Iffy Bonzoolie - Slashdot User

Submission + - Richest 2% own half the world

Submitted by

kop

on Tuesday December 05, 2006 @07:44PM

kop writes: "The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute.
The survey is based on data for the year 2000. The authors say a more recent year would have involved more gaps in the data. As it is, many figures — especially for developing countries — have had to be estimated.

Nonetheless, the authors say it is the most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6211250.stm"

Submission + - Warner CEO Admits His Kids Stole Music

Submitted by

IAmTheDave

on Tuesday December 05, 2006 @01:39PM

IAmTheDave writes: "Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman admitted that he was fairly certain that one or more of his children had downloaded music illegally, but despite this direct admission of guilt, and without surprise, no lawsuits are pending. Bronfman insists that, with a fairly certain stern talking-to, his children have suffered the full consequences of their actions. "I explained to them what I believe is right, that the principle is that stealing music is stealing music. Frankly, right is right and wrong is wrong, particularly when a parent is talking to a child. A bright line around moral responsibility is very important. I can assure you they no longer do that." I wonder if all of the people currently being sued/extorted can now just admit that they "no longer do that.""

Verisign Retains .com Control Until 2012 92

Posted by kdawson on Monday December 04, 2006 @03:39PM from the same-as-the-old-boss dept.

Several readers wrote to note that the U.S. Department of Commerce, in a controversial deal, has extended Verisign's control of the .com domain. Verisign got the right to raise prices in four of the six years of the contract, by up to 7% each time. From the article: "Verisign has control of .com and .net locked up for the next several years, but there will still be a modicum of oversight. [Commerce] retains final approval over any price hikes, and has said that any subsequent renewal of the contract will occur 'only if it concludes that the approval will serve the public interest in the continued security and stability of the Internet domain name system... and the provision of registry services at reasonable prices, terms and conditions.'"

Submission + - Linux Overclocking Software

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04, 2006 @01:52PM

An anonymous reader writes: Phoronix has posted an article that covers the basics of GPU and CPU overclocking utilities available for GNU/Linux. From the article: "In 2005 we had featured several articles on the state of NVIDIA graphics card overclocking under Linux. In early 2005 the only option for Linux users was NVClock. The open-source NVClock was started by Roderick Colenbrander in 2001 and since then has been evolving. However, coming out in June of 2005 from the NVIDIA camp was CoolBits support for their alternative operating system drivers."

Submission + - Is XP-64 really worth it?

Submitted by chip_whisperer on Monday December 04, 2006 @01:46PM

chip_whisperer writes: I used to be a big time custom desktop builder, making many working boxes per year, but I've been off the bandwagon for about four years now and am trying to get back into it now that Ars Technica has just released their recommendations. The standard seems to be heading towards 64 bit processors, but I'm wondering if you can/is it worth it to run a box on simply Windows XP or should I get XP-64? I've heard that driver support for 64 can be a hassle. Also, for you fellow Linux geeks, how are current distros doing in supporting 64 bit processors? (e.g. Suse, Ubuntu, etc.) Thanks for all your help!

Submission + - Open Source Spying

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Monday December 04, 2006 @11:13AM

eldavojohn writes: "The New York Times is running a very lengthy but amazingly interesting article on the short history of open source software and information on the inside of the intelligence community. The article discusses the transformation of the intelligence community from fighting the Cold War with traditional information exchange to fighting terrorism today utilizing things like wikis & blogs. From the end of the article,
Today's spies exist in an age of constant information exchange, in which everyday citizens swap news, dial up satellite pictures of their houses and collaborate on distant Web sites with strangers. As John Arquilla told me, if the spies do not join the rest of the world, they risk growing to resemble the rigid, unchanging bureaucracy that they once confronted during the cold war. "Fifteen years ago we were fighting the Soviet Union," he said. "Who knew it would be replicated today in the intelligence community?"
You may recall that the CIA now has their own classified Wiki. I think it's interesting that the 9/11 Report recommended that United States agencies such as the DoD, CIA & FBI learn to share information more freely to overcome terrorism and now they're turning to internet community applications to accomplish that."

ASUS Integrates VOIP and PSTN Into Motherboards 101

Posted by kdawson on Monday December 04, 2006 @08:54AM from the talk-long-pay-little dept.

yahyamf writes "ASUS recently announced that their TeleSky telecom adapter will now be included in two of their motherboards. The TeleSky converts an ordinary house phone into a multi-functional Skype phone. With one jack connected to the house phone and the other to the ground telephone line, the TeleSky can switch the house phone connection between the PSTN and VoIP networks. While it sounds interesting, how would this compare to the dedicated VOIP adapters available from SIPURA and others?"

How To Tell If Your Cell Phone Is Bugged 338

Posted by kdawson on Monday December 04, 2006 @06:03AM from the your-shoe-is-ringing dept.

Lauren Weinstein writes to point us to his essay on the realities of using an idle cell phone as a bug, as a recent story indicated the FBI may have done in a Mafia case. From the essay: "There is no magic in cell phones. From a transmitting standpoint, they are either on or off... It is also true that some phones can be remotely programmed by the carrier to mask or otherwise change their display and other behaviors in ways that could be used to fool the unwary user. However, this level of remote programmability is another feature that is not universal... But remember — no magic! When cell phones are transmitting — even as bugs — certain things are going to happen every time that the alert phone user can often notice."

Software Used To Predict Who Might Kill 361

Posted by kdawson on Monday December 04, 2006 @03:11AM from the three-psychics-in-a-pool dept.

eldavojohn writes "Richard Berk, a University of Pennsylvania criminologist, has worked with authorities to develop a software tool that predicts who will commit homicide. I could not find any papers published on this topic by Berk, nor any site stating what specific Bayesian / decision tree algorithm / neural net is being implemented." From the article: "The tool works by plugging 30 to 40 variables into a computerized checklist, which in turn produces a score associated with future lethality. 'You can imagine the indicators that might incline someone toward violence: youth; having committed a serious crime at an early age; being a man rather than a woman, and so on. Each, by itself, probably isn't going to make a person pull the trigger. But put them all together and you've got a perfect storm of forces for violence,' Berk said. Asked which, if any, indicators stood out as reliable predicators of homicide, Berk pointed to one in particular: youthful exposure to violence." The software is to enter clinical trials next spring in the Philadelphia probation department. Its intent is to serve as a kind of triage: to let probation caseworkers concentrate most of their effort on the former offenders most likely to be most dangerous.

Journal Journal: A true test for the Wii 7

Journal by SiliconJesus on Sunday December 03, 2006 @11:57PM

My parents were over today to help us move some furniture around in preparation of babies "a" and "b" arriving soon. My son decided to turn on the Wii to show Pop pop and Grammy. At first, my parents were apprehensive about playing, but within an hour, they were both competitively playing the Bowling and Baseball games within Wii Sports. I showed them around the system a bit, but between working, we managed to all play Wii for about three hours apiece. My mom who is a pretty hard person t

Organic Matter Found In Canadian Meteorite 226

Posted by kdawson on Sunday December 03, 2006 @02:06PM from the seeding-gaia dept.

eldavojohn writes "From what sounds like the opening of an X-Files episode, Canadian scientists have reportedly found in a meteorite organic matter older than the sun at Tagish Lake in Canada. From the article: '"We mean that the material in the meteorite has been processed the least since it was formed. The material we see today is arguably the most representative of the material that first went into making up the solar system." The meteorite likely formed in the outer reaches of the asteroid belt, but the organic material it contains probably had a far more distant origin. The globules could have originated in the Kuiper Belt group of icy planetary remnants orbiting beyond Neptune. Or they could have been created even farther afield. The globules appear to be similar to the kinds of icy grains found in molecular clouds — the vast, low-density regions where stars collapse and form and new solar systems are born.' The article implies that life could potentially survive in these meteorites and maybe even travel through space — supporting the theory that life may have arrived on earth and evolved from that point on."

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