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The Internet

Submission + - Sex, Lies, and Web 2.0: Cyber-schizophrenia? (socialcomputingmagazine.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Technically it's known as 'the online disinhibition effect' – as in for example "web rage," the brutal rudeness, racism, flamings and the like that seems to arise only in cyber-safety. But this article adds another example of how the new world of Web 2.0 is fast altering the human psyche: some social network users, in a safe fantasy setting, are "transgressing" into a new sexual identity that has no necessary day-to-day link to their personas in 'real life.' Is this the advent of cyber-schizophrenia?

[From the article: 'Web 2.0 permits the construction of personal identity at different levels of 'personal privacy'...Internet culture now allows someone to express an 'abnormal' part of themselves ... without being obliged to include it in the self-identity that is designed to accomodate social or community expectations.']"
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Microsoft admits all 360s sold so far are flawed

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: CNN reports that Microsoft has admitted all xbox 360 consoles sold in the past 19 months suffer from a design flaw. But it does not have any plans to start a recall program.

It seems like everyone with a functional (like myself) are lucky. This seems to be a bad time for Microsoft. But as a 360 owner, I am glad they actually admitted this instead of denying and repeating their line on how the actual failure rate is very low.
User Journal

Journal SPAM: Separation

Journal by mercedo

Separation has come before the real separation took place. I wanted to separate from her already in last summer. The reason I've been seeing her was my search for the curiosity with her in physical ways was over the agony to communicate with her in verbal ways. Recently I noticed my agony was overwhelmed my pleasure. It was already a matter of time for me to say good-bye to her. If I was able to see her almost everyday I didn't have to take such a long period to put an end to our relations. I
Space

Submission + - Britain in Space - a petition for action

Submitted by Rob
Rob writes: A new petition aimed at pressuring the UK government into increasing its spending on space technology has been launched today. The country that has given the world everything from television, telephones, steel and electricity through to the hologram, the www, soccer, the chicken Tikka-Masala and Viagra is systematically failing to invest in innovation and invention. Slashdotter's the world over the time for action is now. Lets get the worlds 4th biggest economic power to splash the cash.
United States

Submission + - CompUSA Closing More Than 50 Percent of Stores

Submitted by
Zurbrick
Zurbrick writes: "CompUSA, the computer and gadget retailer owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, said on Tuesday it would close more than half of its U.S. retail locations over the next two to three months to focus on top performing locations.

CompUSA said in a statement it would close 126 of its stores and would receive a $440 million cash capital infusion, but it was not specific as to the source of the cash. The company also said it would cut costs and restructure.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2099068 ,00.asp"
Microsoft

Submission + - Avaya turned down Microsoft partnership deal

Submitted by Rob
Rob writes: CBRonline.com reports that Avaya claims it was offered a Unified Communications partnership by Microsoft ahead of Nortel, but refused to license its call control technology to the operating system giant. "They came to us to offer that deal and we turned them down, and now they're coming back to try again," said Karyn Mashima, senior VP of strategy and technology at the Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based vendor of enterprise telephony infrastructure. Mashima said a deal would have required licensing what constitutes Avaya's "crown jewels" to Microsoft, which Nortel, "struggling in the enterprise market", was prepared to do. "I guess it was something Nortel felt was worth giving up," she said.
The Internet

Submission + - FlickrCombat, a New Mashup in Town

Submitted by Pink Fluffy Dinosaur
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...)
Programming

Submission + - Breaking into C++ Software Engineering Field

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Does anyone have any tips for breaking into the C++ software engineering field? It seems every job ad I look at with C++ (or C for that matter) is demanding 5-10 years professional experience with the language. How do I get this experience without a job coding with the language? Currently all I can find are DBA jobs since my work experience is mostly with SQL Server, so is there any recommendation for helping me to get on the development path and to find a job using C++?
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Cheap desalinisation using waste heat

Submitted by
hcdejong
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."
Upgrades

Submission + - Swiftness of Dow Drop Due to Computers

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
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
Microsoft

Submission + - Weather alert: Microsoft FUD storm ahead (Linux,Mi

Submitted by
xtaski
xtaski writes: "Hi, I submitted a post with the same subject above and the post is still 'pending' but it was wrong and didn't have the right links. Can you reject it for me? Date and time stamp is "2007-02-09 07:09:06" Thanks"

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