Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission Summary: 0 pending, 113 declined, 9 accepted (122 total, 7.38% accepted)

×

Submission + - The truth is out there? ha ha (nationalarchives.gov.uk) 1

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: ""One Ministry of Defence (MoD) note refers to a 1999 letter stating that a Royal Air Force plane returning from a mission in Europe during World War II was "approached by a metallic UFO". The unidentified author of the letter says his grandfather attended a wartime meeting between Mr Churchill and US General Dwight D Eisenhower during which the two expressed concern over the incident and "decided to keep it secret". " The highlights of the August 2010 releases http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/aug-2010-highlights-guide.pdf [pdf warning]"

Submission + - I am a bastard but not an uber-nerd 2

Submitted by tqft
tqft writes: Have been reading journals but not really keeping up — the /. front page could have announced an alien invasion and I wouldn't know. So I am bastard now asking for help. Am looking for a new monitor to replace the getting old 17in CRT. Am also buying some reading glasses (they are being made and I will have them in a week or so). Do I need a DVI port in the monitor? Current graphics (onboard Intel 945 chipset) has no DVI output, but graphics card will be next purchase. Is DVI useful/the future? Am looking at this one http://www.mymuch.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=52_55&products_id=4595 $259 24in (61cm) with VGA, DVI and HDMI port. Just a monitor. and this one — bigger (and more expensive) http://u.lasoo.com.au/Offer/rank-arena-full-high-definition-lcd-tv-with-built-in-hd-tuner/10722 $500 a 25.6in (64cm) with HDMI and VGA port. a HD TV with ports. Both are 1900x1080, 1080p. The amount of crappy monitors out there is amazing — and dodgy salespeople who wouldn't know full hd spec from VGA. But I am not an uber-nerd — got the latest Star Trek movie on DVD which includes the model Enterprise for Xmas. Am going to open the package watch the movie and put the mdoel up in the study. PS: I still suck at guitar, a bit less because I have been practicing, but more importantly I now suck loud. PPS: it appears the answer to one of Tom H's puzzle sites is not landlord.com or stupidpeople.com which are the two I have tried.
Media

Submission + - Philip Jose Farmer - RIP (pjfarmer.com)

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: ""February 25th:

Philip José Farmer passed away peacefully in his sleep this morning.

He will be missed greatly by his wife Bette, his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, friends and countless fans around the world.

January 26, 1918 — February 25, 2009. R.I.P. ""
Security

Submission + - Sonic firewall suckage

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: "Email filtering working?

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=5419
------
Sonicwall License Manager Failure
Published: 2008-12-02,
Last Updated: 2008-12-02 21:16:21 UTC
by Deborah Hale (Version: 2)
0 comment(s) Details are still sketchy as to the cause of a failure overnight of the Sonicwall License Manager Server. We are receiving reports from Sonicwall users that the server "reset" (meaning invalidated) the licenses on all of their email security products. The customers are reporting that this is causing them to be unable to login to their own systems. It is reported that the support calls are not being answered and are going straight to voicemail.

It appears that Sonic Wall users received an email overnight indicating that the Email Security licenses have been reset and says that the filtering will not be working. The email recommended that the customer contact Tech Support (which could be why the calls are going straight to voicemail). One of our readers who is also a Sonic Wall customer sent us this information from correspondence with Sonic Wall : "The issue is on our backend server who stores the registrations, some ES appliances got licences resetted. The exact cause is still being analized with high priority. In those cases entering the mysonicwall credentials or uploading file solve the issue. Kind Regards Ivan" ...
------

Oh dear. All paid up subscribers to. Maybe it would have been better if you hadn't paid and then you may have got left of the deactivation list.

No access to your own system is bad."
Announcements

Submission + - Elsevier journal fraud?

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: "John Baez former moderator sci.physics.research takes Elsevier to task
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2008/11/the_case_of_m_s_el_naschie.html#more
"But here's where things get interesting: this journal also lists 322 papers with El Naschie as an author! "

Chaos, Solitons and Fractals
El Naschie is editor in chief of the journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals. This journal is published by Elsevier, one of the biggest players in the science publishing business.

and has some questions
"This case raises plenty of other questions:

Why did Elsevier let El Naschie become the editor in chief of this journal?
Who is El Naschie? What's his connection with getCited? ...
Why is he also an editor for International Journal of Nonlinear Sciences and Numerical Simulation, and why does this journal flaunt its high 'impact factor'?
""
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - Eee pc source code - now available here & now

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: "Would you like source with that?

http://eeepc.asus.com/us/news11272007.htm
"ASUSTek is committed to meet the requirements of the GNU General Public License

The open source code for EeePC is available here. To download the source code of all open source software packages that are included in the product, follow the steps listed below."

http://support.asus.com/download/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Coming soon:
"Asus is also pleased to announce the upcoming release of the Eee PC SDK""
Businesses

Submission + - Jimmy Wales - Prophet, sellout or slavemaster? (myminicity.com)

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: ""Wikipedia isn't about human potential, whatever Wales says"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/25/wikipedia.internet
Proselytisation of the cult of Wikipedia has reached new heights. Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, has joined a speaker's agency (amusingly, he's advertised just above Karl Rove). Note that he keeps all fees, which can exceed $50,000 (£27,000), maintaining that such engagements "are inviting me in my personal capacity"
http://bit.ly/seth8
A recent article
http://bit.ly/seth14
in Trader Monthly Magazine provides a particularly blunt business analysis, one that contrasts strikingly with the evangelist glurge often found in press articles. It describes Wales's previous failed entrepreneurial ventures, leading to "... his effort to take the success — and, indeed, the underlying philosophy — of Wikipedia, and commercialise the hell out of it". "

More available here:
http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/

Would wikipedia be better of without him?"
Software

Submission + - NYSE bad at math (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: "Looks like someone borked the stress test
http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/20347/page1/
"At its worst levels of the day, the Dow was down 546 points, or 4.3 percent. It ended the day down 416.02, or 3.29 percent, at 12,216.24.

Part of the Dow's drop turned out to be not a decline, but a miscalculation. According to Dow Jones' account to Congress, high volume that day"

"The documents are letters explaining what happened on Feb. 27, 2007, that were requested by members of the House Financial Services Committee. Copies of the letters, which have not been publicly released, were provided to the AP by Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio."

Gotta love the system, can't even screw you over without getting it wrong.

I wonder what the trading would have looked like with the real numbers?
"describes a backlog of more than 500,000 undelivered messages carrying trades and other information from the trading floor. The order flow system, called Superdot, could handle only 17,000 messages per second at the time."

"Asked by members of Congress whether the Feb. 27, 2007, problems caused any damage to investors, Dow Jones, now a division of News Corp., described the Dow industrials as a ''news item created by the editors of the Wall Street Journal'' and not a listed security. Dow Jones also said it received no complaints from licensees of its indexes."

Oh sorry my mistake. No damage done — no problem."
Media

Submission + - Asutralian Copyright Review Closes soon

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: "http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/22/2144069.htm
"The [Australian] Federal Government is seeking submissions on a review released today into photo and film copying law.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland says the review is a part of the Government's commitment to open and public consultation in achieving fair and effective copyright law."

Closing Date for Submissions is 29 February 2008
http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/Copyright_IssuesandReviews_Copyingphotosandfilmsforprivateuse
"The Government is reviewing the operation of two new copyright exceptions that permit 'format shifting'. These exceptions are sections 47J and 110AA of the Copyright Act 1968 which permit photographs and cinematograph films to be reproduced in a different format for private use, subject to certain conditions."
The issues paper is available at the AG's link above (.doc or .pdf format).
From the issues paper:
Issue 5: Should section 110AA be changed to permit additional copying
"(a) Under what additional circumstances should section 110AA
permit a copy to be made of a cinematograph film for private
and domestic use?
(b) What are the kinds and sources of films that are likely to be
reproduced under any proposed changes?
(c) To what extent are films likely to be reproduced under any
proposed changes subject to TPMs (such as anti-copy
measures) to block unlicensed copying?"

Whinge now or forever hold your peace."
Slashback

Submission + - Polls

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: "Slashdot polls should be replaced after
1) 50,000 votes
2) 60,000 votes
3) 70,000 votes
4) after CowboyNeal votes"
Security

Submission + - What MS Engineers are working on right now

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: "Original source as best I can find
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com.au/topics/article.asp?DocID=6100986
"security researcher Beau Butler showed us how Microsoft's completely half-arsed fix of a known issue — problems with Windows Proxy Autodiscovery — could be used by the more evil among us to seize control of vast numbers of workstation"
"You'll be hearing more on this, but in the mean time it would make sense to configure a wpad server in your organisation to stop Microsoft's silly software from seeking proxy configuration files from evil hackers outside your organisation."

http://business.theage.com.au/flaw-leaves-microsoft-looking-like-a-turkey/20071123-1cfu.html
"The software giant confirmed the issue was serious and asked The Age not to publish the details over fears they could be used by cyber criminals to seize control of workstations.

Microsoft's engineers in Australia and the US scrambled to replicate and confirm the issue, with the security team working over this week's Thanksgiving holiday to begin work on a fix."

"The problem affects all versions of Windows, including the company's most recent release, Vista software. However, it does not affect every Windows computer, Mr Stathakopoulos said. It depends on how it is configured.

Mr Butler said he tried to alert Microsoft to the problem by email before going public with his research. "I didn't get any reply — I assumed they were aware of the issue," he said.""
Censorship

Submission + - Censorship

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: "What should be censored first?
1) GWB
2) government disinformation
3) real news (we don't want to know how bad it is)
4) Cowboy Neal"

Slashdot Top Deals

I've noticed several design suggestions in your code.

Close