The Little Hacker's Room

An anonymous reader writes "One of the big, unsolved problems in explaining how life arose on Earth is a chicken-and-egg paradox: How could the basic biochemicals mdash; such as amino acids and nucleotides mdash; have arisen before the biological catalysts (proteins or ribozymes) existed to carry out their formation? In a paper appearing in the current issue of The Biological Bulletin, scientists propose that a third type of catalyst could have jumpstarted metabolism and life itself, deep in hydrothermal ocean vents."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F05%2F2118241%2FTransition-Metal-Catalysts-Could-Be-Key-To-Origin-of-Life" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Transition+Metal+Catalysts+Could+Be+Key+To+Origin+of+Life%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fd5c2OY" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/05/2118241/Transition-Metal-Catalysts-Could-Be-Key-To-Origin-of-Life?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777902amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d7b317b/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rzvI0nlboENzVh5aI_2GI-tZhzE/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rzvI0nlboENzVh5aI_2GI-tZhzE/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rzvI0nlboENzVh5aI_2GI-tZhzE/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rzvI0nlboENzVh5aI_2GI-tZhzE/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/Ik-NlEWfOgE" height="1" width="1"/

eldavojohn writes "MSNBC spoke with the senior producer of a new stereoscopic 3D game called Killzone 3 and highlighted problems they are trying to solve with being one of the first FPS 3D games for the PS3. The team ran into serious design problems, like where to put the crosshairs for the players (do they constantly hover in front of your vision?) and what to do with any of the heads-up display components. Aside from the obvious marketing thrown in at the end of the article (in a very familiar way), there is an interesting point raised concerning normalized conventions in all video games and how one ports that to the new stereoscopic 3D model mdash; the same way directors continue to grapple with getting 3D right. Will 3D games be just as gimmicky as most 3D movies? If they are, at least Guerrilla Games is at least making it possible for the player to easily and quickly switch in and out of stereoscopic 3D while playing."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgames.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F0027236%2FThe-New-Difficulties-In-Making-a-3D-Game" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=The+New+Difficulties+In+Making+a+3D+Game%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FddhwoQ" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/0027236/The-New-Difficulties-In-Making-a-3D-Game?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777962amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d74ab4f/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/u7ZcJZcLfY0GGobkVhut4yETQYs/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/u7ZcJZcLfY0GGobkVhut4yETQYs/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/u7ZcJZcLfY0GGobkVhut4yETQYs/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/u7ZcJZcLfY0GGobkVhut4yETQYs/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/Z0m57-c-rpo" height="1" width="1"/

Michael Geist writes in with the latest news on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the secret, closed-door copyright treaty that will bring US-style copyright rules (and worse) to the whole world. Particularly disturbing is the growing support for "three-strikes" copyright rules that would disconnect whole families from the Internet if one member of the household was accused (without proof) of copyright infringement. The other big US agenda item is cramming pro-Digital Rights Management (DRM) rules down the world's throats that go way beyond the current obligations under the UN's WIPO Copyright Treaty. In the US version, breaking DRM is always illegal, even if you're not committing any copyright violation -- so breaking the DRM on your iPad to install software you bought from someone who hasn't gone through the Apple approval process is illegal, even though the transaction involves no illicit copying.

Ironically, this DRM push comes just as the US courts and regulators have begun to erode the US's own extreme rules on the subject. Or perhaps this isn't so surprising: in the past, the US copyright lobby has torpedoed the courts and Congress by getting USA to commit to international agreements that went far beyond the rules that they could push through on their own at home. Given the history of ACTA leaks, to no one's surprise, the latest version of the draft agreement was leaked last night on Knowledge Ecology International's website. The new version - which reflects changes made during an intense week of negotiations last month in Washington - shows a draft agreement that is much closer to becoming reality. Square brackets [ed: these indicate areas where there is still debate] have been removed from many sections, leaving the core issue of scope of the agreement [ed: that is, whether the treaty will cover things like EU-style trademark rules that would prohibit calling it "cheddar cheese" if it's not made in Cheddar, England] as the biggest issue to be resolved when the next round of negotiations begins in a few weeks in Japan.

Perhaps the most important story of the latest draft is how the countries are close to agreement on the Internet enforcement chapter. The Internet enforcement chapter has been among the most contentious since the U.S. first proposed draft language that would have globalized the DMCA and raised the prospect of three strikes and you're out. In the face of opposition, the U.S. has dropped its demands on secondary liability [ed: that is, forcing ISPs and online services to police and censor their users or face prosecution] but is still holding out hope of establishing digital lock rules that go beyond the WIPO Internet treaties and were even rejected by its own courts. ACTA Text Leaks: U.S. Concedes on Secondary Liability, Wants To Go Beyond DMCA on Digital Locks

• New ACTA leak: It's a screwjob for the world's poor countries ...
• ACTA "internet enforcement" chapter leaks
• Delusional EU ACTA negotiator claims that three strikes has never ...
• Biggest-ever ACTA leak: secret copyright treaty dirty laundry ...
• ACTA leak: Now we know who is against transparency - USA, Korea ...
• Secret ACTA fights over iPod border-searches
• Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.
• ACTA goes public

An anonymous reader writes "Given the history of ACTA leaks, to no one's surprise, the latest version of the draft agreement (PDF) was leaked last night on KEI's website. The new version mdash; which reflects changes made during an intense week of negotiations last month in Washington mdash; shows a draft agreement that is much closer to becoming reality. Perhaps the most important story of the latest draft is how the countries are close to agreement on the Internet enforcement chapter. In the face of opposition, the US has dropped its demands on secondary liability for ISPs but is still holding out hope of establishing a super-DMCA with digital lock rules that go beyond the WIPO Internet treaties and were even rejected by US courts."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fyro.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F148212%2FACTA-Text-Leaks-US-Caves-On-ISPs-Seeks-Super-DMCA" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=ACTA+Text+Leaks%3B+US+Caves+On+ISPs%2C+Seeks+Super-DMCA%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F9h9xA7" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/148212/ACTA-Text-Leaks-US-Caves-On-ISPs-Seeks-Super-DMCA?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1778542amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d7a359a/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/zFlSU2cF0vAjM2SFJ258IGt1Xvc/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/zFlSU2cF0vAjM2SFJ258IGt1Xvc/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/zFlSU2cF0vAjM2SFJ258IGt1Xvc/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/zFlSU2cF0vAjM2SFJ258IGt1Xvc/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/Z2khmhQDlck" height="1" width="1"/

The Bad Astronomy blog posted this blink-and-you'll-miss it video of the International Space Station zipping across the face of the sun back in 2007. Let's put that speed in perspective:

It orbits the Earth a mere 350 or so kilometers (220 miles) up; I like to say that if you live in DC and see it pass overhead, it's about the same distance from you as New York City. So it's actually pretty close to the Earth's surface, and screaming around at 8 km/sec (5 miles/sec). That's a good clip! From the point of view of someone watching from the ground, it only takes a couple of minutes for the station to go clear across the sky, horizon to horizon.

EDIT: Sadly, the video was taken down sometime last night. Not sure why. I'm going to go ahead and leave this post up, though, because the Bad Astronomy quote (and link!) still have interesting info. Sorry about the video, folks.

• Evolution of the International Space Station
• New picture window for the space station
• Saturday Morning Science Experiment: Gravity Is For Suckers Boing ...
• No sex on the space station
• Paper airplane to be launched from International Space Station ...

Barence writes "This week's IFA show has seen a flurry of Android-based alternatives to the iPad emerge from leading manufacturers. The Samsung Galaxy Tab made a strong first impression on PC Pro's reviewer. The 7-inch tablet's TFT screen 'beams forth with rich, saturated colours and wide, wide viewing angles,' the device is capable of Full HD playback and the TouchWiz UI is 'clearly intended to draw customers away from the iFamily.' Elsewhere, ViewSonic has launched a pair of 7-inch and 10-inch tablets, the larger of which dual boots into either Android or Windows 7. 'Our first moments with Windows 7 were surprisingly painless, too: we expected the Atom processor and 1GB of memory to be horrendously sluggish, but it wasn't the case,' PC Pro reports. Finally, Toshiba's 10.1in Folio 100 marries Android 2.2 with Nvidia's Tegra 2 platform to deliver 'mighty graphics crunching power.' The build quality left a little to desire, though. 'The 14mm thick chassis feels lightweight, and even relatively gentle twisting motions left the Folio's plastic body creaking under the stress.'"pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fhardware.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F1239232%2FHands-on-With-the-iPad-Alternatives-On-Display-at-IFA" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Hands-on+With+the+iPad+Alternatives+On+Display+at+IFA%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F94I6Y1" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/1239232/Hands-on-With-the-iPad-Alternatives-On-Display-at-IFA?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1778480amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d79c59a/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/HJEaLOZi_1WfzVEkS354uFK5Nwo/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/HJEaLOZi_1WfzVEkS354uFK5Nwo/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/HJEaLOZi_1WfzVEkS354uFK5Nwo/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/HJEaLOZi_1WfzVEkS354uFK5Nwo/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/QrQcB2Uvmlk" height="1" width="1"/

Kilrah_il writes "The fine-structure constant, a coupling constant characterizing the strength of the electromagnetic interaction, has been measured lately by scientists from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia and has been found to change slightly in light sent from quasars in galaxies as far back as 12 billion years ago. Although the results look promising, caution is advised: 'This would be sensational if it were real, but I'm still not completely convinced that it's not simply systematic errors' in the data, comments cosmologist Max Tegmark of MIT. Craig Hogan of the University of Chicago and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., acknowledges that 'it's a competent team and a thorough analysis.' But because the work has such profound implications for physics and requires such a high level of precision measurements, 'it needs more proof before we'll believe it.'"pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F05%2F212252%2FFine-Structure-Constant-Maybe-Not-So-Constant" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Fine-Structure+Constant+Maybe+Not+So+Constant%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F9rLTRs" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/05/212252/Fine-Structure-Constant-Maybe-Not-So-Constant?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777892amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d741503/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Ziu2GyweAso19wYJY18aNtFr0eQ/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Ziu2GyweAso19wYJY18aNtFr0eQ/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Ziu2GyweAso19wYJY18aNtFr0eQ/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Ziu2GyweAso19wYJY18aNtFr0eQ/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/7Um7CTrM4SQ" height="1" width="1"/

If Nevada gubernatorial candidate Eugene "Gino" DiSimone gets his way, $25 will buy you the right to drive up to 90mph for a day. DiSimone estimates his "free limit plan" will raise $1 billion a year for Nevada. From the article: "First, vehicles would have to pass a safety inspection. Then vehicle information would be loaded into a database, and motorists would purchase a transponder. After setting up an account, anyone in a hurry could dial in, and for $25 charged to a credit card, be free to speed for 24 hours."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F05%2F1823204%2FGubernatorial-Candidate-Wants-to-Sell-Speeding-Passes-for-25" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Gubernatorial+Candidate+Wants+to+Sell+Speeding+Passes+for+%2425%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F9NFZVK" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/09/05/1823204/Gubernatorial-Candidate-Wants-to-Sell-Speeding-Passes-for-25?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777842amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d73551e/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/ibAGU9OYNsrLxP-y5m3cDPiaspc/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/ibAGU9OYNsrLxP-y5m3cDPiaspc/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/ibAGU9OYNsrLxP-y5m3cDPiaspc/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/ibAGU9OYNsrLxP-y5m3cDPiaspc/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/JX-umwxsgM4" height="1" width="1"/

pickens writes "The LA Times reports that 84-year-old Cuban ex-President Fidel Castro consumes 200 to 300 news items a day on the World Wide Web. In a recent interview he called Web communication 'the most powerful weapon that has existed' and extolled its power to break a stranglehold on the media by 'the empire' and 'ambitious private groups that have abused it' adding that the Internet 'has put an end to secrets.... We are seeing a high level of investigative journalism, as the New York Times calls it, that is within reach of the whole world.' Well, not the whole world. Cuba has the lowest level of Internet penetration in the Western Hemisphere (lower than Haiti), plus severe government restrictions and censorship affecting those who do have access. In addition Cuban law bans using the Internet to spread information that is against what the government considers to be the social interest, norms of good behavior, the integrity of the people or national security."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpolitics.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F05%2F1841240%2FFidel-Castro-Internet-News-Junkie" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Fidel+Castro%2C+Internet+News+Junkie%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FcmMq7T" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://politics.slashdot.org/story/10/09/05/1841240/Fidel-Castro-Internet-News-Junkie?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777848amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d793a29/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/kMaYD7_CcbTTP1TsXsIHTz7YNYo/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/kMaYD7_CcbTTP1TsXsIHTz7YNYo/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/kMaYD7_CcbTTP1TsXsIHTz7YNYo/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/kMaYD7_CcbTTP1TsXsIHTz7YNYo/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/osn4lfHtWl0" height="1" width="1"/

angry tapir writes "A clever spammer found a glitch in Facebook's photo upload system and used it to post thousands of unwanted Wall messages last week. Facebook confirmed the bug Friday, after notifying affected users of the issue. Most of the messages promised 'Free iPhones,' a common spam message on Facebook these days. Facebook says that the spammer hit thousands of profiles before the company removed the spammy photos and notified affected users. No accounts were compromised as a result of the bug."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F033258%2FFacebook-Glitch-Let-Spammer-Post-To-Walls" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Facebook+Glitch+Let+Spammer+Post+To+Walls%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FdfiZUO" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/033258/Facebook-Glitch-Let-Spammer-Post-To-Walls?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1778050amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d78cff2/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/MkELS1XYVFRdILdDZ6cFL15EXAA/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/MkELS1XYVFRdILdDZ6cFL15EXAA/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/MkELS1XYVFRdILdDZ6cFL15EXAA/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/MkELS1XYVFRdILdDZ6cFL15EXAA/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/RFdR4qOkUm0" height="1" width="1"/

paulelaguna writes "The dream of owning a household robot is starting to become reality, particularly for people in Japan. There are robots to help you do the dishes, move furniture, and even robotic wheelchairs to help you get around. Really, the only question that remains for us is when do we move?"pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fhardware.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F0259225%2FThe-State-of-Household-Robots" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=The+State+of+Household+Robots%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F9tpofL" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/0259225/The-State-of-Household-Robots?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1778044amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d77181f/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/BDWHCV3Wj-A6DzvYKi7zPgzOwjc/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/BDWHCV3Wj-A6DzvYKi7zPgzOwjc/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/BDWHCV3Wj-A6DzvYKi7zPgzOwjc/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/BDWHCV3Wj-A6DzvYKi7zPgzOwjc/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/2sRq1KxwVwg" height="1" width="1"/

The Iso writes "Las Vegas based company Righthaven found two articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal about Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle reprinted on her web site without permission, so it did what it always does: bought the rights to the articles from the Review-Journal and sued the alleged infringer, seeking unspecified damages."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpolitics.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F0241203%2FSenate-Candidate-Sued-By-Copyright-Troll" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Senate+Candidate+Sued+By+Copyright+Troll%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FaXGtM7" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://politics.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/0241203/Senate-Candidate-Sued-By-Copyright-Troll?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1778024amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d7616ed/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/DaRwzye1TmUDrdpxcjJr-LGLq8M/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/DaRwzye1TmUDrdpxcjJr-LGLq8M/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/DaRwzye1TmUDrdpxcjJr-LGLq8M/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/DaRwzye1TmUDrdpxcjJr-LGLq8M/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/WdtZpE_liwg" height="1" width="1"/

Stoobalou writes "The British music industry has called for a truce with the technology firms with whom it has till now fought a bitter battle over rights, royalties and file sharing. Feargal Sharkey, CEO of lobby group UK Music, told a conference in London this week that it was time for the music and technology industries to set aside their differences and strive instead toward a common goal: nothing less than the total global domination of British music."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fentertainment.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F0030238%2FUK-Music-Industry-Calls-For-Truce-With-Technology" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=UK+Music+Industry+Calls+For+Truce+With+Technology%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F96BCol" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/0030238/UK-Music-Industry-Calls-For-Truce-With-Technology?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777964amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d755550/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/lSs91ChavZbYYPJmBf5LWt8m_4E/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/lSs91ChavZbYYPJmBf5LWt8m_4E/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/lSs91ChavZbYYPJmBf5LWt8m_4E/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/lSs91ChavZbYYPJmBf5LWt8m_4E/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/ELcvperQvNY" height="1" width="1"/

Hugh Pickens writes "Members of 4chan aren't known for doing things that are cute and heart-warming and when they decide to go after someone, it's typically to subject them to ridicule. But not this time. Someone at 4chan decided that the Internet should get together and wish 90-year-old WWII veteran William J. Lashua a happy birthday, and soon Lashua's local branch of the American Legion was deluged by birthday calls from people as far away as Sweden. The account someone set up for Mr. Lashua's birthday on Facebook had 3,956 'likes' and over 500 comments, most of which wished him a happy birthday and thanked him for his military service. It's not clear how 4chan originally came across a photo of Lashua, but a member of the site posted a snapshot of a flyer that was on the bulletin board at a store in Ashburnham, Massachusetts asking for guests to attend the nonagenarian's birthday on at the American Legion hall and the post took off. In contrast to their usual behavior, 4chan members 'were giving him nice phone calls and sending him nice notes' and discouraging those who wanted to do something stupid or mean. 'They were all being.. well, shucks, awful nice.'"pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F05%2F2148248%2F4chan-Gives-90-Year-Old-Vet-a-Great-Birthday" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=4chan+Gives+90-Year-Old+Vet+a+Great+Birthday%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Faf4Fm6" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/09/05/2148248/4chan-Gives-90-Year-Old-Vet-a-Great-Birthday?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777912amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d748c8f/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/sG7mh2JxlQrTYDCuTjSm8fosefY/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/sG7mh2JxlQrTYDCuTjSm8fosefY/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/sG7mh2JxlQrTYDCuTjSm8fosefY/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/sG7mh2JxlQrTYDCuTjSm8fosefY/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/1EujbKfgX_I" height="1" width="1"/

An anonymous reader writes "One of the big, unsolved problems in explaining how life arose on Earth is a chicken-and-egg paradox: How could the basic biochemicals - such as amino acids and nucleotides - have arisen before the biological catalysts (proteins or ribozymes) existed to carry out their formation? In a paper appearing in the current issue of The Biological Bulletin, scientists propose that a third type of catalyst could have jumpstarted metabolism and life itself, deep in hydrothermal ocean vents."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F05%2F2118241%2FTransition-Metal-Catalysts-Could-be-Key-To-Origin-of-Life" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Transition+Metal+Catalysts+Could+be+Key+To+Origin+of+Life%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fd5c2OY" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/05/2118241/Transition-Metal-Catalysts-Could-be-Key-To-Origin-of-Life?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777902amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d7459f1/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Cv5KAIJpDKAtjm4tB2vbFJcZPK0/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Cv5KAIJpDKAtjm4tB2vbFJcZPK0/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Cv5KAIJpDKAtjm4tB2vbFJcZPK0/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Cv5KAIJpDKAtjm4tB2vbFJcZPK0/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/Sn56B3_NMmU" height="1" width="1"/

Last night, the Hugo Awards, one of science fiction's most prestigious prizes, were presented in Melbourne at Aussiecon 4. The Hugo ceremony is one of my favorite parts of any WorldCon, and last night's event, emceed by Garth Nix, was a particularly outstanding edition. The ballot was extremely strong, with works that I really enjoyed competing in several categories. The voter and nominator turnout were both much higher than usual, and the program moved at a very, very good clip. This year's award, designed by Nick Stathopolous, was gorgeous, incorporating aboriginal motifs and an organic, Belle Époque look inspired by the Paris Metro signs. Kudos to the administrators on a smooth, well-run ceremony!

The fiction prizes were especially sweet this year. Best novel was an almost-unheard-of tie between China Mieville for his brilliant, mind-bending The City and the City and Paolo Bacigalupe for his stellar debut novel The Windup Girl. Best novella went to my collaborator Charlie Stross for Palimpsest, from his wonderful, mind-bending solo short story collection Wireless. Best novelette went to Peter Watts for The Island, from The New Space Opera 2. Boing Boing readers will remember Peter as the SF writer who was beaten and gassed near the US/Canada border when he got out of his car to ask why US customs officers were searching his car; he spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting the charge and the potential two-year sentence; was found guilty but received a suspended sentence. SF fans raised money to bring Peter to Australia, and his acceptance speech in which he called this the "best and worst year of his life," was brilliant. The best short story, which I presented, went to Will McIntosh for "Bridecicle," a lovely story.

Net-based media was a big winner this year: the podcast Starship Sofa (often presented here) won for Best Fanzine. And of course, there was Fred Pohl's Hugo for Best Fan Writer for his excellent blog The Way the Future Blogs.

Other categories whose winners made me especially glad include the Best Editor prize for my editor at Tor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden (this was his second prize in the very new category, and he has taken his name out of the running for next year). The graphic novel category went to Phil and Kaja Foglio's steampunk comic Girl Genius. The Campbell Award for best new writer to Seanan McGuire, whose heartfelt acceptance speech made me burst into tears.

Tor.com has the full list of nominees and winners here.

• 2010 Hugo Nominees announced
• Hugo Award winners and statsporn!
• Hugo nominating deadline looms
• Design the Hugo Award logo, win $500 and a ticket to WorldCon ...
• Hugo Award winners for 2008
• For sale: first editions of every Hugo- and Nebula-award winning ...

lewko writes "Our company is about to build a central monitoring facility and I'm looking for ideas/suggestions about the best hardware and the best way to make it comfortable for those manning a screen. It will be manned 24x7 and operators will be monitoring a variety of systems including security, network, fire, video and more. These will be observed via local multi-monitor workstations and a common videowall. This is going to be a massively expensive exercise and we only get one chance to get it right. The facility is in a secure windowless bunker and staff will generally be in there for many hours at a time. So we have to implement design elements which make it a 'happy' place. At the same time, it has to be ergonomically sound. Lastly, we will be showing it to our clients, so without undoing the above objectives, it would be nice if it was 'cool' (yet functional). Whilst Television doesn't transfer to real life always, think 'CTU' from 24."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fhardware.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F05%2F1623224%2FIdeas-For-a-Great-Control-Room" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Ideas+For+a+Great+Control+Room%3F%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fad7TXi" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/09/05/1623224/Ideas-For-a-Great-Control-Room?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777792amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d740e8b/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/cB5q1VN-j1avxgRVVYfaCfAqxPc/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/cB5q1VN-j1avxgRVVYfaCfAqxPc/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/cB5q1VN-j1avxgRVVYfaCfAqxPc/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/cB5q1VN-j1avxgRVVYfaCfAqxPc/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/zPy8f7kfzx0" height="1" width="1"/

Fisherman Wily Dean was trying to catch cow-nosed rays in Southern Maryland's Potomac River for a marine biologist this week, but he ended up netting an 8-foot-long bull shark. Unfortunately, the story doesn't have a happy ending for the shark. From NBC Washington: "We had an interesting morning bringing it in," Dean said. "It was quite a fight."

Once the shark was captured, the next question was: What the heck do you do with it?

"I am probably going to have it mounted, maybe the head," Dean said. "Right now, the shark's in the freezer."
"8-Foot Shark Caught in Potomac River"

lewko writes "Our company is about to build a central monitoring facility and I'm looking for ideas/suggestions about the best hardware and the best way to make it comfortable for those manning a screen. It will be manned 24x7 and operators will be monitoring a variety of systems including security, network, fire, video and more. These will be observed via local multi-monitor workstations and a common videowall. This is going to be a massively expensive exercise and we only get one chance to get it right. The facility is in a secure windowless bunker and staff will generally be in there for many hours at a time. So we have to implement design elements which make it a 'happy' place. At the same time, it has to be ergonomically sound. Lastly, we will be showing it to our clients, so without undoing the above objectives, it would be nice if it was 'cool' (yet functional). Whilst Television doesn't transfer to real life always, think 'CTU' from 24."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fask.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F05%2F1623224%2FIdeas-For-a-Great-Control-Room" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Ideas+For+a+Great+Control+Room%3F%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fad7TXi" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/09/05/1623224/Ideas-For-a-Great-Control-Room?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777792amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d73f778/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Z24cjsdn54zf7foNbir8oi_3Kb0/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Z24cjsdn54zf7foNbir8oi_3Kb0/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Z24cjsdn54zf7foNbir8oi_3Kb0/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Z24cjsdn54zf7foNbir8oi_3Kb0/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/wJFVPyz4zW8" height="1" width="1"/

Behold, the face of the enemy.

(Why, yes, my nose is rather runny, why do you ask?)

Urge to vengeance aside, my main reaction while flipping through this gallery of pollen images was wonder at the intense variety of sizes, shapes, textures and tricks floating through the microscopic world of plant pollen. This group shot ranges from the (relatively) giant orb of pumpkin pollen in the center, to the teensy blue dot that belongs to the forget-me-not. Some of the grains seem like completely alien things, but others bear a striking resemblance to the plants they help create—for instance, I guessed that Venus fly trap pollen went with the Venus fly trap before I read the caption.

All these shots are the work of Swedish Swiss scientist Martin Oeggerli, who makes amazing art using a scanning electron microscope. The images actually start out in black and white, with Oeggerli going back and adding color, pixel by pixel. The colors can, but don't necessarily, reflect reality, but they do help make textures stand out and make the form more easily readable by your eye.

The Telegraph: Full pollen image gallery

Martin Oeggerli explains the technology behind his photos, from microscope, to sample preparation, to coloration.

Image: Martin Oeggerli/Micronaut