Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Nerves, Unis, Subtitles
Yes, does that come with insurance? An anonymous reader writes "Channel 4 news has a small report on the way that financial institutions are moving their computer systems and data backup out of central London to establishments such as The Bunker and Sealand."
Suddenly, those places seem a bit like less of a novelty and more good plain sense.
Copyright vs. Presumptive Scanning, part VXIIIXIX AnElder writes "The SMH (Sydney Morning Herald) now reports that 'Recording companies have asked the Federal Court to allow their computer experts to scan all computers at the University of Melbourne for sound files and email accounts, so they can gather evidence of claimed widespread breaches of copyright.' Are libraries next? "Counsel for the companies, Mr Tony Bannon SC, said industry studies of piracy had found public institutions such as universities and libraries were the biggest repositories of unlawful sound recordings."
Speaking of brand integrity. increment writes "The Engrish TTT Captions Site that was mentioned earlier here has apparently received a cease and desist order from AOL/Warner Bros and taken down their hilarious bootleg screenshots of The Two Towers. You did know that AOL is the parent company of New Line Cinema, right? AOL probably contends that humorous captions 'degrade their brand integrity,' though they should be grateful for such a vivid illustration of the poor quality of bootlegs. A few mirrors of the site can still be found around the net."
What about robotic juicers for the home? CallNElvis writes "Here's another interesting (translate that to "Cool! I want one") site lazydrinker.com showing a tabletop automatic drink pouring machine. It seems to be a little more polished than the last one posted here. The site includes a pretty cool mpeg of it in action."
Blend it into Knoppix, please :) 3-D modeling program Blender was converted from a proprietary license to the GPL last October. What's been going on since then? An anonymous reader writes "A couple of days ago, Blender 2.26 was released. This is the first open source version, and has all the features of the previous proprietary version, except physics support in the gamekit, which was not owned by NaN, and could thus not be opened.
Blender is 'the vi of 3d-modeling,' and was Freed by the community, when NaN (the company creating blender) went broke. It is platform independent (with roots in Unix), scriptable, has a steep but rewarding learning curve, ingenious but nonstandard user interface, and can be used to make games, 3d-web-thingies (there exists a browser plugin) and of course images, animations and models (which among others, can be exported to POV-ray)."
Mandrake keeps moving -- give it a whirl.
An anonymous reader writes "The Mandrake 9.1 testing cycle is coming to an end. I haven't noticed any big fan-fare for testing this version, but I noticed that RC-1 is now on many of the ftp mirrors found here.
If you like the distro, don't forget to join MandrakeClub where you can help the company and have a say in what packages they include in their user-friendly distro."
May I be the first to point you to this penny arcade strip on the topic: Penny Arcade
Disco Stu was talkin' to you.
Moderators, I'll save you the trouble of reading this, this post is just way off topic.
Has anybody been following futurama on the Cartoon Network lately? In two separate episodes, Professor Rupert Farnsworth (sp?) was censored while saying "Sweet Zombie Jesus!" - arguably one of the funniest expletives in the show. Specifically, the word "Jesus" was removed (replaced with silence).
I am shocked and outraged! Who's responsible for this, damnit!!
When I'm to lazy to do THAT myself, kill me.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
It's a well known adage that engineers are supposed to be lazy. Larry Wall enumerates it as one of the traits of good programmers and the impetus behind Perl. What they mean is that engineers should strive to automate repetitive tasks instead of performing them manually each time.
Lazy Drinker has clearly misunderstood the concept. The device they show is not automated in any way. The user still has to move the cup(!) under the spout and type(!!) commands into an attached computer to begin pouring the drink. Frankly, pouring the drink is the easiest part of the process. Any fast food restaurant has for ages had machines that have been doing this kind thing.
Lazy Drinker has arguably made pouring drinks *more difficult* by way of this device. It's kind of sad that Slashdot is reduced to running such a non-story.
I have been pwned because my
All they'll require is for everyone to be fitted with a tiny ear implant which bills a simple rate for all kilosounds per hour heard.
The following billing schedule is applicable for single-channel and stereophonic royalty service from single-eardrum consumers to double-eardrum consumers as metered by RIAA.
Sound Charge:
BASELINE (TIER I) QUANTITIES
per kiloSoundhour per Month
Radio/XM Satellite Transmission $0.00403
Internet Distribution $0.03485
Rock Star Drug Rehab Programs $0.00231
Power Ballad Generation $0.04542
Glam Rock Decommissioning $0.00045
PFRA (Price Fixing Record Amounts) $0.00962
CD Copy-Protection Reliability Services $0.00384
Total Rate $0.10052
MINIMUM CHARGE (per eardrum per sound per day) $0.12345
In the summer of 2XXX, wholesale spot prices for sounds began to escalate to levels unanticipated by the RIAA. The rising prices translated into dramatically increased sound royalty costs and revenue undercollections for the recording studios. The royalty costs of the sounds heard during the crisis, along with the costs of forward purchase obligations incurred by RIAA, must now be recovered.