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Censorship

Submission + - GitHub Sends DMCA Counternotice to Sony (github.com)

Submitted by Plombo
Plombo writes: After receiving a second DMCA takedown notice from Sony demanding the takedown of another repository related to PS3 homebrew, GitHub sent a counternotice. In addition to the standard legalese about how the repository doesn't infringe on Sony's copyrights, it notes that "Sony is attempting to abuse the DMCA to avoid public embarrassment (too late) and put the genie back in the bottle (too late), and has failed to meet the minimum requirements for giving DMCA notice (no details provided on which source code lines infringe copyright). the exposure of sloppy crypto implementation on Sony's part in no way infringes on copyright or makes available any of their proprietary internal software".

Shortly before the counternotice for the second takedown notice was posted, GitHub recieved a third DMCA takedown notice from Sony demanding the removal of 1160 Git repositories, most of them forks of fail0verflow's PS3 tools. Most, although not all of them have been removed.
X

After 2 Years of Development, LTSP 5.2 Is Out 79

Posted by timothy from the terminal-velocity dept.
The Linux Terminal Server Project has for years been simplifying the task of time-sharing a Linux system by means of X terminals (including repurposed low-end PCs). Now, stgraber writes "After almost two years or work and 994 commits later made by only 14 contributors, the LTSP team is proud to announce that the Linux Terminal Server Project released LTSP 5.2 on Wednesday the 17th of February. As the LTSP team wanted this release to be some kind of a reference point in LTSP's history, LDM (LTSP Display Manager) 2.1 and LTSPfs 0.6 were released on the same day. Packages for LTSP 5.2, LDM 2.1 and LTSPfs 0.6 are already in Ubuntu Lucid and a backport for Karmic is available. For other distributions, packages should be available very soon. And the upstream code is, as always, available on Launchpad."
Space

International Space Station Cupola Video Released 70

Posted by kdawson from the next-to-the-gazebo dept.
quaith writes "With the Space Shuttle Endeavour scheduled to launch at 4:39 AM EST on Sunday for a trip to the International Space Station, the European Space Agency has released a video that shows how the modules it's carrying — Node-3 ('Tranquility') and Cupola — are going to get attached. Node-3 is a connecting module. Cupola has six trapezoidal windows and circular roof designed to provide a unique vantage-point for observing Earth. The video animations show how the station's robotic arm will be used initially to put the modules in place as a single unit, and then to detach Cupola from the end of Node-3 and reattach it on the Earth-facing side. With this addition, the ISS will start to look like something that Jules Verne would have wanted to visit."
PHP

Eight PHP IDEs Compared 206

Posted by timothy from the colonic-extraction dept.
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Rick Grehen provides an in-depth comparative review of eight PHP IDEs: ActiveState's Komodo IDE, CodeLobster PHP Edition, Eclipse PHP Development Tools (PDT), MPSoftware's phpDesigner, NetBeans IDE for PHP, NuSphere's PhpED, WaterProof's PHPEdit, and Zend Studio. 'All of these PHP toolkits offer strong support for the other languages and environments (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL database) that a PHP developer encounters. The key differences we discovered were in the tools they provide (HTML inspector, SQL management system) for various tasks, the quality of their documentation, and general ease-of-use,' Grehen writes.'"
The Courts

Submission + - New York Times sued over URL linking .. (cnet.com) 1

Submitted by Davros
Davros writes: GateHouse Media, which publishes more than 100 papers in Massachusetts, accuses the Times of violating copyright by allowing its Boston Globe online unit to copy verbatim the headlines and first sentences from articles published on sites owned by GateHouse
Space

Submission + - MIT Open Courseware Aircraft Systems Engineering L (orbitalhub.com)

Submitted by
dj
dj writes: "If you want free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT, without any registration required, you can find them at MIT Open Courseware. MIT Open Courseware reflects most of the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT. One of the courses that caught my eye was an engineering course called Aircraft Systems Engineering. Even if the formal title of the course is Aircraft Systems Engineering, the lectures are focused on Space Shuttle design. If you are a space enthusiast and have a technical background, you will probably enjoy these lectures."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Banned Words List Carries Its First Emoticon (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
DynaSoar
DynaSoar writes: "Lake Superior State College in Michigan's Upper Peninsula ("The land of four seasons: June, July, August and Winter") has just published its 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. Besides such unsurprising inclusions such as "green" corporations being "game changing" due to concern with their "carbon foot print", this year's list contains an emoticon for the first time — not a smiley face or variant, but the 'heart' symbol made from the characters 'less than' and 'three'. It's perhaps a sign of the evolution of language, or at least of this volunteer linguistic watchdog group, that a symbol compounded of two characters, neither of them a letter, is considered not only a word, but a particularly egregious one."
IT

The Dirty Jobs of IT 162

Posted by Zonk from the we-care-a-lot dept.
dantwood writes "In an Infoworld article, Dan Tynan writes about the '7 Dirtiest Jobs' in IT. Number three? Enterprise espionage engineer (black ops). 'Seeking slippery individuals comfortable with lying, cheating, stealing, breaking, and entering for penetration testing of enterprise networks. Requirements include familiarity with hacking, malware, and forgery; must be able to plausibly impersonate a pest control specialist or a fire marshal. Please submit rap sheet along with resume.'" Paging Mike Rowe, Mike Rowe to the IT desk.
Communications

Submission + - SPAM: FAA mandates major aircraft "Black Box" up

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today mandated significant upgrades to aircraft cockpit voice and flight data recorders in an effort to help investigators retrieve more and better data from airplane accidents and mishaps. Today's mandate means manufacturers such as Honeywell and L-3 Communications as well as operators of airplanes and helicopters with 10 or more seats, must employ voice recorders, also known as black boxes, that capture the last two hours of cockpit audio instead of the current 15 to 30 minutes. The new rules also require an independent backup power source for the voice recorders to allow continued recording for nine to 11 minutes if all aircraft power sources are lost or interrupted. Voice recorders also must use solid state technology instead of magnetic tape, which is vulnerable to damage and loss of reliability, the FAA said. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Yahoo!

Yahoo To Reject Microsoft Bid 302

Posted by kdawson from the so-say-sources dept.
Many outlets are echoing a subscribers-only report in the Wall Street Journal that Yahoo's board has decided to reject Microsoft's takeover offer. The NYTimes offers the only other independent reporting so far confirming this claim. The report says that Yahoo will formally reject the offer in a letter on Monday, since they believe it "massively undervalues" the company. Microsoft offered $31 per share, a 62% premium on the stock price at the time, for Yahoo; but the latter believes that no offer below $40 per share is tenable. The AP has some background on Yahoo's options in responding to the bid.
Biotech

Submission + - Doping: Beyond Sports? (latimes.com)

Submitted by runamock
runamock writes: The Los Angeles Times ran a story on the growing use of 'mind drugs': 'Forget sports doping. The next frontier is brain doping.. Despite the potential side effects, academics, classical musicians, corporate executives, students and even professional poker players have embraced the drugs to clarify their minds, improve their concentration or control their emotions.. Unlike the anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and blood-oxygen boosters that plague athletic competitions, the brain drugs haven't provoked similar outrage. People who take them say the drugs aren't giving them an unfair advantage but merely allow them to make the most of their hard-earned skills.'
Christmas Cheer

Submission + - NORAD's Santa Tracking Goes Web 2.0 (noradsanta.org)

Submitted by iluvcapra
iluvcapra writes: NORAD Tracks Santa 2007, NORAD's perennial mission of tracking the progress of Santa's sleigh as he makes his yearly sortie, has gone Web 2.0 this year, including a Google Maps mashup showing Santa's current position on Earth (at time of submission, Keetmanshoop, Namibia), a KML link to let you track Santa on Google Earth, and plots and keyhole imagery on youtube.

My only question: When Santa crosses into the ADIZ, what does he set his squawk to?

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