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Slashback: New E3, Archimedes Webcast, Dell Wildfires

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wed Aug 02, 2006 06:59 PM
from the yet-another-lap-close-call dept.
Slashback Government The Courts E3 News Science Technology
Slashback tonight brings some clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including: a victory for evolution in Kansas, the Stardust Program launched, Lego Mindstorms goes live, continued backlash on the new E3, Archimedes gets a webcast, another Dell bursts into flame, and a possible RIAA silver bullet Read on for details.

A Victory for Evolution in Kansas. SatanicPuppy writes "Yesterday, elections in Kansas saw four of six pro-Creationism school board members replaced by pro-Evolution candidates in a one issue election. Interestingly, it didn't go by party lines; at least one of the conservative Republicans who supported Creationism failed to make it past their party primary. Ken Willard and John Bacon are the two remaining pro-Creationism incumbents."

Stardust Program Launched. lee1 writes "Anyone with an internet connection now has the the chance to find microscopic grains of dust from beyond the solar system. The project, called Stardust@home, is patterned on projects like SETI@home. But rather than exploiting idle processor time, it will ask volunteers to search through millions of microscope images on their computer screens, exploiting spare time in general as well as ego: 'People get very competitive,' explains the project director. The first volunteer to spot an actual interstellar dust grain will get to name it and will be listed as a co-author on any resulting research papers. The images come from a NASA project called Stardust, whose primary mission was to collect samples of dust from the tail of Comet Wild 2, but might also have captured some interstellar dust that could reveal the physics of the stars that produced it. To minimize false positives and to ensure that all the grains are found, each participant will go through an online training and testing process before starting their search. They will be scored on how well they distinguish real dust grain impacts from fakes."

Lego Mindstorms goes live. MicroBerto writes "As of August 1, 2006, the next generation of Lego Mindstorms is now available for sale in North America. Mindstorms NXT is a robotics toolset that allows you to build and program robots for various purposes. It combines the power of the Lego technic building system and an all new intuitive software environment powered by National Instruments LabVIEW."

Continued backlash on the new E3. Anonymous Howard writes "Angry Gamer reacts badly to the news of the Electronic Entertainment Expo's demise. They see it as a major blow for small game developers who are having enough of a hard time getting noticed by press and retailers as it is. From the article: 'This is a win only for the EAs, Sonys and IGNs of the world. Everyone else has to fend for themselves.' It seems like the days of smaller developers getting noticed by 'drive by traffic' at E3 are over." Relatedly The Escapist Lounge has an interview with the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences president, Joseph Olin, on what is actually happening to E3. As Joseph Olin responds: 'So it's going to take a couple of months until the world knows what the scope of E3 2007 will be, and how it will be structured. The opportunity to make material changes to improve it shouldn't be snap judgments. The rhetorical question I might pose is: "You know you have a problem. You know you need to make changes. How do you make changes and convey it and announce it, and to whom, and when?" There's never a good time. Whenever you make significant change, there's no way to introduce that change without detractors. The challenge is that without being able to announce the exact implementation of change it leaves that gray area for ignorance to fill the void.'"

Archimedes gets a webcast. jd writes "Some time ago, Slashdot covered the story of the rediscovery of several lost writings of Archimedes by means of X-Ray fluorescence. Well, they're still scanning the book and at 11pm GMT (4pm PDT) on August 4th will be putting on a live webcast as they scan and interpret pages not seen by human eyes for over a thousand years."

Another Dell bursts into flame. starwindsurfer writes "A Dell laptop's battery caught on fire in a company's IT department this week, burning a hole right through the casing. Nearby techs used fire extinguishers to put out the blaze. Employee Henrik took pictures to document the affair and uploaded them to the Toms Hardware message boards. From the writeup: 'The police department showed up. The entire lower floor was allowed to leave early and as we stood there in front of the building we simply couldn't resist... we jokingly called the engineer a terrorist as he was being asked a few questions by the friendly officer.'"

An RIAA silver bullet? Chris Fairman writes "TechDirt is running a story about how the RIAA seems to be dropping cases where the defense includes (or hinges on) an IP address as the means to identify the source of criminal activity. Essentially the defense argues that all an IP address can prove is who was paying for the net access at a particular time. Having a wide open WiFi router on your network seems to be currently the most effective means of getting the RIAA to drop all charges. Essentially the activity originating from one IP, only proves that illegal file sharing behavior is coming from one network, and not necessarily from any one specific computer or user. More importantly, it seems that the legal system is beginning to catch on to more complex technology concepts. Such concepts play a large part in how future legal cases are argued, and contribute ultimately to the foundation of complex technology legal precedents."

+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Technology: Stanford Accelerator Uncovers Archimedes' Text 392 comments
AI Playground points to a Newsday.com report which reads in part "A particle accelerator is being used to reveal the long-lost writings of the Greek mathematician Archimedes, work hidden for centuries after a Christian monk wrote over it in the Middle Ages. Highly focused X-rays produced at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center were used last week to begin deciphering the parts of the 174-page text that have not yet been revealed."
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  • I view Evolution as God's tool. The days in the Genesis account were days of God, and not days of man. It's said in other places in the bible that a day of God is longer than a day of man. Besides what is a day when the sun isn't even in existance? I envision God sculpting the species over billions of years by using Evolution as a tool. God gave a small account of how he created the universe, but its also eloquent. Science will change in the next 1000 years shattering our notion of the universe, but t

    • Re:I believe in Evolution and God (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JanneM (7445) on Wednesday August 02 2006, @07:14PM (#15836237) Homepage
      Science will change in the next 1000 years shattering our notion of the universe, but the Genesis account will never change.

      And that, in one sentence, summarizes the fatal flaw in using religion as a means of understanding the world.

      • Re:I believe in Evolution and God (Score:5, Insightful)

        by anothy (83176) on Wednesday August 02 2006, @07:48PM (#15836364) Homepage
        no, it doesn't. it summarizes the fatal flaw in using religion to replace science. religion's a very useful tool for understanding some aspects of the world, including human nature and psychology, even if you don't believe it's a useful or true description of the metaphysical. it's just not a replacement for science, nor a good means for understanding, say, physical phenomenon. don't confuse arguments against using religion to teach science with arguments against religion in general.
        • "religion's a very useful tool for understanding some aspects of the world, including human nature and psychology,"

          no.

          religion is a very useful tool for observing some aspects of the world, including human nature and psychology.

          it offers no understanding at all.
          • you are all wrong.

            Religion is a very useful tool for controling the masses. (like tv reality shows and news groups (esp. but not limited to china))

            it offers neither understanding or observation
            • Any sentence of the form "Religion is X", where X is some simple, monovalent role in some schematic view of "everything" is bound to be twaddle. Religion is definitely a natural product of the human condition: the interaction of human biology, psychology, and sociology. Say anything definite beyond that and you're on shaky grounds.

              It might also be a product of God trying to sneak into our thick skulls. But be that as it may, I've never seen a simple theory of what religion is, positing that religion exist

      • Re:I believe in Evolution and God (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Synonymous Bosch (957964) on Wednesday August 02 2006, @08:19PM (#15836505)
        Religion isn't intended to be a means of understanding the world - it's a means of understanding yourself and in turn, understanding God.

        It's a shame most religions (or their followers) have lost sight of that point.

    • So, yes to evolution, and yes to the account of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis, and yes to the account of creation given in the second chapter of Genesis.

      ... um, mods, how is self-contradiction "interesting"? OK, well I suppose it's interesting in the sense that it's a very, very peculiar way to think. Or rather, I suppose, doublethink, since that is literally what it is.

      Even the craziest sentence in this post --

      Science will change in the next 1000 years shattering our notion of the univ

      • But just because it's possible to re-encode something in your head in such a way that it makes some kind of sense....

        But there's no re-encoding necessary. The biblical account of creation only has a few crucial claims, IMO:

        • God existed before anything and created everything.
        • Things appeared in a certain order: the universe, later plants, later sea creatures & birds, then land creatures and finally mankind.
        • Men are a special act of creation, unique from animals in that they're in "God's own image."

        So far, I've never learned any science that contradicts these fundamentals. Society at large used to think God created each variety of animal ex-nihilo; now the evolutionary process is commonly accepted, even by quite a lot of Christians. This "change" doesn't affect the above tenets.

        This is my viewpoint, anyway, and based on what the OP said, it's his, too. I hate to add to the offtopic-ness, but I felt like clarifying.

        • But there's no re-encoding necessary. The biblical account of creation only has a few crucial claims, IMO:

          It must be very nice, just happening to be the person who knows which claims are crucial and which ones aren't.

          • And you appear to not have studied much religion - at least Genesis. The source material for much of Genesis goes back much further than the Bible and the Torah. Look up the Epic of Gilgamesh for instance.

            Regardless - it is not so much of real interest that things were created in a certain order. Certainly our view of the Earth has radically changed in 2,000 years and will continue to change I am sure, as an example.

            Classical studies often find that a timeline and factual accounts are far from reality -
    • New King James Bible
      In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep, And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

      New International Version
      • No, that's one version in 1611 English and one in 20th century English. You'll notice that they say the same thing, just in the vernacular of the times.
        • Actually, that is incorrect also, because the older king james version did NOT use the term *water* - they used "firmament" whose meaning has been changed to indicate water. The firmament was not actually water as we see it in a pool or out of our faucet, it was water in the form of frozen ice particulates surrounding the earth, helping to isolate the earth from the rest of the universe. Light, could only come through at the poles, due to the magnetic poles and radiation belts helping to form natural hol
      • 1:1 | Daq the tagh joH'a' { Note: After "
        joH'a'," the Hebrew ghajtaH the cha'
        letters "Aleph Tav" (the wa'Dich je
        last letters vo' the
        1:1 Hebrew alphabet) as a grammatical marker. }
        created the chal je the tera'.
        1:2 | DaH the tera' ghaHta' formless
        je empty. HurghtaHghach ghaHta'
        Daq the surface vo' the de
    • More power to you, Jim. I have no problem with people of faith when they're actually using their brain. That, to me is real faith, not the pseudo faith of the fundamentalist. The kind of faith you seem to have is more of a creative mental act, much like imagination. Faith gets a bad name because of the many people who claim to have faith, when really it's a matter of being brainwashed by a dogma.

      I was going to disagree with your contention that:

      Science will change in the next 1000 years shattering our notio

    • I think God rather play in turns just like Civilization.
    • Now stop and think a moment...

      When the information was shared with man on how the universe and world was created, who among us could understand genetics, quantum physics, superstring theory and a host of things we still don't know about?

      We understood the concept of god. We understood creating something. We knew simple numbers. We understood simple concepts for measuring time, days, seasons, etc...

      If the story of creation were handed down today, I'm positive it would read differently. For one thing, we'd
    • Well, the Genesis account has probably changed countless number of times. One more more times per each translation. Every translation puts someone else's spin on it, deliberately or otherwise. It only goes to show a lack of understanding of the history of religous (at least Judeo Christian) documents.

      This certainly doesn't mean that God/Jehovah/Allah doesn't exist...

      • God could not use evolution, because if it was guided, it wasn't evolution.

        Not provable, nor falsifiable, therefore a bullshit statement scientifically.

        The concept that God has or had a hand in evolution is a metaphysical, philosophical, or theological idea. If you claim that science has an opinion on such, then you don't understand science.

      • God could not use evolution, because if it was guided, it wasn't evolution.

        That's not quite right. You might very well have had some form of directed evolution. (The Christian god/some other god/the aliens/FSM altered/is altering genes gradually towards some goal, and here we are.)

        And related to this, Darwin did not come up with the idea of evolution, that would already have been known. What he proposed was natural selection; the method that pushed evolution seemingly "forward".

        But you're probabl

  • ...for the ability to reason! Go Kansas! (Until the next election that is...they've flipped their so-called standards virtually every 2 years).
  • I hope they translate it before the webcast (at least provisionally), or it's going to be rather limited interest to most people...
  • Re: the RIAA "silver bullet"....are there any /. lawyers or legal students (no armchair lawyers please) who can weigh in on the effectiveness of it, and any potential limitations it might have due to state laws?

    If this really is as big a solution as they are making it sound, then work should be done to ensure that the information gets distributed to the mainstream college students and high school students who are the main people at risk and who are the least prepared for legal problems both in knowledge and

    • Re:RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rophuine (946411) on Wednesday August 02 2006, @08:20PM (#15836508)
      One bit of FUD being spread around is the whole "They'll be able to prove it was you when they seize your computer" crap. I haven't seen it hit /. but I've certainly seen it around the place. This isn't a criminal matter. The police aren't going to be getting search warrants and raiding your place for MP3 sharing. If the RIAA turn up at your place and try to take your laptop, call the police and have them arrested for Unauthorised Entry and Attempted Theft. The best the RIAA can do is subpoena your stuff, at which point you are required by law to provide them with copies (or possibly access to the real thing) at an actual court hearing. They can also demand copies of records you have during disclosure, if it makes it to a hearing. At the end of the day, they are going to have to be satisfied with the access YOU give them, under the terms of a court order. While I'm not suggesting you should falsify evidence (which would be a serious crime), hard drives crash all the time. Who makes regular backups, really? Do you save and keep all the logs from your wireless router? The data doesn't need to be missing. If they subpoenaed me for a list of all the MP3s on my desktop, I would happily give it to them. I keep all my MP3s on my MP3 player, not my desktop. What about all the P2P software which has ever been installed on my laptop? I have an old laptop sitting downstairs running as a router. That's the laptop they mean, right? Ultimately, the infringement they're chasing you about, and the potential gain to them, is not worth the cost of a serious investigation. Especially not when it's weighed against the potential loss of actually losing a case and setting a precedent. I say: Fight the good fight. I never used to buy music; it was burned CDs for me. I was a poor high school student. Now that I work as an engineer, I buy CDs all the time (not from Sony anymore, though). If the RIAA had bent me over and spanked me as a student, though, I'd have to wonder why I should go legit now that I can. Ultimately, the RIAA is alienating today's P2Pers who would have been tomorrow's customers. They would have ended up buying their own music, CDs as gifts, gift vouchers, iPods... But once they've been grounded for a month and banned from the internet for three because their parents had to pay a settlement to the RIAA, FORGET IT. On that note, wouldn't it be nice if America could stage a large-scale music boycott over this issue?
      • I never used to buy music; it was burned CDs for me. I was a poor high school student. Now that I work as an engineer, I buy CDs all the time...

        A college student doesn't have a whole lot to loose (a few thousand dollars of debt is just another semester of classes). A professional who has a reputation to worry about and likely has dollars in the bank has a bit more on the line. Not trying to knock down the poster of the parent, but one has to wonder: even though a lot of posters spout similar lines to the

  • Wifi Routers not needed. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nurb432 (527695) on Wednesday August 02 2006, @07:25PM (#15836277) Homepage Journal
    Its even more common then most, since most every laptop ( and many desktops ) come with wifi built in.

    At least the courts are starting to come to their senses ( I hope ). But how does one prove you had open wifi during the time they think you did something wrong? I know personally i have mine wide open for my neighbors, but that still doesnt PROVE it.... ( i sit here now with my macmini with internet sharing going on the airport )
    • Well that's actually a great question for the legal types (you know them they preface everything with IANAL).

      If it were a criminal case (as I understand US law) you SHOULDN'T have to prove it was someone else, just introduce the reasonable doubt that it was actually you. A dynamically assigned address and an open wifi introduce a lot of doubt.

      It's up to them to prove you did it.
      This unfortunately isn't a criminal case (yet!).
      • Reasonable doubt is not the required weight of evidence in a civil matter. In civil matters, only the less strict "preponderance of evidence" is required. Therefore, the RIAA only has to show that it was likely you, not you beyond a reasonable doubt.
        • "Likely" is not the precise standard of proof that the RIAA would be required to show. Actually, a preponderance of evidence requires the plaintiff to prove that it was more probable that not that the defendant is liable. By pointing to a wide-open network IP address, the RIAA will face difficulty in proving by a preponderence that a particular user of that network was the infringer. As the plaintiff, the RIAA has both the burden of production and persuasion. Only after both of those are met is the defe

  • Tubes (Score:5, Funny)

    by whoever57 (658626) on Wednesday August 02 2006, @07:39PM (#15836332) Journal
    this comment [techdirt.com]on the page about the RIAA is a must read for those with a sense of humor. I would just copy the text, but that might be copyright infringment.
    • Aah, but according to the RIAA linking to copyrighted material (that's like when you give directions to lost souls in the tubes) is copyright infringement, you pirate, you.
  • I mentioned it a couple times [slashdot.org] since last year [slashdot.org] so I don't need to repeat myself, but I agree with that view about the small developers and media receiving a big blow out of this new E3.

    A more intimate event will weed out most of the people that didn't have any business there, but it will also pull out of the radar all those really innovative games that don't come from the big players, and the media interested in them.

    It certainly looks bad, but now look at Hollywood, there's no place for small indie films in
    • At least we can hope that with a more low key e3, we'll see a return of the booth babes. Relegating them to the private suites for "private demos" was pretty cool for the lucky few, but not fair to the rest of the poor stiffs. =)

  • PAX (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Alizarin Erythrosin (457981) on Wednesday August 02 2006, @08:12PM (#15836474)
    'This is a win only for the EAs, Sonys and IGNs of the world. Everyone else has to fend for themselves.' It seems like the days of smaller developers getting noticed by 'drive by traffic' at E3 are over.

    I guess there's always the Penny Arcade Expo...

  • Root of All Evil? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rolman (120909) on Wednesday August 02 2006, @08:28PM (#15836543)
    Last year, Richard Dawkins [richarddawkins.com], of The Selfish Gene fame, made a documentary about religion called "Root of All Evil?" [channel4.com], where he defines faith as "the process of non-thinking" that can lead to even the worst human condition, like murderous thinking when the fundamentalism make people hate and kill each other. Just like what's happening in Israel right now.

    One of the most interesting things about it is that he tries to talk with several religious leaders about evolution, and they sistematically avoid any rational discussion and undeniable evidence with the same stupid arguments, equivalent to "my book says this and therefore, it must be true".

    He brings forth the question "why can't schools just teach science in SCIENCE class?"

    Quite controversial, I recommend it very much.
    • A site that has a lot of embedded videos of material which are in the public domain happens to have the first episode of Root of All Evil? [jonhs.net]. (Thouch, since it is recent, I do wonder the copyright status of this.)

    • Re:Root of All Evil? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by evilviper (135110) on Wednesday August 02 2006, @10:38PM (#15837146) Journal
      Last year, Richard Dawkins, of The Selfish Gene fame, made a documentary about religion called "Root of All Evil?", where he defines faith as "the process of non-thinking" that can lead to even the worst human condition, like murderous thinking when the fundamentalism make people hate and kill each other. Just like what's happening in Israel right now.

      In any group, whether religous or not, you will find nutjobs trying to usurp the group for their own purposes.

      The issues with Jews and Arabs would exist even if both groups were the same religon. Anti-arab and anti-semetic feelings exist among just as many non-religous groups.

      Groups like the KKK didn't claim Blacks and other non-whites followed the wrong God. They made-up their own secular reasons to justify what they already wanted to do.

      Religon is just another scapegoat for bad people that want to do bad things.

      One of the most interesting things about it is that he tries to talk with several religious leaders about evolution, and they sistematically avoid any rational discussion and undeniable evidence with the same stupid arguments, equivalent to "my book says this and therefore, it must be true".

      The Catholic Church recognizes and supports "The Theory of Evolution", and has repeated condemed "The Hypothesis of Intelligent Design".

      • Slashdot, where arm chair scientists get shouted down and arm chair theologians get modded up.

        Try reading the books of the bible and then study the thoughts of some of the great Christian Apologists over the ages. Perhaps then you can stop repeating the group think of everyone that dislikes Christianity because Pat Robertson and his ilk are assholes. For example only a few small groups (and no main stream denomination) believe in the whole 'only 144000' make it into Heaven thing, even a simple search of

  • Unfortunately, the photos aren't visible any longer, although one gets a good idea of the extent of the damage from the description.

    Also interesting was a link posted in the comments to the letters section [theinquirer.net] of the inquirer regarding why Li-on batteries might catastrophically fail.

  • So it's come to Kansas now (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Guuge (719028) on Wednesday August 02 2006, @08:54PM (#15836683)
    There may be something of a backlash against the new direction of conservative politics in this country. Is this a sign of things to come? Is there hope that the near future will hold less politicization of religion? The optimist in me hopes that people are fed up with politicians exploiting their religious beliefs in these nonsensical confrontations with science. The fact that a pro-evolution Republican is even possible in Kansas gives me hope.

  • Straight to the classroom... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Otto-Marrakech (989922) on Wednesday August 02 2006, @10:18PM (#15837058)
    From watching Ken Miller's recent lecture at Case Western University (whole 2hour talk can be seen here [youtube.com]), one point really stands out for me, that for 'Intelligent Design' a supposedly non-religious packaging of creationism to be accepted, it must go through a simple process that evolution also went through;

    Novel Scientific Claim > Research > Peer Review > Scientific Concensus > Classroom & Textbook

    Intelligent Design proponents are doing the follow;

    Intelligent Design "Theory" > Classroom & Textbook

    If Intelligent Design supporters are so confident in their research and findings which supposedly vindicate the literal truth of the Bible, why do they skip the most important process in getting their theory accepted?

    Meanwhile we have Ken Ham already building a 25 million dollar creation science museum [youtube.com].
    • Well, one way I see this working out is for say Sony or MS or Nintendo to each have their own show for their own consoles. There'd be an exhibition hall for developers to show their stuff. Think of it as the console equivalent of Mac World.

      Oh, I left out Phantom. Well, I guess they can have their own show, too. =)
      • Well, at least this clears up the mystery as to why my dog likes backslash so much.
      • If you don't like the food, then don't eat it. Very simple fix.

        There are some of us that weren't available in the original discussion and have something to say. So, if you already posted or read something about these topics before, then it's very simple for you not to click in the story and not to produce more ad impressions to the oh-so-greedy editors.

        Just ignore them, that works quite better than complaining.
    • The RIAA could not use the same rules as traffic cameras. Because a car is a big physical thing then it is likely that a car is driven by the owner, or someone who has the owner's permission. Either that or the car was stolen. Wireless is quite different. The RIAA might go for the negligent angle and claim that the user should have used WEP/WPA etc.
    • From their front page it looks like a good old fashoned slashdotting:

      Latest News: Aug. 2, 2006 - 5:45 PM PDT
      We are currently experiencing heavy traffic from all of our enthusiastic volunteers and the site is running quite slowly. We are working to add server capacity, so things should speed up over the next several hours. Thanks as always for your patience.

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