Slashdot Mirror

In order:

Yahoo! News: Top Stories
Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things http://www.boingboing.net/ - Links of cool stuff / interesting political stuff on the web
Slashdot.org (some nerd website)
Penny Arcade http://www.penny-arcade.com/ - Best webcomic evar
Joystiq http://www.joystiq.com/ - Gaming news
BensBargains.net http://www.bensbargains.net/ - Website that lists awesome deals on all sorts of stuff
FOUND Magazine http://www.foundmagazine.com/ - Website where people submit random interesting/hilarious/beautiful/sad/etc things that they find (letters, pictures, notes, signs, etc.)
SlickDeals.net http://www.slickdeals.net/ - Same as above
Techbargains.com http://www.techbargains.com/ - Ditto.

My Feeds: Select: All 95 subscriptions, None, Unassigned A to Z Kids Stuff children http://www.atozkidsstuff.com/atoz.xml ABC News: Top Stories news http://my.abcnews.go.com/rsspublic/fp_rss20.xml About Computing Center technology http://z.about.com/6/g/pcworld/b/rss2.xml About.com Archaeology Archaeology http://z.about.com/6/g/archaeology/b/rss2.xml All Things Digital technology http://feeds.allthingsd.com/atd-feed/ Archaeology News Archaeology news http://www.topix.net/rss/science/archaeology.xml Ars Technica tech news http://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/BAaf ArsTechnica: Security Content Security technology http://feeds.feedburner.com/arstechnica/security BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition U.K. http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/front_page/rss.xml BBC News | Science/Nature | World Edition Science/Nature http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/science/nature/rss.xml Boing Boing odd http://feeds.boingboing.net/boingboing/iBag Breaking News: CBSNews.com news http://www.cbsnews.com/feeds/rss/main.rss Breitbart.tv varied news topics http://www.breitbart.com/xml/recentvideo.xml ChannelWeb Complete Feed Computer news http://www.crn.com/cwb/globalcontent/cweball/index.xml;jsessionid=L0I1HBDQISHBCQSNDLQSKH0CJUNN2JVN Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories news http://www.csmonitor.com/rss/top.rss CNN.com - Offbeat odd http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_offbeat.rss CNN.com - Politics politics http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_allpolitics.rss CNN.com - U.S. U.S. news http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_us.rss Computerworld Breaking News technology http://feeds.computerworld.com/Computerworld/News Cool Tools technology http://feeds.feedburner.com/CoolTools Courant.com - Connecticut News Ct. news http://feeds.courant.com/Courant/ConnecticutNews Defense Tech U.S. defense news http://www.defensetech.org/index.rdf Discovery News - Technology technology http://dsc.discovery.com/news/subjects/technology/xdb/topstories.xml Drudge Report news http://feeds.feedburner.com/FeedPalooza/lwDu Dvorak Uncensored news http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?feed=rss2 Engadget robots & gadgets http://www.engadget.com/rss.xml Extremetech technology http://rssnewsapps.ziffdavis.com/extreme.xml Fark.com news http://www.pluck.com/rss/fark.rss FileForum software http://fileforum.b

I read a whole bunch, but the best/most useful are:

Digg: Sure, the commentary here is better, but it's nice to know what the Obamanation thinks of the latest political scandals.
Ars Technica: They've got good articles on various technical issues. Relatively low-volume.
Boing Boing: Quirky news, with a slant towards privacy concerns, steampunk, and general weirdness.
Wired's Threat Level: Alerts on various privacy issues, as well as other things the government is doing that you don't want them to be.

Well, you see the internet tubes start to leak after a while so traffic should start to level off due to that.

Did a little research and did fine a company in Sweden that offered it:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/28/p2p-insurer-will-pay.html

Don't know how valid that is, but it would also work if a large percentage of downloaders kicked just a few bucks into a slush fund to help people fight if sued.

The above article stated the odds of getting sued at: 1:1840

Think about it, what exactly has been shut down by the government lately? Freenet or Truecrypt anyone???!! I challenge anyone to even find one credible attempt by anyone in government to shut down one of the nominees.

Wikileaks. QED.

One Example

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/09/virgin-media-uk-work.html

I'm pretty sure Cory Doctorow used it first.

Well:

From this graph, the price of corn in 2004 peaked at approximately $3.35/bushel. The latest price of corn on there was approximately $4.30/bushel.

From this site, the approximate weight of one bushel of corn is 56 lbs. According to Google that's 25'401 grams.

If you cut all of the kernels off of the cob, boil them, and eat them without salt or any other seasonings, according to this chart, it will contain 66 calories per 82 grams.

This means one bushel contains approximately 20'445 calories.

According to this list, a 190 lb person running at 10mph (6 minute mile) will burn 1380 calories.

So, you'll get 14.8 miles worth of calories out of one bushel of corn.

So, in 2004 you'd be paying $0.226 per mile. Today you'd be paying $0.291 per mile. That's an increase of about 22.3%.

An increase from $75 (GURPS 4e, 2004) to $105 (D&D 4e, 2008) is 28.6%.

So given the questionable sources, estimations, etc I've used, I'd say that those numbers are close enough to conclude that the cost of the books has approximately followed the market.

ND

interesting new book about home science labs"

american science and surplus near Chicago- I would highly recommend a visit to the real store, if you are nearby.

You wouldn't like this then. A Swedish company is offering freeze drying of corpses as a more environmentally friendly alternative to cremation.

One more reason to start wearing these:

IR LED hats

(of course, they'll make you turn it off during taxi/takeoff/landing)

Maybe use mirrors to direct sunlight into the camera?

I think I'll stick with a ski mask :)

Specifically the No Fly List. It is utterly trivial to change the name on a boarding pass that is expected to be printed out on a user's home computer (most are just HTML). This has received a fair amount of attention in the past, but apparently the theatrics of it suffice.

Specifically the No Fly List. It is utterly trivial to change the name on a boarding pass that is expected to be printed out on a user's home computer (most are just HTML). This has received a fair amount of attention in the past, but apparently the theatrics of it suffice.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/07/imagine-no-drm-with-.html

I may be wrong,

but as far as I knew the only things that used/implemented it were vista related hardware

Maybe more people can shed the light. So yeah, enjoy vista and vista enabled.

Or you can do it yourself for $318

Your made-up scenario is pretty hilarious, mostly because your 'slang' reveals an obvious cluenessness and insulation from the realities of street crime.

However, for the sake of argument, here's a scenario that actually happened which demonstrates the value of skillful non-violent conflict resolution.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/07/tsaconfiscating-lap.html

http://fanpotai.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/us-customs-confiscating-laptops/

http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry993.html

http://usefularts.us/2008/02/17/unreasonable-search-and-seizure-on-the-borders/

Not that anyone's going to see this now (I mean, this is a thread to a post a whole day old!), but it looks like it has begun... Go ahead, try and recognize this horse's face:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=nyc&ie=UTF8&ll=40.771799,-73.982878&spn=0.026455,0.067635&z=15&layer=c&cbll=40.767851,-73.976067&panoid=FLnBFuHlw7KWUl62yqgBPw&cbp=1,171.06655206143841,,0,8.380873257930794

To be fair, I found it through BoingBoing: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/05/14/google-blurs-horse-f.html

Or do this clever four minutes YouTube music video, from The Get Out Clause, an unsigned Manchester band who could not afford a camera crew for their video. Its members performed in front of a load of closed circuit television/CCTV cameras, requested the footages from the camera operators under the Data Protection Act, and stitched the results together for their music video.

Seen on Boing Boing.

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/04/17/rent-a-hal-robot-sui.html

It may not have the same MAX strength gain but:

a) doesn't still require a tether
b) has a much lower profile
c) You can already RENT IT.

Yeah, MP McTeague is really nuts (nuts enough that he also wants to make it against the law to criticize the political positions of MPs online). He is completely in the pockets of these corporations. Boing Boing has a great article on this.

This situation actually makes me a little happy. It means that my country wasn't the only one to have its politicians bought by these corporations. But at the same time, this newfound camaraderie in our mutual pwnage by the music and movie companies is quite disturbing. It reminds me of the laws in one of my favorite adventure games, The Longest Journey: corporate Law. Not laws regulating corporations, laws made by corporations regulating people.

On release of his first game, he was immediately sent a letter from a competitor's lawyer demanding either cease-and-desist, or a licensing agreement for the use of the term "Superheroes*". [...]

* It wasn't really that, but a similarly generic term. I don't want to stir anything up for my friend. Lawyers may be listening!

It could well have been that considering that Marvel and DC have and enforce a trademark on the term "Superheroes". That is why alternate universes use the term "Supers". It's not that the term "Supers" covers both superheroes and supervillans, it is that the term "Supers" covers their asses from legal threats.

Hot pursuit itself requires more than "probable cause": it requires the police personally witnessing the criminal red handed (and seeing that the escaping perpetrator is a clear and present danger). The seizure (and possible search) must then be justified in court, with evidence establishing that probable cause had been met or exceeded.

So even in the application of our protected rights in the real world, probable cause and court approval are still required for searches or seizures to be reasonable.

Health inspectors and fire marshals are accessing businesses that are not purely private property, but places that the public has free entry into, who they are protecting. They don't have the power to enter pure private property, like a home, without probable cause and a warrant. Even so, those inspectors still must follow due process in order to enter even a semi-private building, not arbitrary whim.

I'd like to see some evidence that the US government can indeed enter with impunity an American house during combat the way you describe. Keep in mind that the Constitution allows the suspension of some rights protections, like Habeas Corpus, in times of "insurrection", which is exactly what the battles in the Civil War were - and why Lincoln was justified, even if he agonized over executing it, in suspending Habeas Corpus in some cases during that war.

You should look into the actual long discussions in the Supreme Court about what is required for a search and seizure to be reasonable. It is long-settled law in the US (on good reasons) that no search or seizure is reasonable without probable cause and a warrant. There are indeed exceptions, but they are all justified on the basis of "emergencies", just as you cite yourself.

And, not by accident, just as the Bush regime always cites, in order to make violating the Constitution seem necessary. But that doesn't mean it's Constitutional - just that it works.

Which is one reason why every American (except the traitors who know, but still believe Bush isn't a criminal) should be angry (and in the streets) over last week's revelation that Bush would ignore the Constitution if he conveniently ordered domestic military operations . A revelation by the same EFF exposing this FBI lie about the NSLs (and posted by Slashdot fave Cory Doctorow).

I don't think so.

xkcd came on the scene like what, 2-3 years ago? This story of first class douchebaggery is from 2002.

Great, now who's going to ride the Unicorn Chaser?

Unfortunately, it's not vandalism. (sorry, posted this under the wrong comment earlier...then Slashdot wouldn't let me post a reply to your comment because the comment ID wasn't found...)

Unfortunately, it's not vandalism.

Quick reminder of the situation:

CCTVs are progressing in a lot of place meeting little to no resistence over privacy concern. But once the police have their hands on a video feed, they can:

1) Track *all* registration plates automatically (right now in London, you couldn't do a 100m in your car without the police nowing it).

2) Soon track you based on face recognition, which seems to be very actively researched. Add this to the fact that certain shooping-mall already forbid you to wear anything on your head (so you can't hide your face to the camera), and you are in for a real Orwellian nightmare.

And of course, it's always possible for them to place the camera for one purpose, letting public opinion completly unaware of what is really done with the feed later, when a new technology is discovered or put into use.

To those who will say I'm being paranoid, or that they have nothing to hide: tell that to the activists who were arrested right before crashing a republican convention, as a result of months of police surveillance (the following link is for the guy with the dot-printer bike; can't find the other one right now: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/10/bikes-against-bush-a.html )

An other (now publicly admitted) example is how phones of pacifists were tapped during Viet-Nam.

And of course now there is the Church of Scientology:
- "I've got nothing to hide"
- "Then you've never had the gut to piss the COS"

Just a quick reminder of the facts:

Brain scanner can tell if you are going to buy a product or not:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/11/brain-scans-predict-.html

Brain scaner can tell what you are looking at:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/06/0435226

Brain scanners are so easy to do that now they are in game controllers:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/20/1314254

And better than a tinfoil hat, we will need something able to filter what you let or do not let through, as was done with the rfid firewall:
http://www.rfidguardian.org/index.php/Main_Page

More likely, they will bribe the U.S. Congress directly to cut of federal funding for any college that doesn't bow before the RIAA. They've been trying. And with Democrats (who are owned by Hollywood) and Republicans (who are owned by big business) dominating Congress pretty much exclusively, it's quite likely they will succeed.

I presume you're talking about this case:

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/20/teen-couple-who-phot.html
http://www.connectsafely.org/articles--advice/commentaries---staff/teens-convictions-for--child-porn-upheld.html

maybe you should check this : http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/22/floating-toxic-plast.html out.
(TWICE the size of texas ...)

if we get some chinese comments, perhaps people here can translate them

Someone already did:

For those living in the West who didn't realize that there's little sympathy for Tibet independence among ethnic Chinese in the PRC, this blog post on Global Voices will be a shocker. John Kennedy has translated chatter from Chinese blogs and chatrooms that generally runs along the lines of: those ungrateful minorities, we give them modern conveniences and look how they thank us... where have we heard this before? Reuters has a roundup on the Washington Post that begins: "a look at Chinese blogs reveals a vitriolic outpouring of anger and nationalism directed against Tibetans and the West." (...)

"Davesgonechina" at the Tenement Palm blog has been translating the chatter coming from Chinese netizens on Fanfou and Jiwai - Chinese versions of Twitter. Click here, here, and here, specifically. Dave has done more than translate: he points out that this Tibet situation is a real challenge to all people who believe that the Internet can help foster free speech and bring about better global understanding. Here is his challenge to all of us...

The above info, plus a great deal of other material well worth spending the time to read, was aggregated by boingboing's Xeni Jardin, who since this situation has erupted in Tibet has kept a close eye on the whole thing and provided some very good info like the above mentioned post.

It will be worse than E. Germany, so it must be stopped now. Amateur law enforcement through paranoid informants is a part of any police state but centralized tracking like this was beyond the means of E. Germany and other previous tyrannies. The other thing that makes it worse is that there's no large free state left for escape or rescue. Once the ability to identify and quash dissidents is established, the laws will be changed to make it easier to round them up.

If they have their way, there will be no way to travel in the UK that can't be tracked. Roads and air are already tracked, now they are going for rail. Dissidents will be locked to stone age techniques of walking/biking to meetings where no one can carry a cell phone.

See http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/03/12/goobees-animated-can.html which gets interrupted halfway through, completely ruining a short animation. idiots. what a hateful way to treat content.

"I am hopeful that mankind can avoid ending up like in 1984"

you sure?

A [citation needed] sticker campaign for your viewing pleasure : )

Is right out!

We train monkeys to Write fiction.

In COBOL. Using Hollerith cards because keyboards are for pussies.

Am I done yet? Can I go home now?

It's clear from reading the comments that most of you don't know what you're talking about in regards to 4E. The rules are far more streamlined, although not to the absurdity known as SAGA. The classes are going to be balanced, but roles will be distinct. However, you will still be functional in and out of battle, even if you're bread and butter roles are mitigated for some reason. Also, no more resting for the night because the mage shot his wad at the first encounter (and burned through his spells). Your toons can even heal themselves to a point, so for early levels a cleric isn't even necessary.

A good glimpse into the 4E world can be found below for what I witnessed and more during the beta:

Part 1
http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/node/35776

Part 2
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35799

Screenshots of the online system
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/02/25/exclusive-gallery-du.html

>Doing mysterious DRM checks while copying files at a rate that would embarrass a TRS-80 Model 1

What are you talking about? There are no system "DRM checks". There is an API that an application may request protection for the content it is actively playing, which btw has shown up on OSX recently on the apple TV.

For more on that just check today's Boing Boing:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/26/39yearold-man-fails.html

Just FWIW, Gillette have already manufactured 5 blade razors.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/14/gillettes-5blade-raz.html

Other people have told our Homeland Defenders lots of things but they don't seem to listen. Here is a good write up about the impracticality of binary liquids. Here is a story about stealing food from babies at the airport. Of course, arrest without charges, torture, baby killing, censorship and deploying foreign mercenaries against civilians is all bad, OK? It's not about defense it's about control and you, citizen, are the enemy.