bettlebrox - Slashdot User

Submission + - YouTube to Remove Scientist's Account who Debunked AIDS Deniers Movie (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by EwanPalmer on Monday February 17, 2014 @11:46AM

EwanPalmer writes: YouTube is threatening to remove the account of a scientist who made a series of videos debunking claims made in an Aids denialist movie over copyright infringement disagreement.

Myles Power is claiming the producers of controversial 2009 documentary House of Numbers are attempting to censor him by submitting bogus DMCA claims against him. He says his movies do not breach copyright laws because his films are educational and therefore fair use. The 'AIDS denialist' documentary makers say they instead amounted to “propaganda”.

Submission + - Astronomers Make the Science Case for a Mission to Neptune and Uranus (medium.com)

Submitted by KentuckyFC on Monday February 17, 2014 @09:58AM

KentuckyFC writes: The only planets never to have been the subjects of bespoke space missions from Earth are Neptune and Uranus. Now European astronomers are planning to put that straight with a mission called Odinus, which involves twin spacecraft making the journey in 2034. Their justification is that the mission will help explain how the Solar System formed, how it ended up in the configuration we see today and may also explain why 'hot' Neptune-class planets are common around other stars. They also have to overcome the common misconception that Neptune and Uranus are just smaller, less interesting versions of Jupiter and Saturn. Nothing could be further from the truth. For a start, Neptune and Uranus and made of entirely different stuff--mostly ices such as water, ammonia and methane compared with hydrogen and helium for Jupiter and Saturn. That raises the question of how they formed and how they got to the distant reaches of the Solar System. However it happened, Uranus ended up lying on its side, probably because of a cataclysmic collision. And Neptune's largest moon Triton orbits in the opposite direction to its parent's rotation, the only moon in the Solar System to do this. How come? Another question still unanswered is who's going to pay for all this. The team are pinning their hopes on the European Space Agency which has already expressed interest. But would an international collaboration be a better option?

Submission + - Edward Snowden's Lawyer Claims Harassment from Heathrow Airport Border Police (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226 on Monday February 17, 2014 @09:47AM

concertina226 writes: Jesselyn Radack, a human rights lawyer representing Edward Snowden, has claimed that she was detained and questioned in a "very hostile" manner on Saturday by London Heathrow Airport's Customs staff.

Radack freely disclosed to the border agent that she was going to see members of the Sam Adams Associates group, and when he realised that the meeting would be happening at the Ecuadorian Embassy, he went on to ask her if Julian Assange would be in attendance and to ask her about why she had travelled to Russia twice in three months.

Submission + - US Secretary of State Calls Climate Change 'Weapon Of Mass Destruction'

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com on Sunday February 16, 2014 @09:42PM

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Arshad Mohammed reports on Reuters from Jakarta that US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Indonesians that man-made climate change could threaten their entire way of life, deriding those who doubted the existence of "perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction" and describing those who do not accept that human activity causes global warming as "shoddy scientists" and "extreme ideologues". "Because of climate change, it's no secret that today Indonesia is ... one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth. It's not an exaggeration to say that the entire way of life that you live and love is at risk," said Kerry. "In a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction." In Beijing on Friday, Kerry announced that China and the United States had agreed to intensify information-sharing and policy discussions on their plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions after 2020. At home, Kerry faces a politically tricky decision on whether to allow the Keystone XL pipeline after a State Department report played down the impact the Keystone pipeline would have on climate change. However Kerry showed little patience for skeptics in his speech. "We just don't have time to let a few loud interest groups hijack the climate conversation," said Kerry. "I'm talking about big companies that like it the way it is, that don't want to change, and spend a lot of money to keep you and me and everybody from doing what we know we need to do.

Building a Traffic Radar System To Catch Reckless Drivers? 483

Posted by Soulskill on Friday August 20, 2010 @05:06PM from the bonus-points-if-it-catches-texters dept.

cbraescu1 writes "I live in a city with a population in the millions (someplace in the Middle East; the country is not important), and I am mad as hell. The car traffic is going from bad to worse, and I'm sick of all the car accidents that keep happening (we have one of the biggest accident and mortality rates per km of road or per 1,000 vehicles). I just witnessed a car accident a few hours ago, and in the last few months I've given first aid at two other car accidents, all happening within 500 meters of each other. Today's victims escaped alive, but the motorcycle driver who was responsible fled and the police weren't equipped to catch him. There are laws, but not much willingness to enforce them, and no traffic lights at all. After speaking with some of my friends, we decided to take the issue into our own hands: build a traffic radar system able to capture a vehicle's speed, install it at our own expense, and share the generated penalties with the city government (all subject of their approval, of course). We want to start on the main avenue (more than 15 km) and to 'roll' the income from the penalties into covering new streets (so that perpetrators will basically finance the system). We're not rich and we will not ask for our money back. We just need to make the system start and we're confident the penalty fees will cover its spread. So, I'm asking Slashdot: what would be a workable way to build such a system? It must withstand drivers claiming the system is cheating, high temperatures, high levels of humidity, and crappy electricity. Any suggestions would be appreciated. This is about technology saving lives — literally."

Ubuntu LTS Experiences X.org Memory Leak 320

Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 21, 2010 @04:25PM from the like-it-when-windows-crashed-more dept.

MonsterTrimble writes "Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Beta 2 is experiencing a major memory leak due to patches for X.org. 'An X.Org Server update that was pushed into the Lucid repository last week has resulted in the system being slower and slower as it is left on, until it reaches a point where the system is no longer usable. ... In order to make the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS deadline, the developers are looking at just reverting three of the patches, which brings the GLX version back to 1.2. Ubuntu developers are now desperate for people willing to test out this updated X.Org Server package so they can determine by this Friday whether to ship it with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS or doing an early SRU (Stable Release Update). Right now this X.Org Server that's being tested is living in the ubuntu-x-swat PPA.'"

Comment Re:Saab (Score 1) 264

by bettlebrox on Wednesday January 27, 2010 @02:40AM (#30914236) Attached to: GM Is Selling Saab To Spyker Cars

I drive a Saab and I've gotten used to the placement of the key. When I get into a non-Saab I get confused find the where to put the key, especially if it's dark and the lock doesn't light up. And I think it's easier and quicker to get the key in and out of the central mounted lock than a lock mounted on the steering column.

If you change cars a lot this might be a problem, if you drive a Saab all the time, it's not a problem.

Minnesota Introduces World's First Carbon Tariff 303

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @05:29PM from the hey-cut-that-crap-out dept.

hollywoodb writes "The first carbon tax to reduce the greenhouse gases from imports comes not between two nations, but between two states. Minnesota has passed a measure to stop carbon at its border with North Dakota. To encourage the switch to clean, renewable energy, Minnesota plans to add a carbon fee of between $4 and $34 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions to the cost of coal-fired electricity, to begin in 2012 ... Minnesota has been generally pushing for cleaner power within its borders, but the utility companies that operate in MN have, over the past decades, sited a lot of coal power plants on the relatively cheap and open land of North Dakota, which is preparing a legal battle against Minnesota over the tariff."

Submission + - Scientists Postulate Extinct Hominid with 150 IQ 6

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @06:34PM

Hugh Pickens writes: "Neuroscientists Gary Lynch and Richard Granger have an interesting article in Discover Magazine about the Boskops, an extinct hominid that had big eyes, child-like faces, and forebrains roughly 50% larger than modern man indicating they may have had an average intelligence of around 150, making them geniuses among Homo sapiens. The combination of a large cranium and immature face would look decidedly unusual to modern eyes, but not entirely unfamiliar. Such faces peer out from the covers of countless science fiction books and are often attached to “alien abductors” in movies. "Back there in the past, ten thousand years ago. The man of the future, with the big brain, the small teeth. He lived in Africa," wrote naturalist Loren Eiseley. "His brain was bigger than your brain” The history of evolutionary studies has been dogged by the almost irresistible idea that evolution leads to greater complexity, to animals that are more advanced than their predecessor, yet the existence of the Boskops argues otherwise — that humans with big brains, and perhaps great intelligence, occupied a substantial piece of southern Africa in the not very distant past, and that they eventually gave way to smaller-brained, possibly less advanced Homo sapiens—that is, ourselves. "With 30 percent larger brains than ours now, we can readily calculate that a population with a mean brain size of 1,750 cc would be expected to have an average IQ of 149," write Lynch and Granger. But why did they go extinct? "Maybe all that thoughtfulness was of no particular survival value in 10,000 BC. Lacking the external hard drive of a literate society, the Boskops were unable to exploit the vast potential locked up in their expanded cortex," write Lynch and Granger. "They were born just a few millennia too soon.""

Comment Re:automated tool for locating cells? (Score 1) 315

by bettlebrox on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @01:16AM (#30293802) Attached to: Sprint Revealed Customer GPS Data 8 Million Times

When Law Enforcement listened in on suspects who have Onstar it caused the accident detection system to not work correctly (whilst the car occupants were being monitored):

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-132934.html

"When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored. After "vehicle recovery mode" was disabled, the court said, passengers were notified by the radio displaying an alert and, if the radio was not on, the system beeping."

Soviets Built a Doomsday Machine; It's Still Alive 638

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday September 22, 2009 @03:28PM from the dead-hand dept.

An anonymous reader points out a story in Wired introducing us to the Doomsday Machine built by the Soviet Union in the 1980s — and that remains active to this day. It was called "Perimeter." The article explains why the device was built, and why the Soviets considered it to be something that kept the peace, even though they never told the US about it. "[Reagan's] strategy worked. Moscow soon believed the new US leadership really was ready to fight a nuclear war. But the Soviets also became convinced that the US was now willing to start a nuclear war. ... A few months later, Reagan... announced that the US was going to develop a shield of lasers and nuclear weapons in space to defend against Soviet warheads. ... To Moscow it was the Death Star — and it confirmed that the US was planning an attack. ... By guaranteeing that Moscow could hit back, Perimeter was actually designed to keep an overeager Soviet military or civilian leader from launching prematurely during a crisis. The point, [an informant] says, was 'to cool down all these hotheads and extremists. No matter what was going to happen, there still would be revenge. Those who attack us will be punished.'"

French Deputies Want Labels On Photo-Altered Models 512

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 22, 2009 @10:28AM from the ministry-of-culture dept.

Psychophrenes writes "A number of French deputies are proposing to pass a law requiring all published photos that were modified by means of an image manipulation program to include a statement indicating that 'the photo was altered in order to modify the appearance of a person.' This indication is to be mandatory on all ads, packaging images, political posters and even art photos, and is considered a matter of public health, aimed at fighting anorexia." The related article is in French, but Google Translate does a pretty good job.

Space Shuttle To Be Replaced By SpaceX For ISS Resupply 297

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 01, 2009 @07:12PM from the how-to-squelch-space-mercantilism? dept.

destinyland writes "Next year SpaceX will perform resupply missions for the International Space Station after the Space Shuttle is grounded, as part of a $3.5 billion NASA resupply contract. 'The fledgling space industry is reminiscent of the early days of the personal computer,' notes one technology reporter, 'when a number of established vendors and startups reversed-engineered Microsoft's DOS and manufactured PCs using the Intel 8080 chip set. We're likely to see a similar industry shakeout in the private space vehicle market segment in the coming decades.'"

GMail Experiences Serious Outage 408

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 01, 2009 @05:22PM from the works-here-never-mind dept.

JacobSteelsmith was one of many readers to note an ongoing problem with Gmail: "As I type this, GMail is experiencing a major outage. The application status page says there is a problem with GMail affecting a majority of its users. It states a resolution is expected within the next 1.2 hours (no, not a typo on my part). However, email can still be accessed via POP or IMAP, but not, it appears, through an Android device such as the G1." It's also affecting corporate users: Reader David Lechnyr writes "We run a hosted Google Apps system and have been receiving 502 Server Error responses for the past hour. The unusual thing about this is that our Google phone support rep (which paid accounts get) indicated that this outage is also affecting Google employees as well, making it difficult to coordinate."

Linus Calls Microsoft Hatred "a Disease" 634

Posted by kdawson on Saturday July 25, 2009 @04:49PM from the open-means-open dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "In the aftermath of Microsoft's recent decision to contribute 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community, Christopher Smart of Linux Magazine talked to Linus Torvalds and asked if the code was something he would be happy to include, even though it's from Microsoft. 'Oh, I'm a big believer in "technology over politics." I don't care who it comes from, as long as there are solid reasons for the code, and as long as we don't have to worry about licensing etc. issues,' says Torvalds. 'I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease. I believe in open development, and that very much involves not just making the source open, but also not shutting other people and companies out.' Smart asked Torvalds if Microsoft was contributing the code to benefit the Linux community or Microsoft. 'I agree that it's driven by selfish reasons, but that's how all open source code gets written! We all "scratch our own itches." It's why I started Linux, it's why I started git, and it's why I am still involved. It's the reason for everybody to end up in open source, to some degree,' says Torvalds. 'So complaining about the fact that Microsoft picked a selfish area to work on is just silly. Of course they picked an area that helps them. That's the point of open source — the ability to make the code better for your particular needs, whoever the "your" in question happens to be.'"

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