Comment Re:what other ideas of his will come to pass? (Score 1) 453
Armed jackalopes are even more ornery.
Submission + - First Look at a New Space Terminal (space.com)
Raver32 writes: "Architectural and engineering teams have begun shaping the look and feel of New Mexico's Spaceport America, taking the wraps off new images today that showcase the curb appeal of the sprawling main terminal and hangar at the futuristic facility.
Last month, a team of U.S. and British architects and designers had been recommended for award to design the primary terminal and hangar facility at Spaceport America — structures that symbolize the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport.
Selected from an international field of eleven firms, the winning design is the work of URS Corporation — a large design and engineering enterprise — teamed with Foster + Partners of the United Kingdom, a group with extensive experience in crafting airport buildings.
When the 100,000 square-foot (9,260 square-meter) facility is completed — the centerpiece of the world's first, purpose-built, commercial spaceport — the structures will serve as the primary operating base for Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceliner, and also as the headquarters for the New Mexico Spaceport Authority."
Submission + - Belgium prosecutes the church of Scientology
sheean.nl writes: "The Belgian Federal Judicial Authorities plans to prosecute the church of Scientology. The church is accused of being a criminal organisation which involves itself with extortion, fraud, unfair trading, violation of privacy laws and unlawfully practicing medicine.
Both the Belgian and the European departement should be brought to court, according to the authorities. An investigation has been started in 1999 after former Scientologists complained about extortion by the church, this investigation has now been completed and the authorities want the case to be put through.
The Belgians call this case a world's first. In some countries, including the US, the church of Scientology is officially recognised as a religion, with high-profile followers such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta."
Submission + - Futurama Movie Set for November 27th (tvsquad.com)
kevin_conaway writes: "TV Squad informs us that the new Futurama movie will be available on November 27th. The show will return as a full-length high-def film sold on DVD. It will be followed by three additional films, and each film will be divided into four episodes each to be aired on Comedy Central. So, that's 4 DVD movies or 16 new episodes depending on how you look at it."
Submission + - Students liable for School Insecurity?
yamamushi writes: "Within the past few weeks, students across Boerne ISD were being called into offices to discuss the use of proxies to circumvent the schools websense system. The problem is that some of these students are being punished so far as being suspended from school for up to (as far as anyone knows so far) 3 months at a time. Shouldn't the school district be liable for their own insecurity? Why are they punishing so many students for something that should be handled from the district's end? I know at the time I was going to school there, I was punished for using a linux livecd to login to their computers without using a password, even after I told the admins how to disable cdrom boots, they refused to update any of the computers and as such I was using the same tactic till the day I graduated."
Submission + - DARPA developing defensive plasma shield
galactic_grub writes: According to this article at New Scientist, DARPA is developing a plasma shield that would allow troops to stun and disorientate enemies. The system will use a technology known as dynamic pulse detonation (DPD), which involves producing a ball of plasma with an intense laser pulse creates, and then a supersonic shockwave within the plasma using another pulse. The result is a gigantic flash and a loud bang in a the air.
Submission + - Student arrested for writing essay
mcgrew writes: "The Chicago Tribune reports that an eighteen year old straight A Cary-Grove High School student was arrested for writing a "disturbing" essay. From the Trib:
So much for freedom of speech in the US."Allen Lee, an 18-year-old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.
Submission + - Ohio audit reveals more Diebold problems
armb writes: From http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/04/diebold_v ote_da.html
"Problems found in an audit of Diebold tabulation records from an Ohio November 2006 election raise questions about whether the database got corrupted during the tabulation of election results"
They were using the Microsoft Jet engine, which Microsoft do not recommend for serious use with concurrent updates.
Perhaps most surprising of all, Diebold initially claimed that the raw election results were a protected trade secret.
Submission + - Should I worry about my employment contract?
An anonymous reader writes: I was preparing to accept a software developer job at a California company and was put off by the contract which claimed ownership of any ideas I create (on my own time or at the company) during my stay at the company and required me to inform them of any ideas (related to the company or not) during my employment and for a year afterwards. I found references to a couple instances where this became a legal problem for the developer.
Is this something to worry about?
Submission + - Return of the Vinyl Album
bulled writes: NPR ran a story this morning about the comeback of Vinyl. They highlighted a turntable with a USB interface and speculated on the possible reasons for the resurgence. They mentioned sound quality and lack of DRM as possible causes. Sound quality can and will be debated but the second reason should get the response, "Duh."
Submission + - What is the best bug-as-a-feature?
Bat Country writes: The workflow system at the department I develop for was hand-coded by my predecessor in a rather short amount of time, resulting in somewhat unreadable code with a number of interesting "features."
When I took over maintenance of the code base, I started patching bugs and cleaning up the code in preparation for a new set of features.
When I was done however, I got a pile of complaints about features which disappeared which turned out to be caused by the bugs in the code.
So that leads me to ask, what is your favorite bug that you either can't live without or makes your life easier?
When I took over maintenance of the code base, I started patching bugs and cleaning up the code in preparation for a new set of features.
When I was done however, I got a pile of complaints about features which disappeared which turned out to be caused by the bugs in the code.
So that leads me to ask, what is your favorite bug that you either can't live without or makes your life easier?
Submission + - Why Microsoft Should Fear Apple
jcatcw writes: Computerworld's Scot Finnie says that MS should be afraid because Apple has gotten smarter about how it competes. He says that it's the Parallels Desktop software that has been truly transformational for the Mac. Finnie did a simple three-month trial of the Mac last in the fall and realized four months later that he wasn't going back. Since then he's received hundreds of messages from readers who've also made the switch.
Submission + - How to Run Vista without activation for a Year
Anonymous Coward writes: "Windows Vista can be run for at least a year without being activated, a serious end-run around one of Microsoft's key anti-piracy measures, Windows expert Brian Livingston said today.
Livingston, who publishes the Windows Secrets newsletter, said that a single change to Vista's registry lets users put off the operating system's product activation requirement an additional eight times beyond the three disclosed last month. With more research, said Livingston, it may even be possible to find a way to postpone activation indefinitely.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9013258"
Livingston, who publishes the Windows Secrets newsletter, said that a single change to Vista's registry lets users put off the operating system's product activation requirement an additional eight times beyond the three disclosed last month. With more research, said Livingston, it may even be possible to find a way to postpone activation indefinitely.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?co
Journal SPAM: i suck 16
i had kind of a slip of the fingers - here is what i typed into the command line on our aix nim server:
rm -rf
it should have been rm -rf
yeah- it hasn't been the best day - and i don't see it getting better any time soon. turns out the backups on that box - have not backed up that directory since april of last year. while that is not my fault, it certainly doesn't make me feel any bette
Journal Journal: Google Misspells Own Name on Valentine's Logo 1
As is tradition, on any significant holiday, major or minor, Google produces a special version of its logo. However, its Valentine's Day logo this year seems to be missing the "L". But it's the thought that counts--so Happy Valentine's Day from Googe!
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May the bluebird of happiness twiddle your bits.
