Slashdot Mirror

Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID#Viruses is a nice little bit, and a link to the original article. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060315-6386 .html

ArsTechnica links to http://www10.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/technology/15t ag.html?_r=5&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&ore f=slogin&oref=slogin and to the real original webpage http://www.rfidvirus.org/index.html

Basically, it uses buffer over flows to insert nasty code into a computer. The RFID chips contain the code and when read exploit problems in the reader. You can use commercially available tools to write your own RFID chips. Have fun.

I argued that he was an awesome role model, because sometimes people need to see a mistake end badly for someone else before they'll do what's necessary to protect themselves from making the same mistake.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/business/media/0 1mag.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Make sure the guys "measure" up, if you know what I mean. Seriously, those NASA chicks can be so demanding once you get them.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/an-ast ronauts-alleged-crimes-of-passion/

Here's the NYT article

FRAUD ALERT

The Financial Post article is typical scientific fraud, in my opinion. They apparently want you to read their publication so that you will see the ads, and they don't care how they get you to do it. They don't hire writers who understand the issues apparently, and they don't give their writers enough time to do research.

Look at these paragraphs from a June 20, 2006 article from the Oregonian newspaper, Mercury rules give kiln a pass, which is now available only to paid subscribers.

"As Oregon, with federal prodding, clamps down on mercury emitted by a Portland General Electric coal-fired power plant in Boardman, it leaves unregulated an Eastern Oregon factory that is a far larger source of the toxic compound.

"The state's biggest industrial source of airborne mercury is a cement kiln run by Kansas-based Ash Grove Cement Co. in the town of Durkee. Unaffected by federal laws aimed at coal-fired power plants, it released 632 pounds of mercury into the air in 2004, the last year when records are available, compared with 151 pounds emitted by PGE's facility."

Yes, compact fluorescent bulbs should be given to some agency to recycle them. But broken compact fluorescents are a small contribution to the total amount of mercury in the atmosphere, which is rapidly increasing by thousands of tons each year since China is increasing the number of coal-fired plants.

> Wrong. Bad press in the YRO section of slashdot? Sure. You fail to see the scope of the problem. How about the bad press in CNN? http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/30/technology/browser 0130/index.htm The NY Times? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/magazine/23googl e.html?ex=1303444800&en=972002761056363f&ei=5090 or the BBC? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4645596.stm No, the scope of this isn't just here on Slashdot. China is running a two-faced capitalist regime' (worldly capitalistic, internally Communist). If Google decides its presence in China isn't profitable they will pull out. (The juice has to be worth the squeeze, and if the Chinese gov't has its way, it won't)

Rating the Jack Valenti Obits
from Gawker

The nation has now had a weekend to mourn the passing of Jack Valenti, man who made possible the groundbreaking cultural artifact known as the special unrated DVD version of Turistas . Yet, beyond such obvious accomplishments, there's still so much more to know about the MPAA chief/L.B.J. confidante/ Napster destroyer. Happily, on a dreary Sunday evening like this, there's no better family activity than reading the week's obituaries! But how do we know which ones will be appropriate for the kids? Alphanumeric codes, obviously! The following obits have been submitted for review to the Gawker Weekend Rating Board; out of respect, we are following the brilliant, equivocally definite guidelines set forth on the M.P.A.A. website.

—

New York Times:
Jack Valenti, 85, Confidant of a President and Stars, Dies

• Key Concerns:

  Mr. Valenti, a bantam 5-foot-7 who forever looked up to the towering Johnson, picked fights with critical Johnson biographers like Robert Caro and Robert Dallek.

  So he banned screeners altogether. A storm of protest ensued -- loudest of all from the major studios' own specialty divisions, which rely heavily on awards attention to publicize their films -- and the policy was overturned by a federal judge, who said it ran afoul of antitrust laws.

  A voracious reader, he devoured everything by Macaulay, Churchill and Gibbon, and his speaking and writing style would mix his native twang with the rhetorical flourishes of his heroes in a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers that one critic called "a kind of Texas baroque."

  Mr. Valenti spent more time socially with the president than any other aide, often bringing along his wife and their toddler daughter, Courtenay Lynda, a Johnson favorite.

• Comments:
  The level of violence in this obituary is not what concerns us so much as its contextual basis. "Picking fights" is a form of social discourse that we feel many, though not all, parents may object to. It is obvious, however, that "a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers" makes impossible a G-rating, which of course allows for only "some snippets of language [to] go beyond polite conversation." The dilemma here is whether the Times deserves a PG or a PG-13. Ultimately, despite the absence of drug use or graphic sexing, the highly untraditional domestic structure of Man, Wife, President of the United States, and Toddler Who is Said President's "Favorite" almost certainly eclipses the baseline community standards of all extant communities.

• Final Rating: PG-13 Parents Strongly Cautioned
  for pugnacity, use of non-Standard American English Dialect and reminders of the Gulf of Tonkin involving young children.

—

Los Angeles Times:
Jack Valenti, 85; former Hollywood lobbyist pioneered film ratings system

• Key Concerns:

  In public, his Texas-accented eloquence was reminisce

The CNet version looks like it was picked up by a runaway screen scraper, which sucked up two following articles. Then some paragraphs were duplicated. Lame.

Third option: it's easier to retain a lying incompetent to handle your anti-male discrimination than it is to face the wrath of angry fugly bull dyke feminazis on the rag.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/movies/27valenti .html?hp/

JM

Scott pursued a Masters Degree in International Relations. For his doctoral dissertation, he focused on the history of American cattle ranching. Most of his research was done from the back of a pick-up, as he traveled through every state west of the Mississippi, listening to the stories of farmers, ranchers and small-town workers.

The NYT is reporting that Cheney's Spokeswoman says he "is focused on the serious issues facing our nation." in repsonse to the news. Presumably he is just too busy to be impeached. Nixon should have used that one instead of protesting his innocence. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/us/24brfs-IMPEAC HMENTE_BRF.html

It's an interesting play because the Dems do have enough votes to impeach Cheney -- but the Senate would never find him guilty by a 2/3rd majority.

Read this yesterday in the New York Times. A small company from New Zealand has developed a method to convert CO to Ethanol with modified bacteria.

Carbon Gas Is Explored as a Source of Ethanol

Bye egghat.

Well then, if "multiple" officials have done this, it should be easy for you to find an example...

Unfortunately the Crooks and Liars 'torture' archive only reaches as far back as their last server move, mid 2006, so I can't point to the video clips of the many interviews I watched personally, although I particularly remember the individual ones with Rice, Rumsfeld, Chertoff and Gonzales waeving and dodging desperately about "making sure that the interrogators have all the tools" etc.

It is quite amazing that the net has such short memory, quite an eye opener for me.

I was able to find some printed material, such as this infamous Bybee memo to the White House.

One of the clips now gone from C&L was the CSPAN video of this performance by Infhoe.

Then there is Trent Lott with this.

I could look for more (it seems to be a royal pain in the butt to find proper references to any bloviating official which are older then 2 weeks) but these should give a reasonable approximation of "multiple", although they are Republican elected officials rather then White House ones.

The fact that you think that the criminal abuse that happened at Abu Ghraib (which was identified through internal mechanisms and swiftly prosecuted resulting in several convictions) is even closely related to this tells me that you have already made your mind up on the issue regardless of the facts

You gotta be kidding. "Identified through internal mechanisms"?! Rumsfeld, Miller and Sanchez planned and supervised the whole damn disguisting thing! "Swiftly prosecuted"?! Who?! Oh you mean some hapless idiots who had the bad luck of filming themselves doing the deeds?! What about all the other ones?! The CIA, the "private security contractors" etc and so on. You are surely jesting.

Does this ever end, are we doing anything right in the USA these days? So some questions:

1) Does this make chocolate more unhealthy?

2) Where in the USA can you buy the cheapest highest quality chocolate?

On a similiar note, you will find this article interesting about the US crops:
You Are What You Grow: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22wwlnl ede.t.html

Somehow, DOUBLECLICK is the biggest concern? Not a chance. This is media hype perpetuated by the competition crying foul. I really wish people would concern themselves with actual privacy issues. It's just advertising data, people.

Ti you it make seem like just advertising data, but it qualifies as stalking in Texas.

It's interesting that Homeland Security looked to someone from doubleclick to protect personal privacy.

It's kinda funny how marketing-speak changed the name "web bugs" to the almost religiously enlightened sounding "web beacons" that help track what you've read, and through your IP, where. They say you can opt out. That sets a cookie!
Web bugs can be in email, web pages, even some documents.

The combination of web bugs and other techniques can still mine considerable data even with cookies off or frequently deleted.

I generally have liked Google, but it seems this is not the only instance of them connecting with slime.

When the New York Times talks about a revival of interest in PC gaming, it is talking about Windows and Vista. Not the Mac. Not Linux.

PC Games, Once Down, Show Signs of Rebound

DX 10. Games for Windows marketing. Games for Windows--Live. The mid-line DX 10 card will be out this spring.

By fall, the designed-for-Vista PC will be everywhere.

It may look very different from the generic XP box. HP TouchSmart PC It may be designed to compliment products like HP MediaSmart Server But it will be dominate the consumer market - and it will gain strength in other markets. Apple has conceded as much. You do not shift focus to the murderously competitive cell phone market if you truly believe that the Mac and OSX has an opportunity to gain significant ground in the PC market.

The following article has the complete picture...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22wwlnl ede.t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Yes, it is true. America is a police state. Freedom and equal protection are just ideas here. We have them on paper, but no one really believes in it.

Here in Georgia we have a guy sitting in prison because when he was 17 he received consensual oral sex from a 15 year old classmate.

His sentence? Ten years. No parole.

It was the minimum sentence allowed for "aggravated child molestation." Aggravated, because oral sex is "sodomy."

Flood Water Source
The sources of the flood water are given in Genesis 7:11 as "the fountains of the great deep" and the "windows of heaven." Probably subterranian water or sub-oceanic sources.
Flood Water Now
Floodwater now would be in glaciers and underground, which is partly why everyone is so worried about them melting. If they melted, sea level would probably rise about 70 meters. How might that effect us? Most of the USA is under 500m. Obviously coastal areas would be screwed, and with that much water in the water cycle, there would probablybe flooding everywhere.

Smaller Earth
The water would have been a bigger problem for a smaller earth. "Fixed-Earth theories assume that the Earth has always been as it overtly appears today, and, due to lack of **considering** contrary evidence, is the currently-accepted paradigm among most scientists and the general public. But examining the accumulated evidence supporting Expanding- Earth theories now makes Fixed-Earth totally untenable, and it is time for a paradigm shift to recognize Expanding-Earth as the accepted norm." - http://www.aoi.com.au/bcw/FixedorExpandingEarth.ht m (see references at end of page; also see videos on google or youtube for illustrations of how the geometry fits perfectly; not only on our planet, but others and moons as well.)

Petrification
Petrification does not take a couple dozen thousand years, it takes only a couple dozen years... see pretrified man-made boots, etc. in creation museum.

DNA, Collagen, etc
As for the "intact DNA", I was reffering to the fact that the collegen proteins are chains of amino acids, similar to DNA in a sense that the public would understand... as a sort of "signature" of the animal. Also that's not all that was there: "Dr. Schweitzer, a biologist affiliated also with Montana State, cut into the thick bone and recovered the soft tissues, including blood vessels and possibly cells that, she said at the time, "retain some of their original flexibility, elasticity and resilience." This had never been found in a dinosaur before and prompted the investigations into the nature of the organic matter."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/science/12cnd-di no.html? ex=1177387200&en=765b089476cf3dfb&ei=5070 I also find the numbers funny: "In a news release from Harvard, Dr. Cantley said, "Basically, this is the breakthrough that says it's possible to get sequences beyond one million years," which had been thought of as the absolute time barrier for the preservation of organic matter in animal remains."

One million years is a long time. If something is thought to have degraded to nothing with absolutely certainty after 1 million years, you'd be pretty sure it's long gone after 2 million. But now they find intact protiens at 68 million years! That's an incredibly huge error. Even so, it's still based on the "assumption" that this dinosaur was 68 million years old to begin with. How do they date it? Rock layers? I sure hope not...

Geologic Layers
We "assume" that these layers were layed down over millions of years. They weren't. They are twisted; a flood did it. Here is evidence against the millions of years "assumption", which shows how such layers were witnessed forming in just a few hours. http://www.creationism.org/articles/nelson1.htm
I'm sure I could dig up terabytes more on this at my university (I'm a grad student at Penn State).

The point is that what we see on this planet could just as easily have been formed rapidly. There is no reason why what we see had to have formed over millions of years. That's nothing more than an assumption. Millions of years are no

1. SEC
2. DOJ
3. OMB

"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."

For the twit who mod this as Flamebait, here's the source for my comment. ;)

One of the items that will be covered is capuchin monkeys' use of washers as money, buying sweets, budgeting for favored treats over lesser treats. He mentioned that one of the experiments had similar outcomes as a study of day traders. And lastly, he watched capuchin prostitution!

The NY Times article on that study, from 2005, can be found here.

rimjob in motion tries to explain their gayass mofo:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/technology/20bla ckberry.html?ref=business/

It uses sucralose, which though its sounds an awful lot like sucrose is a completely different compound. It puts sucrose into the process and also evaporates sucrose there is no sugar in the start of the process nor the end. The article below details the case working its way through the courts about whether J&J can continue to market the "Made from sugar..." line. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/business/media/0 6sweet.html?ex=1177041600&en=02f27306583dd6bc&ei=5 070

1) No, it has the value of the material costs put into it.
2) Yes, they're technically loans, but the lenders aren't forced to produce the hard cash and none of the banks force them to pony it up.
3) Taxes are a hold-over from when money was a commodity instead of faith.
4) The more money you make, the faster you need to spend it before it looses value.
5) Brazil had a few new pesos that had conversion rates like that.
Zimbabwe had 1100% inflation last year. Imagine Wendy's Dollar menu turning into the $12 menu in the span of a year. This was caused simply because the government is printing ever more and bigger denominations of their fiat currency.

Buy real silver and real gold coins that you can hold. Our economy and currency are going to go belly up within the next few years. Especially if foreign governments stop taking our money into their bank hoards; and BTW, China just started "Diversifing" their trillions of US$ reserves.

Another side note, a Pre 1965 quarter has about $2.50 in silver content today. You can nearly buy a gallon of gasoline with one of those quarters.

IMarv

Also, in general, I read an article that congress is really pressuring the IRS to start trying to close the 'tax gap'. Basically, I think they're gonna get meaner and go after more people in order to close the gap between what they think they should be bringing in.....and what they actually do bring in.

This is in fact true. The IRS is more carefully examining middle-class tax returns.

Beekeepers earn much more renting their bees out to pollinate crops than in producing honey, and researchers are concerned that trucking colonies around country to pollinate crops could add to bees' stress and help spread viruses and mites of crops that rely on pollination. (see http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F1 0B1FF8355A0C748EDDAB0894DF404482)

According to Pentagon investigations after the Abu Ghraib scandal, officials cited the fact that interrogation tactics as well as personnel were moved to Abu Ghraib after their success in "breaking" detainees at Guantanamo. More focus was paid to Guantanamo since then, but the military has stonewalled everyone, even the Red Cross.

May I suggest:
The Road to Guantanamo
Tipton Three Complained of Beatings
Washington Post: FBI Agents Allege Abuse of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay and FBI Files Detail Guantanamo torture tactics
Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo

"Freedom is messy." &mdashDonald Rumsfeld

Violent mayhem is a sign of our nation's greatness. May law and order never rob us of our messy freedoms.

Microsoft WAS convicted

Microsoft was not "convicted" of anything. Please point me to a legal document that implies they were "convicted", I'd love to see it. Besides, the GP's point is that there are no "rights revoked" as implied by Twitter The Head Zealot for whatever reason, a point that you didn't even address.

• "In a stunning setback for Bill Gates' software empire, the judge in the Microsoft antitrust trial ruled yesterday that the software giant is a monopoly that wielded its power to stifle competition."
• "Judge rules software giant's business practices violated antitrust laws "
• " Judge finds that Microsoft Corp. violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, 'maintained its monopoly power by anticompetitive means'"

Unfortunately, you're wrong. People really are lemmings.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15wwlni dealab.t.html?ex=1334203200&en=79be2f770fc76c6d&ei =5124

http://www.mcsm.org/kennesaw.html/
Kennesaw, Georgia I think is the oldest continuous one. I'm searching for the one I just read about passing a week or three back...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/opinion/16reynol ds.html?ex=1326603600&en=3b3fcfadc7e7f096&ei=5088& partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Greenleaf, Idaho (may require registration or BugMeNot)

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_4 80913.html
proposed in Cherry Tree, PA

More than 100 judicial rulings have relied on Wikipedia, beginning in 2004, including 13 from circuit courts of appeal, one step below the Supreme Court.

Well, the legal team at Microsoft would like you to think so, based on their recent attack on the deal: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-goo gle-antitrust.html?_r=1&oref=slogin With apologies for the shitty link format

Weeks? How about every day? Close Firefox, BAM!, all data gone.

That said, my position allows me to see the files and such on peoples machines (remotely) and let me tell you, I've seen cookies on machines that are years old. Up to three years in some cases.

Then again, companies are going apeshit over people deleting cookies because they can't accurately track you and are making a concerted effort to convince people to not delete cookies.

Sorry bubs, I tell everyone I deal with, "Delete your cookies when you're done surfing about. It helps keep the spyware at bay." Amazing how gullible people can be.

-FL

Google News offered me this link, a way to see the story without logging in.

-FL

I agree that genres aren't significant. However, literary critics tend to dismiss works of science fiction and fantasy. The New York Times Review of Books archives contains relatively few positive reviews of science fiction or fantasy novels. Tolkien's novels were dismissed by the critics of his day because the novels did not fit the literary fashion of the time. I should have revised my statement to read "Typically science fiction is not considered by critics to be great literature." The people I'm referring to are the thought leaders in the literary world. Check the NYTimes "Sunday Book Review"'s "100 Notable Books of the Year" posted in December. Out of fifty works of fiction listed, I count two that might be considered science fiction or fantasy. One is a Stephen King novel.

Legislating to NOT fund a war that 60% of Americans want us out of is not "micromanaging" a war. Especially a war that this administration has been unable to successfully manage at all in the past four years. This is what this Congress was elected in 2006 to do. It is actually the exact same thing that many past Congresses have done. (For a list of them, visit THIS site.http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/0 1/military_deployments.html)

In fact, this administration has been so incompetent in carrying out this war that they are now looking for someone to take it over. I'm not kidding: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/world/middleeast /12policy.html?_r=1&ref=washington&oref=slogin Too bad they're having trouble finding someone dumb enough to take the job.

You're obviously suffering from a severe case of rectal-cranial inversion. If you'd engage your brain and shut your mouth, you might actually discover that your "election igging" is really just a figment of your brainwashed socialist imagination. Even our favorite communists at the NYT can't muster the evidence (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fr aud.html?ei=5065&en=f895e4b1cd467b9d&ex=1176955200 &partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print/).

But hey, while we're all in a manufactured-scandal mood and into issuing subpoenas, let's subpoena John Murtha's email, Nancy Pelosi's email and William "90K-in-the-freezer" Jefferson's emails -- they might explain how the $90,000 in bribe money accidentally wound up in his freezer.

And I'm still trying to figure out how Bill Clinton firing 93 US attorneys is justified while Gonzalez (allegedly at the direction of Bush) firing 8 is somehow a "scandal." Pardon me, but your hypocrisy is showing.

The only "problem" you apparently have with Republicans is that they don't like to let Democrats get away with violating the law in order to further a communist agenda.

If you'd take off the tinfoil hat, you brain might breathe better.

Just incase mods were wondering, no, it's not a Slashdot troll / meme. Off-topic perhaps though.

"Are you telling me a transportation system as complicated as a magnetically levitated train under development for 24 years can be replicated in 22 months because one guy cleverer than the next"

I personally think it is stupid and a waste of resources to reinvent a good wheel (badly or in a twisted manner to avoid "patent infringement") when you can copy it. After that you can spend the resources (you saved from not reinventing stuff) on improving it if necessary.

It is ridiculous to restrict 6 billion people from copying an idea/thought/speech just because one person lays claim to it. If you plan really long term, this system won't scale _well_ to trillions or more people - nobody would be able to think of something without infringing. In the near future brains could be seamlessly augmented with computers - so accurate playback AND sharing of what you "remember" would be technically possible if not legally possible (DMCA + DRM = crippled).

This concept of "intellectual property" introduces artificial scarcities. At various stages of a country's development it is better for it to ignore such "constructs" if possible - such as USA in the 1800s (see Charles Dickens ;) ), and same for Switzerland, Netherlands etc in those days.

see: "Patents; An economist strolls through history and turns patent theory upside down". http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0 6E2D9103DF93AA1575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewan ted=print

Quote:
''Exhibition data are particularly useful for studying the effects of patent laws on innovation because they measure economically useful innovation in a way that is independent of changes in patent laws,'' Professor Moser said. ''Countries without patent laws were really doing quite well.''

So what is the lesson for Brazil, China, India and other countries that are being pressed by industrialized nations to create strong patent systems?

''We try to force patent laws on developing countries and say, This is best for you,'' she said. ''Then we are surprised when they say they don't want patent laws. But they have a point. Such laws could actually hinder innovation in those countries.''

That would be a perfectly logical response and would make sense. However, I doubt YouTube could escape the wrath of overeager politicians even then. Take for example the plight of Yahoo in regards to France.
To summarize, France has a law against display or auctioning of Nazi memorabilia. Yahoo has an auction site with several listings for Nazi memorabilia, however they do not allow these items to be displayed in the Yahoo France portal fr.auctions.yahoo.com as an attempt to be complaint with French law. Unfortunately, this is not enough for French authorities. They sued to have the items removed from Yahoo's main site auctions.yahoo.com which was hosted in the US and was not in any way, shape or form targeting French users, and won.
This means that even if a site tries to appease the local laws of a country by setting up a county specific site that complies with the local laws, they can still be charged for content on another site. Rather sad to be sure.