Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Warrant Canary (Re:Other uses for this sidestep?) (Score 1) 404

by japa (#33235940) Attached to: ISP Owner Who Fought FBI Spying Freed From Gag Order

"At each board meeting I tell them we have not been served by any (search warrants)," she said. "In any months that I don't tell them that, they'll know."

I wonder if this technique could be used in other ways.

An ISP could use automation to send its customers some sort of message once a day as long as

It's already been used for quite long time. Check out rsync.net http://www.rsync.net/philosophy.html "Warrant Canary". They've started this practice long ago. (Perhaps 2006 as stated in the page copyright..

Comment Re:Free. (Score 1) 242

by japa (#32999848) Attached to: Google's Free Satnav Outperforms TomTom
Don't know if this applies to all Garmin devices, but at least for my eTrex I can upload selfmade maps. I use maps based on openstreetmap ( http://www.openstreetmap.org/ ) data. There are several places to get pre-compiled maps for your device if you don't want to create them on your own.

Additionally there are other software enabling one to use topo/bitmap maps on Garmin, but I have not found one which would be completely free (as beer). Haven't been looking that much though as I'm relatively happy with OSM maps. They have theyr limitations but one definately gets more than what one paid for , which is rarely the case with commercial maps.
The Almighty Buck

UK Video Game Tax Cuts Sabotaged? 123

Posted by Soulskill from the i-wonder-if-it-rhymes-with-shmactivision dept.
ninjacheeseburger writes "Develop recently published an article claiming that the UK government was put under pressure by one of the biggest game companies in the world to cancel planned tax breaks for video game developers. This company had apparently viewed game tax relief as a measure that would have given the UK an unfair advantage over other nations."
XBox (Games)

New Xbox 360 S Uses Less Power, Makes Less Noise 176

Posted by Soulskill from the slices-dices-etc dept.
Vigile writes "Microsoft unveiled a new Xbox 360 S console at E3 this month, and without delay the new machine has been dissected and tested. The most dramatic change is the move to a single-chip CPU/GPU hybrid processor that is apparently being built on the 45nm process technology from GlobalFoundries, AMD's spun-off production facilities. With the inclusion of the new processor, the Xbox 360 S uses much less power (about 30-40%) compared to previous generation machines, and also turns out to be much quieter as a result of a single, larger fan. This article has photographic evidence of the teardown, with comparisons between this Valhalla platform and the older Falcon system, along with videos of the reconstruction process and noise comparisons." The new console also takes measures to protect itself from overheating, so RRoDs shouldn't be a problem with this revision.
Intel

The Big Technical Mistakes of History 244

Posted by kdawson from the seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time dept.
An anonymous reader tips a PC Authority review of some of the biggest technical goofs of all time. "As any computer programmer will tell you, some of the most confusing and complex issues can stem from the simplest of errors. This article looking back at history's big technical mistakes includes some interesting trivia, such as NASA's failure to convert measurements to metric, resulting in the Mars Climate Orbiter being torn apart by the Martian atmosphere. Then there is the infamous Intel Pentium floating point fiasco, which cost the company $450m in direct costs, a battering on the world's stock exchanges, and a huge black mark on its reputation. Also on the list is Iridium, the global satellite phone network that promised to make phones work anywhere on the planet, but required 77 satellites to be launched into space."

Comment Re:Surprise (Score 1) 272

by japa (#31082382) Attached to: Microsoft Says Windows 7 Not Killing Batteries

No, not in a tool. I mean - pop-up warning "Hey, your hard drive is failing" without your intervention. Like the battery warning.

After my first HD failure I installed smarmontools ( http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ ). The next time I got advance warning about the oncoming failure. I had dropped my laptop from about 1 meter and less than week from that incident, I got the popup. About week from that my system would not boot any longer. There are other smart monitoring software also, but this one is open source, thus you are getting good bang for the buck.
NASA

Dying Man Shares Unseen Challenger Video 266

Posted by Soulskill from the new-perspective-on-an-old-tragedy dept.
longacre writes "An amateur video of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion has been made public for the first time. The Florida man who filmed it from his front yard on his new Betamax camcorder turned the tape over to an educational organization a week before he died this past December. The Space Exploration Archive has since published the video into the public domain in time for the 24th anniversary of the catastrophe. Despite being shot from about 70 miles from Cape Canaveral, the shuttle and the explosion can be seen quite clearly. It is unclear why he never shared the footage with NASA or the media. NASA officials say they were not aware of the video, but are interested in examining it now that it has been made available."
Image

Seinfeld's Good Samaritan Law Now Reality? 735

Posted by samzenpus from the not-that-there-is-anything-wrong-with-that dept.
e3m4n writes "The fictitious 'good samaritan' law from the final episode of Seinfeld (the one that landed them in jail for a year) appears to be headed toward reality for California residents after the house passed this bill. There are some differences, such as direct action is not required, but the concept of guilt by association for not doing the right thing is still on the face of the bill."
Games

How To Judge Legal Risk When Making a Game Clone? 270

Posted by Soulskill from the ask-a-lawye-oh-wait dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I'm an indie game developer making a clone of a rather obscure old game. Gameplay in my clone is very similar to the old game, and my clone even has a very similar name because I want to attract fans of the original. The original game has no trademark or software patent associated with it, and my clone isn't infringing on the original's copyright in any way (all the programming and artwork is original), but nevertheless I'm still worried about the possibility of running afoul of a look and feel lawsuit or something similar. How do I make sure I'm legally in the clear without hiring an expensive lawyer that my indie developer budget can't afford?"

Comment Re:Uh No (Score 2, Informative) 582

by japa (#30591332) Attached to: Bruce Schneier On Airport Security

Can't bring liquids on board? Sure, but you can bring freeze-dried watermelon that you've reconstituted with a liquid of your choice onboard.

Nope, no can do. During Christmas time, one of the Finnish traditions is to eat ham. Not just a slice, but 10-20 pounds of big part of pig that is then cooked at home. Some buy their ham fresh, some buy it frozen (Cheaper). You are not allowed to take frozen ham onboard, it's considered as liquid. Ref: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kauppalehti.fi%2F5%2Fi%2Ftalous%2Fuutiset%2Fetusivu%2Fuutinen.jsp%3Foid%3D2008%2F12%2F16969%26sort%3Dfalse%26request_ahaa_info%3Dtrue&sl=fi&tl=en
(Article translated from Finnish to English)

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fi&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kauppalehti.fi%2F5%2Fi%2Ftalous%2Fuutiset%2Fetusivu%2Ftulostus.jsp%3Foid%3D2008%2F12%2F16969%26type%3Detusivu
(printer friendly version (=no ads) , just press cancel to print dialog. )
Open Source

Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195

Posted by CmdrTaco from the download-compile-reboot-repeat dept.
diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."
Image

Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331

Posted by samzenpus from the snack-is-going-to-be-on-the-floor-today dept.
Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."

Comment Re:Don't be so quick to defend the corporations. (Score 1) 392

by japa (#28524523) Attached to: Senators Want To Punish Nokia, Siemens Over Iran

I don't like what the US government is doing itself in the area of human rights abuse, but I have to admit that I support it on this matter.

GrpA

The US government would have more credibility if they'd start with US companies and then go after the international ones. Or at least target both at the same time. And besides there are many countries with questionable record in human rights. One of the lesser known, but incredible bizarre is Turkmenistan, a mall country with lots of oil & gas. The previous leader came up with Ruhnama, which is an absurd government propaganda book disguised as mandatory religion. Foreign companies get advantage in Turkmenistan if they translate the book to their language and Turkmenistan gets another propaganda victory. The US version was translated by John Deere (the tractor company). There are other big US companies in Turkmenistan, againt the companies' own ethical rules.
Have a look at a documentary 'Shadow of the holy book'.

The whole thing is so unreal that it's absurd..

Ps. Yes, you can find Siemens also from Turkmenistan...

Slashdot Top Deals

"The medium is the massage." -- Crazy Nigel

Close