Cruel Angel - Slashdot User

Submission + - Switching to Solar Power--One Year Later (extremetech.com)

Submitted by

ThinSkin

on Tuesday June 23, 2009 @01:54PM

ThinSkin writes: "Slashdot readers may recall Loyd Case's series of articles illustrating his experiences after switching to solar power for his family home. Loyd shared his one month update, a six month update, and now finally concludes his series after one year of solar power. Despite the $38,000 initial cost for the setup, Loyd is very optimistic after a $3000 savings after one year, meaning that in about 12 years he will break even--though he suspects ten years is a better estimate considering other factors. Other reasons such as feeling "green", increasing the property value of his house, and the "spousal acceptance factor" all support Loyd's decision on why he'd do it all over again if he could."

Submission + - Why the way you touch reveals where you live (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by

Barence

on Tuesday June 23, 2009 @01:38PM

Barence writes: "HP claims that the way you interact with a touch PC can reveal whereabouts in the world you're from. The company's chief technology officer, Phil McKinney, told PC Pro that people have "touch dialects" which are unique to their region. For example, people in Europe will zoom in on a photo using the iPhone-style pinched fingers, while users from, say, Asia will put their fingers on the corners of the photo and attempt to 'stretch' the image. McKinney claims HP is working on software that will automatically identify where you're from — and change your language settings — based on touch alone."

Could We Beam Broadband Internet Into Iran? 541

Posted by timothy on Tuesday June 23, 2009 @12:55PM from the extend-the-tubes dept.

abenamer writes "Some reporter at a recent White House press briefing just asked the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, this question: Was 'the White House....considering beaming broad capability into Iran via satellite so the opposition forces would be able to communicate with themselves and the outside world?' 'Gibbs said he didn't know such a thing was possible. (Is it?) But he said he would check on the technological feasibility and get back with an answer.' I'm not sure what the reporter meant by beaming broadband into Iran: Do they even have 3G? Would we bomb the Iranians with SIM cards that would allow them to get text messages from the VOA? Or somehow put up massive Wi-Fi transmitters from Iraq and beam it into Iran? How would you beam broadband into Iran?"

Submission + - Norwegian lawyers must stop chasing file sharers (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Skapare on Tuesday June 23, 2009 @01:16AM

Skapare writes: TorrentFreak is reporting that Norway's Simonsen law firm has lost their license to chase after file sharers.

Just days after Norway's data protection department told ISPs they must delete all personal IP address-related data three weeks after collection, it's now become safer than ever to be a file-sharer in Norway. The only law firm with a license to track pirates has just seen it expire and it won't be renewed.

Sounds like Norway's government treats privacy seriously. Maybe they've been watching the abuses in the USA. More info on Norwegian perspective at Dagbladet.no.

Best Handset For Freedom? 232

Posted by kdawson on Saturday June 20, 2009 @11:03PM from the start-with-android dept.

Father Thomas Dowd writes "The images we are seeing of Iran are being captured on cell phones and the text is being twittered over SMS. Still, the government has some control over the networks, and we are all familiar with fears of wiretap technologies to spy on users. If the cell phone is the new tool of freedom, what would the best 'freedom handset' contain? I'm thinking of a device with an open OS, where each phone could be a router for encrypted messages passed through Bluetooth/WiFi/whatever, thereby totally bypassing physical infrastructures when necessary. Of course, some sort of plausible deniability encryption a la Truecrypt would also be good, in case the secret police catch you with your phone. What else might we need?"

Comment Re:brain? heart? (Score 1) 480

by Cruel Angel on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @08:30AM (#27487539) Attached to: Most vital body part / system?

One version of the story... The organs of the body always argued about who was the most important. Finally they agreed to have a meeting to try to decide who was in charge. Each organ took a turn speaking up: Brain: I should be in charge because I run all body functions. Blood: I should be in charge because I circulate oxygen for the brain. Stomach: I should be in charge because I process food to the brain. Legs: I should be in charge because I take the brain where it wants to go. Eyes: I should be in charge because I let the brain see where it's going. Asshole: I should be in charge because I get rid of your waste. All the other parts laughed and made the asshole very mad. To prove his point, the asshole immediately slammed tightly closed and stayed that way for 6 days, refusing to rid the body of any waste whatsoever. Day 1 - Brain got a terrible headache and cried out for relief Day 2 - Stomach got bloated and began to ache terribly Day 3 - Legs got cramps and became unstable Day 4 - Eyes became watery and vision became blurred Day 5 - Blood became toxic and poisoned the body Day 6 - The other organs agreed to let the asshole be in charge. The moral of the story: No matter who you are, or how important you think you are, you will find that it is always the asshole that is in charge.

Comment Not gonna happen (Score 1) 73

by Cruel Angel on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @06:44AM (#27486913) Attached to: Greg Bear To Write <em>Halo</em> Trilogy

I would love to see a game made of http://www.larryniven.org/stories/Man_of_Steel_Woman_of_Kleenex.shtml/

The Year of 2008 In Cybercrime 47

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday December 15, 2008 @12:00PM from the a-whole-lot-less-britney dept.

BobB-nw writes "Underground botnet markets and high-profile spam cases headlined the year in tech crime. One of the most disturbing cybercrime trends in 2008, many security analysts say, has been the emergence of a full-blown underground economy where credit card information, identity theft information, and spam and phishing software are all available for relatively low prices. 2008 also saw major developments in the cases against three major spammers in the United States."

Is MySQL's Community Eating the Company? 223

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday December 15, 2008 @11:20AM from the get-yer-drizzle-on dept.

mjasay writes "Craigslist's Jeremy Zawodny reviews the progress of MySQL as a project, and discovers that through third-party forks and enhancements like Drizzle and OurDelta 'you can get a "better" MySQL than the one Sun/MySQL gives you today. For free.' Is this a good thing? On one hand it demonstrates the strong community around MySQL, but on the other, it could make it harder for Sun to fund core development on MySQL by diverting potential revenue from the core database project. Is this the fate of successful open-source companies? To become so successful as a community that they can't eke out a return as a company? If so, could anyone blame MySQL/Sun for creating its own proprietary fork in order to afford further core development?"

Research Finds Carbon Dating Flawed 625

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 10, 2008 @10:42PM from the kinda-old dept.

eldavojohn writes "New research funded by the National Science Foundation at the University of Miami is showing that carbon dating (the 13C/12C ratio used to infer age) in the ocean can only be trusted up to 150 million years ago. From the primary researcher, 'This study is a major step in terms of rethinking how geologists interpret variations in the 13C/12C ratio throughout Earth's history. If the approach does not work over the past 10 million years, then why would it work during older time periods? As a consequence of our findings, changes in 13C/12C records need to be reevaluated, conclusions regarding changes in the reservoirs of carbon will have to be reassessed, and some of the widely-held ideas regarding the elevation of CO2 during specific periods of the Earth's geological history will have to be adjusted.' While this research doesn't necessarily throw carbon dating out the window, it should cause people to rethink so many theories about early life that revolved around ages of sediment in the oceans."

Automated News Crawling Evaporates $1.14B 546

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday September 10, 2008 @04:10PM from the who-shall-watch-the-watchers dept.

cmd writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Google News crawled an obscure reprint of an article from 2002 when United Airlines was on the brink of bankruptcy. United Airlines has since recovered but due to a missing dateline, Google News ran the story as today's news. The story was then picked up by other news aggregators and eventually headlined as a news flash on Bloomberg. This triggered automated trading programs to dump UAL, cratering the stock from $12 to $3 and evaporating 1.14 billion dollars (nearly United's total market cap today) in shareholder wealth. The stock recovered within the day to $10 and is now trading at $9.62, a market cap of $300M less than before Google ran the story." The article makes clear that Google's news bot only noticed the old story because it has been voted up in popularity on the site of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper. The original thought was that stock manipulation may have been behind the incident, but this suspicion seems to be fading.

The Sun Has First Spotless Month Since 1913 571

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 02, 2008 @10:26AM from the doctor-which-spf-should-I-choose-now? dept.

radioweather writes "August 2008 has made solar history. As of 00 UTC September 1st 2008 (5PM PST) we just witnessed the first spotless calendar month since June 1913.This was determined according to sunspot data from NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, which goes back to 1749. In the 95 years since 1913, we've had quite an active sun, but activity has been declining in the last few years. The sun today is a nearly featureless sphere and has been spotless for 42 days total, but this is the first full calendar month since 1913 for a spotless sun. And there are other indicators of the sun being in a funk. Australia's space weather agency recently revised their solar cycle 24 forecast, pushing the expected date for a ramping up of cycle 24 sunspots into the future by six months." As one of the links above indicate, there was a "sunspeck" reported August 21/22, though. Reader MikeyTheK adds a link to a story at Daily Tech on the spotless record.

New Study Shows Solar System Is Uncommon 290

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday September 02, 2008 @05:13AM from the isn't-that-special dept.

Iddo Genuth writes "Research conducted by a team of North American scientists shows our solar system is special, contrary to the accepted theory that it is an average planetary system. Using computer simulations to follow the development of planets, it was shown that very specific conditions are needed for a proto-stellar disk to evolve into a solar system-like planetary system. The simulations show that in most cases either no planets are created, or planets are formed and then migrate towards the disk center and acquire highly elliptical orbits." The research was published in Science magazine; here's the paper on ArXiv (PDF).

Any Suggestions For a Meaningful Geeky Wedding Band? 755

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 30, 2008 @02:09AM from the how-about-a-glow-in-the-dark-uranium-ring? dept.

mbutala writes "I am getting close to popping the question, and I've been racking my brain for an idea for a cool and unique wedding band. I've been thinking of contacting a company that can (possibly) fabricate a ring from pure Iridium (Ir) or a nearly pure alloy. It is the most corrosion-resistant metal known — it cannot be dissolved in aqua regia like gold or platinum. Iridium is extremely rare on Earth, and the high concentration of it at the K-T boundary in the Earth's crust is what suggests a meteor took out the dinosaurs. I am positive that the symbolism of the permanence of Iridium, the reminder that we are star-stuff, and the fact that the ring would be one-of-a-kind would really strike a chord with my girlfriend. It's a really geeky idea, so I thought I would run it past you all — what do you think? Any other ideas?"

Microsoft's Open Source Guru Faces Tough Fight 432

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 31, 2008 @12:11AM from the in-hostile-territory dept.

coondoggie writes "Microsoft's Sam Ramji is like a turkey knocking on Thanksgiving's door. Ramji has the unenviable task of stretching his neck out into the open source world as Microsoft's representative. On top of it, his employer has preheated the oven with years of hubris, sleights of hand and broken promises. Ramji's Sisyphean task was evident last week in Portland at the Open Source Conference (OSCon) and will likely be fuel for chatter at next week's LinuxWorld gathering in San Francisco."

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