26 page expose on Scientology. In a world where such innocuous sounding words as "squirrels," "security-checked," "disconnection," "contra-survival," "suppressive persons," "clear" and "open season" carry very serious and heavy baggage, director Paul Haggis has exited after thirty four years of membership and massive funding. And now he speaks out at length of Scientology's controversies. From how celebrities were recruited with a 10% commission by a worker at Beverly Hills Playhouse to the current investigation by the FBI of physical abuse and human trafficking, Wright draws surrounding histories and accounts of the Church including Anonymous' crusade. The length of this article reflects the unusually large number (12 cases of physical abuse) of individuals cited as testimony of Scientology Leader David Miscavige's inurement and physical violence. The case remains open as the FBI collects data and testimony — especially in relation to Sea Org. Most disturbing are the disappearances of people that The New Yorker piece enumerates. The piece concludes with the author's interaction with the Church that results in several conflicting foundational statements from its stance on homosexuality (Haggis' original reason for publicly leaving it) to almost all details of L. Ron Hubbard's naval service and discharge. The article ends with Haggis' quote: 'I was in a cult for thirty-four years. Everyone else could see it. I don't know why I couldn't.' You can find summaries of the lengthy article and its suspected results along with corresponding reports listing politicians involved with the Church. Copyrighted work, leaked government documents, PS3 encryption keys and everything else has been posted on Slashdot but only the Church of Scientology has forced comments out of existence.

Submission + - Creative Commons video challenges Hollywood's best

Submitted by Supercharged_Z06
Supercharged_Z06 writes: A short film entitles "Sintel" was released by the Blender Foundation under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. It was created by an international team of artists working collaboratively using a free, open source piece of 3D rendering software called Blender. No Hollywood studio was involved in its making.
Pretty remarkable what can be generated these days with open source software and some dedicated, creative talent. If a short film of this quality can be produced without Hollywood right now, imagine what will appear a few more years down the road...

On YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsGyueVLvQ

More info and free downloads of the film available: http://www.sintel.org/
The Internet

Submission + - 4chan Does Something Nice (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Members of 4chan aren't known for doing things that are cute and heart-warming and when they decide to go after someone, it's typically to subject them to ridicule. But not this time. Someone at 4chan decided that the Internet should get together and wish 90-year-old WWII veteran William J. Lashua a happy birthday, and soon Lashua's local branch of the American Legion was deluged by birthday calls from people as far away as Sweden. The account someone set up for Mr. Lashua's birthday on facebook had 3,956 "likes" and over 500 comments, most of which wished him a happy birthday and thanked him for his military service. It's not clear how 4chan originally came across a photo of Lashua, but a member of the site posted a snapshot of a flyer that was on the bulletin board at a store in Ashburnham, Massachusetts asking for guests to attend the nonagenarian's birthday on at the American Legion hall and the post took off. In contrast to their usual behavior, 4chan members "were giving him nice phone calls and sending him nice notes" and discouraging those who wanted to do something stupid or mean. "They were all being.. well, shucks, awful nice.""
Science

Submission + - The "net generation" isn't. Old guys wrong again (spiegel.de)

Submitted by Kanel
Kanel writes: Kids that grew up with the internet are not the "digital natives" consultants have made us believe. They'r ok with the net but they don't care much about web 2.0 and find plenty of other things more important than the internet.
Consultants and book-writers, mostly old guys, have called for the education system to be re-modelled to suit this new generation, but they never conducted surveys to see if this "generation @" were anything like what they had envisioned. Turns out children who have known the net their whole life are not particularly skilled at it, nor do they live their life on-line.
Piracy

Submission + - DRM-Free Game Suffers 90% Piracy, Offers Amnesty (arstechnica.com) 2

Submitted by bonch
bonch writes: Independent game Machinarium, released without DRM by developer Amanita Design, has only been paid for by 5-10% of its users according to developer Jakub Dvorsky. To drive legitimate sales, they are now offering a 'Pirate Amnesty' sale until August 12, bundling both the cross-platform game and its soundtrack for $5. Ron Carmel, designer of DRM-free puzzle game World of Goo, stated that his game also had about a 90% piracy rate, claiming that the percentage of those pirating first and purchasing later was 'very small.' He said, 'We're getting good sales through WiiWare, Steam, and our website. Not going bankrupt just yet!'

Submission + - Is Valve's Anti-Cheat software faulty? (rockpapershotgun.com)

Submitted by HaymarketRiot
HaymarketRiot writes: There have been reports that Valve's Anti-Cheat software (VAC) has recently banned a large number of Modern Warfare 2 players. A banning from VAC is especially strict in that there is no chance of appeal, as that would show a fault in supposedly perfect software. Word from the associated Steam Group indicates that the problem may be the fault of the game's developers, Infinity Ward.

Submission + - Court rules bypassing dongles not a DMCA violation (courthousenews.com) 2

Submitted by tcrown007
tcrown007 writes: MGE UPS makes UPS systems and software that are protected by hardware dongles. After the dongles expired, GE bypassed the dongles and continued to use the software. MGE sued, won, and now lost on GE's appeal. Directly from the court's ruling, "Merely bypassing a technological protection that restricts a user from viewing or using a work is insufficient to trigger the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision...The owner’s technological measure must protect the copyrighted material against an infringement of a right that the Copyright Act protects, not from mere use or viewing." Say what? I think I just saw a flying pig go by.
Censorship

Submission + - Porn sites still exposed in China (skunkpost.com)

Submitted by crimeandpunishment
crimeandpunishment writes: Could it be that Internet censorship in China has a pecking order? Politics & human rights are bad....but porn is okay? The porn sites that suddenly popped up in China two months ago are still accessible...leaving people wondering if it's a change in policy, a glitch....or maybe a test by the Internet police. The Chinese government isn't saying, but one internet analyst speculates "Maybe they are thinking that if Internet users have some porn to look at, then they won't pay so much attention to political matters."
IT

Submission + - Managing the Most Remote Data Center in the World (youtube.com)

Submitted by blackbearnh
blackbearnh writes: Imagine that your data center was in the most geographically remote location in the world. Now imagine that you can only get to it 4 months of the year. Just for fun, add in some of the most extreme weather conditions in the world. That's the challenge that faces John Jacobsen, one of the people responsible for making sure that the data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory makes it all the way from the South Pole to researchers across the world. In an interview recorded at OSCON, Jacobsen talks about the problems that he has to face, which includes (surprisingly) keeping the data center cool. If you're ever gripped because you had to haul yourself across town in the middle of the night to fix a server crash, this interview should put things in perspective...
Linux

Submission + - The Scalability of Linus 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Katherine Noyes writes at LinuxInsider that it may be time for Linus Torvalds to share more of the responsibility for Linux that he's been shouldering. "If Linux wants to keep up with the competition there is much work to do, more than even a man of Linus's skill to accomplish," argues one user and the "scalability of Linus," is the subject of a post by Jonathan Corbet wondering if there might there be a Linus scalability crunch point coming. "The Linux kernel development process stands out in a number of ways; one of those is the fact that there is exactly one person who can commit code to the 'official' repository," Corbet writes. A problem with that scenario is the potential for repeats of what Corbet calls "the famous 'Linus burnout' episode of 1998" when everything stopped for a while until Linus rested a bit, came back, and started merging patches again. "If Linus is to retain his central position in Linux kernel development, the community as a whole needs to ensure that the process scales and does not overwhelm him," Corbet adds. But many don't agree. "Don't be fooled that Linus has to scale — he has to work hard, but he is the team captain and doorman. He has thousands doing most of the work for him. He just has to open the door at the appropriate moment," writes Robert Pogson adding that Linus "has had lots of practice and still has fire in his belly.""
Google

Submission + - Google's free satnav outperforms TomTom (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: A real-world road test of several different satnav systems has found that the free Google Maps Navigation outperformed TomTom's premium GPS unit. PC Pro put the satnavs through four different real-world tests, covering country roads, inner-city traffic and motorway driving. The Google satnav finished the four tests more than half an hour ahead of the top of the range TomTom Go 950 Live. "For those in rural areas or people who spend hours in their car every day, we believe the investment in a dedicated satnav device or software will still pay off," PC Pro concludes. "But for the recreational user, it’s amazing what you can get for free."
Idle

Submission + - Apple can't stand toilet humour (watoday.com.au)

Submitted by beaver1024
beaver1024 writes: I doubt if Apple lawyers even contemplated the irony as they slapped a small Australian company producing camping equipment with a lawsuit for trademark violations. Sea to Summit makes a product that assists in the disposal of human excrement calling it iPood. Apparently Apple thinks that "For obvious reasons, Apple's reputation for clean design and high-tech electronics will suffer should it be associated with latrines and the like through Sea to Summit's use of iPood.". If only Sea to Summit had the resources to fight this in court. Alas, we are witnessing yet another sign of the corrupted nature of IP laws in Australia and internationally.
NASA

Submission + - Boeing shows off first commercial spacecraft (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Boeing today released the first public glimpse of the commercial spacecraft it is working on under an $18 million contract with NASA. Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 can hold seven crew and will be bigger than Apollo but smaller than NASA’s Orion, and be able to launch on a variety of different rockets, including Atlas, Delta and Falcon.The company envisions the spacecraft supporting the International Space Station and future Bigelow Aerospace Orbital Space Complex systems. Bigelow is building what it calls “expandable habitats,” that which are inflatable spacecraft would act as large, less costly space stations.

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