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Submission + - A 24-Year-Old Scammed Apple 42 Times In 16 Different States (businessinsider.com) 1

Submitted by redletterdave
redletterdave writes: Sharron Laverne Parrish Jr., 24, allegedly scammed Apple not once, but 42 times, cheating the company out of more than $300,000 — and his scam was breathtakingly simple. According to a Secret Service criminal complaint, Parrish allegedly visited Apple Stores and tried to buy products with four different debit cards, which were all closed by his respective financial institutions. When his debit card was inevitably declined by the Apple Store, he would protest and offer to call his bank — except, he wasn’t really calling his bank. So he would allegedly offer the Apple Store employees a fake authorization code with a certain number of digits, which is normally provided by credit card issuers to create a record of the credit or debit override. But that’s the problem with this system: as long as the number of digits is correct, the override code itself doesn’t matter.

Comment Re:$23k isn't crap to an oracle shop... (Score 1) 97

by tomhath (#47550843) Attached to: Oracle Offers Custom Intel Chips and Unanticipated Costs
FTFA:

The 8895 is used in the Exadata Database Machine X4-8,an 8-processor rack system with up to 12 TB of system memory 672 terabytes of disk, 44 terabytes of high-performance PCI Flash, 240 database CPU cores, and 168 CPU cores in storage to accelerate data-intensive SQL.

The article implies it would be at least 8 processors (I hope they don't charge by CPU or CPU core). Anyway, it's at least $200k. But as you say, an Oracle shop is already in way deeper than that.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 85

by tomhath (#47549997) Attached to: World's Largest Amphibious Aircraft Goes Into Production In China

The Hercules wasn't misguided at all. At the rate U-boats were sinking Liberty ships and the possibility of battleships like Bismark and Tirtipz roaming the Atlantic a big transport plane would work. Problem was that it was ahead of it's time, without computers to help the pilot it wasn't safe to fly.

I suspect one use of this plane is along the same lines. Submarines are not a concern. Fly low, under radar and you have a reasonable chance of moving large numbers of troops or supplies quickly to an isolated invasion point, even if your air cover can't protect you.

Submission + - Bird flocks resemble liquid helium (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: A flock of starlings flies as one, a spectacular display in which each bird flits about as if in a well-choreographed dance. Everyone seems to know exactly when and where to turn. Now, for the first time, researchers have measured how that knowledge moves through the flock—a behavior that mirrors certain quantum phenomena of liquid helium. Some of the more interesting findings: Tracking data showed that the message for a flock to turn started from a handful of birds and swept through the flock at a constant speed between 20 and 40 meters per second. That means that for a group of 400 birds, it takes just a little more than a half-second for the whole flock to turn.

Submission + - The five greatest space hacks of all time

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: Space missions are amazingly well-prepared affairs, every action and procedure is followed, right down to the most minute detail. But sometimes mishaps and emergencies occur. Some can be dealt with by sophisticated sensors and equipment. Some can be dealt with on Earth from Mission Control. But sometimes the only option is for an astronaut to get their hands dirty, using whatever comes to hand and a bit of DIY know-how. It’s amazing what has been grabbed, bent and improvised to save red faces – or, indeed, the lives of astronauts.

Comment administrative operations (Score 2) 296

For local government purposes the city is part of Toulouse Métropole (“Greater Toulouse”), which includes 37 neighbouring communities and has a total population of around 714,000. Toulouse Métropole employs some 10,000 staff to manage its administrative operations.

I don't know much about local government in the US or France. But that seems like a heck of a lot of administrators for that number of people.

Comment Re:.7% (Score 1) 168

by tomhath (#47533199) Attached to: Amazon's Ambitious Bets Pile Up, and Its Losses Swell
You have confused investing in the company's stock (profitable) with the company's operations (not so profitable). That said, it seems Amazon is rolling their money back into growing the business rather than building a cash hoard the way Apple did. It appears that investors are happy either way for a while, then they want to see some of the money.

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