Comment Re:Minor error (Score 2, Insightful) 60
There's a minor error in the article, which claims that your servers need access to the source. distcc was designed to not need this.
That implies you read the article, but that can't be the case.
Comment Re:missed geeks favorite disasters (Score 1) 399
Personally, my plan is to supply the zombies/raptors with weapons and tactical advice.
Great idea. It sounds as if you have BRAAAAAAINS.
Comment Ontario is breaking its own regulations (Score 3, Informative) 541
The Ontario Ministry of Transportation, on its HOV lane page, promotes carpooling and links to SmartCommute.ca. This is an initiative of Metrolinx, an agency of the Government of Ontario. Metrolinx offers services to the "greater Toronto area". So the Ontario government is arranging carpooling across city limits, but forbidding another group from doing so.
Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction 399
wiredog sends in a study from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Center For Biosecurity, assessing risks of human extinction and the costs of preventing it. "In this century a number of events could extinguish humanity. The probability of these events may be very low, but the expected value of preventing them could be high, as it represents the value of all future human lives."
Comment I thought YOU changed the uranium bucket (Score 1) 618
This process will NOT "create" energy.
Yeah, this looks like it's a cogeneration incinerator. But if they'd push the temperature up enough to separate the stuff into molecules and atoms, they could make an industrial mass chromatograph. Separate the trash into its constituent atoms. A tube for the hydrogen, buckets for iron and lead... and a frequently-changed bucket for uranium. If it collects enough uranium for a nuclear power plant, the process might create more energy than it consumes.
Journal Journal: Give to Obama the legal limit often
"I have never seen such flagrant disregard for online security as I have seen on Obama's Website and ACTBLUE (DNC PAC)" ... and nearly three dozen Congressional candidates.
EA Forum Ban Will Now Mean EA Game Ban 549
An anonymous reader writes "A post on the EA Support Forums from APOC, online community manager for Electronic Arts, outlines a new policy for their new forums, saying users who earn a ban based on their behavior in the forums will be locked out of all of the EA games tied to that account: 'Well, its actually going to be a bit nastier for those who get banned. Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you'd actually be banned from your other EA games as well since it's all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It's all one in the same, so I strongly recommend people play nice and act mature. All in all, we expect people to come on here and abide by our ToS. We hate banning people, it makes our lives a lot tougher, but it's what we have to do.'" Update: 10/31 12:36 GMT by T : Not so! Pandanapper writes "After a flood of complaints the EA community moderator APOC corrects his statement about how banning you from the forums bans you from your game access as well:"That said, the previous statement I made recently (that's being quoted on the blogs) was inaccurate and a mistake on my part. I had a misunderstanding with regards to our new upcoming forums and website and never meant to infer that if we ban or suspend you on the forums, you would be banned in-game as well. This is not correct, my mistake, my bad."
Journal Journal: Electronic voting machines replaced by paper in 2 states
The Washington Post reports that Maryland and Virginia will replace their electronic voting machines with paper ballots after this election. These are machines which don't print a paper copy. Maryland will continue paying for its $65 million system through 2014. Several kinds of systems are used in Virginia, while
Microsoft Calls Today Global Anti-Piracy Day 500
arcticstoat points out an article at Custom PC, according to which: "Microsoft has announced that today is Global Anti-Piracy Day. Launching several global initiatives, the aim is to raise awareness of the damage to software innovation that Microsoft says is caused by piracy. ... As well as educating people about piracy, Microsoft has also initiated a huge list of legal proceedings that it's taking out against pirates. Microsoft isn't messing about when it says 'global' either. The list of 49 countries that Microsoft is targeting spans six continents, and ranges from the UK and the US all the way through to Chile, Egypt, Kuwait, Indonesia and China." Interestingly enough, unauthorized copies of Vista might not be harming the company all that much: reader twitter was among several to contribute links to a related story at Computer World which highlights Microsoft attorney Bonnie MacNaughton's acknowledgement that pirates prefer Windows XP over Vista and Office 2003 over 2007.
Submission + - Georgia's Internet under attack?
SleptThroughClass writes: The Jawa Report points out: Georgian Government Websites Under DDoS & Cyber Attack. Some of the country's web sites have been DDoSed or defaced. Yeah, they're getting too much traffic so they need to be mentioned on /. too.
Submission + - Help needed with Google marriage proposal
SleptThroughClass writes: A Google employee appears on Streetview with a marriage proposal sign and requests help in properly informing his fiance.
Feed Techdirt: Congress Trying To Make It Legal To Ignore Tax Planning Patents (techdirt.com)
We've written a few times about the rush to patent various tax strategies. That, by itself, should be evidence enough of some of the problems with the patent system. However, rather than deal with those larger problems, it appears that our Congressional Representatives are trying to take the cheap way out: creating a special exemption that would exempt taxpayers and tax preparers from risking infringement should they use any of these "patented" tax strategies. While this bill may be well-intentioned, like the attempt to allow banks to ignore a questionable patent on check scanning, it's the wrong approach. Rather than dealing with the root causes of problems with the patent system, these bills look to paper over the manifestations of those problems. In the long run, such laws (if they become law) would only make the system worse. It's nice that Rep. Rick Boucher (who often is on the right side when it comes to intellectual property issues) recognizes that tax preparation patents are a problem -- but this isn't the way to solve them.
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Submission + - Library Collection Development
HolyLime writes: I work in a small to medium sized academic library in a career-oriented, technical school. I've just gone through our Computer Science section and just weeded a good number of the older books from the section. I would basically like some advice in selecting good quality computer/computer science books to help fill out the collection.
Submission + - When major stories break, Google News dawdles
netbuzz writes: "The New York Times this morning draws attention to one such case — Tim Russert's death — but Google blames its tardiness getting that story to its front page on a technical problem. Trouble with that explanation is that it happens regularly and it happens regularly because Google News depends solely on software — no editors — to populate its front page. This may not be the only problem keeping Google News from fulfilling its promise (the Times gets into others) but it's a significant one.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/29230"
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/29230"
Submission + - Uncontacted Amazon Tribe Discovered in 1910 (nationalgeographic.com)
ideonexus writes: "A few media sites are making a big deal about the fact that photos of the uncontacted tribe in the Brazilian Rainforest are actually something of a publicity stunt by the photographer, who knew about the tribe's existence and sought photographs to increase awareness of indigenous peoples endangered by encroaching logging and agriculture. As a National Geographic article explains, the tribe was discovered in 1910, but very little is known about their culture, diets, and lifestyles. Other tribes in the area are equally difficult to study, such as a nomadic tribe that flees into hiding whenever a plane flies overhead, which the photographer surmises, "It seems that something very bad, related to an airplane, happened to them. ... I think maybe bombs were thrown at them, or they were shot at.""
