Comment Good luck with that... (Score 5, Insightful) 107
They're trying to compete with Youtube?... Compete for what? The privilege of losing $1.65 million per day? If the MPAA was smart they would help The Pirate Bay set this up!
Comment Why Higher Rates? (Score 4, Interesting) 382
I see so many articles about ISPs hiking up their rates or beginning to use bandwidth caps but what I want to know is why?
Yes, a customer who downloads 300 GB a month is more expensive than someone who doesn't but that sort of customer behavior is something that all service businesses have to deal with. I work in the webserver management department of my company. For a flat monthly rate, we will fix, upgrade, secure, and do whatever other odd jobs you want to your server. Some customers make fifty (stupid) requests per month and take up tons of our time but they get billed the same amount as the customers who only make one or two requests. But at the end of the month, both customers are getting the same level of service. How did my company figure out how to reasonably deal with this sort of overuse and underuse behavior while large ISPs can't?
Another problem I have with raising rates and imposing limits is the lack of justification. The only thing I've ever heard is "It's those evil pirates! They're making your bills go up!" Yeah, right. There was a time when illegal media downloading was pretty much the only kind of media downloading that existed but now we have Netflix and iTunes and a whole slew of completely legitimate streaming sites. So let's say I do pay $150/month for unlimited bandwidth. Where is my $150 going? I'm sure there is an answer to this and I would be much more willing to pay it as long as it doesn't include "into the pocket of our CEO". Anyone have a link to an article (preferably written by an unbiased third party) that would explain this?
Ad Block Plus Filter Maintainer "rick752" Dies At 56 385
A user on Reddit pointed out that Richard "rick752" Petnel, maintainer of one of the most popular filter lists for Ad Block Plus, has passed away at age 56. In an article last year Petnel described a bit of what he was up against in the ad world. "'I'm playing against some pretty big players,' he said, explaining his reluctance to step forward. 'I don't want to be harassed. . . . I don't want to be bribed. I started it because I was frustrated with getting my computer infected from ads -- malware and spyware and all that stuff,' he said. 'I kind of went overboard with it. But you have to admit, it's pretty amazing, right?'" Update 15:05 GMT by SM: updated to reflect Rick's status as maintainer of the most popular Ad Block Plus filter as opposed to Ad Block Plus itself.
Comment Ze goggles! Zey do nothing! (Score 5, Funny) 476
(Warning: link contains strong language and vivid imagery.)
Oh god, a 500 error! MY EYES! THEY BURN!
How Do I Put Unused Servers To Work? 302
olyar writes "I worked for an internet start-up last year and during the 'we have plenty of money' phase, a lot of server hardware was purchased. Eight months later, there is very little money, but we're still plugging along — using only a fraction of the hardware. We just cleared out a co-lo and I now have a stack of 17, 1U servers in my garage. Each of those has 2 servers, each of which is a 2-processor, dual-core box with 8 GB of RAM. Add that up and I have 136 processors and 272 GB of RAM with nothing to do. The IT guy in me thinks that's a waste of FLOPS. The wanna-be businessman in me thinks its probably a waste of money as well. So I've been brainstorming ways to put all of that power to good use. Any ideas?"
Inventor Builds Robot Wife
469
Inventor Le Trung must really like the book "The Stepford Wives," because he has built the dream of every lonely man without hope, a robot wife. Le's wife, Aiko, starts the day by reading him the newspaper headlines and they go for a drives in the countryside. Le says his relationship with Aiko hasn't strayed into the bedroom, but a few tweaks could turn her into a sexual partner, even redesigning her to have a simulated orgasm. *Shudder*
Comment Privacy? (Score 1) 459
If you don't like the idea of the police finger printing you or taking a DNA sample when you've done absolutely nothing wrong then I suggest you put on a nice big smile for your next license photo. Because that's what this is, the government taking a facial fingerprint of you.
Which brings me to my next concern... are they going to try to make me take off my tinfoil hat for the picture too???
"Stealth" Plasma Antennas 169
eldavojohn writes "There's a new antenna that consists of plasma and essentially vanishes when you turn it off. While it may seem to not have many uses in the commercial world, it is very important to military personnel who risk detection or for anybody wishing to avoid signal jamming."
MIT Media Lab Making Programming Fun For Kids 318
An anonymous reader passed us a link to an article on the Boston Globe's website, talking up efforts by MIT to make programming a non-threatening part of grade-school education. MIT has developed a new programming language designed to encourage experimentation and play. Called Scratch, the project eschews manuals and high-level concepts in favour of approachability. "Efforts to make computer programming accessible to young people began in the late 1970s with the advent of the personal PC, when another programming language with roots at MIT — Logo — allowed young people to draw shapes by steering a turtle around a screen by typing out commands. But the path to mastering most programming languages has been strewn with obstacles, since students needed to figure out not only the underlying logic but also master a brand new syntax, observe strict rules about semicolons and bracket use, and figure out what was causing error messages even as they learned the program."
Teachers Fake Gunman Attack 863
Anti_Climax writes "Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.
It'll be interesting to see what happens to these teachers after the charges brought against students in recent months."
Simple Computation Using Dominos 131
An anonymous reader writes "When silicon fails to beat Moores law, maybe dominos can help. This guy has created a half adder in dominos as a proof of concept for domino computation. If he intends to make a full domino computer he's going to need an awful lot of dominos."
Iran Launches Payload into Space 698
An anonymous reader writes "BBC is reporting that Iran has launched its first space rocket carrying a payload. Britain's former ambassador to Iran, Sir Richard Dalton, told the BBC that, if confirmed, such a move could destabilise the Middle East:
"It is a matter of concern. Iran's potential nuclear military programme, combined with an advanced missile capability, would destabilise the region, and of course if there were a bomb that could be placed on the end of this missile, it would in breach of Iran's obligations under the non-proliferation treaty."
From the article:
Iranian TV broke the news of the reported test saying :"The first space rocket has been successfully launched into space.
It quoted the head of Iran's aerospace research centre, Mohsen Bahrami, as saying that "the rocket was carrying material intended for research created by the ministries of science and defence".
In 2005, Iran's Russian-made satellite was put into orbit by a Russian rocket.
But shortly afterwards Iranian military officials said they were preparing a satellite launch vehicle of their own and last month, they announced they were ready to test it soon."
Dell Sells Open Source Computers 341
Lo5 writes with the excellent news that Dell is selling desktop computers without Windows preinstalled. They are called "n Series"; you can choose from Dimension E520, E521, or C521 desktops. The hard drive comes unformatted.
