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Graphics

Visualizing System Latency 68

Posted by timothy from the picture-says-1000-64-bit-words dept.
ChelleChelle writes "Latency has a direct impact on performance — thus, in order to identify performance issues it is absolutely essential to understand latency. With the introduction of DTrace it is now possible to measure latency at arbitrary points; the problem, however, is how to visually present this data in an effective manner. Toward this end, heat maps can be a powerful tool. When I/O latency is presented as a visual heat map, some intriguing and beautiful patterns can emerge. These patterns provide insight into how a system is actually performing and what kinds of latency end-user applications experience."
Earth

Sticky Rice Is the Key To Super Strong Mortar 194

Posted by timothy from the what-can't-sticky-rice-do? dept.
lilbridge writes "For over 1,500 years the Chinese have been using sticky rice as an ingredient in mortar, which has resulted in super strong buildings, many of which are still standing after hundreds of years. Scientists have been studying the sticky rice and lime mortar to unlock the secrets of its strength, and have just determined the secret ingredient that makes the mortar more stable and stronger. The scientists have also concluded that this mixture is the most appropriate for restoration of ancient and historic buildings, which means it is probably also appropriate for new construction as well."

Comment Duh... (Score 1) 211

by arnwald (#32181906) Attached to: Amazon Is Collecting Your Kindle Highlights & Notes

Oh come on..

The kindle app shows you popular passages that other people highlighted, it only takes half a brain to realize that for this feature they must be storing your and everybody else's highlights..
Seriously.. Just to mess them them up I am highlighting every mistake they make in the OCR process. I am sick to sec those scanning mistakes.

T.
Image

Huge Unidentified Organic Blob Floating Around Alaska 424

Posted by samzenpus from the real-reason-Palin-resigned dept.
Z80xxc! writes "The Anchorage Daily News reports that a 15 mile-long blob of unknown, 'gooey,' probably organic material is floating past communities on Alaska's North Slope. The US Coast Guard sent pollution experts to investigate, who determined that it was not an oil spill or other type of pollution, but were unable to determine what it is. A sample is currently being analyzed by experts in Anchorage, while the blob is following the current northwards."

Comment How to Experiment w/ Fast Booting Linux:3 EZ Steps (Score 1) 241

by ubiquitin (#27322651) Attached to: Fastbooting Linux For Dummies?


Step 1. Download UNetBootin from SourceForge (2 minutes)

Step 2. Stick in a blank USB thumb drive and use UNetBootin to install Linux Mint version 6 or Puppy Linux version 4 onto the drive. (3 to 30 minutes depending on network speed)

Step 3. Reboot and tell your BIOS to make your newly bootable USB thumb drive the boot drive. (2 minutes)
Security

Online Billpay Provider Loses Control of Domains 232

Posted by timothy from the sell-your-body-to-pay-the-bills dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Several sites are running a story about a domain hijacking at Checkfree, the largest provider of online bill payment services to numerous banks and credit unions. According to Network Solutions, someone logged in to the domain administration page using Checkfree's account, and redirected its domains to a site in the Ukraine configured to serve up malware to unsuspecting users." Things like this make me nervous about switching to otherwise-tempting online bill payment, but checks are dangerous, too.

Comment Re:Things to keep in mind... (Score 1) 223

by arnwald (#23340328) Attached to: US State Dept. Loses Anti-Terrorist Program Laptops
> The reason that many of these laptops are listed as worth ~$3,000 is probably that some of them are 10+ years old (when laptops were really really expensive).

I am sure even the government ( especially the government ? ) does write-offs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write-off#Accounting ) over 3 to 4 years for a laptop.

T.
Software

Office 2007 Fails OOXML Test With 122,000 Errors 430

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the money-greases-the-wheels dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Groklaw is reporting that some people have decided to compare the OOXML schema to actual Microsoft Office 2007 documents. It won't surprise you to know that Office 2007 failed miserably. If you go by the strict OOXML schema, you get a 17 MiB file containing approximately 122,000 errors, and 'somewhat less' with the transitional OOXML schema. Most of the problems reportedly relate to the serialization/deserialization code. How many other fast-tracked ISO standards have no conforming implementations?"
Programming

Psychologist Beating Math Nerds in Race to Netflix Prize 205

Posted by Zonk from the must-calculate-harder dept.
s1d writes "An almost-anonymous British psychologist named Gavin Potter has suddenly risen to the top of the Netflix prize charts. With his very first attempt, he got a score which took the BellKor team seven months to reach. Currently at a score of 8.07, he has only five teams ahead of him now in the race for the ultimate Netflix algorithm. 'Potter says his anonymity is mostly accidental. He started that way and didn't come out into the open until after Wired found him. "I guess I didn't think it was worth putting up a link until I had got somewhere," he says, adding that he'd been seriously posting under the name of his venture capital and consulting firm, Mathematical Capital, for two months before launching "Just a guy." When he started competing, he posted to his blog: "Decided to take the Netflix Prize seriously. Looks kind of fun. Not sure where I will get to as I am not an academic or a mathematician. However, being an unemployed psychologist I do have a bit of time."'"
Patents

Ford Claims Ownership Of Your Pictures 739

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the like-a-child-shouting-MINE dept.
Mike Rogers writes "In a move that can only be described as 'Copyright Insanity', Ford Motor Company now claims that they hold the rights to any image of a Ford vehicle, even if it's a picture you took of your own car. The Black Mustang Club wanted to put together a calendar featuring member's cars and print it through CafePress, but an attorney from Ford nixed the project, stating that the calendar pics and 'anything with one of (member's) cars in it infringes on Ford's trademarks which include the use of images of their vehicles.' Does Ford have the right to prevent you from printing images of a car you own?"
Security

Submission + - String Validation Routines in .NET Exposed (anachronic.com)

Submitted by ubiquitin
ubiquitin writes: Web application security researcher Arian Evans has posted previously unrelease details of Microsoft's .NET 1.1 string validation routines. This includes anti cross site scripting request validation routines as well as a more generic ValidateString method. Such disclosure is expedient for all appsec researchers wishing to find holes in .NET applications.

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