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Crime

Ask Slashdot: Protecting Tech Gear From Smash-and-Grab Theft? 514

Posted by timothy from the disguise-as-a-tape-deck dept.
rstory writes "I seem to be hearing about more smash and grab thefts lately, from low-tech purse snatching to thieves after laptops and cameras. Bold thieves are even snatching stuff in church/day-care parking lots in the 5 minute window while a parent goes in to pick up their child. I often drive around with my laptop, and want to find the best way to protect against theft. Besides the obvious 'don't leave equipment in the car' solution, what else are people doing? Right now I just use a regular backpack instead of a fancy laptop case. I don't have a trunk, so when I leave the car I put the backpack on the floor of the back seat, sometimes throwing other junk on top. The only interesting thing I've found while googling is a couple of 'anti-theft' backpacks which have wire mesh to prevent cutting them open and a (thin looking) cable for securing to a stationary object. What do you do to protect your gear?"
Advertising

Company to Send DBA into Space 98

Posted by samzenpus from the where-no-admin-has-gone-before dept.
cramco writes "Moments ago, a U.K. software company announced at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Seattle that it would send a lucky contestant to space. The sponsors, Red Gate, is holding a five-week DBA contest with the winner getting a trip to space. Why? And why put them through five weeks of quizzes and technical challenges presented within B-movie-looking videos involving rubber Martians, small dogs, alien body parts and one of their own acting very strangely? Well, as any developer knows, DBA stands for Don't Bother Asking."

Comment Slanted Summary (Score 5, Insightful) 591

by andrew_d_allen (#37160824) Attached to: Verizon Employees End Strike
I don't normally find such slant in Slashdot summaries (except when it's pro-open-source, obviously, which is part of the reason I come here). Using the word "illegal" and "criminal" repeatedly to describe one side of a labor dispute is just beyond the journalistic pale. I know this is "citizen journalism", but it doesn't have to read like some anti-union blog.

Comment Re:wait (Score 1) 138

by andrew_d_allen (#36467014) Attached to: Organized Crime Cleaning Up With Nuclear Waste
No private insurer will insure a nuclear power plant, due to the extremely large (albeit with rather small risk) amount of damage that they can do (and insurance companies are designed to measure risk (not as-calculated, but as-observed) and turn it into profit). Insurance is necessary to avoid externalizing the risk of a nuclear power plant in a "true" free market system. Therefore, there's no such thing as a "free market nuclear power plant". They're _all_ backed, implicitly or explicitly, by governmental insurance.
Programming

Ask Slashdot: Moving From *nix To Windows Automation? 427

Posted by timothy from the setting-expectation-levels dept.
Zubinix writes "I have a background in doing automation in a Unix/Linux environment using scripting languages such as perl and bash shell, as well as ssh for remote scripting. My next project will be in the Windows environment so what approach and methodology is best for developing, say, the automation required for a test system? I don't want to use things like Cygwin, as I need to integrate with Windows applications such as Exchange and Sharepoint. Is there a list of should and should not dos when it comes to Windows automation?"
AI

Free-Form Linguistic Input In Mathematica 8 84

Posted by Soulskill from the differentiates-concepts-and-integrates-words dept.
vbraga writes "With the release of Mathematica 8, it now allows input through free-form English instead of the Mathematica syntax, just like the Wolfram|Alpha engine. The results are impressive. From the blog post: 'I routinely found myself using free-form linguistics as an integral part of longer computations — randomly interspersing Mathematica syntax and free-form linguistics on different lines in a Mathematica session, and just using whichever was most convenient for a particular input. And here's an exciting part: in Mathematica 8 the free-form linguistics doesn't just operate line-by-line. It knows the context in which it's used in a notebook, so you can use it to build things up.'"
Toys

Parrot iPod-Controlled Quadricopter Launches This Week 67

Posted by timothy from the amazing-fun dept.
MojoKid writes "Remote-controlled helicopters are not new, but Parrot's AR.Drone Quadricopter is set to make a splash when it goes on sale on Sept. 9th. It will use an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a controller, and give a live video feed from two different cameras to the pilot. Each model comes with two hulls, one of them for indoor use, with protective loops around the rotors. The device creates its own Wi-Fi network, which the iOS device connects to in order to control the Quadricopter."
The Internet

Over a Third of the Internet Is Pornographic 247

Posted by samzenpus from the filthy-web dept.
Th'Inquisitor writes "Pornography makes up 37% of the total number of web pages online, according to a new study published by Optenet, a SaaS provider. According to the report, which looked at a representative sample of around four million extracted URLs, adult content on the Internet increased by 17% in the first quarter of 2010, as compared to the same period in 2009."
Image

The White House Listed On Real Estate Website Screenshot-sm 123

Posted by samzenpus from the been-for-sale-for-years dept.
Forget visiting the White House, if you have $10 million you can own it. At least that is the price for the president's home on the real estate website Redfin. From the article: "Obviously this is an error. It looks like Redfin software pulled an example listing from the website Owners.com by mistake. That example listing was the White House. We have e-mailed Redfin for comment." I know it's historic but it still looks a bit on the high side according to the comparables in the area.
Image

Life-size Eva Unit 01 Being Built In Japan Screenshot-sm 80

Posted by samzenpus from the summon-godzilla dept.
JoshuaInNippon writes "Japan has gone life-size anime model crazy. Last year there was the robotic 1:1 Gundam model that guarded Tokyo for a few months in the summer to mark the series' 30th anniversary, and then there was the giant Gigantor moment that opened in Kobe in the fall in honor of the city's rejuvenation from the devastating 1995 earthquake. Now, an amusement park near Mt. Fuji named Fuji-Q Highland is building an Eva Unit 01 from the popular Neon Genesis Evangelion series, or at least a bust of it, in conjunction with the series' recent movies. The bust will sit in a replica hanger, and reportedly stand around 9 meters tall. Visitors will have the chance, for a little extra money, to have their photo taken in the unit's cockpit, where the series' protagonist-of-sorts Shinji Ikari normally sits. The attraction is set to a cost of over US$1.6 million to build, and open on July 23 of this year. It will also undoubtedly be swamped by crazed fans looking the opportunity to bring their anime dreams to life."
Medicine

The Lancet Recants Study Linking Autism To Vaccine 590

Posted by kdawson from the reel-in-the-wingnuts dept.
JamJam writes "The Lancet, a major British medical journal, has retracted a flawed study linking the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine to autism and bowel disease. British surgeon and medical researcher Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues originally released their study in 1998. Since then 10 of Wakefield's 13 co-authors have renounced the study's conclusions and The Lancet has said it should never have published the research. Wakefield now faces being stripped of his right to practice medicine in Britain. The vaccine-autism debate should now end."

Highly-Paid Developers As ScrumMasters? 434

Posted by Soulskill from the madness-to-our-method dept.
An anonymous reader writes 'At my company, our mis-implementation of Agile includes the employment of some of our most highly-paid, principal engineers as ScrumMasters. This has effectively resulted in a loss of those engineering functions as these engineers now dedicate their time to ScrumMastery. Furthermore, the ScrumMasters either cannot or do not separate their roles as Team Leads with those of ScrumMastery and — worse — seem to be completely unaware that this poor implementation of Agile development is harmful to our velocity. To date, I have chalked this up to poor leadership, a general lack of understanding of Agile, and an inability to change from traditional roles left over from the waterfall development mode. In addition, I have contended that, for a given Scrum Team, the role of ScrumMaster should be filled by someone of lower impact, such as an intern brought in specifically for that purpose. But I would like to put the questions to Slashdotters as to whether they have seen these same transitional difficulties, what the results have been at their respective companies, or whether they just plain disagree with my assertion that principal engineers should not be relegated to the roles of ScrumMasters.'

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