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Comment Compare to phone company (Score 1) 7

by SiliconJesus (#27429069) Attached to: Vonage, you suck

Phone companies have the same disconnect fees when you sign a contract now-a-days. I've switched entirely to cell phone only. I figure if I'm going to pay for the cell phone, there's no need for redundancy.

Comment Re:3 months? (Score 1) 9

by SiliconJesus (#27068907) Attached to: Reducing My Carbon Footprint Experiment - The Carless Winter

Not viable for certain locales in the US. Its far more affordable for me to live 50 miles away from DC metro and commute 100 miles a day than to live in closer with my family of five. Its not just housing that gets more expensive as you get closer to metro areas, but all of the associated things that go with it as well (groceries etc). I could work in my home town, but then I couldn't afford my home :) Pay drops about $30k over 50 miles. I'll take farmland, clear streams, beautiful views over city living any time.
Games

Blizzcon 2008 Wrap-Up 173

Posted by Soulskill from the tldr dept.

This year's Blizzcon saw 15,000 gamers descend from 27 different countries to take part in two days of discussions, tournaments, and sneak peaks at upcoming releases. Several big announcements were scattered among a raft of new details about Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and Wrath of the Lich King. The new information went a long way toward drumming up interest for what already appear to be worthy successors to old favorites. Read on for more.
Idle

Robot Band Is a Hit Screenshot-sm 5

Posted by samzenpus
Greg Locke, a machine designer and bass player, has created a self-playing rock band that is becoming an Internet sensation. "The Trons" took six months to build, and Locke lists The Velvet Underground and washing machines as their biggest influences. The band consists of Wiggy, the lead guitarist, Ham, on rhythm guitar, Swamp the drummer, and keyboard player Fifi. Along with their success on YouTube, The Trons have performed five live gigs in their hometown of Hamilton in New Zealand. I wonder what their groupies are like.
It's funny. Laugh.

A Really, Really Ex-Parrot 91

Posted by kdawson from the joining-the-choir-invisible dept.
gyrogeerloose writes "According to a National Geographic News story, what may be the fossilized wing bone of an ancient parrot has been dubbed by its discoverers 'The Danish Blue' in honor of the famous Dead Parrot Sketch. If the 54 million year old bone did in fact belong to a parrot, it would be 'the oldest and most northerly remains of a parrot ever discovered.' There is some dispute among paleontologists about whether the bone was indeed that of a parrot. If it turns out to be so, however, it never had a chance to pine for the fjords — they were not carved out until an ice age millions of years after the bird lived."
Education

Global Warming Only a Theory, Says School Board 1089

Posted by Zonk from the i'd-think-seattle-would-know-about-rain dept.
BendingSpoons writes "A Seattle school board has placed a moratorium on screenings of 'An Inconvenient Truth', having found its subject matter too controversial. Echoing the language of the evolution debate, the school board found that students must be told that global warming is only a theory and presented with an opposing viewpoint. The ban was prompted by the complaints of a parent: '"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."'"
Science

2006 Was the Warmest Year Ever 782

Posted by kdawson from the El-Nino-and-humankind-conspiring dept.
kpw10 writes "Dr. Jeff Masters from Wunderground has a great summary of this year's rather abnormal weather (his blog is the best source on the net for in-depth weather analysis). The post discusses some of the cyclical climate forces at work this year and compares this year's record temperatures to records from the past. There are some interesting differences, particularly in the extent of the northern hemisphere seeing record highs this year." From the article: "December's weather in the Northeast U.S. may have been a case of the weather dice coming up thirteen — weather not seen on the planet since before the Ice Age began, 118,000 years ago. The weather dice will start rolling an increasing number of thirteens in coming years, and an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summertime by 2040 is a very real possibility..." Here is the The National Climatic Data Center's report announcing the entry of 2006 into the record books.
Google

Submission + - Sergey Brin Gives Amazing Plug for Slashdot

Submitted by
ZekeDaniels
ZekeDaniels writes: "Sergey Brin gives an amazing plug for Slashdot in a podcast posted at: http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/1758/podven turezone-lost-google-tapes-part-3-sergey-brin. The interview was recorded in January of 2000 as part of "The Lost Google Tapes" series, by John F. Ince who was then a reporter with the now defunct Upside Magazine. At approximately the 9 minute mark in Podcast #3 in the Lost Google Tapes, Sergey Brin says that Slashdot's first mention of Google back in 1999 melted the company's servers. In the interview Brin was talking about Google's frugal approach to advertising and he said, "The main way we've gotten traffic is through word of mouth. And actually I remember when we were just starting and had about 10,000 queries a day .... and then the first time we were mentioned in Slashdot ... you know Slashdot ... basically it's called 'News for Nerds.' They generate an awful lot of traffic for Websites. And so the first time they listed us, our computers melted. I don't know exactly how many queries, but it was like double what we'd been used to and we didn't handle it very gracefully. Of course, these days we get mentions in Slashdot pretty routinely and it's hardly a blip on our traffic graph.""
Google

Submission + - GMail Exploit Is Now Fixed

Submitted by
Rub3X
Rub3X writes: "Earlier I reported that Google had a flaw in which it stores contact details in a JavaScript file on their server. A website could in return declare the function "google", and put all your contacts and their details into an array. From there it could have been parsed and sent to the malicious server using Ajax. Earlier today there were reports on zdnet that said the flaw was fixed, however at the time it wasn't true. Currently as of 8 PM EST the flaw has been fixed. When attempting to execute the attack, all you get is a blank page now. Visiting the old page on Google that revealed all the data in an XML file now gives an error. If you don't get the error log out of Google's services and back in."
Spam

Submission + - Reducing Spam (Postal) Mail

Submitted by #Z100
#Z100 writes: I'm going to be moving into a new home within the next few months and I want to get some feedback on this idea. Although the house is a single-family dwelling, when I give out my new address to organizations I want to append a fake, but unique, apartment number, like #A100, #101, etc. Then when I start to get spam to my house #A115, I can lookup in my database who sold my info (then complain and get free stuff). Will the (US) post office care? Is this legal? Will FedEx/UPS/DHL get confused? Yeah, yeah I know. slownewsday.
Software

Journal Journal: Ten Must Have Free Software Packages for 2007

Journal by blue234
Having worked for Microsoft Corporation for a portion of my career, with stats such as 95% of the world uses Microsoft. I was in for a real eye opener on the number of different software packages available in the Open Source world.I have put together a list of the top top ten free tools for any internet professional. The first five are devoted to your desktop and the next five are for you

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Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, In kernel as it is in user!

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