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Nobody? I have the highest respect for our Australian firefighters, but...

Not to mention that the big doors on those ships open on the stern. They'd have to go backwards and although that would be kind of entertaining, it's probably not very practical.

16 years isn't such a long time, but just to be sure, put a netbook inside the capsule. Make sure it can run on external power alone, and remove the battery.

Agreed. If you intend to archive the actual digital objects (and not transcribe them to some other medium like paper), you need to include the hardware/software to decode them. A netbook is a cheap way to do this.

For some additional reading on the digital dark age problem:
* http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/the-digital-dark-age/2005/09/22/1126982184206.html
* http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/FileFormatsreport.pdf

Surely you could have linked to a picture of Andi (the Rhesus monkey genetically modified to glow under a microscope in 2001) or these marmosets

• "How the net saved live music"
• "British music industry is in rude health"
• "UK music economist says music industry revenue up 4-7"

These reports all say the same thing: concert ticket sales growth more than makes up for the decline in recorded music sales.

ah, times when i wish /. had an Edit Comment option. or something like google's goggles.

I don't know about the UK but here in the US we acknowledge that actions committed in other countries fall under the laws of that country.

Oh, really?

So the US would never extradite a British citizen from their legal residence in Australia for criminal acts that weren't performed on American soil?

And I'm guessing you believe the US would never declare that it could kidnap foreign citizens if they were unable to extradite them because the country in which they resided didn't view their actions as extraditable offences?

Unfortunately, those of us who live outside the US can't afford to be so delusional.

I was originally going to mod you +1 Funny, but then I realised; there are people in the world (namely the RIAA) who genuinely, honestly believe that. It's kinda like modding a holocaust joke +1 Funny, then you realise it's posted by a neo-nazi...

From http://www.smh.com.au/national/movie-pirates-funding-terrorists-20090627-d0gm.html?page=-1

"It has been recognised by governments ⦠that there is a link between movie piracy and terrorist funding."

From http://news.cnet.com/Terrorist-link-to-copyright-piracy-alleged/2100-1028_3-5722835.html

"Some associates of terrorist groups may be involved in IPR crime," Stedman said. "During the course of our investigations, we have encountered suspects who have shown great affinity for Hezbollah and its leadership."

There was a big Slashdot thread about it a while back... http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/08/140216

I genuinely believe there are some people in this world who believe that downloading a torrent of a movie that's been out for a year or more is akin to terrorism and should be punished accordingly. Given that the people who persue this woman (who, by the way, is obviously guilty) believe that she should spend the rest of her life as a debt-slave confims this.

This assumes, of course, that their research on tuna is less weird and unproductive(except of tasty food substances) than their "research" on whales.

Why the hell is your government giving a company money with internal security like this?

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/04/06/1238869885378.html
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/defence-contractor-linked-to-neonazi-group-20090406-9ubu.html

The broader problem with this model of thought is that it is very easy to go down a slipery slope to just blocking content because it's embarassing. A great example of this would be looking at the Wikipedia page for Jimmy Wales himself - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_wales#Controversies. The only controversy listed is regarding whether he was the co-founder or sole founder of wikipedia. This conveniently ignores the 2008 revalation that he had expensed tremendous amounts from the wikimedia project for things like bottles of wine and that he had improperly used his influence to improve his ex girlfriends wikipedia entry - http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/wikipedia-head-accused-of-expenses-rort/2008/03/05/1204402516874.html.

That being said, I don't think the first case regarding blocking information about a kidnapping is an example of abuse of power, rather an example of responsible journalists acticng to delay, not block, the release of information in order to protect a life. If anything, the only disturbing part of this is that newspapers etc. decided to go through Wales rather then one of the sysops, beaurocrats or anyone else in the chain of command, suggesting that perhaps Wales is overly entrenched in the project. That being said, the Wikimedia foundation is set up as a fairly democratic group, so the checks seem in place for the group to actually succeed at making decisions as a semi-representative democracy. If you have serious problems with this decision, you have several options: Run for a wikimedia board position, protest by not using wikipedia (or more to the point, not donating to the wikimedia foundation), set up your own site and put this news out into the public domain if you really think it needs to be there etc. Personally, I chose the second option - not because of this issue but because I think that Wales has too much influence and my charitable contributions could be better used elsewhere. Once Wales leaves (in 2010, I think) I might consider giving again. So I agree with the OP, sometimes there are very good reasons to lie; even or especially by ommision, and this was probably one of those times. What must be checked is who or what group has the power to make those decisions, and in this case, I think the power rests too heavily with Jimmy Wales.

Strange things can really happen with computers, as stray neutrino can strike a transistor and change it's state and either cause a system to crash or the wrong prescription to be issued.

Why blame computers (and why go the lengths to blame stray neutrons) when humans themselves can screw up far more often and far better?

"Weird, I'm using my reliance on actual figures to support my conclusion that it isn't"

No you are relying on Bob Carter who says: "the role of peer review in scientific literature was overstressed, and whether or not a scientist had been funded by the fossil fuel industry was irrelevant to the validity of research"

"Weird" how pseudo-skeptics like Carter opt for lobbying instead of publishing. Sad how many people are still desperately clinging to their politically inspired FUD.

Google and Apple also make use of Ireland to avoid paying taxes.

It'll make a strong statement to the school and it'll take care of the problem.

And if they still can't get her to daddy, then maybe they can get her a new one...

CIA and Vatican edit Wikipedia entries - and the CIA certainly is a mass Christian movement... ;-)

Here is the study here.....

People aren't even compensated for time spent in a jail cell!

They typically are when it is longer periods due to a wrongful conviction.
A man in San Diego, CA awarded $100/day for the time he spent in a jailcell
A man in boston served 18 years, eligible for up to $500,000
An Australian man seeks 7.5 Million in damages from 12 years served, West AU offering 3.25

Not that I dont agree the lost time thing will ever work, just wanted to point out that people are infact compensated for jailtime they didnt deserve

In regards to U2's album. Some of us may have bought the tracks legitimately, as the album was sold online two weeks before the album's official release date, by their very own label/distributor in Australia. http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/look-who-leaked-u2s-new-album/2009/02/20/1234633039937.html

Pfft..

If a dumb plastic bottle can make it across the Atlantic, this will too.

Coming up next: the Pope's guide to good sex

Almost.

So during a winter break from the Mt. Lebanon Senior High School near Pittsburgh, Skrenta hacked away on his Apple II computer - the dominant personal computer then - and figured out how to get the code to launch those messages onto disks automatically.

See: First virus hatched as a practical joke

Sounds like they don't really want you to panic to me. Besides, this whole level 5 thing is about whether this is a pandemic, not whether it's super deadly. A pandemic just means it's "an epidemic of infectious disease that spreads through populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide."

The Tom Baker episodes, from the 70's. You know, before Daleks could fly? You could elude them by finding a staircase.

BTW; The Swine Flu thing is a hoax. Only seven died.

"A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.

Vivienne Allan, from WHO's patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths - all in Mexico - and 79 confirmed cases of the disease."
http://www.smh.com.au/world/only-7-swine-flu-deaths-not-152-says-who-20090429-aml1.html

"The reason is that the Internet has a LOT of doomsdayers, if you haven't noticed."

You could swap the title "Swine Flu" for "Bird Flu" and the comments are *exactly* the same. It's a little disturbing, either people have very short memories or they don't learn a goddamned thing from history. I mean even the same "solution" is being offered - Tamiflu. Seriously WTF http://www.smh.com.au/world/science/tamiflu-linked-to-abnormal-behaviour-20090420-ac3y.html If I was more cynical I'd think the makers of Tamiflu might just have the best marketing department in the world.

Oh but *this time* it's different so says the self entitled 'elite'. It's got x, y and z, SARS was *childs play* compared to what this is going to be! Better to overreact than not act at all! (Try posting that in an article about anything else).

I'll make a prediction, I predict that there will be a pompous overuse of the word "vector" in the comments here.

In general there's a high incidence of people on these boards whose lives are so boring that deep down they long for some sort of drama. That and they are just as prone to fits of hysteria as the "sheeple" that so many around here deride so much.

And when none of it comes to pass, just like it didn't with Sars, just like it didn't when Bush was meant to call Marshall law and cancel the election a dozen times, there will be silence.

Until the next Big Thing(TM)

You are thinking of napalm, the grandparent is talking about white phosphorous, "shake and bake." Napalm doesn't really burn to the bone the way white phosphorus does, it's more like gooey gasoline.

White phosphorus is the stuff that burns down to the bone. The US military used white phosphorus in Fallujah, according to U.S. military spokespeople. See this article for reference, US used white phosphorus in Iraq

Now, the U. S. also used gooey jet fuel in Iraq, but technically it wasn't napalm. Here's another article for a reference, Napalm by another name: Pentagon denial goes up in flames.

Here's the patent. And it's pretty damn comprehensive. The patent was filed for in 1993, and granted in 1996.

As in the report here (2000), CSIRO attempted to license the tech and recieve royalties but then in 2005, big tech companies didn't want to play ball anymore.

I say, good work CSIRO - screw these guys for every penny and keep on conducting your groundbreaking research.

When I saw this picture I had an overwhelming urge to take the golf club and bludgeon Conroy about the head with it. Am I alone?

The Telecommunications Minister, Stephen Conroy, pointed to European examples of successful restrictions to quell fears the move could slow connection speeds.

"Labor makes no apologies to those who argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road," Mr Conroy said yesterday. "If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree."

-- Labor warned on porn filters, Sydney Morning Herald report, 2 January 2008.

That at least sort of looks like he's for it.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/film-pirates-put-iinet-in-the-dock/2008/11/20/1226770617457.html
From memory, the trial was due to be held around October 5th.

What exactly is your point?

Is your point that publishers should work to minimize infringing copies of their works while encouraging purchase of legal copies? Well, I'm with you there!

Or is your point that publishers need DRM to accomplish that? Why would you believe that?

There is copyright infringement of music. And major music labels swore on their bibles, torahs, korans, and stock options that they needed strong DRM, or else there would be rampant copyright infringement and no new music would ever be created.

Today the market has largely rejected DRM on music. It's easier than ever to make and distribute infringing copies of songs. There is absolutely nothing preventing infringing copies from being made. Yet the world hasn't ended. Music is still being made.

A combination of ways to discourage infringement and encourage purchasing legal copies were found: Lower prices. Watermarking of songs. Making the legal market more convenient than the illegal market. Ensuring that the legal versions were just as good as the illegal versions. Encouraging people to support the artists they like by paying for the songs. But DRM went out the window.

So if by "finding an acceptable solution" you mean "lowering prices, watermarking games, making the legal market more convenient than the illegal market, ensuring the legal versions are just as good as the illegal versions, and encouraging people to support developers whose games they like by paying for games," great! But if you mean "We just need to find the magical level of DRM," not necessarily.

The deal breaker for me is that a Steam game, like any DRMed game, is not as good as the illegal version. What if Steam goes out of business? Or moves to Steam2 and decides they don't want to support Steam1 anymore? I lose access to all of the games I "own." Surely I can trust a large corporation like Valve, right? Ha! Large companies who screwed their customers in exactly this way include Yahoo, Google (although you got a refund), Major League Baseball, Microsoft (temporary reprieve for a few years), Wal-Mart, and Sony. Given that lineup, why should I trust an itty-bitty little company like Steam/Valve?

(To be fair, I can actually see a DRM system I would whole heartedly support: a binding public commitment to strip the DRM from the game after a short period of time. Maybe 6 to 12 months. This would hamper illegal copies during the highest profit part of the games lifespan. The binding public commitment means that someone like me would buy sooner than later.)

That might appear to be the case because initially it wasn't:

Senator Conroy and ACMA initially tried to discredit Wikileaks by saying the leaked blacklist was about double the size of ACMA's list. However, they admitted that both lists shared "some common URLs".

Wikileaks said the disparity was due to the fact that the leaked list was from August last year and contained a number of older URLs that had since been removed by ACMA.

It quickly followed up by leaking a second version of the blacklist, dated March 18 this year, that is approximately the same size as the ACMA list and contains many of the same seemingly innocuous websites.

And the clever part about how they got the list?

The list was obtained by Wikileaks from internet filtering software that parents can opt to install on their computers. ACMA provides its list of prohibited sites to these software developers for inclusion in their products.

For those who follow such things, Senator Conroy is going to be on the panel for next Thursday night's Q&A on the ABC. I think it's high time the Senator took some questions on the subject in front of a live studio audience and on national TV, since he's spent the better part of 15 months ignoring everyone and accusing people of equating free speech with child pornography.

For those who are interested, the Sydney Morning herald reports that the full internet filter list has been leaked. It's pretty interesting - there's a lot of not-actually-illegal content on it (including a dentist's site?).

It's interesting to note that this is the minimum that will be blocked in Australia; the gov may (and will) add to this. This sounds like much more of a test of the censors than what TFA writes about...

• Article on Wikileaks

The movie "The international" shows where some of the East Germans ended up too.
Not all of them are going door to door with junk mail or working in the private sector.
Also never forget the CIA sat on a list of East German spies.
"CIA hands over list of Stasi agents"
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/10/1057783288808.html
Think of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Paperclip but with spies to watch over you.

Really, it's just ignorance and a group of politicians on both sides who run a small country with limited resources and didn't appreciate until now that anyone but the entertainment industry seriously cared about an issue that the media doesn't traditionally make a lot of noise about because copyright is usually very boring. They've been caught by surprise, which is why there's suddenly so much open controversy in the media.

The New Zealand government has its problems as any government does, but it's naive to just assume that it's corrupt because it's a government and because the overtones on Slashdot tend to be that governments are corrupt. NZ politicians aren't perfect or inherently uncorrupt, and nor are public servents, but the country's much smaller, the election cycle is faster, there's only a single tier of representation, and the people in the government are much more directly accountable to the people who they govern. Mistakes get made but there are still checks and balances in place, of which the Official Information Act has had a huge impact, and for 3 years running Transparency International has rated NZ first equal in its corruption perceptions index. It's been in the top 3 for 9 of the 10 years that the index has been published (in 1998 NZ was ranked 4th).

Section 92A is very badly worded and badly thought out, and you could quite easily claim that Labour made some seriously bad mistakes in drafting it as they have with several other recent things, but I think it's a real stretch to claim that this is blatantly corrupt.

Looks like the powers that be have weighed in on this: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/09/1236447097082.html

I don't know anything about your background or travels, but I find the picture that you paint of russia contrasts strongly with that of what I've seen.

Bear in mind that Moscow has been the world's most expensive city to live in for multiple consecutive years now [ 1 2 ]

What you seem to be regurgitating in your post is rhetoric, which you've taken it upon yourself to extrapolate wildly.

There are multiple vectors for disassembling your post, but the most obvious ones are:

So what have we got? Millions and millions of PCs, which run OS that cannot be patched or updated. So, guess what, these millions PCs neither patched, not updated.

The last check of google reports over 194,000 hits for WGA cracks [3].

I'd love to see the data behind your bold claim, in which you plead ignorance, but continue to fabricate 'statistics'.

A lot of computers in Russia run cracked version of Windows. I do not know the exact figure, but I would think 99%.

On a closing note, I'm amazed noone else has yet flamed you for posting:

When I try to use an alternative OS, like Linux, a lot of scanners, USB devices, video-cards, etc. just do not work, as drivers either non-existent or bad, made by rear-engineering. Because the hardware vendors provide drivers only for 1 and only OS.

Maybe you should do some research in general, and pay a visit to distrowatch...

The DHS did not exist under Clinton. Nice try, cluebie.

Lots, gigs, of data was siphoned off US servers in the last few years. Hypothesised by some as Chinese attacks, although a lot of compromised servers exist in China and could have been used to bounce off.

e.g. http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/china-accused-of-stealing-american-technology/2007/11/16/1194766968231.html

I think perhaps you don't appreciate the power of these fires. In a firestorm like this, where the radiant heat's enough to kill a couple of hundred metres away, it's not really going to make much difference having a stone or tin roof.

"If the property is 10 acres then four acres divided up as a strip around the perimeter is perfectly reasonable."

The operative word there is "if", why do you make such an uniformed assumptions when there are plenty of pictures of his property that clearly show that was not the case. The pictures I might add were taken from such an angle as to portray his property in the best light possible.

I'm glad the guys house didn't burn down and can fully understand he "feels vindicated" but in his particular case I do not believe the ends justify the means. The council minutes clearly state they were willing to settle the matter for $2500 in costs plus revegetation, he accepted that deal and then reneged after the court action was dropped. His pigheaded attitude over the next 2 years resulted in a court case that ended up costing him $100K, had he been fined the maximum amount it would have cost him $300K. I understand he is now campaigning to have his conviction overturned, lots of luck with that one!

I wholeheartedly agree with the council where it states in it's minutes that "there are no winners in a case like this", except perhaps Mr Shehan's lawyers. If he was anything close to a "reasonable" man worried about bushfires he would not have chosen to build in a forest with the intention of illegaly clearing it.

For example

1. [strike]Global warming[/strike] Climate change is not a fact. It's a theory. A bad one at that since it does not predict the current climate much less the near and far future and is not consistent with the data.

2. Climate change is now the fad since earth is not warming globally anymore. In fact, the ocean has been cooling since 2003 and the ice in the Arctic sea is now back at the same level as in 1979 and Alaskan Sea Glaciers are advancing for the first time in 250 years. Hey, those AGW fanatics are now shifting the goal post and make those facts proof of a climate change.

3. Bushes and forests have been burning since the dawn of time. The Australian fire was more fierce due to the idiots who "protected the environment" by banning clearing of vegetation.

Sydney Mornding Herald:
Last week angry fire survivors in Victoria pointed the finger at local authorities who prevented clearing of vegetation. At a public meeting in Arthurs Creek, Warwick Spooner, who lost his mother and brother in the Strathewen fire, stood up criticise the Nillumbik council.

"We've lost two people in my family because you dickheads won't cut trees down." Then of course, there is Liam Sheahan, the Reedy Creek home owner whose house is the only one in a two-kilometre area which survived the fires. In 2004 he was fined $50,000 for removing 247 trees around his hilltop house to protect it from fire. His two-year court battle against the Mitchell Shire Council cost him $50,000 in legal fees.

There is a definite equivalence if you knew how to use Google.

It is hyperbole, and it's completely unnecessary given that there are in fact plenty of people who claim that global warming will cause a massive amount of disaster in the future. (B) is thus not by necessity hyperbole, nor is (A).

You should stick to hammering away on the Al Gore thing, because the sibling and I don't agree on that. When you try to take the argument as a whole it only takes two Google searches to show that there is an equivalence between elements of the climate change movement and the radically religious.

One look at their house and you can see why you wouldn't want to show the world. But being a whiny little troll and suing only to have the international media bring all eyes to your poorly kept property is hilarious. And what is with the number of garages?

Sometimes we are blessed with the opportunity to provide real world examples.

In the case of FaceBook, the user grants certain content usage rights to FaceBook (presumably to advertise FaceBook itself).
In the linked example above, the user granted Creative Commons licensing to everyone.
Technically different, but it seems similar enough to properly illustrate your point.

By the way, this seems to be a follow up on that example.
The lesson: you give your privacy away, others will take it.

Crocodiles.

"Six companies will take part in the Federal Government's trial of an internet content filter, with the Government shunning large ISPs Optus and iiNet in favour of smaller ones that are more sympathetic to its censorship agenda."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web-censorship-trials-to-exclude-large-isps/2009/02/12/1234028159641.html

A few months ago, the Chinese government issued an order that all the Internet Cafes in China have to run a government approved version of Linux on all their computers.

Internet Cafes switching to Chinese OS

It was "Red Flag Linux". In fact Slashdot had covered that story some while ago. It must have yielded some results that were "favorable" to the government, and Russian authorities must've decided to implement the same in order to gain greater control over the actions of their citizens.