Submission + - Is statewide Wi-Max possible?
Philetus writes: While many politicians seem dead set on shutting down or locking off parts the Internet, is it possible that one Deep South state could provide broadband wireless access to all of its residents? That's the pledge of a new bill that was introduced in the South Carolina Statehouse this week.
From the article:
"Toward that end, (Dwight) Loftis, House Speaker Bobby Harrell and others have introduced a bill, H. 3569, that would create the S.C. Wireless Technology and Communications Commission, a body tasked with implementing a statewide wireless broadband network, possibly as early as late 2008."
Is this another case of politicians getting their tubes mixed up, or is a statewide wireless network possible?
From the article:
"Toward that end, (Dwight) Loftis, House Speaker Bobby Harrell and others have introduced a bill, H. 3569, that would create the S.C. Wireless Technology and Communications Commission, a body tasked with implementing a statewide wireless broadband network, possibly as early as late 2008."
Is this another case of politicians getting their tubes mixed up, or is a statewide wireless network possible?
Feed The World According to John K. (wired.com)
Submission + - Ballmer To India: Cut Piracy, Create 50,000 Jobs
Pranjal writes: In an interview in Tuesday's edition of the Times Of India, Ballmer says piracy is having "a huge negative impact" on economic growth in India. He also cites an unnamed study indicating that 70% of all software used in the country is pirated. Reducing that number by 10% would lead to the creation of 50,000 new jobs in India, Ballmer says in the interview. InformationWeek.com has a commentary on the news item — "The concern, of course, is that a larger Microsoft presence in India would come at the expense of programming jobs in the U.S. Microsoft employees in Redmond may be hoping that India doesn't take its piracy problem too seriously — it may be the best job protection they have."
Submission + - Use Firefox XForms to create your own Sudoku
An anonymous reader writes: Sudoku quietly appeared on the scene in the United States in the last couple of years, and then became a phenomenon, just as it had in Japan. Someone you know most likely has played it, if not yourself. Because Sudoku is based on very specific data patterns, you can use XPath expressions to evaluate the progress the user has made in a specific game. You can also use these patterns to easily use Mozilla Firefox XForms extensions to generate a game board that enables the user to play.
Submission + - Exclusive Interview with Douglas Adams from 1979
DarkerMatter writes: "A new online science fiction magazine, Darker Matter, has just gone live with an exclusive interview conducted with Douglas Adams (author of the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy) in 1979, just before his first book was published. The interview was never used until now. The site also has high quality short sf stories from writers inclusing Hugo award winner David D. Levine, Bud Sparhawk and Edward M. Lerner. The site is funded by advertising, pays the going rate to writers and is planning to donate any profits to charity.
http://www.darkermatter.com/"
http://www.darkermatter.com/"
Submission + - FlickrCombat, a New Mashup in Town
Pink Fluffy Dinosaur writes: There are so many great photos added every day on Flickr. So many, that no human being can ever rank them. FlickrCombat's aim is to manage to do that, involving the community power.
Flickrcombat.com is a mashup that is offering an effective process to involve the community in revealing the best Flickr photos (sourced via the flickr.com API) and at the same time to keep things interesting and entertaining. In the good web 2.0 spirit, the users exercise an influence over the content and the more they get involved, the more value they add to the application.
As for the theme... nothing new under the sun. The idea of two pictures fighting against each other had been exploited before in various ways, especially when it came to pictures of hot babes, a category preferred by far by a male majority user community. Everybody knows that sex sells. The other categories seem almost an overplus since they are not really addressed to the target. It's more of a bonus for those who, in addition, are pet lovers or just enjoy nature and art. As for the "guys" category... how many women really waste time participating in that combat?
The design of the web site is a plus, though. Simplicity does its work here, highlighting the photos in the combat. And you can easily find your way around.
So what is FlickrCombat all about? Two pictures in each combat, seven categories to choose from, and a top 21 that says it all. Users can choose from several categories — babes, cars, cats, dogs, views, guys and art — and vote on one picture they like best out of two. The rank of each picture is determined by the number of defeats, wins and combats. The users can enjoy the result of their rating checking out the goodies in the top (and by this you know what I mean...)
Submission + - Al Gore uses 20 times more electricity than you
An anonymous reader writes: [The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh — more than 20 times the national average.]
This is according to the latest press release from The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, which used FOIA laws to retrieve the data. Al Gore stated in his Oscar accepting speech; "It's not as hard as you might think. We have a long way to go but all of us can do something in our own lives to make a difference."
Hypocrisy? Or an unfortunate smear campaign?
This is according to the latest press release from The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, which used FOIA laws to retrieve the data. Al Gore stated in his Oscar accepting speech; "It's not as hard as you might think. We have a long way to go but all of us can do something in our own lives to make a difference."
Hypocrisy? Or an unfortunate smear campaign?
Submission + - Ars.Technica Examines BitTorrent Video Store
Rocketship Underpant writes: Ars Technica has given the new DRM-based BitTorrent video store a test drive. For those who may not know, the BitTorrent name is following in the footsteps of Napster, using its name to pursue non-free media distribution. But while Napster had nothing in common with its filesharing precursor, BitTorrent does use the bit-torrent protocol for distributing videos.
So does the new BitTorrent store work? "Store" may be an exaggeration; while it was (mostly) capable of taking the reviewer's money, none of the first few videos that were downloaded would play. Unsurprisingly, DRM is the source of the problem. Windows Media Player experienced numerous problems trying to read and authenticate the videos, even though it is the only supported player. In the reviewer's opinion, the service of the BitTorrent store is unacceptable. What's more, even files that work are rendered practically useless by the restrictive BitTorrent DRM, as the video cannot be burned to DVD or played on other devices.
So does the new BitTorrent store work? "Store" may be an exaggeration; while it was (mostly) capable of taking the reviewer's money, none of the first few videos that were downloaded would play. Unsurprisingly, DRM is the source of the problem. Windows Media Player experienced numerous problems trying to read and authenticate the videos, even though it is the only supported player. In the reviewer's opinion, the service of the BitTorrent store is unacceptable. What's more, even files that work are rendered practically useless by the restrictive BitTorrent DRM, as the video cannot be burned to DVD or played on other devices.
Submission + - Boycott the RIAA in March
Barrien writes: The guys over at Gizmodo have declared a boycott of the RIAA during the month of March. They are not advocating piracy, instead they suggest buying non-signed artist's music, or music that is available online. The full scoop can be found on their webpage, or here's a direct link to their plan. This is how we make our stand against the monster that is the RIAA.
Submission + - Cheap desalinisation using waste heat
hcdejong writes: "Dutch research organisation TNO has developed a desalinisation technique that at last, promises to be inexpensive enough to be used on a large scale.
The process is called Memstill (a contraction of Membrane and deStillation). Salt water is run through a condensor, on which water vapour condenses. Energy from the vapour is transferred to the salt water, which warms up. More energy is then added from an external heat source, making the salt water warm enough for evaporation. In a membrane array, the evaporation escapes through a membrane that allows the vapour to pass through, but which stops liquid water. The vapour ends up at the condensor.
The external heat source can be just about anything. The required temperature is only 50-100 C, which means that e.g. cooling water from an industrial plant can be used. Solar heating also works.
Thanks to this 'free' heat, TNO estimates that a production plant will be able to make freshwater for only $ 0.30-0.40 per cubic metre, lower than any other desalinisation technique, see this PDF for a comparison. The current price for potable water is about 1.50 Euro/cubic metre in the Netherlands.
Memstill is currently in use in a few pilot projects."
The process is called Memstill (a contraction of Membrane and deStillation). Salt water is run through a condensor, on which water vapour condenses. Energy from the vapour is transferred to the salt water, which warms up. More energy is then added from an external heat source, making the salt water warm enough for evaporation. In a membrane array, the evaporation escapes through a membrane that allows the vapour to pass through, but which stops liquid water. The vapour ends up at the condensor.
The external heat source can be just about anything. The required temperature is only 50-100 C, which means that e.g. cooling water from an industrial plant can be used. Solar heating also works.
Thanks to this 'free' heat, TNO estimates that a production plant will be able to make freshwater for only $ 0.30-0.40 per cubic metre, lower than any other desalinisation technique, see this PDF for a comparison. The current price for potable water is about 1.50 Euro/cubic metre in the Netherlands.
Memstill is currently in use in a few pilot projects."
Submission + - Swiftness of Dow Drop Due to Computers
An anonymous reader writes: Sorry I dont know where to file this but
"A computer glitch triggered a sudden plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average at mid-afternoon Tuesday, turning an already bad day in stocks into a head-turning spectacle. Dow Jones & Co., the media company that manages the well-known index of 30 blue chip stocks, said it discovered shortly before 2 p.m. that its computers weren't properly handling the day's huge volume in trades at the New York Stock Exchange. It switched to a backup computer, and the result was a massive swoon in the index as the secondary system took over processing shortly before 3 p.m. "
Interesting how NAsdaq, which uses Microsoft SQL didnt have any issues
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20070228/dow-jones -computers.htm
Submission + - Tell your friends about Geek Squad's shenanigans!
Kevin_Torvalds writes: "Yes, I'm sure everyone here knows about this, but someone doesn't... otherwise they wouldn't still be in business. Geek Squad, the well-known Best Buy tech support guys, are basically just an everyday, run-of-the-mill scam. They claim that they'll fix your computer, but at what cost? Well, it seems "O" found out. In this article, http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/27/142 3220 Geek Squad is shown to have a bit of a criminal element about them. They will tell customers that certain parts need to be replaced and this and that, when all that might need to be done is, say, a repair installation of Windows, and then they charge far more than a small repair shop would, and that without actually doing the job.
Spread the word. The unknowing, vulnerable public needs to know.
Friends don't let friends go to Geek Squad!"
Laptops with Big RAM? 172
Fubari wonders: "Anybody know when laptops over 4gb might be coming out? Some of the dev-tools I want to run are just obscene RAM-pigs. On the desktop I'm using now (Win2003), it sucks up 1.6gb just to boot. By the time I log in and start doing work, it is stretching 2Gb. Move that to Vista, add a VM-Ware session or two, and I'm worried I'll be pushing 4Gb. I'm torn between buying a 4Bb-max laptop now, or some mini-desktop
that can fit in a set of luggage wheels. A friend of mine suggested something like this, but my first choice would be something designed to be portable. Any suggestions?"
Submission + - Create a systems admin job at my school?
Old_Mountain_Man writes: "I have been working at a K-8 school for the last two school years as a volunteer through an Americorps program called the Montana Technology Corps. In theory, I am here to teach teachers and students how to use technology, but because of the need and my ability to do so, I have become an unofficial Systems Administrator. We also have a contracted Systems Admin that comes in once a week, and works 30 hours or so a month. After this year, the Tech Corps position will no longer be available to the school, so something needs to be done to keep the IT systems of the school functioning. I am going to propose to the school board that they create an official, full time systems administrator position, and, of course, to hire me for that job. We have about 375 students, and probably 40 or so staff that use the computers. We have a lab of 25 machines, workstations in each classroom, a laptop cart, four smartboards and six networked printers and six servers hosting files, applications, Exchange and an Isaserver. In all, about 170 machines that need taken care of. (All Windows) There's no way the contracted systems admin could keep up working only 30 hours a month, so I feel the school needs somebody here full time.
What I am looking for is specific information regarding how many IT support people are needed for this kind of setup. I wonder if there are papers/reports that break down how much support time is needed for different systems that I could take to the school board.
In addition any advice on how to shape my presentation to the board would be useful. Are there others out there that got their jobs similarly? How do you convince a board that they need to start budgeting for this? They have obviously taken the plunge to getting this technology in the school, how do I convince them that they need somebody here to maintain it?"
