Comment Re:Facebook is a public place (Score 2) 483
The fact that current laws don't apply to more recent technologies (or not effectively at least) is not new information.
Comment Morse Code (Score 4, Funny) 221
I often try to use Morse Code but no one ever responds.
Comment Re:Facebook is a public place (Score 4, Insightful) 483
This is true and a fair point, but if people can't be bothered to take a few minutes to understand that by using Facebook even posting things as "private" or using their "private" chat feature, they are giving up whatever they are posting to Facebook, that is there own fault and I have no sympathy for them :)
Maybe this sort of thing will even help to increase people's knowledge and people will stop being dumb when using social networks.
Comment Re:Facebook is a public place (Score 3) 483
It isn't really about whether or not Facebook is a public place. If you give Facebook your data, they can do whatever they want with it.
Comment Re:Mmm.... (Score 1) 86
Bah, how did that apostrophe get in there...
Submission + - Issue-wise crowdfunding for Open Source (freedomsponsors.com) 1
casals writes: Another crowdfunding site came up, this time using a bounty-based approach: it's called Freedom Sponsors (www.freedomsponsors.com). Individuals (developers) register and are paid to solve tasks — issues related to open-source projects. Seems a nice way to get paid for short-term projects and at the same time to speed up issue solving on open source projects (since there are already a lot of companies that already use open source libraries/frameworks).
Comment Mmm.... (Score 1) 86
I can almost taste it's tingling tartness!
Submission + - Mysterious Sprite Photographed by ISS Astronaut (discovery.com)
astroengine writes: "A very rare and beautiful view of a red sprite has been photographed by Expedition 31 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) hovering just above a bright flash of lightning in a thunderstorm over Myanmar. First documented in a photo in 1989, red sprites are very brief flashes of optical activity that are associated with powerful lightning discharges in storms — although the exact mechanisms that create them aren't yet known. But the orbiting outpost seems like the perfect vantage point to learn more about them!"
Comment It's a space station! (Score 1) 137
Damn you beat me to it :(
Comment Re:Who's this CowboyNeal? (Score 2) 148
Because the number of digits on your ID indicate how long you've been reading slashdot... I've read slashdot for many years now and only recently bothered to make an account. Perhaps you're correct and he was being facetious. It's equally possible that he really didn't know who CowboyNeal was and was genuinely curious. No need to be an elitist.
Comment Re:Egyptian-Style Cooling (Score 2) 152
This seems like a waste of intern time. How can they get you coffee if they are busy cooling your servers?
Submission + - Dutch ISP discovers 140,000 customers with default password 1
bs0d3 writes: In Holland, a major ISP known as KPN has found a major security flaw for their customers. It seems that all customers have had the same default password of 'welkom01'. Up to 140,000 customers had retained their default passwords. Once inside attackers could have found bank account and credit card numbers. KPN has since changed all the passwords of the 140,000 customers with weak passwords. They also do not believe anyone has actually been burglarized since discovering this weak spot in security.
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to get old commercial software to be open-sourced?
Optic7 writes: Many gamers have probably dreamed about the idea of an old favorite game or other no longer supported or developed commercial software being converted to an open-source license so that it could be updated to add new features, support new hardware, other operating systems, etc. However, this type of change of license seems exceedingly rare, unless the copyright holder itself decides on its own that it would be beneficial. The only examples I could think of or was able to find in a brief internet search were Blender (3D animation software that had its source code bought from creditors after a crowd-funding campaign) and Warzone 2100 (Game that had its source code released after a successful petition). With those two examples of different strategies in mind, have any of you ever participated in any efforts of this kind, and what did you learn from it that may be useful to someone else attempting the same thing? Even if you have not participated, do you have any suggestions or ideas that may be useful to such an effort?
Submission + - Texas Set To Store Energy In Underground Salt Caverns (vaultelectricity.com)
jmasterson writes: Getting electricity out of wind is like coaxing a stubborn mule down a trail. It moves at its own pace and stops and starts when it wants to. The challenge for grid operators is to integrate electricity produced by wind at irregular and unpredictable intervals into the grid which requires a close balance between electricity in and electricity out.
This is good news for electricity rates in Texas. Energy storage capability added to an electricity grid multiplies the capacity of the group without need to add new power plants. This will reduce the amount of new power generation capacity that will need to be built in the future.
This is good news for electricity rates in Texas. Energy storage capability added to an electricity grid multiplies the capacity of the group without need to add new power plants. This will reduce the amount of new power generation capacity that will need to be built in the future.
Submission + - Feds Look to Fight Leaks With 'Fog of Disinformation' (wired.com)
skipkent writes: Pentagon-funded researchers have come up with a new plan for busting leakers: Spot them by how they search, and then entice the secret-spillers with decoy documents that will give them away.
Computer scientists call it it “Fog Computing” — a play on today’s cloud computing craze. And in a recent paper for Darpa, the Pentagon’s premiere research arm, researchers say they’ve built “a prototype for automatically generating and distributing believable misinformation and then tracking access and attempted misuse of it. We call this ‘disinformation technology.’”
Computer scientists call it it “Fog Computing” — a play on today’s cloud computing craze. And in a recent paper for Darpa, the Pentagon’s premiere research arm, researchers say they’ve built “a prototype for automatically generating and distributing believable misinformation and then tracking access and attempted misuse of it. We call this ‘disinformation technology.’”
