Topics

GlobalMarket got an update today, overhauling it.
It now features grouped listings (so if 10 people are selling melons, it will group them into a single item -> melons with the lowest priced item being first
All your active listings can be found in /mm now

And many more new features, as well as a revamp to its graphical user interface.

Our Survival server is now running on Minecraft 1.8.
Due to this, the lobby was set to only accept connections from 1.8 clients.

NOTE: We highly recommend using 1.8.1 and not 1.8 (due to performance improvements in 1.8.1).

This is just an update so you know what the progress is with the 1.8 update.

Currently everything is prepared and ready for an update, with just minimal damage (we are losing Pets, /fwrider and possibly BattleArena (/dm join) for now, as well as some Administrative tools (NBTEditor - the tool that allows me to make all the custom items for SteveCo crates and so on).

However, we have decided to delay the update because of WorldEdit not being updated for 1.8. We could update now, with it as it is but that would mean that any worldedit would not carry over chest inventories or text on signs. Since the Managers+ are very busy moving player builds, I have decided to leave the server on 1.7.0 until a) WorldEdit is updated to support 1.8 or b) the world2 reset. So we have a maximum date of December 21st with an estimated upgrade time of ~1 week (that's when I believe a worldedit update will be out).

Hope this clarifies.

PS: We are still struggling to find a decent world to replace the world that is about to reset. Currently we are struggling with worlds with a ratio of 70%ocean to 30% land. We are trying to find better ones, but since dynmap is not enabled, I am forced to use slower tools that take me on average, ~4-5h to generate a world and build a preview of it.

[IF NO MANAGER+ ARE ONLINE, USE THIS FORM:]

IF NO MANAGER+ ARE ONLINE, USE THIS FORM: http://www.superfuntime.org/forum/minecraft-discussions/request-a-build-move!/

World2 will be reset in 3 weeks to make room for a new world that will contain 1.8 blocks and items.
I know I promised to give you guys 1 month of notice but I cannot because that would be exactly between Christmas and New Year's Eve.

To compensate for this, each player will be able to have two builds moved from World2 to World1.
Rules for moving:
- Build must not be a farm (Only shops or houses  - BUT NOT AUTOSHOPS)
- Builds must not be a town or huge in size (we are sorry but we cannot justify the intense lag that moving a town creates and the time wasted)
- Builds must not be on water (directly in water, it's ok if they are above)
- Builds must not be griefed/incomplete
- Attractions / Community Builds will have priority in being moved
- The only acceptable way to request a move is to message a Manager+ while they are online or to create a post. Do not open tickets on this matter!
- Managers are allowed to decline moving a build if they consider the value of that build doe snot justify occupying the land.
- Managers are allowed to decline moving a build to any player that might have offended them or a member of the staff team.
- We will transfer any DONATED Mob Spawners from World2 to World1, unconditionally.
- A thread will be made, where you can request a move if you can't find any Manager+ online

Let's hope we'll get past this well and not many of you will be angry!
Roadmap: By the end of November we will update the server to 1.8, by the end of December we will have a new world with fresh 1.8 land.


NOTE: World2 is the cause of about ~60% of the lag on Survival so this world reset will also be beneficial for lag. We are sorry for having to do this, but I promise we will make it up to you. I have my manager+ team programmed for "player satisfaction" first. We do not want to lose you guys!

First, I'd like to remind you that we are currently having a Black Friday sale until this Sunday.
Head on to http://superfuntime.buycraft.net/ or http://sftpixelmon.buycraft.net/ to benefit from discounts of up to 50%, this weekend only!

Second, I'd like to say that we started working on the 1.8 update. This will take some time, probably less than initially expected, but I'd say at best, we are looking at ~48h
The following plugins will be broken by the update and we currently have no estimate of when they will be back (As they are thirdparty) - > ChestShop (Autoshops), GlobalMarket (/ml - we might be able to fix this), MobCatcher, Disguise Plugin

At the moment me and the devs are hard at work preparing the update.

So, these are a few details about Black Friday on SFT.
It starts tomorrow, discounts vary between 30% and 50% and it ends on Sunday.
Participating servers are Pixelmon, Survival, Factions, Creative
We wanted to do it for B-Team too but it turns out due to an account problem we cannot create sales/coupons on b-team.

Right so, i will start by saying that our forums have declined in popularity over time so now we just have a handful of people that still post on the forums and keep the forum from dying.
Due to that, as of this moment, it is a mandatory task for any and all staff members of any and all of our servers to promote forum activity. It's your responsability to remind players that they can socialize with sft players and find help on superfuntime.org/forum. I would like you to tell every player that you help this.

The reason I'm not posting this in staff boards is:
1) I want all staff members from all servers to do this so I would've had to make several posts
2) As much as possible, I want to ask the players, especially Elite+ to also do this.

Thank you!

Builder's Mystery Chest has been added to the premiium shop! It costs ~6 eur and it contains building materials worth between 400k and 900k

http://superfuntime.buycraft.net/category/378145

Prepare!

Thanks to darknuju, we have automated Mystery Chests and Jumbo Mystery chests. You will now receive them instantly after purchasing (well, you'll have to type /getmc but still, it's automated).
How it works? Each type of mystery chest has 10 individual inventories in which we manually added 10 of the mystery chests / jumbo mystery chests. When you purchase one, a random inventory of the 10 will be delivered to you.

Changelog:
- Added a way to get a Beacon from Jumbo Mystery Chests: When purchasing a Jumbo Mystery Chest there is a 30% chance that you will get a "Beacon Shard". A beacon shard is a custom head, customized by me to represent one of the three parts of a beacon. They will look like -> Beacon Shard 1/3. Once you have all three of them (1/3, 2/3 and 3/3), you can trade them in to an admin  for a real beacon.
This way, every time you purchase a Jumbo Mystery Chest you have 30% chances to get a beacon shard, and 10% chances to get the right beacon shard (provided you have 2 of them already)

New:
- We are adding a "Slimefun Mystery Chest". It will contain items that are used in the making of Slimefun items as well as Slimefun Specific items (but only materials used in crafting, not the finished items). Slimefun chests will cost 7 eur and are expected to be added later today!

First of all, I would like to encourage all forum members to use ratings more. That ratings bar is not there just as a decoration, it's meant to be used!
Now, I would like to talk about rating abuse -> The way in which some people rate posts just to affect a person's reputation,  for purposes not related of the quality of the current post.  I have added two new powerful tools that will help us from now on to fight these abusers: Admin Like and Admin Unlike. These two new rating items are useable just by Server Owners and give -100 / +100 rating with a single click. We will use these to drop the abuser's ratings to values they can never recover from (NOTE: You get muted under a certain value), and we will also start issuing time bans on repeated abuse.

Seing as we are doing this, I am going to give all the users with a negative rating of under -100 a chance to reset their ratings to 0 or close to 0. (via multiple +100 ratings if needed) This will be an ONE TIME opportunity and will not repeat. To benefit from that, post here saying that you'd like it. NOTE: We will not do this again in the future unless the negative karma is a result of proven abuse.

Please don't use images from signaturecraft.us as your forum signature / image in a post.
Reason for this is, their site is very unreliable (goes down a lot), and whenever it's down it slows our forums a lot due to users having signatures from them.
What happens is, the browsers try to load the images but can't because the host is down and get stuck in an infinite loading loop (at least seems to be the case on firefox).

To avoid this, we will remove any signaturecraft.us signatures repeatedly.
Recommended image hosting website -> http://imgur.com

NOTE: If your signature is missing, it's because we are now enforcing the max. size of 600pxx200px for signatures. This rule was in effect befure but did not apply to existing signatures, now we forced it to apply and any violating signatures were automatically removed by the system

We need your help!
Give us a diamond on our Planet Minecraft server submission and help us stand out from the other servers!
It's very simple, takes very little time and you only need to do it once.



Step 1: Go to our server submission page -> http://www.planetminecraft.com/server/super-fun-time-superfuntimeorg/
Step 2: Click on the "Give diamond" button and maybe comment on our server, share your opinion of our server
Step 3: #Winning

Particle Trails are back! We are now using a new plugin that combines particle effects to make some awesome trails!
Usage: Type /pp and then select an effect from the list.
You can buy Particle Trails for 15 eur (or 12.5 eur at the current discounted price)
http://superfuntime.buycraft.net/category/359056

As you all know Grand Theft Auto 5 Came out for the next gen consoles yesterday and I was wondering if you picked up a copy and support the SFT crew by joining us. At the moment we have 171 people in the crew and counting.

The GTA crew is on any platform:

• PS4
• Xbox One
• PS3
• Xbox360
• Coming Soon to PC

The Crew profile can be found here: http://socialclub.rockstargames.com/crew/super_fun_time

[Minecraft - Survival --> play.superfuntime.org]

This aims to be a complete and updated list of all the servers that Super Fun Time hosts.
Last Updated - 03/29/23

  Minecraft - Survival -->  play.superfuntime.org
Economy based survival, traditional vanilla minecraft server.

  Minecraft - Survival Bedrock -->  play.superfuntime.org:19132
Enjoy our survival server but on Bedrock! Learn how to join here: https://github.com/GeyserMC/Geyser (java account needed)

  Minecraft - Creative --> play.superfuntime.org then /creative
Unleash your creativity in creative with WorldEdit!

  Steam - Rust --> Search "SFT" in the server browser or https://www.superfuntime.org/j/rust
Explore, loot and raiding in this addicting factions-esque shooter!

Steam - Modded Valheim --> Learn how to install our modpack here https://wiki.superfuntime.org/en/global/guides/valheim/installing
Valheim is a fun Viking mythology survival game on steam and we've added TONS of new content (over 50 mods) to help make things a more enjoyable experience, including: magic, drugs, new monsters, custom ships, many new skills, new building types and more!

[Q: How do I connect to the server?]

Q: How do I connect to the server?
To download the modpack, you will need the Technic Launcher.

After that, open the launcher and scroll through the pre-loaded modpacks until you find "Add New Pack."
Once you find that, insert this link where it says "Paste Platform URL Here:"

Code Select Expand

http://www.technicpack.net/api/modpack/bread-butter

Once you have launched the modpack, connect to the server: games.superfuntime.org:1343

I have added a new SteveCo Crate that contains Xmas related items: Decorative heads, a hat and some "Sweets".
Hope you enjoy! I will give one for free to everyone online so be there in ~2 min.

You can now purchase Player Heads from the premium shop!
http://superfuntime.buycraft.net/category/359061

The heads are delivered automatically and they cost 6 EUR each (just in time for next weekend's Black Friday )

Enjoy!

[Want to help? Here's what you can do!]

We need your help again!
Help us by spreading the word! Tell your friends about our Servers, post on your social media websites and help us "multiply".
It's in your power! Word of mouth is one of the best ways to expand a community and we could sure use some expanding right now (school, uni and other factors have kind of shrinked our playerbase).

Want to help? Here's what you can do!
- Tell your friends about our Survival/Pixelmon/Etc server and ask them to come play with you
- Share SFT on your social media page (Facebook/Twitter/etc)
- Vote for us daily, on all of the voting sites (this gets us more popular, bringing more players in) www.superfuntime.org/vote
- Purchase items from our premium shop (http://www.superfuntime.org/shops) - This helps us cover our bills and pay for advertising with any extra funds.
- +1 our modpack (this gets our Pixelmon server more known) -> http://www.technicpack.net/modpack/details/sft-pixelmon.162655

Thank you!

The Particle Effects plugin is unavailable for an undetermined period of time (could be a day could be a month, although not more than a month).
We are working on adding a much better plugin, with less effects but more awesome (i will demo some of these effects to you guys when I am online, trust me, you will love them).

We apologize for this inconvenience and if you insist, we can offer a replacement (let you choose something else from the premium shop that has the same value), however, we recommend waiting as it's worth the wait.

Thank you!

A Spigot 1.8 release is imminent. I'd say before the end of this month.
After it's out, it would take us at least a week, at most 2 weeks to get our server updated.
NOTE: I don't know exactly what we will do to get fresh 1.8 blocks, still being determined.

It has come to my attention that there was a glitch recently that allowed users to somehow take blocks from /hats.
I am giving everyone 24h to return ALL THE GLITCHED BLOCKS to me after that we will do a log sweep and we will confiscate ALL THE BELONGINGS from those that stole one of those blocks and if it turns out they have sold them / traded them we will also ban those players.

tl;dr -> You have 24h to come clean and return all glitched items from /hats or you will be banned / lose all your items

Check out our new and improved PMC Listing -> http://www.planetminecraft.com/server/super-fun-time-superfuntimeorg/

If possible, can you please Vote for us and give us Diamonds on PMC ?

As of this moment we are putting a feature freeze on Survival.
What this means is that we will not be adding any more plugins (except the Computers plugin which is work in progress).
We are currently focusing on doing performance tweaks to our existing plugins and compacting existing plugins aiming to reduce the total number of plugins.
This is in effect until December-ish when we will update to 1.8 if all is well.

Spigot announced that they have begun the test phase and  an estimation would be late november - early december for spigot 1.8

tl;dr -> We aren't adding anything new on survival until we update to 1.8, we're just doing performance tweaking

You can now craft Saddles
Here are the recipes:

Saddle -> http://i.imgur.com/FiXcB0R.png

NOTE: You can get a horse in two ways:
#1 Type /horse and you will get a pet horse which you can customize but sadly not tie to a pole and so on
#2 Find them in the wild

Microsoft's $2.5 billion acquisition of Minecraft developer Mojang has officially closed, announced Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, on Twitter today.

"It's official, today we welcome Mojang to the Microsoft Studios family," said Spencer. "We're excited for the possibilities ahead w/the Minecraft community."

Microsoft announced its purchase of Mojang in mid-September. The company said at the time that it anticipated the deal would close in late 2014, and that it expected the acquisition to be break-even in its current fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2015. As a result of the acquisition, Mojang's founders, including majority shareholder and Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson, left the studio.

"It's not about the money. It's about my sanity," said Persson in a blog post the day the deal was announced.

Mojang joins Microsoft's large stable of internal studios, which includes Halo steward 343 Industries, Forza maker Turn 10 Studios and Gears of War developer Black Tusk Studios. The acquisition of Stockholm-based Mojang gives Microsoft two wholly owned studios in Europe, the other being Max: The Curse of Brotherhood developer Press Play in Denmark. For more on Microsoft's record with picking up game studios, check out our timeline on the company's checkered history of gaming acquisitions.

Spencer confirmed previously that although Microsoft was making Mojang a first-party developer, it had no intention of forcing a halt to Minecraft development on any non-Microsoft platforms. In addition to Xbox 360 and Xbox One, Minecraft is available on Android, iOS, PlayStation 3, Windows PC and more, with total sales of nearly 54 million units across all platforms as of June 25. The console and handheld versions are developed by an outside company, 4J Studios in Scotland.

Check out our timeline of Minecraft from its origins to the present to learn about the gaming phenomenon, and our StoryStream on the Microsoft acquisition for all our coverage.

SteveCo #26 is now live!
It's Alladin themed and was inspired by MrEpicWonder

You can get keys and crates by /voting (they are random so for best chances. vote daily on all sites) or by trading.
Aditionally, crates are randomly dropped to players by the system.

Protesters will gather outside the White House and in a dozen US cities on Thursday to demonstrate against a "hybrid" solution now being considered to end a stalemate over regulating the internet.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently redrawing its rules for regulating the internet after a series of court defeats at the hands of cable and telecoms companies that effectively hamstrung its ability to oversee the industry.

Protests are planned in San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza, on Las Vegas's boulevard, Federal Plaza in Chicago and at the headquarters of Comcast, the largest cable company, in Philadelphia.

"What President Obama's FCC chair is reportedly pushing is not a compromise, it's a sham. Nearly four million internet users submitted comments to the FCC against having fast and slow lanes on the internet, but this proposal explicitly opens the door for them. Worse, it's based in overly complicated and untested legal theories that are likely to fail in court," said Evan Greer, campaign director for Fight for the Future which is organising the campaign alongside Popular Resistance, Free Press and Reddit.

Cable and telecoms companies are pushing for the ability to be able to create "fast lanes" for high volume customers, like Netflix, that would charge more money for the bandwidth they consume. But opponents fear such a move would effectively kill "net neutrality" – the principle that all traffic online should be treated equally.

The FCC has been inundated with comments as it has weighed its options. A record 3.7m were sent to the regulator, at one point crashing the FCC's systems. The Sunlight Foundation analysed the first 800,000 and found that fewer than 1% were opposed to net neutrality enforcement.

The "hybrid" proposal now under consideration has not been finalised but according to media leaks and discussions with interested parties they would expand the FCC's powers to regulate broadband while also allowing a carve out for cable providers to charge more money for fast lanes.

Net neutrality's defenders want the internet to be regulated under Title II of the Communications Act – a move that would classify the service as a "common carrier" and give the FCC the power to stop cable companies introducing "unreasonable discrimination" and ensure they work "in the public interest". Cable companies argue such a move would hamper innovation by tying the industry in red tape.

The FCC has also considered using Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which is less stringent in its language and enforces the regulator's powers to "promote competition" and "remove barriers" to investment. In January Verizon successfully challenged the FCC's power to use Section 706 to justify anti-discrimination rules in a ruling that led to the current regulatory malaise.

The hybrid solution, which may be presented to the FCC at a meeting on 11 December, is likely to use both pieces of legislation as the regulator struggles to reconcile the powerful telecom and cable industry lobby and its numerous and vociferous opponents.

The picture has become more complicated now that the Republicans have taken control of Congress after the midterm elections. Proposals for more regulation will face tougher opposition come January when the Republicans take control.

Craig Aaron, president of Free Press, a consumer advocacy group that has called for full Title II reclassification of the internet, said: "This proposal divides up the internet in a way that is highly theoretical and not based in the law."

"We are very skeptical that it would work. It's troubling in a lot of ways: it's bad politics, bad policy and bad law," he said.

[One example would be in unifying the Minecraft experience across its many platforms. "If I'm on PC I get access to the mod servers; if I'm on console or the mobile editions, I don't. We're looking at how do we bring that whole system together a little more. Because there are other games out there that let me move from screen to screen fairly seamlessly."]

Phil Spencer, the man in charge of Xbox, opened up about the company's acquisition of Minecraft and its maker, Mojang, announced last month, saying that he's not sure a sequel to the landmark title is "the thing that makes the most sense.

"The community around Minecraft is as strong as any community out there," Spencer told an IGN podcast. "We need to meet the needs and the desires of what the community has before we get permission to go off and do something else."

Spencer reminded IGN that the deal, valued at $2.5 billion, has yet to close, though all parties expect it to do so by the end of the year. So Mojang is still very much in charge of the game now, which just launched on PS Vita and is coming to Windows Phone.

Still, Spencer says that not everything Microsoft chooses to do with Minecraft will please everyone. "t doesn't mean that everything we're going to do is going to map to 100 percent of their acceptance, because I don't know if there is any topic where 100 percent of people agree," he said. "But we look at job one is to go out and meet the needs of the Minecraft community first, and then we can think about ways that we can actually help grow it."

One example would be in unifying the Minecraft experience across its many platforms. "If I'm on PC I get access to the mod servers; if I'm on console or the mobile editions, I don't. We're looking at how do we bring that whole system together a little more. Because there are other games out there that let me move from screen to screen fairly seamlessly."

Recently, I've added Paymentwall, a new payment method that allows you to pay via credit card or bank account.
However, nobody seems to use it, even though there were some people that said they would donate if we added a credit card / bank account payment method.
I am trying to find out the reasons why people don't use this and to determine and try to fix the cause.
Obviously, if you have a PayPal account, stick to it, you should pay with that, it's the fastest, most secure and has the lowest taxes.

Everything is 20% off in the Survival Premium Shop.
Also, we have added some of our discontinued items for a limited time only (48h)
http://superfuntime.buycraft.net/category/367643

NOTE: We are doing this as donations for Survival have not been doing so well and hopefully this will give us a quick fix.

Auto shops are a fun addon to SFT that let shop owners stock items and set buy and sell prices.
They do come with their share of responsibilities, though.

In particular, a shop owner may allow players to sell diamonds to the shop.  Diamonds are expensive - buying a full chest of diamonds can drain a player's bank account!  Shop owners need to consider such things before deciding to buy and sell an item.

How can shop owners protect themselves?

First, try comparing item prices across other shop owner's stores

Second, you may not want to allow players to sell certain items to your shop.  Simply omit the sell price information from the sign.

Third, by setting the sell price very low so they don't drain your bank balance.

Finally, you can limit the number of items that you will accept by filling your chest with dirt and leave only a few spaces open for buying and selling.  For example, let's say you buy and sell diamonds at your auto shop.  The slots of your chest would look like this:

[Diamond][Diamond][Dirt][Dirt][...]

In this example, sellers would be limited to 2 stacks of diamonds total.  If they try to sell more to your shop, they will get a "no more space" message.

Remember, it is common for players to buy items at one shop and try to sell them for a higher price at another shop.  Consider the above tips to prevent a large sell transaction from taking you by surprise.

We have added a new minigame in the lobby (tomorrow we will also add the portal for it) - Pizza Spleef
You can get there by typing /pizza while connecting to our server (play.superfuntime.org).
The map is made by sethbling and contains some small modifications (slightly revamped spawn room, with protection against accidental restarts).

Check it out and tell us what you think!

We are pleased to announce that we are now accepting Credit Card / Prepaid Card / Bank Deposit payments via our partners at Paymentwall.
Please note that there will be a +20% fee for payments performed via Paymentwall meant to help us cover some of the rather big fees.
We are still encouraging the use of paypal, please use this just as a last resort (if you don't have / don't want a paypal account)

Survival Premium Shop -> http://superfuntime.buycraft.net/
Pixelmon Premium Shop -> http://sftpixelmon.buycraft.net/

NOTE: While +20% might not seem so good, it's a hell of a lot better than PayGol's +40% (which we now removed).

Two new items added on our Survival server.

The first, (/gui), is meant to simplify the life of the average SFT player and especially of the guests. It contains a list of the most used commands which can be executed by just clicking on one of the items.
The second, (/guishop) is a new in-game shop that sells a handful of items (which will later expand), such as a big warp pack, a compass teleport, the possibility to add money to the lottery pot and to advertise mob arena.

I hope you enjoy them!

The Ticket System was reinstalled due to a problem with it.
All tickets were lost so I must ask you to open another ticket if your issue is still present (if it's not, by all means don't).

http://www.superfuntime.org/ticket/

The website has been moved to the new host, in France.
If you notice any broken pages or any broken in-game functions (such as /pstats and so on), please let us know!

Noticed an improvement in load times? We'd love to hear about it!

I am giving away a free halloween hat (a pumpkin with mighty enchantments/custom name/etc).
I will be distributing these bad boys at /warp towshop, several times / day (just made my first run).
NOTE: Anyone claiming to not have received this to get another one will be banned. You are allowed to own only one.
Please wear them on halloween. I know it's weird since the pumpkin sort of obstructs your view but on whatever halloween event we will have I awnt you guys to all come with this hat
Anyway, I'll be back in a few hours to distribute to other players that are online.

Suggested by MrEpicWonder
SteveCo #25 - Indian Heritage Set! (Native American)
I'm going to let the contents be a surprise.

Hungary's Economy Minister Mihály Varga has on Tuesday submitted to Parliament a draft on changes to the tax regime to be implemented in 2015. An amendment of the telecom law is also included, according to which the telecom tax would be extended to Internet services. The tax will be proportionate to data traffic and every gigabyte started will cost 150 forints.


Varga has already told a press conference earlier today that the scope of the telecom tax would be extended to Internet services. He argues that the original subject of the levy, namely phone calls are made and text messages are sent mostly not traditional tools, rather through the Internet.

The base of the tax in the case of Internet service will be data traffic measured in gigabytes generated either by the subscriber or the user as specified by the law on Electronic Communication Act.

The rate of the tax is HUF 150 per every gigabyte started.

The subject of the tax is the service provider.

Fulfilment:The service provider shall calculate and pay the tax by the 20th day of the second month from the month data traffic - calls, messages sent, data traffic - was generated.

Péter Banai, state secretary responsible for budget issues at the National Economy Ministry, told an online press conference today that the Internet tax is estimated to generate HUF 20 bn for the budget.

Press CTRL+F5 on a windows pc while on the website's front page (superfuntime.org).
I don't know what the MAC alternative is but this forces a windows browser (any browser) to re-fetch all files and ignore those stored in cache.
This should help you if you aren't seing the new theme or if you are seing  mixed elements of the old/new theme and if the site looks like it's patched up

NOTE: This is a halloween theme, it will be removed after November 31st~ish.

Sources in the Syrian Free Army, a group of defected Syrian Armed Forces soldiers fighting to overthrow the government of President Bashar Al-Assad, say that revolutionaries carried out an operation against the Islamic State, also referred to as ISIS or ISIL.

About a dozen ISIS fighters at Deir al-Zour were killed in their camp after their meals were poisoned.

Sources confirmed that cooks, collaborating with the Syrian Free Army, poisoned the lunches that were served later that day. The cooks fled with their families to a safe area outside Deir al-Zour with the help of the revolutionaries.

The operation took place in the Fath El-Sahel camp, which has nearly 1,200 fighters. Witnesses said that about 15 members of the ISIS organization were transferred to nearby field hospitals.

Facebook has sent a letter to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration demanding that agents stop impersonating users on the social network.

The letter follows a BuzzFeed report that revealed how the DEA seized a woman's phone and later created a Facebook account in her name.

Sondra Arquiett was unaware as the DEA masqueraded as her while speaking to her friends. The DEA even posted photos of her with her son and another photo of her alone in panties and a bra.

She has sued the DEA agent who set up the account. The Justice Department is backing him up, claiming federal agents have the right to do such things.

Now Arquiett has Facebook (FB, Tech30) on her side.

"The DEA's deceptive actions... threaten the integrity of our community," Facebook chief security officer Joe Sullivan wrote to DEA head Michele Leonhart. "Using Facebook to impersonate others abuses that trust and makes people feel less safe and secure when using our service."

The letter goes on to say that Facebook shut down the DEA's fake Arquiett account. It also demands that the DEA confirm it stopped all other cases of impersonation.

The DEA declined to comment and referred all questions to the Justice Department, which has not returned CNNMoney's calls.

Related story: FBI director says iPhones shield pedophiles from cops

How did the DEA end up with this woman's phone? In 2010, Arquiett was arrested and faced charges related to cocaine distribution. She pled guilty and received probation.

In legal filings, a federal prosecutor said Arquiett "implicitly consented by granting access to the information stored in her cell phone and by consenting to the use of that information to aid in an ongoing criminal investigations [sic]."

But in its letter, Facebook said it is "deeply troubled" by that legal position.

Privacy researcher Runa Sandvik, who advises the Freedom of the Press Foundation, explained it this way: It's one thing to strike a deal and become an informant. It's another to lose complete control of your online identity.

"Isn't this the definition of identity theft?" Sandvik asked.

This is only the latest case in which the technology firm comes head-to-head with the federal government on civil liberties issues.

Facebook has asked for more transparency about NSA spying on Americans. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called President Obama to complain about it. And Facebook is fighting in court to have the Manhattan district attorney's office justify its seizure of 381 people's accounts.

Let's say you win the lotto. A lot of money, say more than 1 million dollars.
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Fidel Castro, the 88-year-old former Cuban leader, has said his country is ready to work with the US in the battle against Ebola, saying that such co-operation would be in the interest of "the peace of the world".

Cuba has already sent 165 doctors and nurses to help fight Ebola in Sierra Leone and plans to send 296 others soon to Liberia and Guinea.

Writng in state media on Saturday, Castro said: "We will gladly co-operate with American personnel in that task, and not in search of peace between the two states that have been adversaries for so many years, but ... for peace in the world, a goal that can and should be attempted.

"The medical personnel who heads anywhere to save lives, even at the risk of losing theirs, are the greatest example of solidarity that a human being can offer, especially when one is not driven by material interest."

Cuban officials said on Saturday that their health ministry would try to organise more aid for the affected countries in West Africa at a meeting with Cuban allies and international health organisations on Monday.

The South American county's efforts have already brought unusual praise from US Secretary of State John Kerry, who was quoted saying that countries like Cuba had taken impressive steps to tackle Ebola.

Obama warns against hysteria

The US, for its part, has already deployed hundreds of soldiers as well as health care workers to help control the disease. Washington has pledged to send up to 4,000 military personnel to the region by the end of October.

Pentagon officials estimate US President Barack Obama's plan to tackle Ebola could cost up to $750m for a six-month period, a figure that includes airlifting personnel, medical supplies, protective suits and temporary housing for Ebola victims.

With three cases of Ebola diagnosed in the US and dozens being monitored for potential exposure, Obama urged Americans on Saturday not to give in to "hysteria" about the virus.

"This is a serious disease, but we can't give in to hysteria or fear-because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information they need,'' Obama said

Obama has made it clear that he will not bow to demands from some lawmakers for a ban on flights from region.

"We can't just cut ourselves off from West Africa," Obama said in his weekly radio address. "Trying to seal off an entire region of the world - if that were even possible - could actually make the situation worse," he said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Saturday European Union leaders should raise the amount of money pledged to fight Ebola to $1.3 bn and mobilise at least 2,000 workers to head to West Africa.

The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed more than 4,500 people, most of them in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Piotr Naskrecki was taking a nighttime walk in a rainforest in Guyana, when he heard rustling as if something were creeping underfoot. When he turned on his flashlight, he expected to see a small mammal, such as a possum or a rat.

"When I turned on the light, I couldn't quite understand what I was seeing," said Naskrecki, an entomologist and photographer at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology.

A moment later, he realized he was looking not at a brown, furry mammal, but an enormous, puppy-size spider.

Known as the South American Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi), the colossal arachnid is the world's largest spider, according to Guinness World Records. Its leg span can reach up to a foot (30 centimeters), or about the size of "a child's forearm," with a body the size of "a large fist," Naskrecki told Live Science. And the spider can weigh more than 6 oz. (170 grams) — about as much as a young puppy, the scientist wrote on his blog. [See Photos of the Goliath Birdeater Spider]

Some sources say the giant huntsman spider, which has a larger leg span, is bigger than the birdeater. But the huntsman is much more delicate than the hefty birdeater — comparing the two would be "like comparing a giraffe to an elephant," Naskrecki said.

The birdeater's enormous size is evident from the sounds it makes. "Its feet have hardened tips and claws that produce a very distinct, clicking sound, not unlike that of a horse's hooves hitting the ground," he wrote, but "not as loud."

Prickly hairs and 2-inch fangs

When Naskrecki approached the imposing creature in the rainforest, it would rub its hind legs against its abdomen. At first, the scientist thought the behavior was "cute," he said, but then he realized the spider was sending out a cloud of hairs with microscopic barbs on them. When these hairs get in the eyes or other mucous membranes, they are "extremely painful and itchy," and can stay there for days, he said. [Creepy-Crawly Gallery: See Spooky Photos of Spiders]

But its prickly hairs aren't the birdeater's only line of defense; it also sports a pair of 2-inch-long (5 centimeters) fangs. Although the spider's bite is venomous, it's not deadly to humans. But it would still be extremely painful, "like driving a nail through your hand," Naskrecki said.

And the eight-legged beast has a third defense mechanism up its hairy sleeve. The hairs on the front of the spider's body have tiny hooks and barbs that make a hissing sound when they rub against each other, "sort of like pulling Velcro apart," Naskrecki said.

Yet despite all that, the spider doesn't pose a threat to humans. Even if it bites you, "a chicken can probably do more damage," Naskrecki said.

Bird eater or mostly harmless?

Despite its name, the birdeater doesn't usually eat birds, although it is certainly capable of killing small mammals. "They will essentially attack anything that they encounter," Naskrecki said.

The spider hunts in leaf litter on the ground at night, so the chances of it encountering a bird are very small, he said. However, if it found a nest, it could easily kill the parents and the chicks, he said, adding that the spider species has also been known to puncture and drink bird eggs.

The spider will eat frogs and insects, but its main prey is actually earthworms, which come out at night when it's humid. "Earthworms are very nutritious," Naskrecki said.

Birdeaters are not very common spiders. "I've been working in the tropics in South America for many, many years, and in the last 10 to 15 years, I only ran across the spider three times," Naskrecki.

After catching the specimen he found in Guyana, which was female, Naskrecki took her back to his lab to study. She's now deposited in a museum.

(Reuters) - A Dallas hospital lab worker who spent much of a cruise holiday in isolation after possible exposure to Ebola, has tested negative for the disease, Carnival Cruise Lines said on Sunday.

The Carnival Magic arrived on Sunday in the port of Galveston, Texas after a week-long trip that included being denied docking by Belize and Mexico because of the presence of the woman on board.

The woman works at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital where a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, was treated for Ebola. The worker, who has not been named, did not have contact with Duncan but was being monitored as she might have come in contact with his test samples.

Two nurses who treated Duncan, who died on Oct. 8, have contracted the disease.

After the ship docked at about 4:30 a.m. Central time (0530 ET), the woman and her husband disembarked and drove away in their own car, a Carnival spokeswoman said at a brief press conference in Galveston. Carnival Cruise Lines is a unit of Carnival Corp.

Before the ship reached the port, a U.S. Coast Guard flew out to meet it and took away a blood sample from the woman, said Vicky Dey, vice president for guest services at Carnival. That sample tested negative.

London (AFP) - People found guilty of Internet "trolling" in Britain could be jailed for up to two years under government proposals outlined on Sunday, following a number of high-profile cases of abusive and threatening behaviour on Twitter.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling told the Mail on Sunday newspaper: "This is a law to combat cruelty -- and marks our determination to take a stand against a baying cyber-mob."

There has been increasing concern in Britain about the growing scourge of Internet "trolls" who post hate-filled messages on social media, often threatening their targets.

The parents of missing girl Madeleine McCann are among the most recent victims, and last month a man was jailed for 18 weeks for what prosecutors described as "a campaign of hatred" against a female lawmaker.

"These internet trolls are cowards who are poisoning our national life. No-one would permit such venom in person, so there should be no place for it on social media," Grayling said.

"That is why we are determined to quadruple the current six-month sentence."

Victims have long been calling for police and prosecutors to take online abuse more seriously and lawyers had anticipated an increase in sentences for those convicted of trolling.

"There is a public interest in having people put away for a long time," Chris Holder, of London law firm Bristows, told AFP earlier this month.

"It is putting someone in fear of their life and fear of physical harm. I think the law will develop and the sentences will go up and up."

However, some lawyers and freedom of speech campaigners have warned that criminal sanctions should be the last resort.

"Do we want to criminalise every social conduct that we find problematic?" Barbora Bukovska, a senior director at campaign group ARTICLE 19, said earlier this month.

Prosecutions can currently be brought under a number of different laws, but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) last year introduced guidelines to address any confusion.

It said messages sent via social media could be a criminal offence if they contain "credible threats of violence" or target an individual in a way that "may constitute harassment or stalking".

The government proposes to amend two existing laws to extend the maximum jail term and also the time limit for prosecutions, from six months to three years.

October 18, 2014 - Ottawa, ON -Public Health Agency of Canada

The Government of Canada will ship 800 vials of its experimental Ebola vaccine to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, beginning with its first shipment on Monday, October 20, 2014.

The vaccine vials are being sent in three separate shipments, as a precautionary measure, due to the challenges in moving a vaccine that must kept at a very low temperature at all times.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is supplying the vaccine to the WHO in its role as the international coordinating body for the Ebola outbreak, so that the vaccine can be made available as an international resource.

The World Health Organization, in consultation with partners, including the health authorities from the affected countries, will guide and facilitate how the vaccine is distributed and used. There are both ethical and logistical challenges with the use of experimental vaccines and treatments in humans and the WHO is considering them carefully before using the vaccine in this outbreak.

On October 13, 2014, the Government of Canada announced the start of clinical trials for the vaccine at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in the United States. These trials will provide critical information about the safety of the vaccine and what dose is required to stimulate a person's immune system to produce Ebola antibodies. Results from the clinical trial are expected in December 2014.

Canada retained roughly a third of its overall inventory of experimental vaccine vials for further research and compassionate use in Canada as needed.

The Government of Canada is committed to support its international partners' efforts to control the Ebola outbreak and hopes that the experimental vaccine will be able to help address this global crisis.

Quick Facts

    The vaccine will be shipped via air from Winnipeg to the University Hospital of Geneva via specialized courier.
    The vaccine shipment will be sent in three separate shipments as a precautionary measure in the event that there is an accident during shipping, such as a temperature control failure. The vaccine must be packed in dry ice and kept at -80 degrees Celsius.
    The vaccine is the product of more than 10 years of scientific research by Public Health Agency of Canada scientists at the National Microbiology Laboratory.
    This experimental Ebola vaccine has just begun clinical trials in humans, after showing very promising results in animal research.
    Canada is taking a whole-of-government approach to fight the Ebola virus disease in West Africa. Canada has committed a total of $65.4 million to the global efforts to support health, humanitarian and security interventions to address the spread of the disease.
    The Government of Canada maintains ownership of the intellectual property associated with the vaccine.
    The Government of Canada has licensed the rights to NewLink Genetics through its wholly owned subsidiary BioProtection Systems to further develop the product for use in humans.
    There has never been a case of Ebola in Canada and the risk to Canadians remains low.

Quotes
"Canada views this experimental Ebola vaccine as a global resource and in the interest of global public health, we are sharing it with our international partners to help address the Ebola outbreak in West Africa."
Honourable Rona Ambrose,
Minister of Health

"This vaccine, the product of many years of scientific research and innovation, could be an important tool in curbing the outbreak. We will continue to work closely with the WHO to address some of the ethical and logistical issues around using this experimental vaccine in the fight against Ebola."
Dr. Gregory Taylor
Chief Public Health Officer of Canada]/quote]