37842343
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
Rasbmc developer Sam Nazarko is reporting that Xbian had violated the GPL and stolen his installer code without providing attribution and not releasing their source. His breakdown of events is interesting, and currently the Xbian project has been taken offline with several tweets saying Xbian development is terminated.
37836089
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
The first city in the U.S. to offer a screaming fast fiber network has now announced customers will get a free 60% boost in speed. If you had the 30 MB/sec service you now will get 50. Mid-range customers get a doubling for free, while the high end consumers of fiber get an average 250% boost. The fiber network recently passed 40,000 members and judging from a test of my business, we are currently over 300 MB/sec. It's awesome!
23424904
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
According to the Wall Street Journal, Federal agents again raided guitar maker Gibson this past week seizing several pallets of wood and computer documents. At heart of the issue is the wood that is being used in guitars and whether or not it comes from sustainable sources. The company insists it is being harassed and made to 'cry uncle' to the governments enforcement laws. While, as the article notes, wonderful woods like Madagascar Ebony, Brazilian Rosewood and other fret and tone woods are protected in order to prevent the equivalent of 'blood diamond like trade' in sought after tone woods, the ramafications now extend to guitar sowners. Owners and players are next in sights of this enforcement. If you play a vintage guitar, or a hand built guitar made of old stock woods that were legally obtained years ago, but only recently crafted into an ax, you best not fly with it. John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says "there's a lot of anxiety, and it's well justified." Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, "I don't go out of the country with a wooden guitar." That's right. Recent revisions to various laws and the Lacey Act mean if you carry your guitar across the border and don't have your paperwork and certification in hand, they will seize the guitar and fine you 250.00. So if your planning that dream vacation to France and want to play your acoustic in the air of France (or anywhere else) be forewarned. They are gunning for you.
19739892
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
An Iowanian is living on nothing but beer for the 46 days of Lent. J.Wilson, a blogger, and editor of the weekly Adams County Free Press modeled this Lent exercise on 17'th century German Monks who practiced liquid fasts. Using a custom made grog that has high caloric values is key as Wilson says because ordinary light beer just doesn't have enough nutritional value. He has already lost 11 pounds while following his weekday four a day and weekend 5 a day beer scheme.
18334420
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
Solar maximum is supposed to be occurring, and everything from satellite communications, to your toaster, or radio could be affected. The only problem is that this just isn't happening, and NASA continues to revise down the original prediction. In fact the new prediction for Solar Cycle 24 is a lot smaller and now is pegged at almost 40% of what was predicted. Recently, two scientists at the National Solar Observatory have followed the lead of a prominent Russian scientist, who forecast a dearth of sunspots, and subsequent cooling of Earth for the next several cycles almost five years ago. With Britain currently experiencing the coldest winter in over 300 years, and no new sunspots for the last week, are we heading for a Dalton Minimum, or worse still, yet another Maunder?
17780672
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
According to the twitter feed for wikileaks, the attack on the controversial site is increasing and is now at 10 Gigabits per second. In light of the recent release of highly sensitive documents and calls by many lawmakers around the world to swiftly find, extradite, and try suspected rapist Julius Assange for breaches of national security, one nation, Ecuador, has offered asylum.
17533698
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
When I was very young my dad took me on a trip to his parents farm. He wanted to show me 'The Crater'. We walked a long way through second generation hardwoods and finally stood on the rim of a hole that has no equal in this area. As I grew up I became more interested in 'The Crater", and would always tell friends about it. It is roughly 1,200 feet across, and 120 feet deep, and has a strange vibe about it. When you walk up to it, you feel like something really big happened here. Either the mother of all caves is down there, or a large object smashed into this place a long, long time ago. I bought aerial photo's when I was twelve and later send images from GIS to a geologist at a local university and he pretty much laughed me out of his office, saying that it was a sinkhole. He did wish me luck however. It may be sinkhole. Who knows?
Last week I borrowed a metal detector and went poking around, and have found the strangest shrapnel pieces I have ever seen. They are composed of a metal that reacts strongly to acids. The largest piece so far reacted with tap water and dishwashing detergent. My second trip today yielded lots of strange new pieces of metal, and hopefully one day the truth either way will be known. Backyard science is so much fun and who knows, ff it is indeed a cave maybe Cerberus resides there.
16606520
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
As the U.S. economic woes continue unabated, a German company is bringing gold bearing ATM'S to bear on Mainstreet America. The machines accept credit cards, and will dispense 1 gram, 5 gram, 10 gram and 1 ounce units, as well as various gold coins. The company hopes to install 35 bullion machines in the United States this year, hopefully have several hundred up and running by next year. The machines will be decorated like giant gold ingots and be over two meters tall. Physical gold has both pros and cons, but mainly from a safety standpoint would it be safe to have a couple of ounces in your pocket while walking around the mall? The giant gold dispensing ATM's will monitor the market conditions for gold every 10 minutes in order to reflect spot price changes as they occur.
16462280
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
When the Sociolinguistics Symposium met earlier this month swearing scholar Timothy Jay revealed that an increase in child swearing is directly related to an increase in adult swearing. It seems that vulgarity is increasing as pop culture continues to popularize vulgarities. The blame lies with media, public figures, politicians, but mostly ourselves. From the article: 'Children as young as two are now dropping f-bombs, with researchers reporting that more kids are using profanity — and at earlier ages — than has been recorded in at least three decades.'
5353171
submission
dustpan writes:
The BBC
has a story up about a quartet of robotic fire fighters that the London Fire Brigade is testing and with which have been achieving 'tremendous results'. The robots were developed by QinetiQ, which is a defence contractor. The London Fire Brigade has been testing the units since last year and the machines are primarily used in fires involving acetylene canisters. The group commander for hazardous materials and environmental protection with the LFB says that the robots have cut the time to resolve these potential hazards from 24 hours to 3. From the article: 'Three years ago we were shutting down parts of London for over 24 hours every other week. Now it doesn't even make the news.'
