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Submission + - Egypt's Oldest Pyramid is Being Destroyed by its Own Restoration Team (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Taffykay
Taffykay writes: The oldest pyramid in Egypt, the Pyramid of Djoserat Saqqara, is being destroyed by the very company the Egyptian government has hired to restore it. The roughly 4,600-year-old structure has been in trouble since an earthquake hit the region in 1992, but in a difficult political and economic climate for the country, those now tasked with preserving the pyramid are said to be doing more harm than good.

Submission + - Steve Ballmer Authored Your Blue Screen of Death (dice.com) 1

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Millions of people have shrieked in horror and dismay at Microsoft’s infamous 'Blue Screen of Death.' What fewer people know—at least until now—is that the text accompanying the BSoD was originally written by Steve 'Developers! Developers! Developers!' Ballmer, who recently stepped down as Microsoft's CEO. According to Microsoft developer Raymond Chen, Ballmer didn’t like the original text that accompanied the BSoD in Windows 3.1, so he wrote up a new version. If you used Windows at any point in the past two decades, you can thank him for that infuriatingly passive 'This Windows application has stopped responding to the system' message, accompanied by the offer to hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart the PC (and lose all your unsaved data). At least Ballmer didn't try to write something like, 'RESTART! RESTART! RESTART!'

Submission + - Giant dinosaur unearthed in Argentina (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Researchers working in Argentina have discovered the most complete skeleton of a titanosaur, a group of gigantic plant-eating dinosaurs that dominated the Southern Hemisphere beginning about 90 million years ago. The new dino, named Dreadnoughtus schrani, was 26 meters long and weighed about 59 metric tons—that is, twice as long as Tyrannosaurus rex and as heavy as a herd of elephants. That puts it on a par with other well-known giants such as Argentinosaurus (but it’s four times as large as the perhaps better known Diplodocus). The researchers say that the beast was so big it would have had no fear of predators. And it was about to get bigger: A close examination of the fossils, especially its back and shoulder bones, indicates that the animal was still growing when it died.

Submission + - Cloud sensor gadget launches on Indiegogo (indiegogo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Recently launched on Indiegogo, Purobu is a small, lightweight device with an array of onboard sensors including GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope and barometer, providing real-time information about its environment, including location, via the internet.

Made of anodized aluminum and measuring 2in x 2in (5cm x 5cm), 0.4in (1cm) thin, and weighing only 1.8oz (50g), the probe is small and light enough to be deployed just about anywhere. The probe has multiple connection methods available including WiFi and Cellular, with automatic roaming between the two depending on signal strength and availability.

“The Purobu probe is unique in that it can be anything you want it to be. An average user may wish to use it as a real-time GPS tracker, allowing them to track children, pets, cars and boats etc, whereas developers may wish to take advantage of the powerful API to create apps and services using the sensor data. It really is for everyone.” — Ben Christian, Project Creator.

Indiegogo backers are being offered the chance to receive a Purobu Probe for $149, saving $100 off the launch price of $249. In addition to the discount, Indiegogo backers will not have to pay any monthly or annual fees for the cloud service and will also receive 12 months of cellular data at no charge.

The product is being targeted at the US market, although the campaign is accepting international orders. The campaign runs for 30 days and is due to end in early October.

You can find out more about Purobu and contribute to the campaign by visiting https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

Submission + - How Facebook Exploits Underage Girls in its Quest for Ad Revenue (zerohedge.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Sophie Bean, 14, of Sequim, Wash., said she was thought she was “liking” a Facebook ad related to fashion modeling. Instead, it promoted a Facebook page that recruited adult webcam models.

“I just thought it was for modeling, and I’m interested in that, and I thought it would help me out,” Sophie said.

Sophie wasn’t the only teen connecting with the page, which Facebook statistics show is most popular with users 13 to 17. Clicking on it didn’t pull the teens into nude webcam modeling, but did mean they would receive the page’s updates and could be mentioned in future versions of the ad.

- From the Wall Street Journal’s recent article:Nude Webcams and Diet Drugs: the Facebook Ads Teens Aren’t Supposed to See

Submission + - Gmail's 'Unsubscribe' Tool Comes Out Of the Weeds (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Starting this week, a new, clearly marked 'unsubscribe' link will appear at the top of the header field in marketers' emails. Previously only appearing for a small percentage of users, the feature will now be made available for most promotional messages with unsubscribe options, Google said on Thursday. Email recipients do not need to take action for the links to appear.

Submission + - What "news for nerds" sites should I use? 8

Submitted by stderr_dk
stderr_dk writes: I used to visit Slashdot quite often, but if Dice Holdings decide to switch the interface to what is currently known as "Beta", I'll have to find another site for my "stuff that matters"-fix.

So, Slashdot, what sites can you recommend for a "maybe-ex" /. user?

Submission + - Community-sourced news site, soylentnews.org, goes live 18

Submitted by umafuckit
umafuckit writes: soylentnews.org is the new way of taking the pulse of the nerd community. Soylentnews is a grassroots-based platform with the content feeds are powered by readers like you. The objective is to highlight news stories of general importance to everyone, but especially nerds. News about technology, art, science and politics: it's all there. Soylentnews is the new kid on the block and will adapt quickly to satisfy our community's needs and and push boundaries like never before. This is a real community site: no changes in format without a general consensus from the community. Stop by and see what you think of the freshly-launched site.

Submission + - Altslashdot.org becomes Soylentnews.org (soylentnews.org) 1

Submitted by rueger
rueger writes: After the initial flurry of activity, especially in their forums, it appears that the rapidly growing altSlashdot community is moving to a new URL: http://soylentnews.org There's no confirmation yet, but the whiff of Dice lawyers seems to be in the air.

Meanwhile work continues apace to create a Slashdot fork for people that feel that the proposed Beta format won't serve their needs.

Comment Re:Did Taco just throw us all under a bus? (Score 1, Informative) 121

by jbernardo (#46202603) Attached to: On the Practicalities of Counterfeit-Proof Physical Bitcoins

Is Slashdot deleting posts about the Beta? Didn't this site used to not delete posts?

Well, all firehose entries related to the beta are marked as spam, all comments are quickly modded -1, so why not do the next step and delete posts?

After all, even the useful idiots that complain about the protest might some day understand what is at stake, so it is even better if they are "protected" from subversive ideas.

Comment Re: Slashcott causes IT productivity spike (Score 3, Informative) 40

by jbernardo (#46202115) Attached to: The Individual Midnight Thread
It won't get out of firehose and into front page. In case you haven't noticed, most #olivesandfeta threads were the most popular yesterday and never made it to the front page. Also, its been a long time since we've seen so many (ir)relevant stories make the front page in a single day. Almost seems like dice employees are actively blocking any mention of the beta and promoting anything that shows up on firehose that doesn't mention the beta.

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