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Comment Old age = broken? (Score 1) 317

by gmby (#37237734) Attached to: I've lost more computers to ...

Voted "I have never given up on a computer." Because most of my systems died from bad caps. I still have many of them. Some have new caps some are on a waiting list. Very few have made there way to the recycle or trash. Some use too much electricity to put back into service for the work they can do.. So I guess they died of "old age." Never to be used again until they get to be antiques. My S-100 based system will never die! Can you hear me IBM!

Comment Electric Smart Meter (Score 1) 248

by gmby (#36292036) Attached to: What's Killing Your Wi-Fi?

I've had no wifi in my living room since they installed the new power meters on the outside wall. What i found in that the meters are on 2.4GHz and use up to 4watts output. They are some kind of mesh network to each other. I had to take down my wifi on that outside wall to my brothers house. It quit working and the input amp was destroyed do to proximity to the meter. 5feet away. Lost two wrt54's before I figured it out. I'm tempted to wrap the meters in tinfoil as a message to the power co. But I like my freedom too much. Can't afford to take on a 500lb gorilla.

Singed;
Living on the wire now...
The Internet

100 Years Ago, No Free Broadband Pneumatic Tubes 293

Posted by kdawson from the when-brooklyn-was-a-considerable-city dept.
TheSync writes "The Division of Labour blog spotlights a report written 100 years ago by a commission appointed by the Postmaster General, that came to the conclusion: 'That it is not feasible and desirable at the present time for the Government to purchase, to install, or to operate pneumatic tubes.' Here is a scan of the original NYTimes article. If only we had gotten the free government Intertubes in 1908!"
Education

Windows Cheap Enough For $2B Aussie Laptop Deal 234

Posted by kdawson from the if-you-give-it-away dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Windows-based netbooks aren't too expensive to be ruled out of the Aussie government's billion dollar promise to give a laptop to every school-aged child, according to several education departments. The admission follows an earlier report that open source machines based on Ubuntu or Mandriva are the only option to deliver up to four million computers to students for under $2 billion. Microsoft itself claimed it will keep costs per unit down by hosting a lot of the educational software in the cloud rather than on the netbook devices."
The Courts

Final Judgment — SCO Loses, Owes $3,506,526 265

Posted by timothy from the seems-charitable-to-sco dept.
Xenographic writes "SCO has finally lost to Novell, now that Judge Kimball has entered final judgment against SCO. Of course, this is SCO we're talking about. There's still the litigation in bankruptcy court, which allowed this case to resume so that they could figure out just how much SCO owes, which is $3,506,526, if I calculated the interest properly, $625,486.90 of which will go into a constructive trust. And then there's the possibility that SCO could seek to have the judgment overturned in the appeals courts, or even the Supreme Court when that fails. Of course, they need money to do that and they don't really have much of that any more. Remember how Enderle, O'Gara and company told us that SCO was sure to win? I wonder how many people have emailed them to say, 'I told you so.'"
Censorship

Toyota Demands Removal of Fan Wallpapers 594

Posted by Soulskill from the see-what-sticks dept.
An anonymous reader writes "TorrentFreak reports that Toyota's lawyers have recently contacted computer wallpaper site Desktop Nexus in a blatant example of DMCA abuse. Toyota issued a blanket request to demand the immediate removal of all member-uploaded wallpapers featuring a Toyota, Lexus, or Scion vehicle (citing copyright violation), regardless of whether Toyota legally holds the copyright to the photos or not. When site owner Harry Maugans requested clarification on exactly which wallpapers were copyrighted by Toyota, he was told that for them to cite specifics (in order to file proper DMCA Takedown Notices), they would invoice Desktop Nexus for their labor."
The Military

40 Years Ago, the US Lost a Nuclear Bomb 470

Posted by kdawson from the chrome-dome-down dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "A BBC investigation has found that in 1968 the US abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland after a nuclear-armed B52 crashed on the ice a few miles from Thule Air Base. The Stratofortress disintegrated on impact with the sea ice and parts of it began to melt through to the fjord below. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons on board detonated without setting off the nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew. The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been 'destroyed' and while technically true, investigators piecing together fragments from the crash could only account for three of the weapons. Investigators found that 'something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary.' A subsequent search by a US submarine was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the search was abandoned. 'There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components,' said a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. 'It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them.'"

Comment Re:Duh! (Score 1) 578

by gmby (#24551153) Attached to: The Flat Earthers Are Still With Us

Sorry! Wrong, it is "vi" whom has control af all the you see and hear!

vi will guide you! vi will help you! you will believe in vi! vi is flat!

emacs will lead you to hell! emacs is evil! emacs is round!

vi am in control!
Medicine

How Do Geeks Exercise? 1806

Posted by kdawson from the assuming-they-do dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I have always been thin but all the sitting in front of the PC is taking its toll now that I'm getting older. I have begun to get a little heavier around the waist. I don't eat a lot but the weight seems to stay on these days. Most of the time I don't have the luxury of just getting out of the house/office. And being an introvert, I'm not enamored of the idea of exercising in full view of *shudder* people. I regularly do press-ups (60 per night) and sit-ups (30 per night) and some fetching and carrying, but that is all and these days it isn't enough. I need a solid and effective routine that will tone all my muscle groups efficiently. Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?"
Power

Alaska Looks To Volcanos For Geothermal Energy 230

Posted by kdawson from the don't-stamp-so-hard dept.
Iddo Genuth writes "Alaskan state officials have recently announced their intention to begin funding the exploration and surveying of Alaska's largest volcanoes in hopes of utilizing these as a source of geothermal energy. They say this volcano could provide enough energy to power thousands of households, and according to some estimates, Alaska's volcanoes and hot springs could supply up to 25% of the state's energy needs."
Transportation

Montreal's Public Bikes To Use Web, RFID, Solar 146

Posted by kdawson from the all-the-green-words dept.
Ian Lamont writes "Montreal is preparing to launch a Web- and RFID-enabled public bike system that allows residents and visitors to rent bicycles at special depots scattered throughout the city. Using a Web site, riders can check out a real-time inventory of available bicycles at the depot locations. At the depots, a solar-powered base station will process credit cards or member cards. The bike docks use RFID, and the system is supposedly easy to install and maintain. A pilot program will launch in September with four bike depots."
Programming

Do Women Write Better Code? 847

Posted by CmdrTaco from the better-than-me-at-least dept.
JCWDenton writes "The senior vice-president of engineering for computer-database company Ingres-and one of Silicon Valley's highest-ranking female programmers-insists that men and women write code differently. Women are more touchy-feely and considerate of those who will use the code later, she says. They'll intersperse their code ... with helpful comments and directions, explaining why they wrote the lines the way they did and exactly how they did it. The code becomes a type of 'roadmap' for others who might want to alter it or add to it later, says McGrattan, a native of Ireland who has been with Ingres since 1992. Men, on the other hand, have no such pretenses. Often, 'they try to show how clever they are by writing very cryptic code,' she tells the Business Technology Blog. 'They try to obfuscate things in the code,' and don't leave clear directions for people using it later. "
Power

GE Microbes Make Ersatz Crude Oil From Many Sources 525

Posted by timothy from the hey-I'm-crude-and-oily-so-clone-me dept.
polymath69 writes "According to The Times Online, genetically modified microbes have been developed capable of turning surplus material such as wood chips, sugarcane, or others, not into ethanol, but into a substance which could substitute directly for crude oil. They claim it could be sold for about $50/bbl, and the production process would be carbon negative."
The Internet

AT&T Claims Internet to Reach Capacity in 2010 239

Posted by timothy from the calls-for-even-more-paper-towels dept.
An anonymous reader writes "CNET News has a piece in which AT&T claims that the Internet's bandwidth will be saturated by video-on-demand and such by 2010. Says the AT&T VP: 'In three years' time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today.' Similarly: 'He claimed that the "unprecedented new wave of broadband traffic" would increase 50-fold by 2015 and that AT&T is investing $19 billion to maintain its network and upgrade its backbone network.'"

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