Cody Taylor

A new cyberbullying bill aims to punish those who intend to cause “emotional distress” online with fines, jail time, or both. The problem—as usual—is the vague language used in the bill, which leaves many critics concerned that it could be used to censor speech on the Internet.

Hugh Pickens writes “Space shuttle Atlantis is slated to lift off Monday on the fifth and final servicing mission to Hubble with four mission specialists alternating in two-astronaut teams will attempt a total of five spacewalks from Atlantis to replace broken components, add new science instruments, and swap out the telescope’s six 125-pound (57-kilogram) batteries, original parts that have powered Hubble’s night-side operations for nearly two decades. “This is our final opportunity to service and upgrade Hubble,” says David Leckrone, senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope. “So we’re replacing some items that are getting long in the tooth to give Hubble longevity, and then we’ll try to take advantage of that five- to 10-year extra lifetime with the most powerful instrumental tools we’ve ever had on board.” Some of the upgrades are relatively straightforward and modular: yank out old part, put in new. But they’re big parts: The “fine guidance sensors” sound delicate but weigh as much as a grand piano back on Earth. But what’s different this time is that the astronauts will also open up some instruments and root around inside, doing Geek Squad-like repairs while wearing bulky spacesuits and traveling around the planet at 17,000 mph. “We have this choreographed almost down to the minute of what we want the crew to do. It’s this really fine ballet,” said Keith Walyus, the servicing mission operations manager at Goddard. “We’ve been training for this for seven years. We can’t wait for this to happen.””

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anarchduke sends in a Reuters story quoting unnamed sources who say that the European Union has decided to find Intel anti-competitive. The finding should be announced in the coming week. “…the Commission will say Intel paid PC makers to delay or scrap the launch of products containing AMD chips. The Commission will characterize the payments as ‘naked restrictions’ to competition, the sources said. … Intel set percentages of its own chips that it wanted PC makers to use, the sources said. For example, NEC Corp was told that 20 percent of its desktop and notebook machines could have AMD chips, the sources said. All Lenovo notebooks had to use Intel chips, as did relevant Dell products. The figure was 95 percent for Hewlett-Packard’s business desktops, they said.” Previous infractions by Intel include giving illegal rebates to computer makers back in 2007 and paying retailers not to sell AMD-based computer systems.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

mx12 writes “I’m currently an undergrad in computer engineering and have been thinking about getting my masters. I have a year left in school. Most of my professors seem to think that getting a masters is a great idea, but I wanted to hear from people out in the working world. Is a masters in computer engineering better than two years of experience at a company?”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

But the YouTube tool that’s got people buzzing this week is just plain out of this world. Yooouuutuuube.com lets you put tens, even hundreds, of YouTube videos into rows and columns, creating an utterly trippy experience. Just enter a YouTube (YouTube reviews) video ID and frame width for each “piece” of the mosaic, and Yooouuutuuube…

Can we as a society keep up with an ever-increasing amount of information? Or will we have to find better alternatives to filter out the information so only the most important stuff reaches us first?

No matter how experienced you are with Linux systems, there is always something new you can learn from a good book that focuses on specific aspects of a Linux system.