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User Journal

Journal Journal: 6 computers and nothing to compute 1

Journal by qualityassurancedept

Here is where I am at with my computers these days... I have built two decent quad core Phenom II based computers (mostly just to experiment with overclocking and unlocking cores on Phenom II x2 processors). I have a Sempron based computer with 4 TB of hard disk space that I use with FreeNas to store backups for all of my computers/media (because I got interested in experimenting with FreeNas). I have two old laptops (both Athlon based). I have two Celeron based computers as well. I like
Communications

Submission + - Free Wi-Fi coming to Japanese vending machines in (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: Free Wi-Fi is on its way to some Japanese vending machines. Working much like a mobile hotspot at your local coffee shop, people located near the machines would be able to connect to the internet for 30 minutes at a time and surf the web. The service is available to anyone, to use with any smartphone, tablet, or computer and does not require the purchase of a drink from the machine.
Biotech

Submission + - BT Corn: insects rapidly becoming resistant (msn.com)

Submitted by DrHeasley
DrHeasley writes: BT corn, which contains the DNA for Bacillus thuringensis toxin, was once hailed as the final solution for insect predators on this valuable crop. Now it turns out that insects, and evolution, are smarter than we thought, and the corn that contains the built in pesticide is no longer reliably protected.
The Internet

Submission + - Imgur.com: Why We Dumped GoDaddy (foxnews.com) 3

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: On the eve of what has been dubbed “Dump Go Daddy Day,” imgur.com — the massive image hosting sites is responsible for an astonishing 28 terabytes of bandwidth and nearly 200 million page views per day — has already changed its registry entries, foreshadowing the potential negative effect of a boycott set to begin Thursday morning. GoDaddy.com originally supported the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) — RackSpace called it "a deeply flawed piece of legislation" that will hinder free speech and infringe on first amendment rights — but quickly recanted its position when the call of a boycott circulated. “The outcry kind of forced our hand,” imgur founder and owner Alan Schaaf said. “I’m against the SOPA act and imgur as a company is against it. We just feel it is terrible that GoDaddy.com would support this legislation.”
Politics

Submission + - The Coming War on General Computation (youtube.com)

Submitted by
jrepin
jrepin writes: "This talk was given by Cory Doctorow at 28C3 conference. The last 20 years of Internet policy have been dominated by the copyright war, but the war turns out only to have been a skirmish. The coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race. The problem is twofold: first, there is no known general-purpose computer that can execute all the programs we can think of except the naughty ones; second, general-purpose computers have replaced every other device in our world. There are no airplanes, only computers that fly. There are no cars, only computers we sit in. There are no hearing aids, only computers we put in our ears. There are no 3D printers, only computers that drive peripherals. There are no radios, only computers with fast ADCs and DACs and phased-array antennas. Consequently anything you do to "secure" anything with a computer in it ends up undermining the capabilities and security of every other corner of modern human society."

Submission + - What would you do?

Submitted by keyboardhead
keyboardhead writes: I was contracted to build a scheduling system onto a crm. The programmers insist they are using secure programming practices. I just looked at the database and the user table is storing passwords as plain unencrypted text. How would you nicely tell them that unencrypted user passwords in the database is not secure? I'm trying to not make them look like idiots.
User Journal

Journal Journal: /. Moderation Moderation

Journal by xwwt
I have spent some time recently looking over moderation and understanding some of the tweaks around it. Also spent a lot of time looking at comments in live stories and reading emails from site users about modding. Typically the messages range from astroturfing to people with a vendetta.
So my questions to you are:
Is /. moderation broken?
Is /. moderation out of date?
What would you use to help manage signal-to-noise?
Medicine

Submission + - How Doctors Die 6

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Dr. Ken Murray, a Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at USC, writes that doctors don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about doctors is not how much treatment they get when faced with death themselves, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves because they know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. "Almost all medical professionals have seen what we call “futile care” being performed on people," writes Murray. "What it buys is misery we would not inflict on a terrorist. I cannot count the number of times fellow physicians have told me, in words that vary only slightly, 'Promise me if you find me like this that you’ll kill me.'" Feeding into the problem are unrealistic expectations of what doctors can accomplish. Many people think of CPR as a reliable lifesaver when, in fact, the results are usually poor. If a patient suffers from severe illness, old age, or a terminal disease, the odds of a good outcome from CPR are infinitesimal, while the odds of suffering are overwhelming. "If there is a state of the art of end-of-life care, it is this: death with dignity. As for me, my physician has my choices," says Murray. "They were easy to make, as they are for most physicians. There will be no heroics, and I will go gentle into that good night.""

Submission + - Recent Discovery Shows Oldest Depiction of Tower o (discovery.com)

Submitted by smitty777
smitty777 writes: The recent discovery of the Tower of Babel stele by a team of scholars shows what might be the earliest depiction of the ancient Tower of Babel. The stele belongs to Martin Schøyen, who also owns a large number of pictographic and cuneiform tablets, some of the earliest known written documents. The tablet also contains a depiction of King Nebuchadnezzar II, a time when Babylon was a cultural leader in astronomy, mathematics, literature and medicine. It's also interesting to note the somewhat recent Slashdot article linking the common ancestry of languages to this area.

Submission + - New Discovered Earliest Document Shows Tower Of Ba (discovery.com)

Submitted by smitty777
smitty777 writes: The recent discovery of the Tower of Babel stele by a team of scholars shows what might be the earliest depiction of the ancient Tower of Babel. The stele belongs to Martin Schøyen, who also owns a large number of pictographic and cuneiform tablets, some of the earliest known written documents. The tablet also contains a depiction of King Nebuchadnezzar II, a time when Babylon was a cultural leader in astronomy, mathematics, literature and medicine. It's also interesting to note the somewhat recent Slashdot article linking the common ancestry of languages to this area.

Submission + - User Backlash Causes Samsung to Consider Android 4 (theverge.com)

Submitted by
ghostoftiber
ghostoftiber writes: "The original SGH-T959 Galaxy S (AKA the T-Mobile Vibrant and others) was the redheaded step child of the Samsung device line. The device originally came with Eclair and was upgraded quietly to Frozen Yogurt not with an OTA update, but with Samsungs KIES software which required a download process and bricked more than a few phones. Users expected an OTA because patches had previously been delivered to the device Over The Air. Linux and Mac users were left out in the cold for the Froyo update. Finally Samsung announced over Christmas that the original Galaxy S was done, leaving it's faithful fans in a position of having another year on their contracts with no upgrade path. The reason? TouchWiz (Samsungs launcher) doesn't have enough memory to run in Ice Cream Sandwich. Users were predictably incensed, and it looks like Samsung changed their minds. There's always the Samsung Vibrant development forum if you need Ice Cream Sandwich running on your Vibrant right now."

Submission + - A Solution for Broken Patent Law?

Submitted by minogully
minogully writes: After a patent is awarded to a person or company, that company must, within the following [perhaps 3?] years, either: 1) sell rights to use that patent to or 2) sell an object that applies the idea of the patent, and such an object must not include other features that are currently patented.
Either of these sales must be made to a third party (ie. not in some sort of agreement with the patent holder to circumvent this law). And the sale price must be consistent with all future sales.
If a sale is not made within the time period, the patent is revoked and the technology is considered public property.

This idea came to me the other day and I wanted to hear everyone's thoughts on it — and if it turns out to be good, perhaps some of the slashdot readers who have a capacity to affect change in this area could do so (as I do not).

I'm hoping this would give competitors the option of either waiting out the time period for the patent to expire, purchase the rights to build the object themselves, or purchase an object that they can, hopefully, plug into their technology. And I'm also hoping that the company that owns the patent would be motivated to keep the price for the sale reasonable to promote a sale.

So what do you think?
Businesses

Submission + - Small firms hit by lending squeeze

Submitted by
jawbusiness
jawbusiness writes: "Report reveals many small and medium-sized businesses struggled to obtain finance in the last year as bank targets falter...

Many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are still struggling to raise money from banks despite an agreement between lenders and the government, a report has revealed.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/28/small-firms-hit-lending-squeeze"

Submission + - Unsolicited robo-calls to cell phones to be legali

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: House Resolution 3035, the Mobile Informational Call Act, would legalize "informational" robo-calls to cell phones (currently legal only if you opt in.) This would preempt state laws against such cell spam.
If you ever had any doubts that we have the best legal system money can buy, the MFIC proposal should remove any such such doubts.

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So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of money? -- Ayn Rand

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