Comment Who would stick spider bots in a man's rectum... (Score 1) 203
and not even have the goddamn common courtesy to give him a reach-around!
Comment UUCP (Score 1) 536
Or I guess that would be WWCP. WWJD?
Comment One word... (Score 1) 599
fembots.
Comment At some point, it will be... (Score 1) 304
Mike Rowe's dirty job...
Comment We have to stop... (Score 1) 224
Megatron and his dastardly Decepticons!
Comment Re:I have always said this is the wrong approach (Score 1) 325
Actually, that's the point. By effectively canceling out transactions, you don't raise any alarms, like "where'd all our money go?" Rather, you cause chaos because nobody can tell who owes what money to whom. It's really quite sinister. Considering how the uncertainty surrounding CDOs and mortgage backed securities screwed with the financials, a complete lack of trust in any balance sheet would positively destroy them.
Anyway, if you do this, just let me know before you do it to MY banks
Comment I have always said this is the wrong approach (Score 1) 325
The "Fight Club" style of "getting back at the Man" isn't very practical. There would be some period of disarray, but if you really want to screw things royally, you would introduce random, but very small data errors that hopefully get overlooked. Over time, these affect the balance sheets, the "business algorithms" in place, and generally make it a nightmare to figure out how to fix things. All of this "silent data corruption" would be propagated to disaster recovery systems. Your "backup tapes" would basically contain a perfect copy of bad data. Yes, eventually, you could find the point at which the "disaster" occurred and go back to that time, but if days, weeks, months have passed, how do you replay all of those transactions from that point on? The bank (market, economy, etc.) is screwed.
Yes, this is a little like the "Superman 3 Salami Slicing Fraud" but the only reason that gets flagged is because there is a net output from the balance sheet. If everything just got twisted up internal to the bank, it would be much easier to hide.
Submission + - Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 goes RTM 1
csoto writes: On Monday, Nov. 19, Microsoft announced that Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 were released to manufacturing (RTM). With more than 250 new features,Visual Studio 2008 includes significant enhancements in every edition, including Visual Studio Express and Visual Studio Team System.
Submission + - An Inconvenient Truth on BitTorrent.com
marick writes: I'd like to congratulate the creators of An Inconvenient Truth, which won Best Documentary Feature (and also Best Song) on Sunday night's Oscars. In light of this, and the recent UN report on global warming, the dire reality of global warming is back in the headlines. Perhaps simple changes by a newly enlightened community can cause great effects.
If you still haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. It's available on the BitTorrent Entertainment Network. I hear it's even one of the top-sellers.
If you still haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. It's available on the BitTorrent Entertainment Network. I hear it's even one of the top-sellers.
Submission + - Chinese Remote Controlled Pigeons
MidVicious writes: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... Fake. Chinese Remote Controlled Pigeons... Real! At least according to an article in CNN, Chinese scientists have "succeeded in controlling the flight of pigeons with micro electrodes planted in their brains..."
Between this and the earlier reported Chinese DoD Hacker attack, I advise you all to always wear a hat and to park your cars in garages whenever possible."
Between this and the earlier reported Chinese DoD Hacker attack, I advise you all to always wear a hat and to park your cars in garages whenever possible."
Submission + - Dynamically Balancing Robot
dar writes: If you have kids, you know what a thrill it is to watch them take their first steps. It must have been a similarly great feeling to get Dexter the robot to walk like a human — "It looks fairly smooth when we do it, but it's really a controlled fall. At any given moment you have to think (or at least, your body does) about which direction you're falling, and put your foot down in exactly the right place to push you in the direction you want to go." Anybots seem to have it just about licked.
Vanishing Honeybees Will Affect Future Crops 322
daninbusiness writes "Across the US, beekeepers are finding that their bees are disappearing — not returning while searching for nectar and pollen. This could have a major impact on the food industry in the United States, where as much as $14 billion worth of agriculture business depends on bees for crop pollination. Reasons for this problem, dubbed 'colony collapse disorder,' are still unknown. Theories include viruses, some type of fungus, poor bee nutrition, and pesticides."
Submission + - a giant moonbeam reflector is built
An anonymous reader writes: I find this quite curious. Some guy has spent most of his money building a moonlight reflector for the purpose of '[helping] people conquer depression, arthritis and even some types of cancer'. From the article:
I reckon moonlight and its effects on various things is something that should be researched, just for the fun of it.Although moonlight is reflected sunlight, its frequency and spectrum are unique and, so far, irreplicable, which makes it difficult to examine in a controlled, clinical fashion.
