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Comment Re:VMware shows its PR colors. (Score 2) 215

by HFShadow (#36006664) Attached to: VMware Causes Second Outage While Recovering From First

Agreed. They seem to treat it as some magical instance where touching the keyboard breaks things, as though this was written by someone's grandmother.

How did one engineer touching a keyboard when he shouldn't, take everything down? I don't think I could do this at work unless I was really trying hard. This is a really shitty response, especially compared to the writeup that amazon put out.

Comment Not required, just makes it easier. (Score 1) 174

by HFShadow (#35948596) Attached to: Does Wiretapping Require Cell Company Cooperation?

Long story short: It makes it easier, but it's not required. If they've got it, they can just copy the call at the switch level. If they don't, they can: Install software on the persons phone, sniff + break the radio waves, bribe a telco employee, plant software on the towers (see http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/jrnl/2007-Spectrum-AA/html/PS07.pdf - really interesting read), or i'm sure they've got more methods.

Cell phone's aren't secure.

Comment Story link color is hard to find (Score 1) 2254

by HFShadow (#35004906) Attached to: Slashdot Launches Re-Design

Hopefully you're actually reading these, I agree mostly with the other people who say too much white space and lack of contract (could use some black lines somewhere, i dunno, it just feels bland). Biggest thing I've noticed is link color.... on my dell laptop which is "color calibrated" with an external spyder the light blue of the links do NOT stand out against the gray of the text. The first story I tried to read I had difficulty finding the link in the text until I knew what to look for.

Comment Re:Good for everybody but the IT guy? (Score 4, Informative) 498

by HFShadow (#34883500) Attached to: Should Employees Buy Their Own Computers?

Did you read the article? Or maybe even skim it? Instead of basing your comment entirely off the summary?

In particular:

Staff taking advantage of the scheme must buy a three-year service contract. "From that point forth the device is their responsibility, and not that of the company," adds Mr Hollison. "We don't asset manage it in any way. "If they want to fill it full of photos and videos of their children, they're free to do so, because the connection back to Citrix is securely in the data centre.

So they're not running any business apps on their laptop, that's all at the dc on their citrix setup. They're also responsible for maintaining their own gear. Sorry, what was your argument again?
Businesses

PayPal Withholding Indie Game Dev's €600,000 Account 775

Posted by Soulskill from the money-for-nothin' dept.
epee1221 writes "Markus Persson, a.k.a. Notch, the developer of Minecraft, posted on his development blog today that PayPal limited his account with unspecified cause on August 25th. Since then, payments for the alpha version of Minecraft have continued accumulating while Notch has been unable to withdraw them, and the account now contains over €600,000. PayPal recently told him it may take up to two more weeks for things to get sorted out and that if they conclude that there is funny business involved, they will keep the money." This unfortunate news followed an announcement a few days ago that he and a friend would be starting a studio of their own to continue development on Minecraft and start working on a new project.
Medicine

Robot With Knives Used In Robotics Injury Study 132

Posted by timothy from the just-crazy-enough-to-wound dept.
An anonymous reader writes "IEEE Spectrum reports that German researchers, seeking to find out what would happen if a robot handling a sharp tool accidentally struck a human, set out to perform a series of cutting, stabbing, and puncturing tests. They used a robotic manipulator arm, fitted with various sharp tools (kitchen knife, scalpel, screwdriver) and performed striking tests at a block of silicone, a pig leg, and at one point, even the arm of a human volunteer. Volunteer, really?! The story includes video of the tests."
Privacy

Former Head of CIA Think Tank Talks Privacy, Technology 147

Posted by Soulskill from the she-knows-if-you've-been-bad-or-good dept.
blackbearnh writes "Carmen Medina, until recently, helped run the analysis side of the house at the CIA. She also ran the agency's think tank, the Center for the Study of Intelligence. A self-proclaimed heretic, she has a number of controversial views about how we gather intelligence and how technology is changing the game. She talked to O'Reilly Radar about this and other topics, including the possible ways that intelligence analysis could be crowdsourced, why government technology procurement is so broken, and how the public may need to readjust its views on what things such as privacy mean. Medina said, 'Government is viewed as inefficient and wasteful by American citizens. I would argue that one of the reasons why that view has grown is that they're comparing the inefficiency of government to how they relate to their bank or to their airline. Interestingly enough, for private industry to provide that level of service, there are a lot of legacy privacy barriers that are being broken. Private industry is doing all sorts of analysis of you as a consumer to provide you better service and to let them make more profit. But the same consumer that's okay with private industry doing that is not okay, in a knee-jerk reaction, with government doing that. And yet, if government, because of this dynamic, continues not to be able to adopt modern transactional practices, then it's going to fall further behind the satisfaction curve.'"
Robotics

ISS To Get Man Cave 123

Posted by samzenpus from the floating-cheese-curls dept.
Nancy_A writes "There might be a new favorite hang-out for astronauts aboard the International Space Station later this year. The Leonardo Multi Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) will become a permanent module on the station, and will be brought up on the STS-133 mission, scheduled for September 2010. The new module might provide a haven for astronauts to get away from it all. '"The thought is, the PMM might become sort of a 'man cave,'" said Mike Kinslow, the Boeing payload manager at the Kennedy Space Center. "It won't have all the background noise of fans, computers and other equipment running like in the laboratories, so it will be a quieter atmosphere that might appeal to the astronauts during their off-duty hours."' Plus, NASA's Robonaut 2, or R2 will be brought up on the same flight. Any chance R2 could be programmed to serve drinks or bring food into the man cave?"
Earth

Chemical Pollution Is Destroying Masculinity 773

Posted by kdawson from the lower-your-voice-and-say-that dept.
myrdos2 writes "A host of common chemicals is feminizing males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people. Many have been identified as 'endocrine disruptors' or gender-benders because they interfere with hormones. Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia, and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls as boys, which may offer a clue to the mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. And a study at Rotterdam's Erasmus University showed that boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather than with traditionally male toys. It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminized genitals. It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone. And sperm counts are dropping precipitously. Studies in more than 20 countries have shown that they have dropped from 150 million per milliliter of sperm fluid to 60 million over 50 years."

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