Slashdot Mirror

I know of two unofficial fan translations of Harry Potter books into German. This high quality, multi contributor one was torpedoed before completion. However, this one man effort hit the web early, and was allowed to stay up by a court because it was inferior to the official translation.

And there's the problem. A translation can be treated as a derivative work with enough original content to protect it under copyright laws. It doesn't have to be worse, it can be better - it just has to be different. However, if the copyright holder (in another language) has not yet done a translation, it becomes problematical to prove that your translation is substantially different.

As this is a civil case, it'll come down to a judge deciding what is (here comes that word again) a reasonable delay of the official version before translators can take a shot at it. A three month delay is probably reasonable, a three year one probably unreasonable, but it will be decided on a case by case basis (at least in the UK, I'd be interested to hear if there's a specification of duration in Germany)

So, if the translators waited for the official CivIII German version to come out, then produced their own resource files that differed from the official ones, that would be allowed. But they can't force the copyright owners to hurry up.

What a tangled web we weave.

So whats the deal? Katz is now a dupe of the man as well? Remember right after the 9/11 there was an email from muslim man circulating around the interenet? Yep.. Propaganda.

So while Katz is airing out his complete crap about *nothing* in particular, nothing but a heart warming tale spun to augment the beard shaving, women baring their faces, and the possiblility that MTV is coming to Kabul soon. Lets not forget the reality of the situation:

The Northern Alliance is a brutal regime as well. People welcomed the Taleban after being ruled by these losers.

On the homefront, the administration is taking power in sweeping gestures whose effects will leave us reeling for possibly fewgenerations.

Like the fancy stories you see above. People from the less fortunate countries in the world like Australia and Europe think our media is full of shit, and lying to us point blank.

But never fear, America is the home of the free. The best country in the world dude. And all that shit.

Anyway, just a reminder to use that search engine of yours and get the facts, see some other perspectives, especially now since Mr. Katz has obviously become a tool as well. Yeah maybe he was a tool before, but at least he had the power in his court to say something to Slashdot readers. I guess no more.

Ananova usually works too.

'We can't rule out terrorism' say White House

As all the major news portals seem to be struggling under the load, check www.ananova.com - it's up, fast and stayed alive during September 11th. They seem to be up-to-the minute with their information too.

From Ananova

Ananova :

Terrorism ruled out as cause of Queens crash

Terrorism has been ruled out as a cause of the Queens air crash.

Up to 246 passengers are thought to have been aboard the American Airlines Airbus A300.

All New York area airports have been closed following the crash, in the Rockaways area of Queens, a residential neighbourhood under the JFK airport flight path.

Bridges and tunnels into New York have also been closed but the Federal Aviation Authority has ruled out terrorism as a cause.

The organisation earlier stated that the cause of the crash is not known, although there are reports the jet suffered engine failure.

Washington says US Air Force patrols over New York received no calls before the crash.

Fighters have been flying over the city's skies 24 hours a day since September 11. Crews have been told they must be prepared to shoot down any hijacked civilian aircraft if ordered to do so.

The passenger jet had taken off from John F Kennedy Airport - five to 10 miles away, when it crashed into buildings and burst into flames.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has joined rescue services at the scene. At least four buildings are said to be on a fire. One witness reported debris falling from sky and told the Fox News Channel that four homes were on fire.

Another told CNN he was 40 blocks away and saw: "Just a lot of smoke. Tons and tons of smoke. You can see emergency vehicles heading to area. Lots of people are standing in the streets. It's very tense."

This is the ananova writeup..
President Bush will surely wish you a good night and tell you that he was right after all. None less than that. Of course stay alert, but also keep an eye on your beloved president :P
I feel sorry for all victims and all security people. Lots of internet news sites (at least here in The Netherlands) are DDoSed *again*. Has anything changed since two months ago?

Thats what Ananova are saying here anyway.

Computer students get course to stop them acting like geeks

The horror! The horror!

Thank you.

Hey look I wrote about it :) here, just a monthly diary entry. I just thought it was a significant moment in net history.

One thing it made me do though was change my news provider to Ananova, run by the UK's Press Association - the stories are posted much more quickly than anywhere else :)

From my limited knowledge of Royal Mail, these stamps, while valid for postage, wont be widely distributed.

Most people buy their stamps here in little books of between 4 and 10 stamps - these are almost always your standard orange/blue first/second class stamps.

I'll pop 'round to my local Post Office in a few minutes and specifically request some of these special issue stamps, and, with a fair degree of luck, they may have some in stock.

All countries produce special stamps that primarily intended for collection. Indeed, I believe some small pacific island states use stamps as a major source of revenue.

More interesting than Royal Mail producing some funky stamps is the claims that they're about to lay off up to 15,000 workers.

...j

Downed craft was rebel helicopter, say Taliban

The Taliban have said the aircraft they shot down was a helicopter belonging to Afghanistan rebels.

At first officials said they had shot down a US pilotless spy drone in the north of the country Now they say it was a helicopter belonging to the Northern Alliance. They do not know how many people were in it.

I mean, the "heightened security" that we've had at the airports since the WTC bombing where at the airports asked those three stupid questions. Honestly who in their right mind would say yes?

Suspected hijacker Mohamed Atta was arrested in Florida five months ago for having no driving licence.(...)

To the standard question, "Are you a member or representative of a terrorist organisation?", Atta ticked the 'no' box.

Just up on Ananova:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_400036.html?m enu=news.usterrorattacks

US Attorney General says attacks will mean changes in law

US Attorney General John Ashcroft says several US laws will be changed as a result off the terrorist attacks.

He says laws governing phone-tapping are being examined and will be changed to make surveillance easier.

He says the appearance of mobile phones has made it more difficult to keep track of terrorists.

"It's clear to me we need to upgrade and strengthen a number of laws in the US," he says.

Steps have already been taken by Congress to address this, he told reporters.

Story filed: 17:32 Sunday 16th September 2001

ananova are sending emails straight off the wire as news comes in...

I agree with others that Slashdot was great today. The focus on the disasters was admirable, and the information was high quality. Extra kudos to the posters who offered high quality links when it seemed that the world was slashdotted.

That said, I found that Slashdot was not the right source for news today. The news I got here was delayed (the stories) or hard to sift through (the posts). I found great fringe material (red cross info, missing persons sites, etc) and lots of mirrored material (thanks to all!) but it was diluted by speculation, rumor, flames and unchecked emotion. On the plus side, there was also support, prayers and many thoughtful discussions. Again, this diluted the news for better or for worse.

Instead, I found ananova to be the best site on the net today, with a simple, chronological list of relevent wire reports: ananova.com topic focus.

But I suspect I will find Slashdot to be the best site on the net for reflection over the next week or so.

Note, that this isn't criticism, but observation. Slashdot is more a community than a news source. This was an interesting mini-revelation for me today. Maybe Slashdot needs a QuickNews feature which lets stories go up faster (and get pulled down faster when proved inaccurate or inappropriate). I think a community run, up-to-the-minute news source would be valuable. Just some thoughts...

Obviously, given the disturbing unreadiness of our system of national defense, a Neanderthal-territorial attitude will do nothing if looney fanatics are responsible (especially if those loonies are residents of Israel). Shall we invade the state of Israel and take military control of the West Bank etc.? I don't want WWIII and neither does anyone else! Full scale war will not result in anything good, as far as I can tell, and as the country with the most to lose it is not in our best interest to start one. Particularly against a country that may not exist! The terrorists may have had Russian, Chinese, or American weapons and equipment for all we know. Maybe they were Americans.

We all despise these people and want them brought into the system so we can have our way with them, and that's fine, but content-free statements about getting tough and this incident "not standing" only bring disorder. Let's find them, bring them, and if the evidence convinces us, throw the motherfucking book at them. But let's do it with a level head, and save the barbarism for the execution.

A bigger problem: what to do about the hordes of Palestinians celebrating in the street over the tragic deaths of tens of thousands of Americans? These people are human beings, and any human easily grasps the "wrongness" of mass slaughter, so why are people happy about this?

The true issue falls along these lines.

-Rene

According to

thisananova photo and

this ananova story

the Palestinian people are dancing in the streets. Arafat has
condemned the attack, but he clearly doesn't control much of anything.
Here's the text: (sorry for trampling ananova's copyright)

Palestinians celebrate US tragedy

Thousands of Palestinians are celebrating the terror attacks on the US.

They have been chanting God is Great and distributing sweets to
passers-by, even as their leader, Yasser Arafat, said he was horrified.

In the West Bank town of Nablus, about 3,000 people poured into the
street shortly after the attacks.

Reports from the West Bank claim Palestinian extremists say the
attacks in the US are a consequence of the country's policy in the
Middle East.

Demonstrators have distributed sweets in a traditional gesture of
celebration and several Palestinian gunmen have shot in the air, while
other marchers carried Palestinian flags.

Nawal Abdel Fatah, 48, wearing a long black dress, threw sweets in the
air, saying she was happy because "America is the head of the snake,
America always stands by Israel in its war against us."

Her daughter Maysoon, 22, said she hoped the next attack will be
launched against Tel Aviv.

In traditionally Arab east Jerusalem, there was a smaller gathering of
about two dozen people, many of them young children led in chants by
adults. Some drivers passing the scene honked their horns and flashed
victory signs from their windows.

Yasser Arafat and his top advisers huddled at his office in Gaza City,
watching the events unfold on television.

He said: "We are completely shocked. It's unbelievable. We completely
condemn this very dangerous attack, and I convey my condolences to
the American people, to the American president and to the American
administration, not only in my name but on behalf of the Palestinian
people.

In the West Bank, meanwhile, the leader the Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Palestine denied his group was involved in the attacks.

Story filed: 17:06 Tuesday 11th September 2001

According to

thisananova photo and

this ananova story

the Palestinian people are dancing in the streets. Arafat has
condemned the attack, but he clearly doesn't control much of anything.
Here's the text: (sorry for trampling ananova's copyright)

Palestinians celebrate US tragedy

Thousands of Palestinians are celebrating the terror attacks on the US.

They have been chanting God is Great and distributing sweets to
passers-by, even as their leader, Yasser Arafat, said he was horrified.

In the West Bank town of Nablus, about 3,000 people poured into the
street shortly after the attacks.

Reports from the West Bank claim Palestinian extremists say the
attacks in the US are a consequence of the country's policy in the
Middle East.

Demonstrators have distributed sweets in a traditional gesture of
celebration and several Palestinian gunmen have shot in the air, while
other marchers carried Palestinian flags.

Nawal Abdel Fatah, 48, wearing a long black dress, threw sweets in the
air, saying she was happy because "America is the head of the snake,
America always stands by Israel in its war against us."

Her daughter Maysoon, 22, said she hoped the next attack will be
launched against Tel Aviv.

In traditionally Arab east Jerusalem, there was a smaller gathering of
about two dozen people, many of them young children led in chants by
adults. Some drivers passing the scene honked their horns and flashed
victory signs from their windows.

Yasser Arafat and his top advisers huddled at his office in Gaza City,
watching the events unfold on television.

He said: "We are completely shocked. It's unbelievable. We completely
condemn this very dangerous attack, and I convey my condolences to
the American people, to the American president and to the American
administration, not only in my name but on behalf of the Palestinian
people.

In the West Bank, meanwhile, the leader the Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Palestine denied his group was involved in the attacks.

Story filed: 17:06 Tuesday 11th September 2001

Don't blame all Arabs ... (Brit who's related to Arabs - Palestinians, in fact)

Ananova has been online and reliable all afternoon (British time).

-Stephen

Current technology is even more advanced than you imagined! With current 3d graphics you don't even have to be a grandma to scare yourself to death.

In actuality, Alan Turing said "If a person was unable to tell the difference between a conversation with a machine and a human, then the machine could reasonably be described as intelligent." This is a very basic description of the Turing test, which is a measure of the level of artificial intelligence of a computer system.

The Artificial Intelligence Enterprises located in Tel Aviv are working on a computer system, which they hope will be able to be mistaken for a 5-year-old child. They claim to have made a breakthrough. It is just a short step from a 5-year-old child to a thinking adult. In addition, you must consider mental illness and even the potential for envy, greed, rage, and hatred once you reach that plateau

You can find more AI news at The Mining Co AI pages

Slighly Off-topic, but British Telecom are planning to launch a Broadband Satellite Internet service across the UK in the next couple of years. However BT is currently struggling with a massive debt mountain, so it's not too clear if the timescale will hold.

So if very little money was being made, then the family shouldn't be compensated, but if a lot of money is being made, then the family should be compensated? I guess your philosophy is all about the money. If the pot gets big enough, you want a cut.

Did the patient or her family give permission for her remains to be used? No, they didn't learn about this for several decades after. That is unethical. It is deeply, deeply unethical.

What if the patient, or her family, had religious beliefs that conflicted with her body parts living on after her death, and being harvested?

Look at the turmoil stirred up about a year ago, over the case of Dr Dick van Velzen. Van Velzen was the senior pathologist at a children's hospital in the UK. And it appears he ordered the surreptious bottling and preservation of the organs of every baby who underwent a postmortem at his hospital. The press reports say this amount to something like 15,000 individual's organs.

Hospital rejects Van Velzen's claims
Van Velzen pleads guilty to improperly storing children's organs
UK Doctor Organ Harvest Outrage

You've got to get permission for stuff like this.

Been getting my news lately from this site, who listed the shower curtain story on July tenth.

-Mynn the Museless

With all this tracking going on (Facial recognition in Tampa Bay, EZ-Pass for speeding, etc.) companies with these so called "new and hi tech" gadgets are going to end up making criminals look to hi tech gadgets in the future. Something law enforcement will end up dreading more than radar detectors.

Or we'll all end up zombies who won't learn the difference between right and wrong, since tech will end up deciding for us, and law enforcement will end up becoming a large military since crime won't exist, so many will end up getting replaced by a gadget. I'm glad to see that politicians have started acting out against what's being done nowadays. There's a lot of room for abuse in tech too. (Echelon used to spy against Japan, Echelong used to spy on Airbus for Boeing [10.7], etc.)

Anyone ever watch the movie Patriot Games, when Harrison Ford is watching thermal imaging of an assassination taking place, or Enemy of the State? Last Saturday I was watching "Eyes in the Sky" on Discovery Channel about Satellite Communications, and the things they stated were scary.

So what's next for government? Implants to monitor your every move, heartbeat, body temp, all connected via GPS? Spoke too soon

Have a look here -

http://www.mckellen.com/epost/l010605.htm

- it's Sir Ian McKellen's homepage. (He plays Gandalf in the film). You can also see some stories on the film here (like how the opening was re-shot) -

http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/index.html?ke ywords=Lord+of+the+Rings&nav_src=more_on

Here's one story on the matter.

While I sometimes question the accuracy of Ananova, they are reporting that Iraq has two nuclear weapons at their disposal. The rules are changing. We can basically bomb a nation (Iraq) into the stone age, and somehow a few years later they have the bomb. Security is not what it used to be. Everything is a threat. I'm glad the military is looking at how technology can be used in the future of wargames. The more and more simulations they do the better prepared we can be for situations like this. And it seems only fair to assume that we would eventually have to have a 'space-corps', as the space installations of the future will have as much stratigic importance then our factories and military installations do here on Earth.

I looked at their media section and found the ananova refences to be true:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_89877.html
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_186742.html

I looked at their media section and found the ananova refences to be true:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_89877.html
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_186742.html

Here are a few things I found while reading about this a few months ago. What's interesting is this stuff is already in prototype in China and some other medical institutions. enjoy!

http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/10/24/robot.heart.s urgery.ap/
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/regionalnews/eastas ia/china-15-11-00_01.htm
http://www.abcnews.go.com/local/wabc/oncall/40340_ 7252000.html
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_69581.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2000/0 7/24/newscolumn1.html
http://www.office.com/global/0,2724,61-17731,FF.ht ml
http://dross38040.users2.50megs.com/page28.html

A lead article from their "Science" section:

MAN SURVIVES 0N 'WATER AND SUN FOR YEAR'
(Original here.)

Excerpts:
A retired mechanical engineer in India claims to have lived off boiled water and the sun for the last 364 days.

Hira Ratan Manek is trying to prove that the human body can turn into a photovoltaic cell and convert the rays of the sun into energy.

(Snip. . .)

In The Times of India Mr Manek explained that, to become a "solar cooker", you start by looking straight into the rising morning sun for only a few seconds. Slowly you increase the time to minutes reaching up to 30 to 35 minutes.

(snip. . .)

Neuro-physician Sudhir Shah, who has been monitoring Mr Manek's health with a team of doctors, said: "We believe that this is a chronic case of adaptation syndrome where the body reduces its demand for energy after 16 to 30 days of fasting. This is done by downing the regulation of receptors."

Mr Shah does not rule out the possibility that the temporal lobe in the human brain, which is believed to control parapsychic activity like the sixth sense, may have been activated due to this process.

::: Moral: You just can't trust virtual hotties for hard news anymore.

CGI News Anchors are a reality. Well one is, anyway: Ananova

Neat, but weird.
-----
D. Fischer

It's not just Americans that do stupid legal stuff. How about the French woman who sued the chef for the lobster attacking her breast??

T