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In that blog post, I suggested some follow-up research:

We here at Duh!scoveries don't merely want to mock these studies - we long to contribute too. So, we're suggesting a follow-up study. Gasoline in cars and trucks isn't the only excess fuel being burned here - the same physics indicate that fat people themselves require more fuel (in the form of tasty fried foods and soft drinks filled with high-fructose corn syrup) to move their own excess weight. And now that more and more vehicles are being fueled with biodiesel from soybean oil and ethanol from corn, there is now a competition for those resources between the fat people needing cheap calories to be able to move their enormous bodies and the SUVs they need to buy in order to haul their enormous bodies to the local fried-food emporium.

All of which raises the question: what is the optimum number of huge biodiesel or ethanol SUVs? Build too many and fat people will start slimming down due to lack of caloric input diverted to biofuel production, which leads to fewer SUVs needed to haul their now-slender bodies, which allows those fuel stocks to be retargeted to food. A vicious cycle, so we need to figure out just how many Hummers are needed to keep Americans optimally fat (or, we suppose, fit).

I guess it takes a while to get the grants...

In that blog post, I suggested some follow-up research:

We here at Duh!scoveries don't merely want to mock these studies - we long to contribute too. So, we're suggesting a follow-up study. Gasoline in cars and trucks isn't the only excess fuel being burned here - the same physics indicate that fat people themselves require more fuel (in the form of tasty fried foods and soft drinks filled with high-fructose corn syrup) to move their own excess weight. And now that more and more vehicles are being fueled with biodiesel from soybean oil and ethanol from corn, there is now a competition for those resources between the fat people needing cheap calories to be able to move their enormous bodies and the SUVs they need to buy in order to haul their enormous bodies to the local fried-food emporium.

All of which raises the question: what is the optimum number of huge biodiesel or ethanol SUVs? Build too many and fat people will start slimming down due to lack of caloric input diverted to biofuel production, which leads to fewer SUVs needed to haul their now-slender bodies, which allows those fuel stocks to be retargeted to food. A vicious cycle, so we need to figure out just how many Hummers are needed to keep Americans optimally fat (or, we suppose, fit).

I guess it takes a while to get the grants...

Interesting article on Hugh Herr, a scientist and also a double amputee, and how his opinions may have changed once he was an expert paid witness. http://scienceofsport.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-much-does-it-cost-to-buy-scientific.html

I hear what you're saying ... Define the list of "good" software, not the "bad", but here's a monkey-wrench at you ...

Define "execute". Are you referring to files on disk being treated as executable code? What about cases where an authorized application is buffer overflowed and patched in RAM? Your suggestions won't stop that. What about code that is interpreted, such as scripts or macros? Noscript for FF is great and all (I'm using it right now), but how many sites are 100% broken when scripts are turned off? We see countless examples of scripts today that can automate delivering a browser exploit, overflowing/patching a valid running browser process' memory and running arbitrary code. Who cares if the browser is sandboxed if everything the attacker wants is already in the browser (e.g. credit card numbers, passwords, etc.)? Don't say "same origin policy" because: A) if the browser's pwned all bets are off, and B) modern web apps (and therefore modern web malware) throw objects from several different domains into a single page in the browser. HTTP & HTML were pretty much designed to defeat Same Origin Policy.

But I agree, it's a separation of code and data problem.

so far, that is... http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/

Looks like at least part of your problem is "where do I find a particular title?" Bookfinder and Addall have already been mentioned, but there are other ways and sources if you're okay with used books (many excellent novels are out of print and thus ONLY available used), in RL (if you're willing to dig) as well as more online. I discuss these and more here:
http://ben-bradley.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-and-where-i-buyget-books.html

Six months ago I bought the Star Trek/New Generation novels "A Time To Be Born" and "A Time To Die" at a thrift store for 25 cents. I "don't read" ST novels, but I was going to put them up on paperbackswap.com to send out to get "points" for books I really want. Unfortunately, I started reading...it's an 8-book series and I'm now on book 7. I got books 3 through 8 on paperbackswap.com, and have the ones I've read listed on there.

It's space opera, the science sucks in these things, but I found the books entertaining because I liked the ST "New Generation" TV series and am of course familiar with the character. But once I get to the end of this, I swear I'll never read another ST novel. Give me some Real Hard SF, as in (an slightly older novel I recently read) Greg Bear's Eon.

Seems to me that part of the problem is that Newton's basic axioms about space, time, etc., are flawed; and that although Einstein resolved some of the problems, he did not address the basic structure of Newton's one-dimensional notion of time, etc.

If the axioms are different, then the theory is inevitably different. Some of you yonger SlashDotters may not have read Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions." At the time it was written, Kuhn did a trenchant job of describing how axiomatic changes influence the entire epistemological infrastructure of scientific theory.

Aboriginal Indigenous understanding of time, for example, is nonlinear (and not just in the sense of being curved as a part of the space-time continuum in relationship with gravity).

A lot of people dismiss Indigenous knowledge - there are quite a few negative stereotypes about us - but at least some of our science / ways-of-being are very thoroughly grounded in the astute observation, mindful / brilliantly aware interaction with the world (i.e. a parallel of scientific experimentation), and wisdom of countless millennia.

FFI, the current draft of Chapter 2 of my (in process) Ph.D. dissertation has a discussion of some of the axiomatic limitations of contemporary scientific world-views (linked to http://www.maquah.blogspot.com/ ).

I'm still working on it; and am interested in discussing it.

The next logical extension if this case is allowed to stand is that you can be prosecuted for putting down a book you are reading in a public place and not taking adequate care to secure it.

Right. I don't see how such an act fails to meet the criteria for "making available".

William Patry (copyright expert and Google general copyright counsel) has a very nice post about the "making available" precedent here.

For $40 more, you can snag yourself the Nokia N800 Iternet Tablet. The N810 drove its price way down, and the only differences are a built-in GPS, slide-out keyboard, and a 2GB SD card. The rest of the hardware is identical, and you can flash the latest N810 OS on the N800. The thing is highly hackable, with as much open-source software as Ari Jaaksi, Nokia's open source director, could get them to embrace (about 2/3 of the base system). With a very bright 800x480 display, Firefox and mplayer, it renders everything almost perfectly. It's got a thriving open-source community behind it with a bunch of apt repositories and ports. It's also the nicest e-book reader I've ever used.

I don't work for Nokia. I just love mine. :)

Consumer-oriented reviews tend to emphasize its lack of pre-installed PIM apps and synchronization, but that's not a problem for your average technophile.

To give you an idea of how hackable it is, I hacked the init scripts to set up swap and mount my home directory from an SD card's ext2 partition. I SSH into it when I want to do this kind of stuff.

Parts of the hardware (and thus some of the drivers) aren't open. If you're a purist, this might put you off. Which brings us back on topic: the Chumby is completely open. Maybe this'll push Nokia to open more. Ari Jaaksi has even said that the open source software on the N800 is of far better quality than the in-house stuff - it's just convincing the suits that embracing it is a good idea that's difficult.

CNet does own some worthy domains; however, they don't own $1.8B's worth. I suspect that what CBS has really purchased is a piece of the long tail.

If you read the briefs in UMG v. Lindor you'll see judicial authority and scholarly authority for the view that the punitive damages due process analysis should be applied to statutory damages analysis, particularly in the area of p2p file sharing.

See TinyURLs are evil URLs. Why does the URL length matter when linking on the web? For example, the link above has a fairly long URL, but it's not a problem. There's no reason to use a URL shortening service for links on web pages.

The reason such services should only be used where actually necessary, like in print or when verbally relaying a URL, is that they are a good way to hide the site. By using them unnecessarily for web links, users become less wary of them, making it easier for malicious uses. It's the same reason banks and similar entities should not send email with links to their site.

It already has. I wish I could find the article but I believe that Motorola lost a multi-million $$$ contract to a European competior simply because (I believe) the Chinese executives could not get visas to enter the US.

Another article I read about a year ago said that multi-national companies, even those based in the US, are intentionally scheduling their conferences outside the US, in countries with more favorable immigration rules. The economic impact is already happening. This was also discussed on Slashdot. to add, this is also happening in academia.

This has been known for many years. Here are more taken from my personal ant Web site:

Ants in yer... Pants? NOT! (Toshiba notebook/laptop); Ants Invade Apple iBook.

Ants In
My Nokia Mobile Phone (A Yahoo! account is required).

Ants in Omniview switchboxes: An e-mail story of ants invading a network
switchbox. Thanks nTrFace.

Argentine ants invade a network hub.

Ants had taken up residence in a guy's external hard drive: Ontrack
and Computerworld
(seen on /.).

A photograph showing ants nesting in a guy's phone box, affecting his DSL connection and phone system.

Sharpdevelop supposedly supports the .NET Compact Framework: http://www.sharpdevelop.com/OpenSource/SD/Default.aspx

You can also find tutorials to help get you started here: http://netcf2.blogspot.com/

The only issue using Sharpdevelop is that I don't believe that you can use the Microsoft PocketPC emulator which means you have to keep compiling, uploading, and remote debugging your code.

Visual Studio includes the emulator and would be a good tool for you to learn. The jump from using notepad to a full IDE programming suite can be intimidating at first but it will really help your career as a programmer.

though Indirect succession. Singapore also supports regime in Myanmar (Burma). They usually site racial tensions between Malay, Indian and ruling Chinese class as reason for continuing the dictatorship. "Elections" are held for appearances sake, but while I was living there they seized assets of any opposition politician that looked like they would come close to winning a seat, usually on phony charges like "libel" or such. If some area did manage to elect a representative not approved by the state, then that neighborhood basically kisses goodbye to certain public services, infrastructure upgrades (like MRT tube stations etc). Like withholding rice in neighbouring Indonesia, but for a modern country.

But don't worry, like many others around the world it is a US approved dictatorship.

Far better that a student learn some shell scripting, than become addicted to a know-nothing, money wasting, problem-riddled/time wasting mess known as 'windoze' (for good reason, intelligent people have chosen to avoid the M$ cesspool (malware, defrag, etc. the list goes on and on...)) Non-windows users are FAR more productive than winblows lusers. See it on a daily basis with my own eyes. Can't really blame the addicts though. These poor, ignorant sheep actually believe, and repeat, ad nauseum, the marketing/FUD crap coming out of Redmond. Good little unthinking robots/slaves/addicts that they are.
Inflicting windoze on ANYONE, and ESPECIALLY students or those who TRULY want to learn, should be considered a crime against humanity.

And for the ignorant, know-nothing poster (and obviously a windoze addict), about the 'business world', it is, in several cases, RAPIDLY leaving windoze, (or already left windoze long ago...)
http://cdneducation.blogspot.com/

Six months after Microsoft's CTO declares WinForms dead, Mono supports it. That's timing, baby!

I made a similar system for a Mac that captures network information, screenshots, and photos. It then uploads them to a webserver, and turns on Remote Login and creates a reverse tunnel so that you can use ssh to get login even if there is a firewall on the other end. I wrote up a description of it over on blogspot and posted the scripts for anyone who wants to try them.

I agree 100%. After playing with various 3D packages, I've found all of the interfaces are different. And all of them have a "learning curve" of some sort to figure out how to do certain things.

Blender is no different. It's interface is different (like all the rest)... but once learned, is a very pleasant interface to work with. Different isnt always a bad thing.

After slightly under two weeks playing with Blender - and an Enterprise Mesh from "TallGuy", I have rendered these scenes at:

http://www.startrekphase2media.com/The_Enterprise.html

The images are based off various animation sequences I have been playing around with (you can see a frame from the standard "opening credits" orbit scene, a frame from the older/early TOS leaving orbit scene, as well as some new stills from other sequences I am playing with).

My point is, for someone (me) who hasnt played with 3D software in years and just started with Blender under 2 weeks ago, even though I couldnt find (in my memory) a similar 3D interface, I found that Blender's was a comfortable place to work - once I gave it a few days of solid use and effort. If you compare the Enterprise in my renderings to TallGuy's, you will already notice some subtle and not-so-subtle changes - not bad for (at the time) a week in to using Blender and working on a pretty complex mesh...

(As a side note, you can find TallGuy's BlogSpot here: http://tallguyproductions.blogspot.com/)

the RIAA can tell only when a song is being offered for users to illegally download; investigators have no way of knowing when someone else is actually downloading the song.

I find it very interesting that all negative comments to finding life on Mars have been modded down. Seems to me that certain people don't like criticism or contrary opinions.

Admit it people! Privacy has been dead for years now and the latest technologies only bury it deeper! The only privacy you have is whats in your head and we are trying to get to that too! http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com/

There's all this talk of how much SMS messages cost per byte and how that relates to the bandwidth available on the network and so on yet no one has mentioned one of the best comments from the last time this topic was brought up here on Slashdot: The Marginal Cost of SMS is 0

Read that comment! Basically it says that it costs the telco nothing in terms of bandwidth (or anything else, really) to send your messages back and forth.

That comment was referenced in this blog post. I was so outraged after reading it that I called up AT&T and told them to make it so that I can't send or receive text messages anymore. As a side-effect, I can no longer tell when I have voice messages, but it's totally worth it.

You pay 0.10 for 140bytes for texts, or about 0.15 for 1024bytes in any data transfer service.

http://whattorture.blogspot.com/

When the 5,000th soldier dies CNN is giving away free toasters.

Vista running with WGA and all of our protections is safe 66.8% of the time! That's 22% better than XP http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com/

SOME, at all or a lot! Who uses AMD cr@p anyways? http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com/

Canada's hate laws are intended to stop someone from inciting violence against a given group. You can think whatever you want, and (unless you're a teacher) you can criticize whoever you want, but you're not allowed to say things that might encourage violence against a group. The idea is that the cops can go down to the white supremacist meeting where the head Nazi is riling everybody up to go do some lynching, and arrest him before the lynching actually gets started. Or down to the local church and arrest the pastor who's preaching that it's every good Christian's duty to exterminate people of a particular sexual orientation, for that matter.

Canada's hate laws are intended to stop someone from inciting violence against a given group. You can think whatever you want, and (unless you're a teacher) you can criticize whoever you want, but you're not allowed to say things that might encourage violence against a group. The idea is that the cops can go down to the white supremacist meeting where the head Nazi is riling everybody up to go do some lynching, and arrest him before the lynching actually gets started. Or down to the local church and arrest the pastor who's preaching that it's every good Christian's duty to exterminate people of a particular sexual orientation, for that matter.

Subject says it all, really. The best approach is to set up an OpenBSD machine as your gateway, filter traffic using PF to any degree you desire, and please set up spamd in greylisting mode (the default).

That will take care of most of your spam right there, and you could usefully have something like a spamasassin and clamav combo running in the delivery phase on your real mail server.

Useful references: Firewalling with OpenBSD's PF (tutorial)
The Book of PF
and Effective spam and malware countermeasures: Network noise reduction using free tools

And yes, I've blogged a bit about this too, over at my blog

You don't *have* to use the .Mac to do this, there are numerous different scripts people have made/thought of using the built in camera.

Taking iSight photos during invalid login attempts
Take photos via cron every 5 minutes
Take a photo everytime the lid is opened (Includes all of his pictures.

Bad publicity made Google fix their open redirector for URLs. Bad publicity will make them fix this.

GMail ought to go back to cell phone authentication for new accounts. Since their capcha was broken, they've become a favorite of spammers.

Blogspot is also a spam haven. Most blogspot blogs are spam, and they can be used as a form of open redirector. Look for spams like: "An IWC watch is a uniquely handcrafted time piece ... http://rexefute51720.blogspot.com/"

Complain loudly, publicly, and often. Google needs to take stronger steps to avoid being a spam conduit.

The fact is that it's quicker to develop high quality software on the MS platform.

The fact is that it's quicker to develop high quality software on the MS platform.

From: - http://virtuallawatlse.blogspot.com/2007/03/davenport-lyons-pursues-500-file.html
and
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/03/28/uk_share_hunt/

The interesting bit is "In relation to your claim that your computer was hacked into, we regret that the security of your computer is not our concern. It is your responsibility to ensure that your computer is protected at all times."

WTF!! Does that mean if someone is stabbed on the street then it's the victims fault that (s)he wasn't wearing a stab-proof vest? Or do we sue car manufactorers for making cars that can go faster than the national speed limits (aiding and abeting a crime)? Or if someone steals your credit cards and uses them then it's your fault for not keeping them secure?!!??

Where do you draw the line?

Jaj

I can only concur. I've got an iliad since a couple of months, and it's fantastic :) It has some issues, but overall is worth it (and it's not like the other available devices are better). I wrote some impressions here: http://camaelon.blogspot.com/2008/04/iliad-irex-note-taking-and-hand-writing.html My only reserve is that you have to get the shell access to really take advantage of it -- but I don't think it's a problem that's really annoying for slashdot readers ! It's a really cool hacking platform.

And even if you do mind swapping the firmware you can use it as eBook reader. The build in image viewer does a decent enough job, you just have to convert your pages first, I have hacked together a few scripts for that.

Giles Bowkett has written on this here: http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/05/twitters-scaling-problems.html

I'd guess it's that downtime is easier than non-downtime, and it's a free service. It's not like anybody can say they're not getting what they paid for.

"why blacklist them? It sounds reasonable at first, but blacklisting an IP cause it has a botnet is a poor idea of security, because all it takes is a new IP/new machine. If you are that afraid of getting hit by one, just try to keep up to date on your security information(at least patch monthly)." - by VeNoM0619 (1058216) on Thursday May 08, @03:11PM (#23341642) Come on man - that sounds like something a botmaster WOULD say! Keeping up on them's relatively child's play if you have good solid sources like:

http://mtc.sri.com/

&/or

http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/

"Oh, don't BOTHER 'blacklist' those sites in your HOSTS file, bots are my lifeblood" etc. et al... which is what anyone who runs these botnet herds would most likely say + tell others to do most likely!

QUESTION: Do you know that a great program called SpyBot "Search & Destroy" also helps you this way, & the reason? S E C U R I T Y!

(That is EXACTLY what you can do, & spybot even does, for you to get security from using a custom HOSTS file)...

Just by using a custom HOSTS file to secure yourself vs. virus/spywares/trojans & more!

In essence, using a custom HOSTS file gets you this:

"If you can't go into that bad URL poisoned code or adbanner kitchen, you can't get burnt"

(+ IF you do it right, you can go a LOT faster, blocking out adbanners (which have had a load of bad javascript code in them the past few years now no less, Fortune 100's-500's no less as well) & use less CPU cycles running their code in scripted banners & more, & data bandwidth downloading it, & disk I/O & RAM also).

USING A HOSTS FILE FOR SECURITY, Works...

& In addition to that, stopping the indiscriminate use of tools & methods trojans/virus/spyware & the like use/take advantage of in webbrowser & email programs, like javascript/activescripting/IFrames/bad plugins...

By trimming (if not outright stopping) the 'wholesale use' of javascript &/or IFrames on every site under the sun, you stay safer too, becaue face it - not every site's javascript code's to your advantage (certainly not in speed & NOT in security sometimes even per my examples above). Limit it to where you really need it, data access sites like shopping & banking ones are examples thereof.

(Do that, especially vs. bogus javascript etc. like you see in adbanners the past few years now in fact? If you do that, end-user/clientside even on corporate networks to EXTERNAL sources? You stay a LOT cleaner vs. infestations, hands-down (implementable in group policies fairly easy on an NTFS/AD network) Local standalone systems as well benefit too, same way (more speed & more security))

It works, don't say otherwise either, for speed & security, no questions asked. Editing it is simple via notepad.exe too, for instance, & a child could do it.

APK

P.S.=> Sure, occasionally, (on scripting) - You HAVE to/are forced to use scripting for banking &/or shopping sites, so do so, for data access & to get full function, but be S M A R T, & limit those sites to that type only, ones you know & trust...

Also, use better browsers! IE specific sites yes, you have to sometimes use IE on, but using a safe(r) browser, like Opera (safer, AND F A S T E R, w/ 0% known defects per SECUNIA in its shipping non-beta 9.27 model)? Opera's better & faster stuff, especially on low memory rigs (I saw it run like a champ on a Pentium II 400mhz Celeron w/ only 64mb of RAM on it, under XP)

BUT, in addition to HOSTS files usage? Hey - to stay truly safe & clean online, TURN OFF unlimited usage of scriptings/plugins/adbanners & the like and keep a system you can keep running a decade or more, w/out constant rebuilds... especially today, vs. virus & the like... apk

I am more concerned with the technical details of the worm, but have no patience reading the Owning Kraken article. Any who, I blogged some of my thoughts here http://tientadinh.blogspot.com/ In summary, as far as I know, Kraken does not scale as well as Storm, because it relies on the the DDNS providers. Plus, how the owner can orchestra a DDOS attack is not very clear for me.

I did a long time ago, after some reading, when Skype wasn't eBay yet and this was just in.

Qutecom just about does the job for me - and it's Free as in Speech.

(He admits that it still wasn't enough, though.)

The ideas expressed in parent rely on a complete misunderstanding of the way the federal courts work. For a post detailing the structure of the federal courts, see Is there even such a thing as 'precedent' in civil law?.

Please note that parent is not legal analysis and does not at all represent how federal courts in the United States work. See my post on precedent for an explanation. For the most part, it doesn't seem that the issues in this case are even related to the interpretation of "making available." According to News.com, "The studios originally sued TorrentSpy in February 2006, alleging that the site promoted and contributed to online copyright infringement by helping people locate illegally copied films and television shows on the Internet." Contributory infringement != making available. Thanks for playing.

Yes. I explain.

The summary says "McFeters was brought in with co-worker Rob Carter to talk about some vulnerabilities they had discovered with a few product security teams in attendence" - that makes it sounds like Nate and Rob found vulnerabilities in Microsoft products. If you actually read the guest blog entry, it says:
"Microsoft had Rob Carter [...] and I come in to discuss some recent vulnerabilities that we've discovered with a few third-party vendors with whom Microsoft has tight relationships"

Probably this is referring to Adobe - Nate and Rob have previously reported vulns to them and had them patched.