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For a real laugh, check-out the formerly-known-as Secret Number as Photoshop art. My personal favorite is #12. The funniest part of all was as I went through the list, an animated ad for Blu-Ray high-definition movie playback popped in after image #9. It doesn't get better than that!

Yeah, except when it comes to disrupting cables, Neal Stephenson is the cable guy.

Woohoo! Made it to wired with this one!

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/multi media/2007/05/crackkdown_protest?slide=6&slideView =2

Yeah, that's true, my impression was that a lot of the stuff in TFA reads like Jobs didn't know about what the environmental impacts of his manufacturing processes were before the Greenpeace thing came out. If he is serious about what he says and not just giving PR lip service, it will have been useful what Greenpeace did, but I can't help but feel that if they were a little less careless in their methods that it would have better. Specifically I mean that an environmental evaluation based entirely on what the company says it's going to rather than what it is doing smells terrible. On the other hand, There have been concerns about if Apple really does think different or not. I think what is necessary here is an unbiased source to evaluate how environmentally responsible these companies really are... hmmm, perhaps some government agency that is responsible for monitoring the environmental impact of various activities in society? An agency for environmental protection maybe? ... One can only dream that we'd have one of those. :)

Kevin and the other admins may indeed fear a lawsuit if they don't take these articles down. Is that wrong, or is the law that allows this possibility the thing that is wrong? It's easy to sit there and paste line after line of numbers, but what would you do in the face of a lawsuit, even if it it's a ridiculous lawsuit supported by a law crafted just for this kind of abuse?

From an article in Wired, scientists for DARPA are looking at how rapidly dropping oxygen levels could possibly be used to put someone in stasis until they can be moved to receive proper medical treatment. Apparently rats have been put into stasis and brought back already. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore.ht ml?pg=2&topic=bemore&topic_set=

The 640k quote is a total myth.

Even though they were convicted of being a monopoly, they pretty much dodged that bullet.

Security wasn't as huge of a deal in 1998 for end users on dial-up as it is today, and insofar, Linux has still failed to take off completely. (On the other hand OS X has been very successful)

(And the iPod/Nomad comments were made by our very own CmdrTaco)

Right now, I personally put the odds of the iPhone being a success at 40/60. Unless they can get the price down, and open it up to other carriers, it's just not going to fly. GSM coverage in many parts of the US tends to be very poor in comparison to CDMA.

It's karma, baby. Digg gets what it deserves. Has anyone seen this little tidbit? Evidently, when Kevin Rose hosted a TV show on TechTV/G4TV, he promoted Digg without revealing he was the owner of the site. See him in action.

undersea cables: Neal Stephenson's brilliant essay 'Mother Earth mother board'

Neil Stephenson's "Mother Earth Mother Board" is an great non fiction read about the cable laying culture: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr .html

...will the project, which once seemed destined to put open-source software and development tools in the hands of millions of children, instead become a Trojan horse for Redmond to hook a new generation on closed-source Microsoft wares?

Jepsen acknowledges that the decision last year to add an SD slot to the machine was partially to accommodate what she diplomatically describe as "software that's not the most trim, svelte software in the world."

That is not what the responses here on ./ are limited to.
E.g. it is stated that
- the price has increased b/o Windows, (if it is still available with Linux?)
- M$ wants to kill OLPC (why? the more people run Windows instead of Linux, the merrier they are)

Fortunately Wired seems to have some good news: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/04/negropon te_olpc.html#more

Bert

You mean take the money and run then Sue for breach of contract for being fired like Dark did to Ikon

Knowing these guys there are most likely some nasty poison pills waiting in their contracts to bite anyone who fires them.

OLPC spokesman Kyle Austin says the wire services got it wrong. In response to a request from Microsoft, the project gave Redmond some early demo models of the XO to play with -- but that was over a year ago. "Their developers are toying with it," Austin told Wired News editor Kevin Poulsen.

OLPC hasn't changed the XO's design to support Windows, and has no formal partnership with Microsoft, he says.

No. Dolphins only. Seriously.

From the Danger Zone this briefing claims that flipper would do a much better job

From the Danger Zone this briefing claims that flipper would do a much better job

I think one of Microsoft's big problems has they have overpriced the boxed versions of Vista. It is a crazy state of affairs when my local computer shop is selling complete PCs cheaper than the boxed versions of Vista.

But then, isn't that Bill Gates' vision of the future? Hardware will be free and people will only pay for software.

Hey, this was a great operating system for its day, and you should all know something about it. Take a look at Melinda Varian's excellent paper (PDF warning) on the history of the great operating system. Twenty years ago, I was running VM systems that ran 20 to 40 mainframe guest operating systems, long before VMware and Xen. VM still has the best implementation of Unix pipes I've ever seen.

I still miss VM and the v/Bear, though I have one on my car's keyfob...

As for a final choice, it's been slow death by consensus for several years.

Actually I have seen lions attacking an elephant on planet earth (sorry couldnt find a better link). Sometimes if you sneak up when the conditions are favourable and the target is distracted, the risk/reward ratio becomes worth it.

See how they stood up

I think he is referring to this.

While Op:Eagle Claw was a failure, I found this rescue mission much more interesting and enjoyable (to read; I'm sure they didn't find their time enjoyable at all) personally.

It isn't mentioned until well down in the article, but many Slashdot readers may remember Ryan Lackey as part of the team that founded Sealand/HavenCo, the offshore data haven that was featured on the cover of Wired in 2000. Sealand's launch and struggles were discussed here on /. The guy clearly has an appetite for adventure.

The article says he was just married - this guy is a war profiteer vulture, I hope the next article I read about him is how his car ran over an IED, possibly winning him the 2007 Darwin Award, a big component of which of course is that he can not breed and will be weeded out of the gene pool.

Some photos and text up at: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/multi media/2007/04/gallery_starwars

The facts here seem very unclear. First of all, there has been no confirmation from WalMart as to which format they are buying. Also, a $300 Blu-Ray player is already on sale in China!

i don't think the fear is, or should be perhaps i should say, that children's names are put out "there" (although a name/photo may want to be discouraged in youths for other reasons) but rather that they are becoming themselves as budding young people in a world where everything is tied back to them. there are philosophical / policy reasons why people may want to argue this is ok. Regardless, children, most people, do not have the capacity to understand the possible permanence of their postings.

As Schneier said Anonymity Won't Kill the Internet. Perhaps there needs to be some outreach program to the youth on behalf of the privacy community. i'm not entirely sure how it could be done though, maybe information left in sealed envelopes in park bushes out of the field of view. seriously though, i don't know, maybe highlight the idea of handles, or call for more trusted 3rd party systems. i'm not sure what the best step would be.

I would like to send you some links to publications about my criminal case. I was forced to confess to the possession of internet digital pictures of porn in deleted clusters of my computer hard drive. My browser was hijacked while I was browsing the web. I was redirected to illegal sites against my will. Some illegal pictures were found on my hard drive, recovering in unallocated clusters, without dates of file creation/download. I do not know how courts can widely press these charges on people to convict them, while the whole Internet is a mess. This is my story in inquisition21.com. There is all information about case written by Irish writer Brian Rothery. You can see a lot of violations of law by police http://www.inquisition21.com/article~view~7~page_n um~3.html This is publication in Wired news http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,633 91,00.html This is publication in Theregester http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/13/browser_hi jacking_risks/ Article in Globe and Mail newspaper http://ctv.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20040617.gttwhijac17/tech/Technology/techBN/ctv-t echnology Article in ZDnet http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5344831.html This is article in Washington Times, May 22, 2004 There is information about my case. http://www.cato.org/cgi-bin/scripts/printtech.cgi/ dailys/05-30-04.html Article in Crime research center: http://www.crime-research.org/news/07.22.2004/506/ Article in Dallas, TX Newspaper http://www.crime-research.org/news/24.12.2004/862/ Child porn law was declared unconstitutional in Hennepin County, Minnesota, USA' http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=11750 "I came here to the US as political refugee from the former Soviet Union, and, now like many other people in the US, I feel shame that all of this can happen in the US - supposed to be the greatest democracy in the world."

Was Jenna Fischer nude

No reference to the Cue Cat?

That was one of the most annoying, dumbest, biggest debacles I can remember. For those that do not recall the Cue Cat was a bar cade reader in the form of a cat, that clever marketeers thought consumers would use by scanning barcodes on print ads in magazines and newspapers.

Cue Cat was mailed to *all* Wired magazine subscribers.

Jack Thompson is a loon. However, he's a dangerous one; FOX News didn't catch on that he was a nutjob; his broadcast pushed his message to a lot of people who count on reporters to think for them. With someone as unstable as him, the fact that the Louisiana SC and a Florida judge rejected his crap doesn't mean everyone has the insight to do so. Chances are GOOD that today's shooter happened to have a violent video game SOMEWHERE in his domicile, which obviously could be stretched to suggest that he played it for 14 hours a day while listening to death rock and eating uncooked bunny rabbits, which in turn gives "think of the children" -style politicians fodder to make their constituencies think they are doing something. Someone needs to fast-track his removal from the justice system, even if formal charges are a no-go.

As for the person asking the question, I don't know about you but I went to a high school where the first thing we were taught is that we are responsible for the information we present in a paper. The student is responsible for citing sources & verifying that the source is reliable. If you can't do that, you're going to end up reading The Onion with either hilarious or catastrophic results. This is a valuable life lesson, let the students learn it early when the consequence is a bad grade instead of a lawsuit.

That reminds of the story about a Chinese newspaper running a story from the Onion:

China Paper Bites on Onion Gag
Beijing Evening News Reprints Article From "The Onion"

If you told the students Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information, give them an F if they use one single reference from it. How can they argue with you, the instructor?

Some people say it's not reputable, fine; to block it outright just doesn't make sense though. Wikipedia articles typically have references at the bottom of the page that do lead to reputable sources. Why prevent students from discovering other sources via Wikipedia?

It's hardly only non-state entities that have been messing with commercial satellites, either. For example, Libya was recently caught jamming a Thuraya satellite phone service satellite. The funny thing is that Libya is one of the shareholders in the Thuraya project. They didn't really get that they weren't just blocking access to smugglers from Chad and Niger, as was their goal, but were instead disrupting the whole system. Libya is fond of jamming; a year and a half ago they took out dozens of European stations when targetting a dissident broadcast.

BTW: was I the only one who, when I read this article title, had a sudden urge to listen to some M.I.A.?

Nice. ;) Your joke gave me food for thought.

Is that how it would really go down? While it would appear that Jaffe is speaking in a manner that is against the grain with his employer, I think what we're seeing here is really symptomatic of a bigger problem within Sony's ranks:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/sony_pr.h tml

So basically the two factions of this company have formed a yin-yang of suck so powerful, that it's becomming it's own worst enemy. One day, it'll have to choose between ripping itself in half or dying altogether. In light of that, I'm actually suprised more folks from within haven't been more vocal about how things are going.

Or maybe they're just burning through cardboard boxes at an alarming rate...

Here are a few links, deteriorating in horror and decrepitude about the online sensation known as second life.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,69878-0.html

http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=4410

http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh...ay_in_seco.h tml

http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh...al_child_p.h tml

This is beyond sad & lonely. I'm not judging the depravity of the acts, which given 10 minutes I could dream up much worse. What I'm amazed by is that this fringe world is a nexus for like-minded people to act out THE SAME fantasies. You'd think in perversion and depravity people would finally truly be unique. It turns out there's a whole alternate universe of people just like them. Welcome to the fringes of conformity?

it seems that despite the interweb bringing us all closer together, humans seem to be getting lonelier all the time. the irony is that the more self-absorbed we get, the more we want to share our self-absorption with others.

Solipsism loves company

There's an editorial in the Detroit News, Wired news, and CNET news about this....
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2 007704060333
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/04/michigan_to_ buy.html
http://news.com.com/2061-10801_3-6174170.html

What's really sad is what little money the state of Michigan has to spend now.... In the past 5 years, the state has lost over 300,000 jobs which has drastically effected the amount of money for the state to operate. My father works in a state government position in Lansing where they can't afford to send state employees to check on out of state contractors and have talked about employees taking stints of unpaid leave due to the cash shortage. Anyone in the state government there should recognize the crisis the state of Michigan is in and put the approx $38 million to a good use!!!

Wired had an article a couple of years back about a guy that was making electric race cars. His whole philosophy was that to sell electric cars, you have to make them cool.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.03/drag_pr.ht ml

It's a week after april fools day and people are still falling.

the wired article:

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2007/04/appl etvhacks_0406

links to:

http://www.semthex.com/

-look at the date that semthex posted 'OSX on AppleTV'.

and

http://www.appletvhacks.net/2007/04/01/mac-os-x-ru nning-on-apple-tv/

-check post date for the linked 'laborious 13-step procedure'.

I've not researched this story any further because I don't need to.

When are people going to understand the width and scope of april 1st on the internet?

I don't even read anything on the net that day...just wait a few days
and catch the 'best of'. ;-)

http://slashdot.org/ for obvious reasons ;)
http://engadget.com/ for all latest gadget news
http://gizmodo.com/ for all latest gadget news again
http://wired.com/ for amazing stuff happening lately
http://thinkgeek.com/ for all the geek toys released newly
http://sourceforge.net/ for the best open source project statuses

If you hack University servers from your computer (or even if the computer is being used a zombie), and then take steps to hide your identity or otherwise conceal your activities, your network access will be removed, such removal will be actively enforced and verified, and any immediate actions required to protect the security and integrity of the University network and computing resources will be taken [emphasis added].

But back to cameras. Give a policeman a camcorder and he will shoot his girlfriend's ass. Ah, really. And what about him shooting YOUR girlfriends' ass? Who are you going to call? Who watches the watchers (not exactly a modern concern, if I recall it's Cicero). Rather than giving you my arguments, let's turn to the words of a real authority in this field, Bruce Schneier, and his piece in Wired called The Eternal Value of Privacy. Oh, and cameras cost money. To buy, to install, to maintain, to watch, to preserve information of. That's your tax money at work.

October 10, 2006, Wired: Generating Power From Kites

"KiteGen", a kite-driven rotating carousel generating electricity. The kites, at altitudes up to 2Km, could be quickly maneuvered to avoid aircraft, even individual birds. An initial cost of 360,000 euros for a 100m model could generate .5Gw of electricity. A 2 Km version could generate 5 Gw. A proposed initial site is the former Trino Vercellese nuclear power plant, already a no-fly zone.

There is another article in Wired by Tufte on the topic which mentions some problems of using Powerpoint in education.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html

Tufte on Powerpoint in Wired.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html

According to Huffman, the magnet works by moving very slightly, or with a noticeable oscillation, in response to EM fields. This stimulates the somatosensory receptors in the fingertip, the same nerves that are responsible for perceiving pressure, temperature and pain. Huffman and other recipients found they could locate electric stovetops and motors, and pick out live electrical cables. Appliance cords in the United States give off a 60-Hz field, a sensation with which Huffman has become intimately familiar. "It is a light, rapid buzz," he says.

It surprises me how a website full of otherwise apparently intelligent people can display such ignorance.

The Bush administration has consistently governed favoring crony-ism, special interests, and religious wackos, instead of science.

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/02/6 2339

The Court told the EPA that they had to DO THEIR DAMN JOBS, regulate greenhouse gasses, or provide a reasonable explanation why they won't. You see for years in the face of overwhelming evidence they have simply failed to act in accordance with the law.

On the other big topic of debate here, whether this qualifies as "news for nerds," not all nerds are monomaniacally obsessed with computers. Some of us are interested in science, which is a study of how the real world works.

Snider represents the National Federation of the Blind.

The National Federation of the Blind sold their integrity to Diebold for $1 million dollars. They do not deny that there was a quid pro quo, although they have issued a vague, non-denial denial.

Given the totality of time and space surely such an event as the combination of millions of proteins becomes statistically probable e.g. above 0 (although not much) unless there is some process that would actually prevent this from happening (like magnets repelling each other). Just like monkeys and typewriters... which, incidentally, doesn't seem to work with real monkeys http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/0 5/58790