Da_Big_G - Slashdot User

Submission + - Simpler Wind Turbine Design Could Be More Durable (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by TechRev_AL on Friday December 04, 2009 @10:43AM

TechRev_AL writes: A startup in Canada has developed a novel, and surprisingly simple, wind turbine design that does away with the gearbox and promises to be much more durable and cheaper to maintain. The drive shaft inside CWind's wind turbines connect directly to a large metal flywheel. Hugging this flywheel are eight smaller flywheels, each connected to a 250-kilowatt generator and each lined with specially designed tires that grip the surface of the main flywheel. As the flywheel spins, it engages the generators by turning these tire-lined shafts. "We're using friction. It's not mechanically hard-coupled," says Na'al Nayef, a CWind engineer. The tires are designed to temporarily slip if a wind gust causes the flywheel to suddenly speed up, which eases the impact on the generators.

Submission + - UltraDefrag 3.3.0 has been finally released! (sourceforge.net)

Submitted by SF:dmitriar on Friday December 04, 2009 @10:40AM

SF:dmitriar writes: UltraDefrag is a powerful disk defragmentation tool for Windows NT/Vista/XP/Server2003. Extremely fast and useful. Some of the unique features of UD are ability to defragment system files at boot time and single file or directory defragmentation. The new release contains the following great improvements: 1. User Mode Driver - much more reliable and fully compatible with Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7. 2. New multi-pass volume optimization algorithm which is much more effective. 3. Fragments threshold filter parameter which allows to exclude from defragmentation files with number of fragments less than specified. 4. Time limit option which allows to break defragmentation automatically when specified time interval elapses. 5. Windows Safe Mode compatibility. 6. New portable application which is much more compatible with portable application standards. For more information visit please our website: http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/

Submission + - Workstation vs. Desktop GPU myths debunked (icrontic.com)

Submitted by primesuspect on Thursday December 03, 2009 @06:35PM

primesuspect writes: A lot of enthusiasts think you can take a $250 desktop level GPU, flash the bios with a hacked version, change drivers, and magically have an $1800 workstation-level card. Icrontic went to the source and asked the engineers directly: What's the difference?

Submission + - Internet uprising in Spain against proposed change (google.com)

Submitted by [rvr] on Thursday December 03, 2009 @03:58PM

[rvr] writes: Last Monday, the Spanish Goverment published the latest draft for the Sustainable Economy Act, which would enable a Commission dependent of the Ministry of Culture to take down websites without a court order, in cases of Intellectual Property piracy. On Wednesday, using Google Wave, a group journalists, bloggers, professionals and creators composed and issued a Manifesto in Defense of Fundamental Rights on the Internet, stating that "Copyright should not be placed above citizens' fundamental rights to privacy, security, presumption of innocence, effective judicial protection and freedom of expression". Quickly, more than 50,000 blogs and sites re-published the manifesto. On Thursday morning, the Ministry of Culture Ángeles González Sinde (former president of the Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) organized a meeting with a group of Internet experts and signers of the Manifesto. The meeting was narrated in real time via Twitter and concluded without any agreement. On Thursday afternoon, the Prime Minister's staff had a private meeting with the Ministry of Culture and some party members (who also expressed their oposition to the draft). Finally, Spain Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced in a press meeting that the text will be changed and court order will continue to be a requirement, but still will search for ways to fight Internet piracy. However, many activists remain skeptic about this announcement.

Submission + - Facebook Grows to 30,000 Servers

Submitted by 1sockchuck on Tuesday October 13, 2009 @11:13AM

1sockchuck writes: With its user base soaring past 300 million, Facebook is now running more than 30,000 servers in its data centers. In early 2008 the company said it had "more than 10,000," suggesting that Facebook has added nearly 20,000 servers in the past 18 months. That explains why Facebook execs have blasted server vendors for not making their gear cheaper and more energy efficient. In a presentation last week, Facebook's Jeff Rothschild shared details of the company's operations and use of open source software (espeically memcached and Hadoop). In addition to the big numbers, Rothschild noted that Facebook has 230 engineers supporting more than 300 million active users. ""We believe engineers at Facebook have a dramatic impact," he said.

Submission + - What to do with a free XBox 360 Pro? 1

Submitted by OzPeter on Wednesday October 07, 2009 @05:58PM

OzPeter writes: Last week I won an XBox 360 Pro, however I am not a gamer and after looking at the current MS offerings I am not tempted to become one.

But I am in the market for a Media Center PC that I can use for streaming TV shows off the 'net as well as general web browsing and displaying the video through the HDMI port. With that in mind I again looked at MS and saw that they seemed to have positioned the XBox as an adjunct to a separate Windows Media Center PC and not as a stand alone unit (which is not what I want). So once again I did some more research into the XBox homebrew scene and discovered things like Xbox Linux. But after reading that site it is apparent that MS is trying to beat down the homebrewers and I am left wondering how much hassle it would be to go down that path.

So my question is how should I re-purpose my XBox? is it worthwhile doing the Homebrew/Linux option (and can anyone share any experiences)? Are there other ways of re-purposing the device that I haven't considered? Or should I just keep it boxed up as a Christmas present for a favourite nephew?

NASA Downgrades Asteroid-Earth Collision Risk 244

Posted by timothy on Wednesday October 07, 2009 @04:43PM from the elephant-detector-working-fine dept.

coondoggie writes "NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid known as Apophis and now say it has only a very slim chance of banging into Earth.. The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields, and updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036 for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million, NASA stated."

Submission + - Hacker Left in Charge of Prison Computer Network (mirror.co.uk)

Submitted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 07, 2009 @09:32AM

samzenpus writes: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/09/27/conputer-meltdown-115875-21703149/

Comment Take the money if its good (Score 5, Insightful) 412

by Da_Big_G on Saturday May 09, 2009 @12:41AM (#27885543) Attached to: What To Do When a Megacorp Wants To Buy You?

I was in the same situation about 10 years ago (yeah, pre-1.0-burst) so I think I have some insight for you...

First, this is a business question you are asking in a techie forum, bad idea. You are running a business, possibly selling a business, go get yourself some business advisers, at a minimum that means an accountant and a lawyer who know (or at least "get") your industry, and preferably some people who have sold companies in your industry, extra points if they sold to the same megacorp and aren't involved with megacorp any more (they can tell you how it all went, but if they're still there, there's a conflict).

Second, and read carefully: TAKE THE MONEY. There's an old expression: No one ever went broke making a profit.

Caveat: after taxes it should be more money than you'd make in 10 years of working the same "job" at average pay. (e.g. if you're an engineer who could easily pull in $125k/yr, make sure you're landing at least $1.25mm cash after taxes, don't take an all-stock deal - bubbles burst) You need enough money to be able to screw around for a few years if megacorp really does turn you lazy.

BUT don't get sucked into a long term contract working for megacorp. A year or two is ok, and if you're stuck with an earnout, make sure you really can see your company meeting those numbers. After a year you could be itching to leave the megacorp lifestyle (no company is perfect) and its best to know you can part on good terms, pick up and travel for a few months, then start your next awesome company.

Third, can I repeat #1? Find a better place than slashdot to get this sort of advice. If you're really strapped, try your college's career center network, or SCORE (.org)

Submission + - Intel admits defeat with Viiv

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Thursday December 20, 2007 @04:08PM

Stony Stevenson writes: Intel is set to roll back its Viiv brand, bringing an end to Viiv label PCs and limiting the platform to a sub-brand of Intel CPUs. Starting in 2008, the brand will become 'Intel Core 2 with Viiv'. Some analysts blamed the rise of sites such as YouTube and Facebook for turning consumers off of media-centric PCs.

Submission + - What a dumb a year it's been!

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20, 2007 @03:52PM

An anonymous reader writes: Fortune's "101 Dumbest Moments in Business" is out for 2007. And what a banner year it has been! Everything from CEO excesses (playing *LOTS* of golf while Merrill Lynch posts the first quarterly loss ever), fancy restaurants with expensive desserts (then the restaurant fails health inspection), sleazy business practices (e.g., Best Buy setting up an in-store web server with higher priced specials), and loads of hilariously defective or just plain unlucky technological stuff (e.g., 365 Main's 3-backup power failure). Apparently you can't be charged with DUI in New Jersey if you are driving a Zamboni (who knew?). Oh, and of course, there's Comcast's surprise porn.

Submission + - Comcast Blocks BitTorrent (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by FsG on Friday August 17, 2007 @09:06PM

FsG writes: Over the past few weeks, more and more Comcast users have reported that their BitTorrent traffic is severely throttled and they are totally unable to seed. Comcast doesn't seem to discriminate between legitimate and infringing torrent traffic, and most of the BitTorrent encryption techniques in use today aren't helping. If more ISPs adopt their strategy, could this mean the end of BitTorrent?

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