syngularyx writes with a snippet from Reuters' report that "Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered on Thursday as fighters battling to complete an eight-month-old uprising against his rule overran his hometown Sirte, Libya's interim rulers said. His killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen." An anonymous reader links to the news as reported by Al Jazeera (citing confirmation from the military spokesman of the National Transition Council). Time reports that many Libyans were celebrating even preliminary reports of Gaddafi's death.

Garabito writes "Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, has posted his not-so-fond memories of Steve Jobs on his personal site, saying, 'As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to die — not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.' His statement has spurred reaction from the community; some even asking to the Free Software movement to find a new voice."

Hugh Pickens writes "Brian Wingfield writes in Bloomberg that the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future has sent a draft report to Energy Secretary Steven Chu recommending that US communities should be encouraged to vie for becoming a federal nuclear-waste site as a way to end a decades-long dilemma over disposing of spent radioactive fuel and says this 'consent-based' approach will help cut costs and end delays caused when the federal government picks a site over the objections of local residents, 'This means encouraging communities to volunteer (PDF) to be considered to host a new nuclear-waste management facility,' says the commission. Chu named the panelists after Obama canceled plans to build a permanent repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain after the Yucca site was opposed by politicians from the state. 'The United States has traveled nearly 25 years down the current path only to come to a point where continuing to rely on the same approach seems destined to bring further controversy, litigation, and protracted delay,' says the report. The Blue Ribbon Commission cited as a 'success' the US Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico, which has accepted and disposed of some defense-related nuclear waste for more than a decade demonstrating that that 'nuclear wastes can be transported safely over long distances and placed securely in a deep, mined repository.' With the right incentives, 'there will be a great deal of support' for a waste site near the New Mexico facility, says former Senator Pete Domenici."

mr crypto writes "User interfaces make copious use of pictures and symbols, but how abstract should images be? Lukas Mathis has an interesting blog entry on where to draw the line."

An anonymous reader writes "Despite repeated 'for the children' campaigns, the Western Web as a whole has provided little or no isolation of pornography. This is why the Chinese are now attempting to march to a place where no country has been before: a Web without porn. Recent regulations have included closing down 'vulgar' mobile sites, disconnecting 'obscene' servers, and restricting domain registrations. Yet the breaking news for Monday is that China is planning to enforce a whitelist on foreign domains: in particular, any e-commerce will have to register locally and obey Chinese law before they get whitelisted. Domains will otherwise be 'irresolvable' to Chinese Internet users. Meanwhile, the government is promoting this campaign heavily, calling it a 'fresh start.' It seems the Chinese may have to do without the Internet, before they can rid it of porn."

The board of the UK Payments Council has set a date to phase out checks in a bid to encourage the advance of other forms of payment. They added, however, that the target of Oct. 2018 would only be realized if adequate alternatives are developed. "The goal is to ensure that by 2018 there is no scenario where customers, individuals or businesses, still need to use a cheque. The board will be especially concerned that the needs of elderly and vulnerable people are met," the Payments Council said in a statement.

caffiend666 writes "Scientists have announced a new moon has been found hidden in the G Ring of Saturn. The discovery was announced Tuesday in a notice by the International Astronomical Union. This is one of over five dozen moons, and is only a third of a mile wide. No word yet on a name for the new moon; I vote Cowboy Neal."

Lumpy writes "I am giving several new PC's to a local charity that will be giving them to needy kids this Xmas. They are not powerful, basically baseline Dells that have Intel graphics and Celeron, but more than enough to do homework and other studies on. They are going out with XP on them, an Ubuntu CD, and a bunch of OSS software like OO.o and the others. I would like to include some games for the kids. Strategy, fun, etc. Great freeware games that are fun to play. What would be the best games that a 13-16 year old will like to play that are free and legal to give away, and will run on this lower-end hardware?"

Ruler of Planets writes "PlanetX64 has just published an article on loading OS X on an MSI Wind, effectively creating a machine that is smaller and lighter than a Macbook Air. The exercise was done solely for academic purposes and doing so voids all kinds of warranties, but hey, now you can slip a Mac into a lab coat pocket!"

ptorrone writes "I picked up the Esquire E-inked cover today and took a bunch of high res photos, for the makers out there. It has a programming header, 5-pin ISP, a Microchip PIC 12f629 which is flash programmable, 8 pin, 6 lithium coin cell CR2016s, 3 volts each. Two E-ink screens with flex connections — looks like it was made to be reprogrammed and different screens. The top screen has 11 segments, the bottom has 3. It was designed 2008-06-04. The PCB was made by Forewin, half thickness, 2 layer board (FR4). I think someone out there will likely reflash the PIC and make the segments go on / off at different times and perhaps put other displays on it, there's a little bit of hacking to be had but not that much really."

jamax writes "Russia plans to build an orbital plant for the production of spacecraft (link to sketchy Google translation of the Russian original) that are too big to build planetside, or are just too bulky to fire into orbit once built. Presumably these are the ships we would fly to the Moon and Mars. Plans seem to be rather sparse at the moment, with the tentative construction date set for 2020, after the ISS is scheduled for decommissioning."

wazza brings us a story about the Philippine government's weather service (PAGASA), which has recently used an eight-PC Debian cluster to replace an SGI supercomputer. The system processes data from local sources and the Global Telecommunication System, and it has reduced monthly operational costs by a factor of 20. Quoting: "'We tried several Linux flavours, including Red Hat, Mandrake, Fedora etc,' said Alan Pineda, head of ICT and flood forecasting at PAGASA. 'It doesn't make a dent in our budget; it's very negligible.' Pineda said PAGASA also wanted to implement a system which is very scalable. All of the equipment used for PICWIN's data gathering comes off-the-shelf, including laptops and mobile phones to transmit weather data such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, cloud formation and atmospheric pressure from field stations via SMS into PAGASA's central database."

Frizzled writes "Part of the space shuttle crew's scheduled mission for this week is to assemble a massive robot which will 'rise like Frankenstein' from the shuttle's cargo bay. The robot, named Dextre, has 11-foot arms, a shoulder span of nearly 8 feet, a height of 12 feet, and was built by the Canadian Space Agency. 'Dextre can pivot at the waist, and has seven joints per arm. Its hands, or grippers, have built-in socket wrenches, cameras and lights. Only one arm is designed to move at a time to keep the robot stable and avoid a two-arm collision. The robot has no face or legs, and with its long arms certainly doesn't look human.'"

tops writes "MadPenguin.org wonders why more Linux users aren't gamers and attempts to answer that question. The article suggests, 'As far as I'm concerned, it all comes down to a choice. Expect the gaming industry to follow the Linux doctrine or instead, build up a viable, cross platform gaming market that includes us, the Linux users.' The article urges publishers to consider Linux users as a viable market, and requests that game developers target Linux as a platform during the pre-production phase." What do you think are the most important obstacles barring the big game publishers from reaching out to the Linux market more than they already do?

DaMassive writes "Computerworld Australia is running a story with a response from Microsoft to Infoworld's SAVE XP petition Web site, which has gathered over 75,000 signatures so far. Apparently Microsoft is aware of the petition, but says it is "listening first and foremost to feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs, that's what informed our decision to extend the availability of XP initially, and what will continue to guide us" — a somewhat strange response given that the vast majority of people signing the petition ARE Microsoft customers! The Save XP movement has attracted the attention of the software giant, despite its claims that Vista has sold more than 100 million copies and its adoption rate is in line with the company's expectations. "We're seeing positive indicators that we're already starting to move from the early adoption phase into the mainstream and that more and more businesses are beginning their planning and deployment of Windows Vista," the company said. Nevertheless vendors such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Fujitsu, and more recently NEC, all offer the opportunity to downgrade to XP Pro."