pianoman113 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Oil-eating microbes produce green energy

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Friday December 14, 2007 @02:43PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "It is estimated that oil sands — or bituminous sands — represent two thirds of the world's oil reserves. Still, it's expensive and difficult to extract oil from these sands. Even with today's crude oil prices, the industry is still looking for cheaper ways to produce energy from the so-called 'tar' sands. Now, according to the University of Calgary, an international team of researchers has found a way for using microbes to extract methane from oil sands. With its enormous reserves, Canada could become one of the major oil producer in the 21st century. Field tests of this new technology should start in 2009. Read more for additional details and references about how bacteria can generate energy from oil sands.."

Submission + - Hookers go hi-tech, start advertising on Craigslis (blorge.com)

Submitted by

secretsather

on Thursday July 26, 2007 @06:29PM

secretsather writes: "oday's hi-tech prostitutes are leaving the streets, and turning to the Internet to find their next 'John.' A recent prostitution sting in Chicago, Illinois, uncovered many hookers who used Craigslist, the popular online classifieds service, to advertise their special services.

Cook County Sheriff, Thomas J. Dart, participated in a 4 month prostitution sting where over 250 people were arrested, many of which were caught through their own advertisements on Craigslist.

"We have two types of prostitution," Dart said, "We have street prostitution and we have a very sophisticated ongoing process on the Internet."

Thomas J. Dart and his men searched through Craigslist, finding ads for services such as "special massages," most of which would be accompanied by photographs of the women, in little to no clothes at all.

An undercover investigator would then contact the women, and arrange to meet at a Chicagoland hotel where they would be offered money for performing sexual acts. Once the women agreed, they were arrested.

According to the Cook County Sheriff's Office, the majority of the Craigslist arrests were from out-of-state hookers, some who would fly to Chicago, to meet their Johns, before flying back home.

"There was a desire to conduct these activities away from their hometown," said Dart. "Most would come here and stay for a month and then go back."

The police report noted that the Internet prostitutes were charging between $150 and $300 per hour, well above the going street rate. (so we hear)

Sheriff Dart pledges to not just stop at these arrests, but to make these activities known, hoping Craigslist will take the initiative to better police its site.

"We are sending Craigslist a letter detailing what we found," Dart said.

However, Craigslist representative, Susan MacTavish Best, responded saying, "All illegal activity is banned by our terms of use, nor is it welcome on the site. Do remember that escort services are perfectly legal, and that the line between an escort ad and a prostitution ad is gray and somewhat non-intuitive.""

Submission + - World's Most Powerful Single-kernel Linux System?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26, 2007 @06:22PM

An anonymous reader writes: NASA has selected an SGI Altix supercomputer to help it meet future high-performance computing requirements. The new system will be the first supercomputer to operate 2,048 processor cores in SMP mode under control of one Linux kernel, creating the world's largest single-kernel Linux system. Driven by 1,024 Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 processors, the new system will generate 13.1 TFLOPs of compute power. To accomplish this feat, SGI had to extend the Linux kernel's SMP support from 1,024 CPUs to 2,048 CPUs. Fancy that on your desktop!

Submission + - What did Hooters do to Dell?

Submitted by on Thursday July 26, 2007 @06:01PM

An anonymous reader writes: You won't find any reference to this in major media. In fact, this may be the first public discussion of it. Dell inc. recently rolled out "ethics training" to all of it's "Small and Medium Business" sales reps. Mixed in with "don't sell servers to yourself" and "don't offend your neighbor" was an unexpected announcement.... Do not eat lunch at hooters anymore. Wait.....what?? You can't tell me where I can and can't eat can you?!?! Well, that very question was posed at the "Ethics Training", the answer was, "yes, we can". This ruling from the same company that used quite busty south korean models at a recent compter model launch. link: www.engadget.com/2007/06/27/international-marketin g-101-dells-inspiron-us-vs-korean-launch/ Well, sorry Hooters, I guess you've lost my business. From now on I'm going to the place 1 more mile down the road where they dress in catholic school girl uniforms and oggle them instead.

Submission + - Report Faults NASA on Equipment Losses (nytimes.com)

Submitted by

rbanffy

on Thursday July 26, 2007 @05:53PM

rbanffy writes: "From TFA: "NASA has lost $94 million in office equipment over the past decade, looking the other way as employees give computers to spouses or claim missing laptops are lost in space, according to a Congressional report.

"These problems are deeply rooted in an agency culture that does not demand accountability," the Government Accountability Office said in a report released yesterday.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration noted the problem five years ago in its own study. Instead of tightening controls, it relaxed them, making $10,000 the minimum value for trackable items, instead of $5,000, the report said."

One employee said the notebook computer assigned to him was thrown out of the ISS, that, while not impossible, is quite fishy. I would love to read other lame excuses like this... Maybe something on the lines of "the green alien ate my car"."

Submission + - New ReBoot movies in the works. 1

Submitted by codesmith on Thursday July 26, 2007 @05:50PM

codesmith writes: With Rainmaker Animation's purchase of Mainframe Entertainment, it looks like theres new ReBoot material on the horizon. Rainmaker's executive VP Paul Gertz said 'I think it's time.' in regards to getting ReBoot going again. Plans are in the work for an online comic book, and three new ReBoot movies. See coverage from canada.com, Animation Magazine, and Cinema Blend.

Submission + - Private colo data

Submitted by on Thursday July 26, 2007 @05:47PM

An anonymous reader writes: Is it possible to have a completely secure remote system; that is, a co-located or virtual server with some sort of encrypted disk that the system administrators at the remote site can't read or alter? Has anybody made this work?

I also saw in the following comment: proxy server to colo a way to encrypt anything and then use a colo to actually do the real communication with the outside world. Can anyone give a howto on how to set this up?

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