Comment I for one welcome our Culture overlords (Score 2, Funny) 521
At least I hope we'll have Culture overlords... drug glands, body manipulation and uploading to a Mind, at least.
Comment Get a fast lens (Score 1) 596
I got a fast lens for my Sony a200 - a Minolta 50mm f1.7. It has really improved my low light level photography as it lets much more light in than a standard zoom lens. That's the advantage of SLR - you can get a better lens to do a proper job.
UAC Whitelist Hole In Windows 7 496
David Gerard writes "Microsoft tried to make Vista secure with User Access Control (UAC). They relaxed it a bit in Windows 7 because it was such a pain in the backside. Unfortunately, one way they did this (the third way so far found around UAC in Windows 7) was to give certain Microsoft files the power to just ... bypass UAC. Even more unfortunately, one of the DLLs they whitelisted was RUNDLL32.EXE. The exploit is simply to copy (or inject) part of its own code into the memory of another running process and then telling that target process to run the code, using standard, non-privileged APIs such as WriteProcessMemory and CreateRemoteThread. Ars Technica writes up the issue, proclaiming Windows 7 UAC 'a broken mess; mend it or end it.'"
Comment Re:Why doesn't anyone think javascript is useful? (Score 2, Insightful) 238
"If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore."
Is that referring to Bill Gates?
Comment Have a look at Veusz (Score 1) 250
Veusz is a nice GUI/scripted scientific plotting program:
http://home.gna.org/veusz/
It works on Unix, Windows and Mac OS X
First Look At Windows 7 Beta 1 898
The other A. N. Other writes "It seems that Microsoft couldn't keep the lid on Windows 7 beta 1 until the new year. By now, several news outlets have their hands on the beta 1 code and have posted screenshots and information about this build. ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 column says: 'This beta is of excellent quality. This is the kind of code that you could roll out and live with. Even the pre-betas were solid, but finally this beta feels like it's "done." This beta exceeds the quality of any other Microsoft OS beta that I've handled.' ITWire points out that this copy has landed on various torrent sites, and while it appears to be genuine, there are no guarantees. Neowin has a post confirming that it's the real thing, and saying Microsoft will be announcing the build's official availability at CES in January."
Microsoft Pushes Windows To Battle Linux In Africa 248
ThousandStars writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft has been making a concerted effort to promote Windows in Africa, pushing Windows over Linux in very poor countries that haven't been locked into a single operating system. From the article: 'To that end, it has established a presence in 13 countries, donated Windows for thousands of school computers, and funded programs for entrepreneurs and the young. It also has used aggressive business tactics, some aimed at its biggest threat in the region: Linux ...'"
Yahoo Changes User Profiles, To Massive Outrage 255
Wiseleo writes "Yahoo decided to massively screw up their entire userbase by changing all user profiles to blank. No warning, no automated way to get data back, and other unwanted changes. The blog has such choice quotes as 'We know this has been a rough transition for some of you and, and are committed to helping you use, understand, and (hopefully) enjoy your new profile,' and, 'We also know lots of you worked hard on your old profiles and want your data. If you feel like you're missing data, we've saved a copy of your old profile (and alias) and our Customer Care team can retrieve this information. You won't, however, be able to revert back to your old profile format, but you will be able to get any data that you think is missing. To do this, please go here to contact Customer Care.' There were 850 comments posted, all negative, on the first day. There are hundreds more today. There is even more outrage on the Yahoo Messenger blog."
Comment Re:ReiserFS is the data-killer (Score 1) 508
ext3 can take several hours to fsck. We have a few TB filesystem full of hard-links (a versioned rsync backup). It does take endless hours to fsck, so you have to switch off the automatic check. Hopefully ext4 should fix this (or btrfs later).
Submission + - 'spaghetti monster' powered by magnetic fields 1
sm62704 writes: "New Scientist has an article up titled Galactic 'spaghetti monster' powered by magnetic fields. From the article:
Long-lived magnetic fields are sustaining a mammoth network of spaghetti-like gas filaments around a black hole, a new study suggests. Previously, it was not clear what prevented the delicate filaments from being destroyed by competing gravitational forces.
The black hole lies at the heart of a large galaxy known as NGC 1275, which itself lies near the centre of a cluster of galaxies called Perseus.
As the black hole sucks in gas from its surroundings, it powers jets of matter that produce bubbles of energetic particles in the surrounding cluster gas. As these bubbles grow and rise, cooled gas from NGC 1275's core gets drawn into long tendrils in their wake, like the strings that trail behind balloons.
New Scientist has a Hubble photo of the "spagetti monster" in the article."
Submission + - Flying Spaghetti Monster spotted; magnet-powered!
Muad'Dave writes: Our Lord FSM has been spotted, and is apparently powered by giant magnetic fields. No word on when His Noodliness will approach our world.
From the article:
Long-lived magnetic fields are sustaining a mammoth network of spaghetti-like gas filaments around a black hole, a new study suggests. Previously, it was not clear what prevented the delicate filaments from being destroyed by competing gravitational forces.
From the article:
Long-lived magnetic fields are sustaining a mammoth network of spaghetti-like gas filaments around a black hole, a new study suggests. Previously, it was not clear what prevented the delicate filaments from being destroyed by competing gravitational forces.
Astronomers Again Baffled by Solar Observations 299
SteakNShake writes "Once again professional astronomers are struggling to understand observations of the sun. ScienceDaily reports that a team from Saint Andrew's University announced that the sun's magnetic fields dominate the behavior of the corona via a mechanism dubbed the 'solar skeleton.' Computer models continue to be built to mimic the observed behavior of the sun in terms of magnetic fields but apparently the ball is still being dropped; no mention in the announcement is made of the electric fields that must be the cause of the observed magnetic fields. Also conspicuously absent from the press releases is the conclusion that the sun's corona is so-dominated by electric and magnetic fields because it is a plasma. In light of past and present research revealing the electrical nature of the universe, this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing."
Submission + - openSUSE 10.2 released.
linuxpoweredtrekkie writes: Last Thursday openSUSE 10.2 was released. This is the first version of the distribution to bear the name openSUSE, previously it was known as SUSE Linux.
Notable new features include:
— Vastly improved package management. (Improved user interface, progress reporting during slower operations, significantly improved speed)
— New kickoff KDE menu based on extensive start menu research by the SUSE team.
— New update notifier applet for KDE.
— Improved KDE integration of beagle, with the Kerry frontend and kio-beagle (lets you use beagle search in any kde dialogue).
— New and improved YaST modules for configuring your system, one new module enables sudo configuration.
You can download now from a mirror or use a torrent. Alternatively buy a boxed set with installation support, manuals and dual layer dvd.
Notable new features include:
— Vastly improved package management. (Improved user interface, progress reporting during slower operations, significantly improved speed)
— New kickoff KDE menu based on extensive start menu research by the SUSE team.
— New update notifier applet for KDE.
— Improved KDE integration of beagle, with the Kerry frontend and kio-beagle (lets you use beagle search in any kde dialogue).
— New and improved YaST modules for configuring your system, one new module enables sudo configuration.
You can download now from a mirror or use a torrent. Alternatively buy a boxed set with installation support, manuals and dual layer dvd.
Submission + - Firefox 3 in alpha - may be ready by end of 2007
illeism writes: Cnet is reporting that firefox 3 is now available in it's alpha stages and is currently recommended only to testers and developers. However, the cool thing is the Gecko rendering engine.
FTA — "Firefox 3 will include some significant changes. It uses version 1.9 of the Gecko rendering engine — which itself hasn't been released yet but which includes the Cairo graphics layer. Gecko 1.9 has been in development since before the release of Firefox 2, and it provides vector-based rendering on all platforms. As the Gecko 1.9 road map explains, Cairo will "bring modern, hardware-accelerated 2D-graphics capabilities to the whole of the Web without requiring proprietary plug-ins or rendering obsolete the broad and rich set of Web-authoring techniques developed over the past decade."
FTA — "Firefox 3 will include some significant changes. It uses version 1.9 of the Gecko rendering engine — which itself hasn't been released yet but which includes the Cairo graphics layer. Gecko 1.9 has been in development since before the release of Firefox 2, and it provides vector-based rendering on all platforms. As the Gecko 1.9 road map explains, Cairo will "bring modern, hardware-accelerated 2D-graphics capabilities to the whole of the Web without requiring proprietary plug-ins or rendering obsolete the broad and rich set of Web-authoring techniques developed over the past decade."
Submission + - The North Pole will melt by 2040
Dekortage writes: "A new NASA report suggests that the North Pole will be melted by the year 2040. According to the Times article, "Ice is melting so fast in the Arctic that the North Pole will be in the open sea in 30 years, according to leading climatologists.... Ships will be able to sail over the top of the world and tourists will be able visit what was, until climate change, one of planet's most inaccessible landscapes." So where will Santa live?"
