cyberben - Slashdot User

Whisky Made From Diabetics' Urine 226

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday August 31, 2010 @05:03PM from the I've-tasted-this-before dept.

It's doubtful that any other distillery will come up with a whisky that tastes like Gilpin Family Whisky because of its secret ingredient: urine. Researcher and designer James Gilpin uses the sugar rich urine of elderly diabetics to make his high-end single malt whisky. From the article: "The source material is acquired from elderly volunteers, including Gilpin's own grandmother, Patricia. The urine is purified in the same way as mains water is purified, with the sugar molecules removed and added to the mash stock to accelerate the whisky's fermentation process. Traditionally, that sugar would be made from the starches in the mash."

Officials Use Google Earth To Find Unlicensed Pools 650

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday August 03, 2010 @01:23PM from the eye-in-the-sky dept.

Officials in Riverhead, New York are using Google Earth to root out the owners of unlicensed pools. So far they've found 250 illegal pools and collected $75,000 in fines and fees. Of course not everyone thinks that a city should be spending time looking at aerial pictures of backyards. from the article: "Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC, said Google Earth was promoted as an aid to curious travelers but has become a tool for cash-hungry local governments. 'The technology is going so far ahead of what people think is possible, and there is too little discussion about community norms,' she said."

36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist 268

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday June 30, 2010 @03:33AM from the found-a-cliff-real-quick dept.

Zerocool3001 writes "The recently featured 36-hour port of the original Palm version of Lemmings to the iPhone and Palm Pre has received a cease and desist letter from Sony. Only one day after submitting the app for approval on the two app stores, the developer has put up a post stating that he 'did this as a tribute to the game — we can only hope that Sony actually does a conversion for platforms like iPhone and Palm Pre in the near future.' The text of the cease and desist letter is available from the developer's website."

Tiny ARM-Based Sensor System Makes Battery Replacement Obsolete 96

Posted by timothy on Friday February 12, 2010 @07:46PM from the transcend-batteries dept.

An anonymous reader writes "University of Michigan researchers have crammed an ARM Cortex microcontroller, a thin-film battery, and a solar cell into a package that is only 9 cubic millimeters in volume. The system is able to run perpetually by periodically recharging the on-board battery with a solar cell (neglecting physical wear-out of the system)."

Duke Nukem 3D Ported To Nokia N900 95

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 29, 2009 @11:03PM from the all-outta-gum dept.

andylim writes "It looks as if Duke Nukem isn't completely 'nuked' after all. Someone has ported the 90s classic on to a Nokia N900. As you'll see in the video, you control Duke using the Qwerty keypad and shoot using the touchscreen. I'm wondering how long it will take for this to get on other mobile platforms." In other Duke news, reader Jupix points out that 3D Realms' CEO Scott Miller recently said, "There are numerous other Duke games in various stages of development, several due out this year. We are definitely looking to bring Duke into casual gaming spaces, plus there are other major Duke games in production."

Indian GPS Cartographers Charged As Terrorists 269

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 18, 2008 @05:07PM from the well-lookie-here dept.

chrb writes "Following on from the discussion about Apple disabling GPS in Egyptian iPhones, we have a new case of the conflict between the traditional secrecy of government, and the widening availability of cheap, accurate GPS devices around the world. On 5th December, two software engineers employed by Biond Software in India were arrested for mapping highways using vehicle based GPS devices. Further evidence against the pair emerged when it was found that a laptop they had been using in the car contained some photos of the local airforce base. The company claims they had been commissioned by Nokia Navigator to create maps of local roads and terrain. Following an investigation by the Anti Terrorist Squad of Gujarat the cartographers have now been charged with violating the Official Secrets Act and will remain in custody."

Schneier, Journalist Poke Holes In TSA Policies 296

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 17, 2008 @07:00PM from the leave-my-shoes-alone dept.

Fallen Andy points out an article in The Atlantic written by Jeffrey Goldberg. He and Bruce Schneier teamed up to put the TSA's policies to the test at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. They found plenty of evidence for security theater, and rather less for actual security. Quoting: "'The whole system is designed to catch stupid terrorists,' Schneier told me. ... As I stood in the bathroom, ripping up boarding passes, waiting for the social network of male bathroom users to report my suspicious behavior, I decided to make myself as nervous as possible. I would try to pass through security with no ID, a fake boarding pass, and an Osama bin Laden T-shirt under my coat. I splashed water on my face to mimic sweat, put on a coat (it was a summer day), hid my driver's license, and approached security with a bogus boarding pass that Schneier had made for me. ... 'All right, you can go,' [an airport security supervisor] said, pointing me to the X-ray line. 'But let this be a lesson for you.'"

Comment Re:Correction (Score 1) 471

by Montreal Geek on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:01AM (#11050750) Attached to: How to Fix U.S. Patents

Those ideas would stay secret for who knows how long without the patent system. Are you sure you, as an academic, really want that?

You've never read a patent, have you? In most (almost all?) cases, they are worded in an obscure and roundabout way so that they no longer describe anything usable directly.

Patents are worded vaguely to try to include as many different things as possible (so as to be able to attack the competition) and to prevent anyone from being able to build anything out of them once they do run out.

Patents no longer disclose anything. Doing away with them would cause zero loss of knowledge.

For that matter, look at &@#^# copyrights. The point of copyright is to grant a limited monopoly on certain activities in exchange for insuring the work enters the public domain later. Nowadays, copyright keeps being extended over and over so that /nothing/ enters public domain anymore.

Businesses will twist and abuse ANY system that grants limited monopolies into weapons to crush competition, regardless of the original goal. Remember, they can hire packs of lawyers.

Only workable solution? Do away with laws that grant monopolies entierly, however limited.

-- MG

Comment Re:http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=471& (Score 1) 351

by cyberben on Thursday December 11, 2003 @11:58AM (#7690180) Attached to: Low Powered Mini-Server for the Masses

To have work more than a year and a half with coldfusion supporting dumbass programmers creating code that gave those location code : 26 many times per day and having to restart the whole service because it affected all other web pages because coldfusion couldn't handle loops, yes I would have prefer to have a PHP error page!

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