Submission + - Bitcoin Economy Exceeds US$1M 1
hawkeyeMI writes: "Just this morning, the Bitcoin economy exceeded a value of US$1M. It's come a long way since Beta version 0.3 was announced on Slashdot."
Sony Finally Turning a Profit On PS3s 117
When the PS3 launched in 2006, estimates pegged the price of producing the consoles to be as much as $250 more than the price at which they were sold. Production costs have dropped since then, but there have been several price cuts as well. Now, almost four years later, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida says they're finally turning a profit on the hardware.
"This year is the first time that we are able to cover the cost of the PlayStation 3,' Yoshida said. 'We aren't making huge money from hardware, but we aren't bleeding like we used to.' In May, Sony began shipping new PlayStation 3 consoles with smaller and more cost-effective graphics chips. Now, Yoshida said, Sony is looking at replenishing retail stock that has been running on empty since January rather than cutting the price. 'When we bring the cost of hardware down, we are looking at opportunities to adjust prices if we believe that will increase demand,' he explained. 'At the moment, we are trying to catch up our production.'"
Submission + - Home Automation. For sheds. (shed-o-matic.co.uk)
gbsallery writes: In a desperate attempt to fragment and confuse the home automation market (which, for the last 30 years, has always been 10 years from being the Next Big Thing), I have created a system for controlling shed and garden-related gadgetry. It's got Ethernet, and a certain amount of nerd appeal. Read more here. There's even a small text adventure. Feedback, abuse and offers of cash all welcome (to varying degrees).
Submission + - Census Hurt Trust In Feds More Than NSA Wiretaps (forbes.com) 1
AGreenberg writes: I've written a post at Forbes' cybersecurity and privacy blog on a study by the Ponemon Institute showing that Americans' trust in government privacy protections is at an all-time low. That's largely because Americans' privacy trust in the Census Bureau fell dramatically over the last year, more even than trust in the NSA fell after the revelations of its warrantless surveillance of American citizens. This is a sad consequence of paranoia fueled by bizarre and ridiculous reports like this one, which argued that the Census would use GPS to target missiles at citizens' homes.
Submission + - solely solar powered airplane to fly over night (robotstxt.org)
An anonymous reader writes: solar impulse blogger martin reichelt: "Only 16 hours to go until André Borschberg and the Solar Impulse HB-SIA will take off for the first flight through the night powered solely by solar energy"
Submission + - No more sublets through craigslist in New York
yurik writes: No more craigslist. No more AirBnB. Soon if you visit New York, hotel may be your only lodging option. NY state bills A10008 / S6873 sponsored by hotel lobby seek to outlaw individuals renting out our apartments for less than a month.
From http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2010/06/new-york-considers-ban-on-vacation-rentals/98153/1 — "New York state senators vote on a bill that would make it illegal for any homeowner or renter to sublet for less than a month. The new law would be a blanket ban on short-term rentals no matter how ethical the renter is."
Another ref http://current.newsweek.com/budgettravel/2010/06/new_york_controversy_a_crackdo.html
From http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2010/06/new-york-considers-ban-on-vacation-rentals/98153/1 — "New York state senators vote on a bill that would make it illegal for any homeowner or renter to sublet for less than a month. The new law would be a blanket ban on short-term rentals no matter how ethical the renter is."
Another ref http://current.newsweek.com/budgettravel/2010/06/new_york_controversy_a_crackdo.html
The State of Ruby VMs — Ruby Renaissance 89
igrigorik writes "In the short span of just a couple of years, the Ruby VM space has evolved to more than just a handful of choices: MRI, JRuby, IronRuby, MacRuby, Rubinius, MagLev, REE and BlueRuby. Four of these VMs will hit 1.0 status in the upcoming year and will open up entirely new possibilities for the language — Mac apps via MacRuby, Ruby in the browser via Silverlight, object persistence via Smalltalk VM, and so forth. This article takes a detailed look at the past year, the progress of each project, and where the community is heading. It's an exciting time to be a Rubyist."
New Attack Fells Internet Explorer 202
alphadogg writes "Attack code has been identified that could be used to break into a PC running older versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The code was posted Friday to the Bugtraq mailing list by an unidentified hacker. According to security vendor Symantec, the code does not always work properly, but it could be used to install unauthorized software on a victim's computer."
John Carmack Says No Dedicated Servers For Rage 162
AndrewDBarker writes "Modern Warfare 2 will use a matchmaking setup powered by IWNet for online play (as we've discussed). It's too early to say what Rage will use, but Carmack indicated he believed the servers are something of a remnant of the early days of PC gaming. That said, he realizes the affinity many PC gamers have for them — and is glad Rage won't be leading the charge away from them. 'The great thing is we won't have to be a pioneer on that,' he says. 'We'll see how it works out for everyone else.'"
Comment Re:Promise SATA RAID = Cheap and Good (Score 1) 564
Note that most SATA controllers sold as RAID are really non-RAID hardware + software RAID in the BIOS and Windows driver.
Jeff, the Linux SATA maintainer, and author of several SATA drivers
Comment You do NOT have a RAID controller (Score 1) 564
You don't have a hardware or integrated RAID controller.
What you have is a non-RAID SATA controller, plus software RAID support in BIOS + Windows driver.
This is easiest to see when booting Linux, whose policy it is to only export your hardware, without any fakery.
See Linux SATA RAID FAQ for a clue...
Comment Article mistake: ICANN, not IANA (Score 1) 607
The article refers to IANA, but I think it means ICANN.
The article's author apparently did not read IANA's About page, which states what every Internet geek already knows:
IANA executes policy; it does not create policy. Policy-making is left to working groups within ICANN and elsewhere.
Comment Total costs? (Score 1) 1137
It is easy to look at an individual, and say that costs are lower, especially if you doctor the numbers to assume everyone lives in New York City with high parking rates.
But that is only looking at part of the picture.
A fair comparison would included taxes paid to the city and state, and would include an assessment of what would happen if a majority of individuals started using public transportation for their given locale.
One must include car parking costs for park-and-ride lots, because not everyone can walk to a train station or bus stop.
One must include additional travel time costs, because public transportation is often slower than direct travel via car.
I'm not arguing for, or against, public transportation.
I only ask for a fair comparison.
Comment Re:negative spin much? (Score 1) 355
"when the weather is completely out of control will people start demanding action"
This implies that the weather was... under control at some point in our history?
Our climate models are consistently wrong — either massively under-estimating or massively over-estimating climate change effects.
If we cannot even get the guesswork right, how can we ever hope to "engineer" the most complex, chaotic system in our world?
Comment Geo-engineering IS NOT ENGINEERING (Score 1) 355
Speaking as a Principal Engineer at a Fortune 500 company... geo-engineering is not engineering.
Where is the rigor?
Where is the testing?
What are the consequences of failure?
Might we make things worse?
The honest truth is that any geo-engineering is a global-scale gamble whose short and long term effects are completely unknown.
It is easy to see how geo-engineering could inflict more damage that it purports to solve — the climate is one of the most complex, chaotic systems known.
And we claim to have mastered our climate system enough to fix it??
Finally, fighting pollution with more pollution is counter-intuitive, to say the least.
