Comment Hell it's Texas (Score 1) 494
She should be on death row by Monday morning.
Comment Fixed a friends computer once (Score 1) 606
I fixed a computer for a lawyer friend once around 11pm, she got hammered with spyware and viruses, so badly that it just wouldn't boot anymore.
I got the call late at night she had to be in court in the morning and didn't have hard copies of documents she needed. After about an hour playing with the machine, I used a Linux bootdisk, recovered all of her documents, burned them on a disk for her.
A few months later I asked her to look at a contract for me, she told me how much it would cost for the first few hours to review it for me, I thanked her and called a local law firm and paid them.
She recently asked me to take a look at her new laptop because it was acting 'funny' I told her how much I charged per hour, she got pissy and we haven't spoken in months.
It just sucks everyone thinks computer people give away services and 'professional' people must always charge for their time.
I don't help friends anymore.
Verizon Sued After Tech Punches Customer In Face 493
suraj.sun writes "A Verizon customer filed a lawsuit after the tech the company sent out got a little punchy. Instead of fixing the customer's problem, the tech allegedly hit him in the face. The New York Post says the tech attacked the customer after he asked to see some ID before allowing access to the apartment. From the article, '"You want to know my name? Here's my name," Benjamin snarled, slapping his ID card into Isakson's face, according to Isakson's account of the December 2008 confrontation. "The guy essentially snapped. He cold-cocked me, hit me two or three solid shots to the head while my hands were down," said Isakson, a limo driver. He said the pounding bloodied his face and broke his glasses. But things got uglier, Isakson said, when Benjamin squeezed him around the neck and pressed him up against the wall. "He's prepared to kill me," Isakson said. "That's all I could think of." The customer broke free and ran away. The Verizon tech then chased the customer until he was subdued by a neighbor who was an off-duty cop.'"
Map Editor, Photoshop Tool Coming To Braid 44
Erik J writes "Braid creator Jonathon Blow has revealed that a map editor and image tool will be added to the popular puzzle game. First, though, Braid will receive a patch to fix some issues players have reported. Blow explains: 'After I get a new version out in a few days that fixes the problems some people are having, and when more people have played/finished the game, I am going to post some documentation for the editor. The way it works is you can make levels with the editor (up to a full game, potentially) and run that with -universe later... also a tool will be released that lets you take Photoshop files and import them into the game, if you want to put new graphics in your levels.' It is unclear if these capabilities are coming only to PC or to the Xbox 360 version as well."
PHP Optimized for Windows Server 2008 182
Stony Stevenson writes "It used to be that popular PHP applications would run more poorly on Windows Server than on a Linux or Unix servers, for which PHP had been optimized. Specialist in the PHP language Zend Technologies now says that's no longer the case. The Zend Core commercially supported form of PHP has been certified by Microsoft as ready to run 'with performance and stability' on Windows Server 2008, said Andi Gutmans, co-founder and CTO of Zend. Previously, PHP 'didn't run as well as it should on Windows,' said Gutmans, despite the fact that 75% to 80% of PHP users were developing on Windows workstations."
OLPC Mesh Networking Tester Explains How It Works 92
An anonymous reader writes "James Cameron is an engineer working on the OLPC project, specifically testing the wireless network capabilities of the OLPC XO laptop. Cameron lives in a small town called Tooraweenah in a remote region of the Australian outback. There is little noise in the spectrum in the area, so it's perfect for testing the wireless networking capabilities of the XO as it mirrors the kind of rural, spacious environment the XO is intended to be deployed in. Cameron breaks down exactly how the OLPC XO's mesh networking works, including the cheap US$35 solar powered mesh nodes that can be mounted on top of a tree to further the network's reach. Testing in the Australian outback, Cameron discovered that the range of the XO could go up to 1.6km 'quite easily' at 1.5m above ground. 'Assuming a range of 1.6km holds true, (the mathematical formula for area of a circle) Pi R squared tells us one well placed mesh node will cover up to eight square kilometers.' The article also includes numerous pictures of the mesh nodes and testing of the XO."
Aging Security Vulnerability Still Allows PC Takeover 282
Jackson writes "Adam Boileau, a security consultant based in New Zealand has released a tool that can unlock Windows computers in seconds without the need for a password. By connecting a Linux machine to a Firewire port on the target machine, the tool can then modify Windows' password protection code and render it ineffective. Boileau said he did not release the tool publicly in 2006 because 'Microsoft was a little cagey about exactly whether Firewire memory access was a real security issue or not and we didn't want to cause any real trouble'. But now that a couple of years have passed and the issue has not resolved, Boileau decided to release the tool on his website."
Daylight Saving Time Wastes Energy 550
An anonymous reader writes "With the time approaching when we'll be changing our clocks again, the Wall Street Journal is running a timely article on a study done by a UC-Santa Barbara economics professor and a Ph.D. student. The study unambiguously concludes that Daylight Saving Time not only doesn't save any energy, it actually wastes energy and costs more. The study used energy company records from Indiana before and after that state mandated DST for all of its counties, and calculated that the switch cost Indiana citizens $8.6M per year. 'I've never had a paper with such a clear and unambiguous finding as this,' the professor said."
Submission + - Speed of light exceeded by German physicists? (telegraph.co.uk)
Tibore Escalante writes: Two physicists in Germany claim that they've exceeded "c":
"'We have broken speed of light'"; Telegraph.co.uk
Quote: "The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons — energetic packets of light — travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.
Dr Nimtz told New Scientist magazine: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of.""
"'We have broken speed of light'"; Telegraph.co.uk
Quote: "The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons — energetic packets of light — travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.
Dr Nimtz told New Scientist magazine: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of.""
Submission + - Couple trys to name baby '@'
linuxwrangler writes: A Chinese couple has applied to name their baby @. The Chinese often use an English-like pronunciation of '@' with a pronounced 'T' which is similar in Mandarin to "love him". It is not-yet known if the government, which recently banned use of Arabic numerals, foreign languages, and non-Chinese symbols in names, will accept baby @.
Submission + - German scientists claim to exceed lightspeed (zdnet.com)
Bombula writes: A team of German scientists claims to have caused photons to breakn the lightspeed barrier via quantum tunneling. The article is short on details, but suggests in the long-run this could hold the promise of superfast networking. Don't anyone hold your breath, though...
Submission + - Germans break Light Speed Barrier (telegraph.co.uk)
Velcroman98 writes: "Germans claim to have broken the speed of light thereby nulifying everything we believe sacred about physics. Get your Flux Capacitors ready, you'll get there before you leave!"
Submission + - Speed of Light "Exceeded"
konohitowa writes: Two German scientists claim to have performed an experiment in which microwave photons exceeded the speed of light. From the story: "The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons — energetic packets of light — travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart."
Having seen claims such as these in the past, it will be interesting to see what mistake this particular pair made. And yes, I'm definitely assuming they're misinterpreting their results.
Submission + - DirecTV to offer Internet over power lines. (hollywoodreporter.com)
dss902 writes: "DirecTV Group, in a move designed to further cater to customers who want their video service bundled with other products, struck a deal with Current Group for offering high-speed Internet services over power lines."
Submission + - 'We have broken speed of light'
sporkme writes: "Physicists from the University of Koblenz in Germany claim to have violated special relativity using quantum tunneling to move microwave photons more than three feet "instantaneously." This would mean that the particles exceeded the speed of light by traversing the space between two prisms at a speed higher than 186,000 miles per second.
The original New Scientist article is available to subscribers."
The original New Scientist article is available to subscribers."
