X-treme-LLama - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Wow... (Score 1) 719

by X-treme-LLama on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @06:48AM (#19576745) Attached to: Is Cash No Longer Legal Tender?

Incorrect. Banks nowadays will charge a non-accountholder....

Umm, not incorrect. I've cashed quite a number of cheques at multiple banks in the area I live in, and have only had one bank (possibly, I still don't remember) that wished to charge me a fee. Even if this isn't true at the bank you went to, or even perhaps in general, it does not make my statement incorrect as it was based on my own personal experience.

Just to avoid further pedants:

The above is my own personal experience, YMMV.

E-Voting Reform Bill Gaining Adherants 161

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 02, 2007 @07:27PM from the paper-trail-and-source-inspection dept.

JeremyDuffy sends us to Ars Technica for a look at an e-voting bill making its way through Congress that is gaining the support of the likes of Ed Felten and the EFF. Quoting: "HR 811 features several requirements that will warm the hearts of geek activists. It bans the use of computerized voting machines that lack a voter-verified paper trail. It mandates that the paper records be the authoritative source in any recounts, and requires prominent notices reminding voters to double-check the paper record before leaving the polling place. It mandates automatic audits of at least three percent of all votes cast to detect discrepancies between the paper and electronic records. It bans voting machines that contain wireless networking hardware and prohibits connecting voting machines to the Internet. Finally, it requires that the source code for e-voting machines be made publicly available."

Dungeons & Dragons and IT 243

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 21, 2007 @11:27PM from the expedition-to-the-barrier-peaks dept.

boyko.at.netqos writes "An editorial in Network Performance Daily tries to take a (1d6) stab at explaining why geeky engineering types are also typically the types that enjoy a rousing game of D&D. From the article "The greatest barrier to creativity is a lack of boundaries. Counter-intuitive — almost zen-like — but we've found it to be true. This is why people play Dungeons & Dragons (and similar games), and why network engineers often spend time putting out fires when they could be improving the network."

World's Densest Memory Cells Created 46

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday January 26, 2007 @01:28AM from the do-what-now dept.

toybuilder writes "A Reuters new article reports the development of the world's densest memory circuit at Caltech & UCLA. The circuit has a bit storage density of 100Gb/cm^2; about 100 times the density of today's memory circuits. Interestingly, this new design places memory cells at junctions of a tic-tac-toe-like grid of wires, somewhat reminescent of core memory of the past."

Machine Gun Sentry Robot Unveiled 845

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @01:37AM from the stop-or-my-robosapien-will-shoot dept.

mpthompson writes "Samsung has partnered with a Korean university to develop a robotic sentry equipped with a 5.5mm machine gun. Meant for deployment along the DMZ between North and South Korea, the $200,000 robot employs sophisticated pattern recognition software for targeting humans. No three laws here, but the robot does include a speaker that can be used to politely issue a warning before taking the target out. The promotional video is both scary and funny at the same time."

Pentagon Reveals News Correction Unit 757

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday October 31, 2006 @05:16AM from the propaganda-juggernauts dept.

Jonas Wisser writes "BBC is reporting that a newly created Pentagon unit has a mandate to fight 'inaccurate' news stories. From the article: 'The Pentagon has set up a new unit to focus on promoting its message across 24-hour rolling news outlets, and particularly on the internet. [...] A Pentagon memo seen by the Associated Press news agency said the new unit will "develop messages" for the 24-hour news cycle and aim to "correct the record". A spokesman said the unit would monitor media such as weblogs and would also employ "surrogates", or top politicians or lobbyists who could be interviewed on TV and radio shows.'"

How Encrypted Binaries Work In Mac OS X 365

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday October 30, 2006 @07:13PM from the under-the-hood dept.

An anonymous reader writes "By now we know that OS X uses encrypted binaries for some critical apps like Dock, Finder and LoginWindow. Amit Singh explains the implementation of this protection scheme which makes use of the AES crypto algorithm and a special memory pager in Mach. The so called Do Not Steal Mac OS X (DSMOS) kernel extension helps along the way by decrypting things for the special pager when apps get executed. A funny thing is that if you print the pointer at address 0xFFFF1600 in your own app you get as output Apple's karma poem for crackers! According to the article there are 8 protected binaries in OSX including Rosetta and Spotlight meta data demon. Interestingly Apple's window server is NOT one of those."

ACLU Drops Challenge Over Patriot Act 274

Posted by kdawson on Monday October 30, 2006 @08:44AM from the declare-victory-and-withdraw dept.

An anonymous reader writes, "The ACLU announced on Friday that they were dropping their case against the US Government over the highly contested section 215 of the Patriot Act. ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson stated: 'While the reauthorized Patriot Act is far from perfect, we succeeded in stemming the damage from some of the Bush administration's most reckless policies. The ACLU will continue to monitor how the government applies the broad Section 215 power and we will challenge unconstitutional demands on a case-by-case basis.'"

Greek Blog Aggregator Arrested 180

Posted by kdawson on Sunday October 29, 2006 @05:25PM from the careful-what-you-link-to dept.

arcanumas writes to tell us that Greek authorities have raided the house of Antonis Tsipropoulos, administrator of the blog aggregation site Blogme.gr. His hard drive was seized and he was arrested. The impetus was a satiric website, not named in the stories, that apparently offended a Greek public figure (also unnamed). The site in question was not hosted by Tsipropoulos but was merely linked to by his RSS fed. From the first article: "The developing story coincides with the Internet Governance Forum being hosted in Athens this week, to be attended by Internet luminaries, entrepreneurs, and activists like Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, and Joi Ito and featuring panels on Openness and Freedom of Expression."

Testosterone Tumbling in American Males 597

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday October 29, 2006 @01:17PM from the zomg-where-are-my-lead-pants dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo is running a story about a study that concludes that testosterone levels are falling across all age groups among American men. It says 'The testosterone-fueled American male may be losing his punch'" I leave it to you all to draw your conclusions about this, but I still wonder what my hours of laptop-fu does to me.

UK Think Tank Calls For Fair Use Of Your Own CDs 241

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday October 29, 2006 @11:15AM from the fair-use-i-think-it's-called dept.

jweatherley writes "The BBC reports that a UK think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, has called for the legalization of format shifting. In a report commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, they state that copyright laws are out of date, and that people should have a 'private right to copy' which would allow them to legally copy their own CDs and DVDs on to home computers, laptops and phones. The report goes on to say that: 'it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government.' The report also argues that there is no evidence the current 50-year copyright term is insufficient. The UK music industry is campaigning to extend the copyright term in sound recordings to 95 years."

FBI Raids Security Researcher's Home 516

Posted by kdawson on Saturday October 28, 2006 @08:09PM from the senator-did-it-first dept.

Sparr0 writes, "The FBI has raided the home of Christopher Soghoian, the grad student who created the NWA boarding pass site. Details can be found on his blog including a scanned copy of the warrant. The bad news is that he really did break the law. The good news is that Senator Charles Schumer did it first, 19 months ago, on an official government website no less. The outcome of this trial should be at least academically interesting. At best, it could result in nullifying some portion of the law(s) that the TSA operates under." Read on for Sparr0's take on what laws may apply in this case.

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