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Comment Re:But Unfortunately... (Score 2, Informative) 314

the borg are a badly thought out sci-fi plot device, nothing more.

If a group of people got together and made it possible to experience everything everyone in the group heard/thought/felt, they would be a democracy where the majority always rules. your views and values would not change, they would be shared throughout the group. If a group of humans formed a borg collective they would maintain their humanity, and probably even hold each other to a higher standard through peer pressure.

Star trek Borg are not a collective, they are a subservient dictatorship.

Censorship

Submission + - SPAM: Five technologies Iran is using to censor the Web

alphadogg writes: One month after a disputed presidential election sparked widespread unrest in Iran, the country's government has initiated a cyber-crackdown that is challenging hackers across the globe to find new ways to help keep Iranian dissidents connected to the Web. While the government's initial efforts to censor the Internet were blunt and often ineffective, it has started employing more sophisticated tools to thwart dissidents' attempts to communicate with each other and the outside world. Iranian dissidents are not alone in their struggle, however, as several sympathetic hacker groups have been working to keep them online. One such group is NedaNet, whose mission is to "help the Iranian people by setting up networks of proxy severs, anonymizers, and any other appropriate technologies that can enable them to communicate and organize." NedaNet project coordinator Morgan Sennhauser, who has just written a paper [spam URL stripped] detailing the Iranian government's latest efforts to thwart hackers, says that the government's actions have been surprisingly robust and have challenged hackers in ways that the Chinese government's efforts at censorship have not.
Link to Original Source
Space

Submission + - Entire moon added to Google Earth (cnet.co.uk)

CNETNate writes: "Complete with Street View-like panoramas, 3D models of spacecraft now left abandoned on the moon's surface, and guided tours from the voices of Apollo astronauts, Google's update to Google Earth today marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing with an enormous update. It's a collaboration with NASA and other agencies, and follows the launch of Google Earth 5.0 which, amongst other things, added the ability to explore our planet's oceans. There are a number of original creations — such as the 3D mock-up of the Apollo 11 spacecraft and its astronauts — and you can download the new version from Google now."

Comment Re:What the hell is wrong with you? (Score 1) 922

Violating someones right to choose and taking away their freedom is without any doubt valid cause for retaliation. To re-assert that freedom lethal force may be necessary. All throughout history force has been used to earn back freedom.

When an attacker uses force against another human, that victim has every right to use force to defend themselves.

Comment Genetic Algorithm (Score 1) 133

Create a billboard that wants to be looked at.. Start the billboard out with totally random graphics, and then, do the genetic algorithm thing and produce 10 or 20 variants, and see which one gets the most looks, then take it mutate it and repeat.

eventually you will create what could be considered the best possible public work of art which is enjoyed by the most number of people.

I would very much like to see what it produces.
Politics

Who Do Warcraft Players Want As President? 82

I'm not sure how many electoral votes Azeroth has, but it could be a key battleground state.
PC Games (Games)

The Imagined Future of PC Games 134

PC Gamer has up a five-part series prognosticating the future of PC gaming. (part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5) Graham Smith, Kieron Gillen, and a few other PC games folks make some big-picture predictions about where console gaming's aging sibling is headed. Some of their predictions are fairly safe ("6. The mouse won't die, and graphics cards will get more powerful."), but others may be a bit contentious: "4. Steam and similar services will crush PC piracy. There's been a lot of talk from developers - old rivals id and Epic chief among them - about piracy making it harder for them to justify developing PC-only games. There's so little profit in it, apparently, that the poor fellows are left with no choice but to stray from their beloved home-platform and develop for consoles too. And yet the only games out there with a zero percent piracy ratio are all PC-only: MMOGs. They have a headstart in the anti-piracy crusade: connecting to a central server is an integral part of the game, so verifying that the user's CD key is unique can be done without much fuss. And no one's going to complain that a MMOG requires an internet connection; that's pretty obvious from the concept itself."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Douglas Adams: Exclusive Interview

An anonymous reader writes: Darker Matter has published an exclusive interview from 1979 with Douglas Adams. Except for brief excerpts in Penthouse, most of the interview hadn't been published. The first two parts of the interview are now online, with the last part following next month. http://www.darkermatter.com/issue1/douglas_adams.p hp
Media

Journal Journal: LinuxMCE loves my media, loves my house

For "whole of house" control and media freaks, you can have it all, pay $0, and enjoy the virtuous pleasures of Open Source at the same time, if LinuxMCE is to be believed. And why wouldn't we believe, after watching it in action at Google Video. LinuxMCE wraps Mythtv, Asterisk and other Open Source "must haves" inside a shiny wrapper full of lovely goodies. So squirm into y
Power

Submission + - Wind, Solar & Biofuels to Power Remote Cell To

tcd004 writes: "How do you set up a cell network when there's no power grid? Namibia, India and Nigeria are building towers using localized power soucres to provide critical cell phone access to the most remote parts of their countries. Wind/solar hybrids, and biofuel power plants will power the radio towers, peripheral communications, and even the protective fencing around the installations."
Windows

Submission + - Open-source ID project awaits Microsoft's blessing

what about writes: An open-source rival to a Microsoft identity tool has been in limbo for months, awaiting the software giant's go-ahead on certain patent-related issues.

news.com continues

Developers working on the Higgins project want to create a tool equivalent to Microsoft's Windows CardSpace, but fear the software giant's legal wrath if they don't receive permission on certain features. Although parts of the project continue to move forward, proponents say it may not reach its full potential without Microsoft's help.

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