Zekasu - Slashdot User

Data Centers Expected to Pollute More Than Airlines by 2020 322

Posted by timothy on Saturday May 03, 2008 @11:25PM from the it's-all-that-smut-in-the-wires dept.

Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes with a link to a New York Times story on a source of pollution that doesn't leave contrails: "The world's data centers are projected to surpass the airline industry as a greenhouse gas polluter by 2020, according to a new study by McKinsey & Co. ... [C]omputer servers are used at only 6 percent of their capacity on average, while data center facilities as a whole are used at 56 percent of peak performance." Data centers, though, might have more options for going green than airlines do, given present technology.

Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Takeover Offer 336

Posted by timothy on Saturday May 03, 2008 @09:08PM from the brinksmanship-in-the-pac-no-west dept.

mksmac writes "According to the KOMO TV Website, Microsoft has withdrawn its bid for Yahoo after presenting them with an increased offer that was subsequently declined by Yahoo. Frankly, this seems like a smarter decision on Microsoft's part, but I'd like to hear how other people feel about the deal. Should Microsoft have walked away, pressured Yahoo via a hostile takeover or sweetened the pot until Yahoo gave in?" For those who prefer it, the NYT also has coverage, and the story is also at news.com, among many others. I like the Beeb's version as well. And for the Microsoft-centric explanation of why the courtship is over, see Steve Balmer's letter to Jerry Yang.

Journal SPAM: New US Law Mandates DNA Collection from All Newborns 12

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday May 03, 2008 @06:52PM

It sounds like the setup for the movie Gattaca, but the United States has enacted a Federal law mandating the creation of a national "DNA Warehouse", with the President's signature on April 24, 2008. Described as a "national contingency plan", justification for the new law, S. 1858, known as Th

Submission + - CIA vs. Commercial Intelligence Analysts (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

Mr Robot

on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @07:37PM

Mr Robot writes: "So what is the difference between commerical intelligence people and their counterparts working for the CIA? Is it that the CIA have more knowhow, more tradecraft, different targets etc? Is it that CIA analysts work on behalf of the citizens of the country, as directed by the government of the day — and not for shareholders? Is that the CIA have more money, more resources, a higher mission in life, even? What distinguishes secret service agents from their counterparts in the commercial world? Well, all the above are correct distinguishing points, but there is one differentiator that brings the most significant distinguising point of all — RAGE. Rage is what really distinguishes the CIA from their lowly counterparts in the commercial arena. When you've seen the ugly face of injustice, of inhumanity of immorality..... Somehow you find an edge that no others have. Somehow you find that little something more. More focus, more drive, more love for your fellow man. More rage!!!! If you operate an upstanding and ethical brand — the best way to motive commercial intelligence analysts is to ensure they know that the enemy is a frightening, corrupt and subversive monster — and that their real job is to kill them dead — before they themselves are eaten alive. That's the difference between competitive intelligence agency and the CIA? CIA operatives can be eaten alive if they fail. Commercial analysts never are."

Submission + - Yahoo blocks story of Data Mining

Submitted by

druidbros

on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @07:27PM

druidbros writes: "I read a great story about Data Mining on Truthdig.com. As I sometimes do I sent the test to a friend. To my surprise it was blocked by Yahoo (he has a sbcglobal.net email account). The message given by Yahoo was....(reason: 554 Message not allowed — UP Email not accepted for policy reasons. Please visit http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-04.html%5B120%5D). Even when I removed the words Data Mining from the subject line it still wouldnt accept the email. What is going on? Here is the article.... http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/20070809_inside_the_data_mine/"

Submission + - SPAM: The Sixth Human Sense - Somatosensations 1

Submitted by

rinkjustice

on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @07:04PM

rinkjustice writes: "The body has six senses it uses everyday: sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste... and somatosensations? Learn more about the official sixth sense, and how you can improve it."
Link to Original Source

Submission + - MPAA Forced To Take Down University Toolkit (livejournal.com)

Submitted by

bobbocanfly

on Monday December 03, 2007 @07:29PM

bobbocanfly writes: "An Ubuntu developer has succeeded in getting the MPAA to remove their "University Toolkit" after claims it violated the GNU GPL. After several attempts to contact the MPAA directly the developer eventually emailed the groups ISP and the violating software was taken down."

Submission + - New way to ID invisible intruders on wireless LANs (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Bergkamp10 on Friday November 30, 2007 @12:45AM

Bergkamp10 writes: Australia's University of Technology in Queensland (QUT) has created a groundbreaking new system that can detect invisible intruders on wireless LANs. Wireless networks have been almost impossible to thoroughly secure as they possess no clearly defined boundaries, instead they are defined by the quality and strength of the receiving antenna. QUT Information Security Institute researcher Dr Jason Smith has invented a new system to detect eavesdropping on unencrypted networks or active hijackings of computer sessions when a legitimate user who is logged onto the network leaves the connection. Smith has created a series of monitoring techniques that when used together can detect both attackers and configuration mistakes in network devices. According to Smith, ""the strength of the signal travelling in a wireless network and the round trip time of the signal are both monitored because they will change if an intruder enters the network. Separately monitoring the signal and round trip time is unreliable, but correlating them against each other makes the system accurate," he said. Smith goes on to list further features and benefits of the new system and how threats can be responded to.

New Nerve Gas Antidotes 110

Posted by Zonk on Thursday November 29, 2007 @10:23PM from the i've-never-had-the-nerve dept.

SoyChemist writes "Scientists from Korea and the Czech Republic have discovered new drugs that can counteract the chemical overload caused by nerve gas. All of the experimental medications belong to a family of chemicals called oximes. Those molecules reactivate the enzyme that is damaged by the chemical weapons. Last year, the FDA approved the first combined atropine and oxime auto-injector for use by emergency personnel. Israel has been providing them to their citizens since the first Gulf War."

Submission + - Ethanol Under Siege

Submitted by

Reservoir Hill

on Thursday November 29, 2007 @08:57PM

Reservoir Hill writes: "Little over a year ago, ethanol was winning the hearts and wallets of both Main Street and Wall Street, with promises of greater US energy independence, fewer greenhouse gases and help for the farm economy. But the Wall Street Journal reports that critics now blame ethanol for pushing up food prices and dispute how much it really helps reduce the need for oil while environmentalists say additional ethanol production could strain water supplies and impair water quality and the EPA says that "ozone levels generally increase with increased ethanol use." President Bush gave ethanol a boost in his State of the Union speech in 2005 by calling for "strong funding" of renewable energy. Energy legislation that summer required oil companies to blend a total of 7.5 billion gallons of "renewable" fuels into the nation's fuel supply by 2012. Now the ethanol lobby is pushing for the Senate version of pending energy legislation, which includes a requirement that gasoline blenders use 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022 but formidable opponents such as the livestock, packaged-food and oil industries also have lawmakers' ears and what once looked like a slam-dunk could now languish in pending energy legislation that might not pass for weeks, if ever."

Submission + - NZ teen accused of being cyber crime kingpin (news.com.au) 3

Submitted by

davetv

on Thursday November 29, 2007 @07:08PM

davetv writes: "A YOUNG New Zealand man has been accused of leading a group of cyber criminals who caused at least $US20 million ($A22.7 million) damage around the world. In a joint investigation between New Zealand Police, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dutch authorities, the home of an 18-year-old known online as AKILL was raided on Wednesday."

Submission + - Intel Demos Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Quad-Core At IDF (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Sunday September 23, 2007 @04:36PM

MojoKid writes: "Intel demonstrated a dual socket gaming rig at IDF this week, based on their Skulltrail platform with the X38 chipset. The interesting thing about this machine wasn't just that it had 45nm quad-core CPUs in its sockets, as well as PCI Express 2.0 capable slots, but also that it was running a pair of NVIDIA graphics cards in SLI. That's right, SLI on an Intel chipset. No word whether or not X38 would officially be supported with SLI just yet. In fact, NVIDIA representatives noted Intel was buying NVIDIA nForce 100 SLI Southbridges just for this one Intel motherboard model."

Submission + - 7 reasons I switched back to PHP from Rails

Submitted by Anonymous Dude on Sunday September 23, 2007 @04:34PM

Anonymous Dude writes: Derek Sivers has a very good article at oreillynet (http://www.oreillynet.com) about why after 2 years of a rewright on his website (http://www.cdbaby.com) in Rails he went back to using PHP.
From article:

But at every step, it seemed our needs clashed with Rails' preferences. (Like trying to turn a train into a boat. It's do-able with a lot of glue. But it's damn hard. And certainly makes you ask why you're really doing this.)

Method for $1/Watt Solar Panels Will Soon See Commercial Use 502

Posted by Zonk on Sunday September 23, 2007 @03:22PM from the i'll-take-five dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A method developed at Colorado State University for crafting solar panels has been developed to the point where they are nearly ready for mass production. Professor W.S. Sampath's technique has resulted in a low-cost, high-efficiency process for creating the panels, which will soon be fabricated by a commercial interest. 'Produced at less than $1 per watt, the panels will dramatically reduce the cost of generating solar electricity and could power homes and businesses around the globe with clean energy for roughly the same cost as traditionally generated electricity. Sampath has developed a continuous, automated manufacturing process for solar panels using glass coating with a cadmium telluride thin film instead of the standard high-cost crystalline silicon. Because the process produces high efficiency devices (ranging from 11% to 13%) at a very high rate and yield, it can be done much more cheaply than with existing technologies.'"

Submission + - New version of Gmail being tested

Submitted by

morpheus83

on Sunday September 23, 2007 @02:10PM

morpheus83 writes: "Gmail was launched on April 1, 2004, and has revolutionized the way many of us use email. The interface has remained largely untouched since it launched, but get ready, it's soon to undergo a change in what they describe as a "New Version". Only a select few people have access to use the new interface — mainly employees and trusted people outside the company called "Trusted Testers". Unfortunately, there are no leaked screenshots to look at yet."

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