Pearlswine - Slashdot User

Submission + - Do Too Many People Attend College?

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Sunday October 05, 2008 @10:05PM

Hugh Pickens writes: "Bell Curve author Charles Murray has a new book out arguing that too many kids are now heading to four-year colleges and wasting their time in pursuit of a bachelor's degree that is a meaningless credential and that only 20 percent of all college students have the brains and abilities to understand their assigned reading. Deborah Solomon has an interview with Murray in the NY Times in which Murray says that "there are very few unemployed first-rate electricians. I can get a good doctor in a minute and a half. Getting a really good electrician — that's hard. If you want jobs that are in high demand, go to any kind of skilled labor.""

Submission + - You Can't Buy A Gateway From Gateway Anymore (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Thursday August 14, 2008 @01:21AM

MojoKid writes: "There was a time when many people would have bet on Gateway to become the largest direct retailer of computers in America, instead of Dell. They even opened up a few boutique retail outlets along the way. They had a funky vibe going with their black and white cow-spotted boxes, and the future seemed very bright indeed. That future never materialized, and Gateway was acquired by Acer last year for a comparatively modest $710 million. Now Gateway has completely ended the business model that put them on the map: Direct Sales. Acer doesn't do direct sales, and brought their market vision to their new acquisition."

Submission + - Over 34,000 People Line Up To Buy A Chevy Volt (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Wednesday August 13, 2008 @11:21PM

MojoKid writes: "Part of GM's decision to move forward with their Chevy Volt electric car concept is a direct result of Dr. Lyle Dennis' efforts. The primary function of Dennis' GM-Volt.com site was to assemble a list of potential customers interested in purchasing a Volt. Dennis hoped that if enough people expressed interest, GM would respond by committing to manufacture the car. Now that GM has committed to getting the electric car in production before the end of 2010, Dennis's next goal is "to try and compel GM to build enough cars for us," as Dennis claims that GM's "actual production numbers are projected to be modest at first." This next step for Dennis was started by his publicly releasing the metrics from his site's wait list, which had reached 33,000 people potentially interested in purchasing a Chevy Volt. Dennis released this information yesterday in a blog post on his site. As of when this news post was written, that number had already gone up to 34,503 people."

Submission + - Former Prosecutor: UFO Hack Looked Like Terrorism (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Thursday August 07, 2008 @10:56PM

CWmike writes: "After the computer network at the Naval Weapons Station Earle was breached and crashed just a few weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, investigators thought it might be part of a larger al-Qaeda plot against the United States. Was the break-in organized by a nation-state? A terrorist group? After throwing critical resources at the probe when the government was already investigating not only the 9/11 attacks but the anthrax killings, investigators didn't track the breach to al-Qaeda. They tracked it to an unemployed system administrator in the U.K. — Gary McKinnon, who has said he broke into U.S. military computers hoping to uncover evidence of UFO. He has been charged with hacking into 92 computer systems at the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense and NASA. "The concern was there," said Howard Schmidt, who began working at the White house as the vice chairman of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board in 2002, in the midst of the McKinnon investigation. "When these things take place, you never know till the very end what their motivation is.... You don't know if it's a nation-state or a terrorist group. You have to work it as if this was the most important case you ever worked. There is a finite amount of resources. This pulled big resources that could have been used for other things.""

Submission + - Electronic Privacy in Jeopardy, Email Tapping (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Thursday August 07, 2008 @12:41AM

MojoKid writes: "According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a dangerous legal precedent has just been set that can potentially unravel existing federal privacy protections for e-mail and Internet usage. The alert from the EFF is not just to sound a general warning, but it also takes the form of an Amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief, filed with the federal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking for the court's legal finding to be overturned. The findings of this case could become the foundation of a legal precedent by which other similar cases can subsequently be based upon. If that were to be the case, then the unauthorized retrieving of e-mails from an e-mail server would not be considered a violation of the federal Wiretap Act, which will then open the door for government-sponsored snooping."

Submission + - SPAM: A microscope measuring picometers

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Monday July 28, 2008 @12:36PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "A few months ago, I've written about the most powerful microscope in the world which was able to display images at an incredible high-resolution of just 0.05 nanometer (or 50 picometers). It seems that German scientists also have pushed electron microscopy to the picometer scale and broke the record for the highest-resolution images ever seen. The German team said they were able to 'microscopically measure atomic displacements precisely to a few picometers.' According to the scientists, it is possible to see atoms moving by only 10 picometers (or 0.01 nanometer). This could open new paths for research about physics of materials. But read more for additional references and pictures."

Submission + - SPAM: Simulating planes flying at Mach 6

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Friday January 04, 2008 @02:01PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "Scramjets, or supersonic combustion ramjets, such as the X-51A aircraft being built by Pratt & Whitney and Boeing, should start to fly in 2009. And if everything goes according to plan, missiles flying at Mach 6 could be deployed by 2015. But designing such planes is not so easy. This is why Purdue University engineers have developed the only wind tunnel capable of running quietly at 'hypersonic' speeds. The Purdue engineers say that this 'quiet wind tunnel operation is critical for collecting data to show precisely how air flows over a vehicle's surface in flight' at hypersonic speeds. But read more for additional references and pictures of the Boeing/AFOSR Mach-6 Quiet Tunnel."

Submission + - Atheists not allowed to adopt children (time.com) 4

Submitted by

gollum123

on Friday January 04, 2008 @01:47AM

gollum123 writes: "From Time, After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency ( http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877155,00.html ) . John Burke, an atheist, and his wife, a pantheist, left the line for religious affiliation blank on the forms. Superior Court Judge William Camarata raised the religious issue. Inestimable Privilege. In an extraordinary decision, Judge Camarata denied the Burkes' right to the child because of their lack of belief in a Supreme Being. Despite the Burkes' "high moral and ethical standards," he said, the New Jersey state constitution declares that "no person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience." Despite Eleanor Katherine's tender years, he continued, "the child should have the freedom to worship as she sees fit, and not be influenced by prospective parents who do not believe in a Supreme Being." Two weeks ago, aided by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Burkes appealed directly to the New Jersey Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. If they fail in their appeal, Eleanor Katherine may have to leave the only family she has ever known and await adoption by another couple whose religious convictions satisfy the State of New Jersey."

Submission + - Tiger Team Pilot Episode Streaming on Court TV

Submitted by ChazeFroy on Thursday December 27, 2007 @01:34PM

ChazeFroy writes: The pilot episode of Tiger Team is now available on Court TV's website in streaming flash format. Tiger Team (previously mentioned on Slashdot here) follows a group of penetration testers as they attempt to defeat the security of organizations through social engineering, wired and wireless penetration testing, and physically exploiting security weaknesses in an organization's infrastructure. The pilot episode involves testing an exotic car dealership in California that sells Lotuses, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Rolls Royces. You don't have to think too hard about how this episode ends up. It's also great to see Court TV take proactive steps to support new shows by making them available to the masses for free.

Submission + - Patent "Enforcing" Ad Playback. Guess who

Submitted by

Lord Custos

on Thursday December 20, 2007 @11:46PM

Lord Custos writes: "So, Slashdot...what do you feel about " Enforced Playback of Adverts" in your downloaded Media?

Well, a patent for "Enforcing Advertising Playback For Downloaded Media Content" is now officially in play. Now, anyone want to take a wild guess whose idea this was?

Russell Shaw at ZDnet has THIS ("http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=2916") to say about Patent 20070294772.

Here's the text of the patent: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20070294772.PGNR.&OS=DN/20070294772RS=DN/20070294772
THIS POST SPONSORED BY MEGALOMART. OUR MOTTO IS "SCREW YOU. GIMME YER MONEY!" "

Submission + - Christmas Lights - 2007 (slashdot.org)

Submitted by martyb on Thursday December 20, 2007 @11:48AM

martyb writes: It's that time of year when people go all out trying to put up the most spectacular Christmas light displays. Those that use computerized controllers to synchronize music to the light display can be very impressive, indeed! Slashdot has posted several stories in the past but I could find nothing for this year. What's the best display you've found for 2007? Here's a chance to submit links to your OWN display, too!

Submission + - IE8 now passes ACID2 - with caveats. 2

Submitted by

Sander

on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @05:38PM

Sander writes: "Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager of the Internet Explorer team, just announced that "IE8 now renders the "Acid2 Face" correctly in IE8 standards mode."
He does however not specify what this "IE8 standards mode" entails exactly, and most importantly, he doesn't specify how it is triggered. Given a remark such as "We must deliver improved standards support and backwards compatibility so that IE8 (1) continues to work with the billions of pages on the web today that already work in IE6 and IE7", it's unfortunately a likely possibility that no pages currently existing on the internet will be able to benefit of this new rendering mode out of the box, but that all will need some sort of "trigger" to gain access to this new mode."

Submission + - "Oops!" Those dumb mistakes we've all mad 9

Submitted by theotherbastard on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @02:06PM

theotherbastard writes: I've recently made the step up from Desktop Support to Systems Administration and in my first month on the job I made a change to a server that knocked one of our customer call centers offline for nearly 4 hours. It was the simple mistake of changing the duplex settings on 2 NIC's on 1 server. Needless to say I've learned my lesson on when and how to make even the smallest change to our sensitive systems. Another thing I've learned is that everyone on my team has a story about their first days supporting servers and the disastrous mistakes they've made. I'm curious what stories some fellow /.er's have.

Submission + - NIST Opens Competition for New Hash Algorithm

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @11:36AM

Hugh Pickens writes: "The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has opened a competition to develop a new cryptographic "hash" algorithm (pdf), a tool that converts a file, message or block of data to a short "fingerprint" for use in digital signatures, message authentication and other computer security applications. In recent years, several non-NIST approved cryptographic hash functions have been successfully attacked, and serious attacks have been published against SHA-1. In response, NIST held two public workshops to assess the status of its approved hash functions and has now decided to develop additional hash functions through a public competition. NIST is open to submissions of hash functions that differ from the traditional Merkle-Damgard model, using other structures, chaining modes, and possibly additional inputs. Entries for the competition must be received by Oct. 31, 2008."

Submission + - Your worst IT workshop?

Submitted by suntory on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @06:17AM

suntory writes: I am a lecturer at a Spanish university. This week had to attend a workshop on "Advanced HTML and CSS" for the university staff. Some of the ideas that the presenter (a fellow lecturer) shared with us:

IE is the only browser that follows standards. You can see it clearly because it works for all sites, whereas Firefox and other browsers have problems displaying some of them.

Frames and tables are the best way to organize your website.

You can view the source for most CSS, Javascript and HTML files, so you can freely copy and paste what you feel like — the Internet is so free, you know.

Same applies for images. If you can see them in Google Images Search, then you can use them for your projects.

Of course, the workshop turned out to be a complete disaster and a waste of time. So I was wondering what other similar experiences you have had, and what was your worst IT workshop...

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