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Submission + - U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks, 18 (wikileaks.org) 3

An anonymous reader writes: This document is a classifed (SECRET/NOFORN) 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation into WikiLeaks. ``The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the U.S. government are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out''. It concocts a plan to fatally marginalize the organization. Since WikiLeaks uses ``trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers or whisteblowers'', the report recommends ``The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistlblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site''. [As two years have passed since the date of the report, with no WikiLeaks' source exposed, it appears that this plan was ineffective]. As an odd justificaton for the plan, the report claims that ``Several foreign countries including China, Israel, North Kora, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe have denounced or blocked access to the Wikileaks.org website''. The report provides further justification by enumerating embarrassing stories broken by WikiLeaks---U.S. equipment expenditure in Iraq, probable U.S. violations of the Cemical Warfare Convention Treaty in Iraq, the battle over the Iraqi town of Fallujah and human rights violations at Guantanmo Bay.

Comment Re:Obviously. (Score 2, Informative) 460

Just today I read about exactly that. There's a theory which basically says, Penises are so large and heads are formed like they are so that sperm already in the vagina gets cought behind the head and then transported out by the thrusting motion, improving your sperms chances of fertilizng the egg. Link for the interested: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=secrets-of-the-phallus

Comment Four Satellites (Score 1) 146

...from at least three satellites

That's actually a common misconception. In GPS positioning you have four variables to be determined, your position on the earth (X,Y,Z coordinates) as well as the error of the receiver clock. Because you don't have a high precision atomic clock in your Garmin and the Master Control Station doesn't monitor and adjust the clock in your handheld you need the signal of a fourth satellite to use its high precision clock to calculate exact time differences (distances).

The reason many handheld or car navigation systems also work with three satellites is that they keep one variable, usually the height, fixed in their calculations. You can either use the last known value if a satellite disappears over the horizon or you can just get it from, for example, the navigational maps in your system. When you're driving along some road it generally doesn't matter whether you're 100 meters above or below the road, but it may matter if you're 100 meters to the left or right. This usually doesn't impact the usefulness of the device very much but may allow you to get a fix on your location when you otherwise wouldn't.

Comment Re:"commercial UNIX" (Score 5, Funny) 699

The difference being the market. One is a server market, the other is a cult.

You mean a religion. A cult is a religion that just started out and has yet to garner success.

Besides, Apple can claim to be a derivative of Christianity and/or Judaism, giving it instant credibility. One has the Book of Job, and I'm sure the other has the book of Jobs. And every other products is sold as the second coming.

Sup Dawg! I heard you like quotes so we put a quote in your quote so you can quote while you quote!

Ps: Please don't hit me!

Comment Krunner (Score 1) 776

My favourite calculator for the little things that come up all the time is definitely KDE4's krunner. It's always there (provided you use kde4, which you really should, btw), has constants like pi, e, and does unit conversion. For the more complex stuff there's always matlab or octave, though i don't think those fit the scope of "on-screen calculator". I've also recently played around with some of the python alternatives (numpy and scipy). From what I've seen thus far (provided, not that much) I think those are quite neat as well.

Comment Re:so, to summarize... (Score 1) 545

... you have to stop, come back, and scroll again

That's actually not how it worked. You pushed the wheel up or down and depending on how far you moved it it adjusted scroll speed, it actually was a pretty smooth input device, as far as i can remember. However it was limited to just scrolling, and couldn't control all the features of the device like the ipod wheel does. Here's a pic for whoever is interested: http://tinyurl.com/cxqbng

Comment wasd keys (Score 2, Insightful) 345

I didn't even know about this feature until now, but it isn't all that useful if you've got 'find as you type' enabled. Anyway, I would really like to use this, so does anybody know of a way to use these keys in firefox without disabling the search functionality completely?
Science

Ch-Ch-Chatting With the South Pole's IT Manager 120

Have you ever thought about working at a place where the main worry is keeping the equipment from getting too cold? An excellent detailed interview with the IT manager of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Getting service is a little tough. They try to maintain at least a year's worth of spare parts. Includes an interesting set of photos.
The Military

Journal SPAM: 120 US war veteran suicides a week 2

THE US military is experiencing a "suicide epidemic" with veterans killing themselves at the rate of 120 a week, according to an investigation by US television network CBS. At least 6256 US veterans committed suicide in 2005 - an average of 17 a day - the network reported, with veterans overall more than twice as likely to take their own lives as the rest of the general population.

It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - Stallman Attacked by Ninjas (yale.edu)

vivIsel writes: When RMS took the stage to address the Yale Political Union, Yale's venerable parliamentary debate society, it was already an unusual speech: instead of the jacket and tie customary there, he sported a T shirt, and no shoes. But then he was attacked by ninjas. Apparently some students took it into their head to duplicate an XKCD webcomic before a live audience — luckily, though, Stallman didn't resort to violence. Instead, he delivered an excellent speech about DRM.
NASA

Submission + - Space Elevator Teams Compete for NASA Prizes

Hugh Pickens writes: "The University of Saskatchewan's has the first place climb in the Second Annual Space Elevator Games being held this weekend at the Davis County Event Center in Salt Lake City with teams competing for $1,000,000 in NASA prize money. Although the idea of a space elevator has been around for decades, the space technologies needed to support it have yet to be created so the non-profit Spaceward Foundation has hosted an annual competition since 2005, supported by a cash prize from NASA, to build a super-strong tether similar to what would be needed to support a real elevator, or get a robot to climb a suspended ribbon. In the robot climber competition, teams have to get their device to hurtle up a 100-metre-long ribbon, suspended from a crane, at an average speed of two metres per second. The climber must be powered from the ground: strategies include reflecting sunlight from huge mirrors on the ground to solar panels on the climber; shining lasers from the ground up to similar panels on the robot; or firing microwaves up at the climber. Qualifying rounds have been taking place all week, and although high winds and rain have caused delays, four out of eight teams have made it into the finals. There are no outdoor climbs today because of bad weather but that some of the tether competitions will happen indoors later this afternoon."

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