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Students Banned From Bringing Pencils To School 426

Posted by samzenpus from the watch-how-you-play dept.
mernilio writes "According to UPI: 'A Massachusetts school district superintendent said a memo banning sixth graders from carrying pencils was written without district approval. North Brookfield School District interim Superintendent Gordon Noseworthy said Wendy Scott, one of two sixth-grade teachers at North Brookfield Elementary School, did not get approval from administrators before sending the memo to all sixth-grade parents, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported Thursday. The memo said students would no longer be allowed to bring writing implements to school. It said pencils would be provided for students in class and any students caught with pencils or pens after Nov. 15 would face disciplinary action for having materials 'to build weapons.'"
Linux Business

Ubuntu May Move To Rolling Releases 246

Posted by timothy from the gathering-no-moss dept.
formfeed writes "The register claims that 'Ubuntu is moving away from its established six-month-cycle and potentially to a future where software updates land on a daily basis.' While this sounds like a sudden change, it is apparently more of a long-term thought. The Register quotes Shuttleworth: '"Today we have a six-month release cycle," Shuttleworth said. "In an internet-oriented world, we need to be able to release something every day. That's an area we will put a lot of work into in the next five years. The small steps we are putting in to the Software Center today, they will go further and faster than people might have envisioned in the past."' But given that many of Shuttleworth's thoughts became decisions later on, it might be interesting to see, where this one leads. Interestingly enough, five years is about the time when Ubuntu will run out of letters."

Comment Christian Science Monitor? Really?!?!? (Score 0, Flamebait) 221

by ukonvasara (#34319096) Attached to: Carbon Dioxide Emissions Fall Worldwide In 2009
Does anyone in their right mind actually consider The Christian Science Monitor a reliable source of information on any topic???? Remember these are the guys that use "e-meters" and considers them to be scientifically sound. I wouldn't believe anything they claims is scientifically proven without a RELIABLE source to back that claim up. Slashdot, I am ashamed that any of your readers are stupid enough to think The Christian Science Monitor has any scientific basis.
Space

Submission + - SpaceX gets 1st private FAA space reentry license (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Space Exploration Technologies (Space X) got the first ever Federal Aviation Administration license allowing the reentry to Earth of a privately developed spacecraft.
The license was needed because the Space X Dragon space capsule is scheduled to launch atop Space X's Falcon 9 rocket on Dec. 7 and return to earth. The Launch of the rocket had already been approved by the FAA. The FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation noted that it has licensed over 200 successful launches.

Submission + - Kuwait Bans DSLR Cameras Use For Non-Journalists (itproportal.com)

Submitted by DaveNJ1987
DaveNJ1987 writes: Kuwait has banned the use of Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras in public places for anyone who is not a journalist. The ban, which was passed by the unanimous agreement of the country's Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Information and Ministry of Finance, prevents the public from using DSLR devices on the streets of the Middle Eastern State. Tourists are to be affected by the new laws and must be aware of this before travelling to Kuwait. Smaller digital cameras and camera phones are exempt from the ban.
Biotech

Submission + - Ancient Nubians Drank Antibiotic Laced Beer (blogspot.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: A new analysis of millennia old mummy bones shows high concentrations of tetracycline which indicates empirical knowledge and use of antibiotics — most likely consumed in beer. The researchers traced the source of the antibiotics to the soil bacteria streptomyces present in the grain used to ferment the beer. Astonishingly enough, 'Even the tibia and skull belonging to a 4-year-old were full of tetracycline, suggesting that they were giving high doses to the child to try and cure him of illness.' The extent of saturation in the bones leads the scientists to assert that the population regularly consumed tetracycline antibiotics knowing that it would cure certain sicknesses.
Encryption

Submission + - Skype Encryption Revealed (h-online.com)

Submitted by TSHTF
TSHTF writes: Just weeks after Skype unveiled a public API for the service, a group of cryptographers led by Sean O'Neill have successfully reverse engineered the encryption used by the Skype protocol. Source code is available under a non-commercial license which details Skype's implementation of the RC4 cipher. Is it just a matter of time now until there is a true open-source Skype client?

Submission + - The Proton Just got smaller (nature.com) 1

Submitted by inflame
inflame writes: A new paper published in Nature has said that the proton may be smaller than we previously thought. The article states 'The difference is so infinitesimal that it might defy belief that anyone, even physicists, would care. But the new measurements could mean that there is a gap in existing theories of quantum mechanics. "It's a very serious discrepancy," says Ingo Sick, a physicist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, who has tried to reconcile the finding with four decades of previous measurements. "There is really something seriously wrong someplace."'

Would this indicate new physics if proven?
The Internet

First Non-Latin TLDs Go Online Today 302

Posted by CmdrTaco from the is-klingon-in-there dept.
eldavojohn writes "ICANN today switched on the country code top level domains for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, which are the first non-Latin TLDs available and are also fully readable right to left. Slashdot does not support them but you can find the TLDs in the BBC article. ICANN said it had 21 more requests for TLDs in 11 different languages. A quick note — if you do not have the language packs installed, you may experience unpredictable browser behavior in the URL bar. Right now countries like China and Thailand have implemented workarounds to achieve the same effect."
Security

Hacker Develops ATM Rootkit 181

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-that-doesn't-make-me-feel-better dept.
alphadogg writes "One year after his Black Hat talk on automated teller machine security vulnerabilities was yanked by his employer, security researcher Barnaby Jack plans to deliver the talk and disclose a new ATM rootkit at the computer security conference. He plans to give the talk, entitled "Jackpotting Automated Teller Machines," at the Black Hat Las Vegas conference, held July 28 and 29. Jack will demonstrate several ways of attacking ATMs, including remote, network-based attacks."

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