Comment The COLBERT array. (Score 2) 176
OK I haven't thought of what the acronym means yet but you can bet that the Colbert Nation is hard at work submitting recommendations.
Completely "Oldstuff Left Behind" Enhanced Radio Telescope
Comment Not another Dark gritty reboot (Score 1) 144
Getting tired of you younguns spoiling our franchises! So what's the dark gritty reboot of GH going to be like? Are they going to completely mess with the origin story? Instead of sequels are they just going to release prequel after prequel?
Comment Cyber attacks (Score 1) 892
How can a drone attack not be hostile, but a hack / cyber-attack be defined as an act of war? (ref http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/pentagon_declares_cyberattack_an_act_of_war.php
Please order drone attack on the "lawyers" who are making this assertion, because after all, it's not hostile.
Comment Didn't they say this about the last solar cycle? (Score 2) 569
This is what they said about the last solar cycle, especially since we went into a deep solar minimum, and now the sun is waking up and we have had some nice Geomagnetic storms and solar flares already.
Comment Re:iRobots? (Score 2, Interesting) 244
iRobot has been building robots for years with no problems with the name.
It is substantially different from crApple products by the fact iRobot products are actually useful rather than shiny technology, and substantially different from Asimov's titicular story, 'I, Robot' in the fact that (a) iRobot's are not 3 laws safe, and (b) it doesn't use 'I, ' but rather 'i' and (c) the company in Asimov's stories is US Robotics which shares the name with another company that you may have used back in the dialup days www.usr.com
I have one of the iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaners and hope that there will be future technological advances that allow me to continue on my goal to the state of being a lazy fat c*nt.
PS WTF Japan, you're only NOW starting to use robots help fix the reactor???
Comment Ingenious plan... (Score 2) 81
Like the rollout to rural areas of the NBN in Australia, smart and powerful people are rolling out fast FTTH broadband so IT people can live the dream, move to the farm and give up on the city rat race. You don't need to live in the inner city to write code.
At least until the apocalypse.
Comment PLEASE UPDATE FRONTPAGE WITH NEW REAL FACTS (Score 2) 515
I don't work for Samsung but I am a fan of their products.
It seems this so called 'IT consultant' used a crap, rarely used AV product called VIPRE which caused a false-positive, mistaking a SLovenian language pack from Microsoft Live! with a keylogger called StarLogger (both use C:\windows\SL apparently.. jeez I'd hate to use such a poorly written AV package!)
Please refer to posts by Sophos NakedSecurity blog http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/03/30/samsung-intentionally-shipping-laptops-with-keyloggerspy-software/
and Samsung Tomorrow http://www.samsungtomorrow.com/1071
NOW, can we please restore the integrity of
PS - where did this "IT Consultant" get his training from? back of a cereal carton???
Comment This is not really news just marketing. (Score 1) 182
This Dreamplug doesn't deserve it's top billing on slashdot - it's just a Guruplug in a new case.
5W you say?? I call BS.. The Guruplug said it was only 5W but when I plugged a wattmeter into it was pulling 7W when idle (old firewall P4 computer was pulling 70W constantly so that's a decent power save anyway). Running both ethernets at gigabit and having the wifi turned on was the major cause of heat problems in the guruplug (so they crippled it so only 1 could run gigabit. Now I see the Dreamplug has 2 gigabit ethernet ports again.
Then I had to install additional airflow elements (drilling holes in the case, replacing heatsinks, replace internal power supply with external one), to turn it into a decent box that could run as my firewall. Not that I mind doing it myself - I'm from the "if you can't open it you don't own it" crowd, but it means you can't recommend this device to other less technical people without voiding their warranty too.
There are no thermal sensors on the board so trying to use lm-sensors package on Linux to get things like CPU temp will fail. The Marvell ARM in the Guruplug is ARMv5 so no XN or No-Execute page protection - that comes with ARMv6. If they haven't been addressed in this new Dreamplug it could very easily turn into a Nightmareplug *groan* especially for it's price.
Apache Resigns From the JCP Executive Committee 136
iammichael writes "The Apache Software Foundation has resigned its seat on the Java SE/EE Executive Committee due to a long dispute over the licensing restrictions placed on the TCK (test kit validating third-party Java implementations are compatible with the specification)."
Comment IKEA forms nuclear fuel bank (Score 2) 224
This has to be the best addition to the IKEA catalog yet! Grab my tape measure, allen key and let's go shopping!
President Obama To Appear On Mythbusters 795
Muondecay writes "President Obama will be featured in the December 8th MythBusters episode, 'Archimedes Solar Ray,' during which he will challenge Adam and Jamie to revisit an ancient and somewhat controversial myth: Did Greek scientist and polymath Archimedes set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun during the Siege of Syracuse? This is part of a White House effort to highlight the importance of science education."
When You Really, Really Want to Upgrade a Tiny Notebook 104
Benz145 writes "The famous Sony VAIO UX UMPC may have been cancelled a few years back by Sony, but the community at Micro PC Talk won't let it die. Modder Anh has carefully removed the relatively slow 1.33Ghz Core Solo CPU and installed a much faster Intel Core 2 Duo U7700 (a process which involves reballing the entire CPU). On top of this, he managed to install an incredibly small 4-port USB hub into the unit which allowed for the further instillation of a Huawei E172 modem for 3G data/voice/SMS, a GPS receiver, and a Pinnacle HD TV receiver. All of this was done without modifying the device's tiny external case. Great high-res pictures of the motherboard with the modded hardware can be seen through the link."
IRS Servers Down During Crucial Week 93
crimeandpunishment writes "A planned server outage turned into an unplanned glitch for the Internal Revenue Service, and it comes at a very bad time. The IRS planned the server outage for the holiday weekend ... but today they couldn't get the system back into operation. This week is the deadline for filing 2009 tax returns for taxpayers who got extensions. So far it's not having a huge impact since the shutdown only involves the updated version of the e-filing system, and most programs used by large tax companies like H&R Block will default to the older version. There's no estimate on when the system will be back up."
Recently Discovered Habitable World May Not Exist 231
sciencehabit better let Greg Dean know that "Two weeks ago, U.S.-based astronomers announced the discovery of the first Goldilocks planet circling another star: just the right size and just the right temperature to harbor alien life. But yesterday at an exoplanet meeting in Turin, Italy, Switzerland-based astronomers announced that they could find no trace of the prized planet in their observations of the same planetary system."
Comment UK science cuts are good! (Score 2, Insightful) 315
For everyone not in the UK.
Our research and science in Australia will climb the rankings by default, making us look good, increasing investment and licensing opportunities. We'll be able to keep hiring local talent, as well as recruit from soon to be unemployed talent in the UK, at discount rates! Sure, we may have to be China's butt-buddy, but at least we won't be dumb, poor and stupid.
Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole in your head....
