Slashdot Mirror

The Associated Press press agency.

Bush did speak, on video, and underneath a Mission Accomplished banner, which he says wasn't about Iraq.

The odds of defeating breast cancer by legislation is extremely low

Too late. Gene therapy beat the legislation to it. It looks like the most malignant forms of breast cancer will be no more, very, very shortly.

I'm glad to hear all those pink ribbons and Fight Breast Cancer walk-dollar's went to some good.

VA Software CEO/Founder Larry Augustin Dead at 39, Apparent Suicide

by ASSOCIATED PRESS

VA Software (LNUX) CEO, president and founder Larry Augustin was found dead in his home in Fremont, Calif. early this morning. The death was an apparent suicide, caused by a close-range shotgun blast to the face and head. He was 39 years old.

Police reports indicate that strewn about the room in which Augustin carried out his fate were empty cartons of ramen noodles and discount bulk oat bags. His house was bare of any furniture or furnishings of any worth, and his garage which once held several classic cars was emptied. An autopsy revealed several thousand VA Software stock certificates, neatly rolled and bundled, in Augustin's rectum. Police are investigating how the five-inch-wide bundle appeared in Augustin's lower intestine unlubricated without any sign of strain on his anal sphincter. Also discovered was an abnormally high concentration of dye in Augustin's bloodstream, which was determined to be the main component of "ledger red" ink.

VA Software, which at different times has been called VA Linux Systems, VA Linux and VA Systems, has seen financial difficulties of late. Most likely to be soon delisted from NASDAQ, the company shares a struggle for profitability with many other dot-bomb era corporations whose business plans include the line "???" directly before "PROFIT !!". VA Software child companies, such as geek weblog Slashdot.org and Star Wars fan site Sourceforge have felt the pinch of the economic downturn.

Augustin is survived by his domestic partner and two adopted children.

Exit polls are not at all a replacement for proper auditin and verification, but they at least (used to) provide a big picture view that helped to highlight any major problems in vote counting. (cough Florida cough)

From the original posting:

The report notes that 'SAIC has identified several high-risk vulnerabilities [...]'

If you see the map of the US on the AP website you need to specify a newspaper.

Try this link that says you read the headline on New Jersey Online:

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HACKER_ ARREST?SITE=NJASB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAUL T

The link in the story didn't have a site id, which directs you to a specific AP member newspaper

AP Story

The url in the original post didn't contain a site id (which you need to actually read the story)

Arizona Republic Contact Page

AP contact address

From the Slashdot story: "SCO now says there are over a million lines of offending code in Linux and they still won't show them to anybody."

This reminds me of Senator Joseph McCarthy's 1950 Communists in the State Department speech. See the end of the article for a quote from Senator McCarthy:

"I have in my hand fifty-seven cases of individuals who would appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy."

Senator Joseph McCarthy said he would show Dean Acheson, then U.S. Secretary of State, the list, but only under special conditions that often changed. McCarthy said: "It would be a waste of effort to give Acheson the names, then have him deny they are Communists and we can not get the records."

The number of Communists McCarthy said were in the U.S. State Department also often changed, too. Soon it was "81 subversives":

The article cited above says, "Senator Lucas of Illinois, Democratic leader, repeatedly tangled with McCarthy, who also said he has case histories of 81 subversives--including what he called a 'big three'--who are working in and with the State Department. Lucas challenged McCarthy to name names. McCarthy refused, saying Lucas or any other interested authorities could get the names at McCarthy's office."

"The Senate voted 67 to 22 to censure McCarthy" (See the end of the article.) "Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy died soon after the censure, at the age of 48, of hepatitis and liver disease related to alcoholism."

Senator McCarthy gave many people a big Red scare. However, in the end, everyone realized that he was a liar.

I live a few miles away from Davis Besse, one of FirstEnergy's nuclear plants. In Feb 2002, they shut it down for maintenance (and I believe refueling). They found that boric acid had almost completely eaten through the steel cap on top of the reactor. A few more months and bad things would have happened. It's a very controversial issue around the area (Ottawa County, Ohio) as most area residents don't want to see the plant restarted.

FirstEnergy was also recently found guilty of breaking pollution laws when they rebuilt a power plant and did not install modernized scrubbers. No ruling on what they will be fined has come out yet.

Here is an AP article with a bit more info, and an article detailing the hole in the reactor vessel. TONS more info available via 'davis besse' on google.

Just to clarify, Associated Press is a reputable news source. The National Enquirer is not.

The Eiffel Tower is on fire!!!

VA Software CEO/Founder Larry Augustin Dead at 39, Apparent Suicide

by ASSOCIATED PRESS

VA Software (LNUX) CEO, president and founder Larry Augustin was found dead in his home in Fremont, Calif. early this morning. The death was an apparent suicide, caused by a close-range shotgun blast to the face and head. He was 39 years old.

Police reports indicate that strewn about the room in which Augustin carried out his fate were empty cartons of ramen noodles and discount bulk oat bags. His house was bare of any furniture or furnishings of any worth, and his garage which once held several classic cars was emptied. An autopsy revealed several thousand VA Software stock certificates, neatly rolled and bundled, in Augustin's rectum. Police are investigating how the five-inch-wide bundle appeared in Augustin's lower intestine unlubricated without any sign of strain on his anal sphincter. Also discovered was an abnormally high concentration of dye in Augustin's bloodstream, which was determined to be the main component of "ledger red" ink.

VA Software, which at different times has been called VA Linux Systems, VA Linux and VA Systems, has seen financial difficulties of late. Most likely to be soon delisted from NASDAQ, the company shares a struggle for profitability with many other dot-bomb era corporations whose business plans include the line "???" directly before "PROFIT !!". VA Software child companies, such as geek weblog Slashdot.org and Star Wars fan site Sourceforge have felt the pinch of the economic downturn.

Augustin is survived by his domestic partner and two adopted children.

Plurality opinion here.
Dissents are here and here.
Concurrences are here and here.

Plurality opinion here.
Dissents are here and here.
Concurrences are here and here.

Plurality opinion here.
Dissents are here and here.
Concurrences are here and here.

Plurality opinion here.
Dissents are here and here.
Concurrences are here and here.

Plurality opinion here.
Dissents are here and here.
Concurrences are here and here.

Does it seem odd to anyone else that this [msnbc.com]article and this [cnn.com] article are almost word-for-word identical?

Or maybe just horribly bad reporting (but probably not). The Library of Congress website has no record of either Senator Finbeiner (not to mention the fact that "Kirkland" is not a state) or of Bill 5734. I could also find no record of the author, Paul Queary, at the Associated Press site.

The NYT articles leaves out some important facts.

From this story: "Under the agreement, technology lobbyists will argue that record companies should be permitted to use hacker-style tactics to disrupt Internet downloads of pirated music and movies."

Great.

Here's a thought:

People should e-mail CNN or Associated Press about their shoddy article and let them know we prefer reading news reports from people who can regurgitate press releases accurately?

Did you notice this side link from that story:

Judge Compares Microsoft to Tonya Harding

Although I now use the AP Wire as my homepage instead of /., I often wonder why I even read Slashdot on a daily basis even though half the postings are misleading, incorrect, or absurd. The editors need to start doing some actual editing or the only remaining readers will be the geek equivelant of tabloid readers.

-Lucas

REVIEW: Robot Is Fun but Not Useful

By MATTHEW FORDAHL
AP Technology Writer

The ER1 personal robot won't make coffee, pick up the newspaper, vacuum the floors or even walk the dog. With prices starting at $599, it seems most adept at emptying wallets.

But beyond the not-so-cheap shots, the robot has a lot to offer. Like the personal computer kits of the 1970s, much can be learned -- and perhaps someday much money can be made -- on the road to usefulness.

And don't forget the prestige from being the first on the block with a robot smarter than Sony's canine-wannabe AIBO.

The ER1, sold by Evolution Robotics Inc., resembles neither a dog nor the robotic stars of science-fiction movies.

The 2-foot-tall, 20-pound machine is a three-wheeled platform that holds a laptop, its brains, and has a staff that carries a Web camera, its eye. Some might confuse it with an industrial table.

All parts are included except the most expensive -- a laptop running the Windows operating system. Plan on spending at least another $1,000 if you don't already have one.

For the mechanically challenged, Evolution sells an assembled robot for $699 (still minus the computer). But anyone who opts to plunk an extra $100 for the assembled version is missing half the fun.

The ER1 is more of a hobby than a toy. It's not recommended for children under 14, unless they're supervised. Schools might be interested in using the robot to introduce the basics of robotics and programming.

It took about two hours to assemble my ER1, which came in dozens of pieces tightly packed in a box along with 100 screws. Two Universal Serial Bus cables plug into the laptop.

Once installed on the laptop, the software shows a live shot of what the robot's camera sees, various behavioral options and the robot's battery levels.

The instruction manual is especially well done, rare for a high-tech product. It clearly outlined all 32 steps to finish the job and made sense out of the various trusses, gussets, set screws and U clips.

After a few hours of charging the battery, we were ready for our first test -- a routine in which the ER1 recognizes its box and moves toward it.

My ER1 immediately recognized the box but instead of driving toward it, it backed away as though it had been abused at the factory. (Turns out the camera pointed in the wrong direction. The test worked fine after I had adjusted it.)

Such tricks -- including most of the other 50 or so suggested in the manual -- are neat for showing off to neighbors or entertaining at parties. Besides following its box, the ER1 can play music, sing when it hears a loud noise, teach words to a parrot and even warn that it spots a beer can.

The recognition scheme is quite impressive. It could tell the difference between different denominations of currency. It even recognized me as long as I was wearing the shirt I had on when my image was originally captured. It didn't know me from Adam when I put on another shirt.

But the true power of the ER1 is in the ability to layer programs on top of one another, leading to more complex behaviors. Users familiar with the scripting language Python can create even more complicated tasks.

The possibilities are limited only by imagination and hardware. Evolution also plans to sell expansion kits, such as a gripper ($199) for grabbing that beer, and infrared sensors (price to be determined).

Evolution says the 12-volt rechargeable battery that powers the robot's motors can last up to three hours. My laptop battery died long before that.

I had the most fun driving the ER1 around using my home wireless connection. Because my laptop is wireless-capable, I could control the unit from my desktop computer and see everything the robot could see through that computer.

In fact, I could have controlled the thing from anywhere in the world over the Internet, provided I left a few holes open in my firewall.

------

On the Net:

Evolution Robotics: http://www.evolution.com

I just read this article from the AP, which says at the bottom that Russia is not scrubbing its support for the station any time soon. So which way is it? Is the station going to be mothballed, or not?

Clicky -Lucas

Regarding your accusations of Michael being an idiot for posting the lamest stories...I agree. If it weren't for him, Slashdot would probably be my home page instead of the AP Wire.

My home page is set to the AP Wire. I can't find anything on this story and it was supposedly released within the last few hours? Also, the article says The American Civil Liberties Union is "Up in arms." Why then isn't there any mention of it on their homepage or in their news section?

Why let MSNBC filter your news? These others are one step closer to the source.

If you don't have access to Clarinet (which you should) then you can check via the web:

• Reuters
• The Associated Press
• United Press International
• BBC
• CBC
• NPR
• even Times of India

(AFP don't count - spelling, grammar, and factual errors. NYT - heavy circulation does not a good news source make. )

Like the historic photo of the soldiers raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Turns out, they'd already put up a flag earlier in the day, but the photographer missed it. So he convinced them to raise it again, and posed six soldiers so he could get a good shot.

Incorrect. First, the flag in the photo is not the same flag being re-raised. The first flag was a small one on a short pole. The second one (as photographed) was a large ship's flag on a 100lb pole (erected on the order of an unknown naval commander). Second, while a smaller flag had indeed already been raised earlier in the day, Joe Rosenthal's picture of the flag raising was not staged. He simply tagged along with the marines charged with erecting the larger, more visible flag. See here and here for more complete accounts of the event. I implore all of you to try a simple Google search before you mindlessly parrot unsubstatiated accusations of chicanery you heard through "a friend of a friend".

Most U.S. newspapers are affiliated with the AP and Reuters, though a smaller number use the Agence France-Presse, which is more popular internationally. Then there's United Press International, which is practically dead, so few papers use it.

Knight Ridder and Gannett are different animals altogether. They are huge corporations which own dozens of tiny newspapers you've never heard of and a few larger papers (USA Today is Gannett's flagship paper, while the San Jose Mercury News is KR's, though KR's Miami Herald is a better paper). One of the "advantages" of these giant corporations is that they share stories with other papers in the corporation, which enables a paper in Fargo to cover an event in San Francisco without having to put up the money for a regional bureau.

Better papers (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, etc.) maintain their own bureaus outside their hometowns (for instance, the Washington Post has about 10 bureaus in U.S. cities outside DC [Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, etc.], and about 12 bureaus in international cities [London, Tokyo, Moscow, etc.]), so they use a far higher percentage of their own content, but they still use the AP, Reuters and AFP for stories they can't afford to cover themselves or don't have the time to reach. However, you won't see a Knight Ridder story in a paper like the New York Times.

The big difference here is that aggregators/metabrowsers are computers that display headlines without discretion. Newspapers employ editors who have been trained in the art/science of news judgment. For this reason, a metabrowser will quickly become exceptionally boring and irrelevant.

VA Software CEO/Founder Larry Augustin Dead at 39, Apparent Suicide

by ASSOCIATED PRESS

VA Software (LNUX) CEO, president and founder Larry Augustin was found dead in his home in Fremont, Calif. early this morning. The death was an apparent suicide, caused by a close-range shotgun blast to the face and head. He was 39 years old.

Police reports indicate that strewn about the room in which Augustin carried out his fate were empty cartons of ramen noodles and discount bulk oat bags. His house was bare of any furniture or furnishings of any worth, and his garage which once held several classic cars was emptied.

An autopsy revealed several thousand VA Software stock certificates, neatly rolled and bundled, in Augustin's rectum. Police are investigating how the five-inch-wide bundle appeared in Augustin's lower intestine unlubricated without any sign of strain on his anal sphincter. Also discovered was an abnormally high concentration of dye in Augustin's bloodstream, which was determined to be the main component of "ledger red" ink.

VA Software, which at different times has been called VA Linux Systems, VA Linux and VA Systems, has seen financial difficulties of late. Most likely to be soon delisted from NASDAQ, the company shares a struggle for profitability with many other dot-bomb era corporations whose business plans include the line "???" directly before "PROFIT !!". VA Software child companies, such as geek weblog Slashdot.org and Star Wars fan site Sourceforge have felt the pinch of the economic downturn.

Augustin is survived by his domestic partner and two adopted children.

by ASSOCIATED PRESS

VA Software (LNUX) CEO, president and founder Larry Augustin was found dead in his home in Fremont, Calif. early this morning. The death was an apparent suicide, caused by a close-range shotgun blast to the face and head. He was 39 years old.

Police reports indicate that strewn about the room in which Augustin carried out his fate were empty cartons of ramen noodles and discount bulk oat bags. His house was bare of any furniture or furnishings of any worth, and his garage which once held several classic cars was emptied.

An autopsy revealed several thousand VA Software stock certificates, neatly rolled and bundled, in Augustin's rectum. Police are investigating how the five-inch-wide bundle appeared in Augustin's lower intestine unlubricated without any sign of strain on his anal sphincter. Also discovered was an abnormally high concentration of dye in Augustin's bloodstream, which was determined to be the main component of "ledger red" ink.

VA Software, which at different times has been called VA Linux Systems, VA Linux and VA Systems, has seen financial difficulties of late. Most likely to be soon delisted from NASDAQ, the company shares a struggle for profitability with many other dot-bomb era corporations whose business plans include the line "???" directly before "PROFIT !!". VA Software child companies, such as geek weblog Slashdot.org and Star Wars fan site Sourceforge have felt the pinch of the economic downturn.

Augustin is survived by his domestic partner and two adopted children.

I submited the story after going through the effort of finding a link that didn't require registration.

Like i said, it's an AP story

2002-07-10 16:37:00 Car dealer to pay up to $6.5 million for junk fax (articles,news) (rejected)

by ASSOCIATED PRESS

VA Software (LNUX) CEO, president and founder Larry Augustin was found dead in his home in Fremont, Calif. early this morning. The death was an apparent suicide, caused by a close-range shotgun blast to the face and head. He was 39 years old.

Police reports indicate that strewn about the room in which Augustin carried out his fate were empty cartons of ramen noodles and discount bulk oat bags. His house was bare of any furniture or furnishings of any worth, and his garage which once held several classic cars was emptied.

An autopsy revealed several thousand VA Software stock certificates, neatly rolled and bundled, in Augustin's rectum. Police are investigating how the five-inch-wide bundle appeared in Augustin's lower intestine unlubricated without any sign of strain on his anal sphincter. Also discovered was an abnormally high concentration of dye in Augustin's bloodstream, which was determined to be the main component of "ledger red" ink.

VA Software, which at different times has been called VA Linux Systems, VA Linux and VA Systems, has seen financial difficulties of late. Most likely to be soon delisted from NASDAQ, the company shares a struggle for profitability with many other dot-bomb era corporations whose business plans include the line "???" directly before "PROFIT !!". VA Software child companies, such as geek weblog Slashdot.org and Star Wars fan site Sourceforge have felt the pinch of the economic downturn.

Augustin is survived by his domestic partner and two adopted children.

by ASSOCIATED PRESS

VA Software (LNUX) CEO, president and founder Larry Augustin was found dead in his home in Fremont, Calif. early this morning. The death was an apparent suicide, caused by a close-range shotgun blast to the face and head. He was 39 years old.

Police reports indicate that strewn about the room in which Augustin carried out his fate were empty cartons of ramen noodles and discount bulk oat bags. His house was bare of any furniture or furnishings of any worth, and his garage which once held several classic cars was emptied.

An autopsy revealed several thousand VA Software stock certificates, neatly rolled and bundled, in Augustin's rectum. Police are investigating how the five-inch-wide bundle appeared in Augustin's lower intestine unlubricated without any sign of strain on his anal sphincter. Also discovered was an abnormally high concentration of dye in Augustin's bloodstream, which was determined to be the main component of "ledger red" ink.

VA Software, which at different times has been called VA Linux Systems, VA Linux and VA Systems, has seen financial difficulties of late. Most likely to be soon delisted from NASDAQ, the company shares a struggle for profitability with many other dot-bomb era corporations whose business plans include the line "???" directly before "PROFIT !!". VA Software child companies, such as geek weblog Slashdot.org and Star Wars fan site Sourceforge have felt the pinch of the economic downturn.

Augustin is survived by his domestic partner and two adopted children.

by ASSOCIATED PRESS

VA Software (LNUX) CEO, president and founder Larry Augustin was found dead in his home in Fremont, Calif. early this morning. The death was an apparent suicide, caused by a close-range shotgun blast to the face and head. He was 39 years old.

Police reports indicate that strewn about the room in which Augustin carried out his fate were empty cartons of ramen noodles and discount bulk oat bags. His house was bare of any furniture or furnishings of any worth, and his garage which once held several classic cars was emptied.

An autopsy revealed several thousand VA Software stock certificates, neatly rolled and bundled, in Augustin's rectum. Police are investigating how the five-inch-wide bundle appeared in Augustin's lower intestine unlubricated without any sign of strain on his anal sphincter. Also discovered was an abnormally high concentration of dye in Augustin's bloodstream, which was determined to be the main component of "ledger red" ink.

VA Software, which at different times has been called VA Linux Systems, VA Linux and VA Systems, has seen financial difficulties of late. Most likely to be soon delisted from NASDAQ, the company shares a struggle for profitability with many other dot-bomb era corporations whose business plans include the line "???" directly before "PROFIT !!". VA Software child companies, such as geek weblog Slashdot.org and Star Wars fan site Sourceforge have felt the pinch of the economic downturn.

Augustin is survived by his domestic partner and two adopted children.

Interesting development:
msnbc.com is reporting an Associated Press story that Microsoft will stop supporting Java in Windows by 2004..

-- D.

I tried to submit this article as a story to /. but got shot down. It's my rejection and I'll grouse if I want to! :-P

Friend was in the upper deck of the sharks game and didn't feel a thing, contrary to the AP Wire

Makes me wonder how much we should trust the AP.

The story was not written by Excite. This is not some devious "make google look bad plot." It's an AP article. Read it here if you prefer, or here. Do some basic research first next time, ok? Additionally, these "ridiculous Overture people" are a real boon to small businesses because they charge per-click rather than per-impression, so you only pay for actual results. CPM sucks, CPC is better. Commission (such as linkshare) is really the best way from a client point-of-view.

In response to previous claims of Comcast intercepting packets, the company pledged today "to immediately stop recording the Web browsing activities of each of its 1 million high-speed Internet subscribers." This after the Associated Press announced on Tuesday that the company "has started recording the Web browsing activities of each of its 1 million high-speed Internet subscribers without notifying them of the change."

(AP newswire article)

If I'm interpreting this correctly (and IANAL), seems that the judge agrees that the statute requiring open access to the depositions doesn't apply in this circumstance. In fact, the judge seems to be requiring MS to do the heavy lifting demonstrating why the media should be excluded from a particular deposition. My guess would be that MS's legal team will concentrate on sealing any depositions of the big guns (pretty much anybody above product manager level, or whatever the equivalent is at MS), so that they don't experience a repeat of the Gates video debacle. The small fry will be left open, but they probably won't offer anything we haven't already heard.

In any event, I'm not sure what the flap is about even if some/all depositions are closed. The judge can only consider what is actually presented to her as formal evidence (which will end up being a subset of the deposition material IMHO). Deposition transcripts entered as evidence will be available to the public.

Besides, it's not like the technical/media community is suffering from a shortage of "Two-fisted MS business strategy" stories right now anyway...

The Associated Press is saying the opposite in this story, titled Reporters OK'd at Microsoft Hearing. I quote the first paragraph: "The judge in the Microsoft antitrust case ruled Tuesday that news organizations can listen to lawyers question technology executives in pretrial depositions unless Microsoft can prove the sessions would reveal confidential information."

Ok, I found a web page for it!

From the Associated Press, in response to the Enron ordeal:
[snip]
The spokesman [Ari] said Bush is always ``looking out to protect America's jobs and taxpayers' money.'' He noted, for example, that Bush has talked to China about purchasing a Boeing aircraft.
[snip]

I'm always looking in this paper for the dumb shit they report, but this is got to be the funniest thing I've seen in a while.

Of course they want them to buy Boeing aircraft, the special ones.

I must somewhat defend the CIA or whoever did this. I mean, they spy on us... why not spy on them for a change. I'm sure the Chinese have planted a few bugs here and there.

It's just funny they got caught is all.

microsoft security

How did this get moderated to a 5? It isn't true. The post that points out this was an AP story and not a CNN one hasn't been driven up there yet. Well, CNN is down, so here's the original. It'll make a decent mirror: http://wire.ap.org/APnews/main.html?PACKAGEID=BIZm icrosoft1&SLUG=XBOX%2dWOES

I can't get that excited about fan sites having trademark problems. Most of them lack any significant original content. (There's fan fiction, but most of it sucks.)

Pressure applied to sites that criticize companies is more of a problem. But most of that is bluff. I run Downside, which was very negative on doomed dot-coms back when they were riding high. I've received threats from companies I mentioned, but nobody ever actually did much. Read the Associated Press libel manual for guidance, then go ahead and criticize.

The biggest disappointment to me in the last decade of the Internet has been the lack of good online journalism. I'd hoped that disintermediation between journalists and readers would lead to reader-supported investigative reporting. Nothing like that has happened. We have online columnists, yes, but not hard-news reporters.