gbulmash - Slashdot User

Submission + - Sprint Advocates Abusing 911

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Monday October 27, 2008 @11:14PM

gbulmash writes: "I got a couple of gross porn pics (one was poop porn) sent to my Sprint phone by a stranger using Sprint PictureMail. When I called the number Sprint said they were from, the guy on the other end denied it. So I reported it to Sprint via e-mail, figuring it warranted a little investigation. Two hours later, they e-mailed back and told me to call 911. Seriously? Sprint thinks a couple of dirty pictures sent a couple of hours ago is not only worth involving the police, but using emergency services to contact them? Is this company policy or a support rep who doesn't quite get the concept of 911?"

Submission + - What Happens When You Die?

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Wednesday September 10, 2008 @12:24AM

gbulmash writes: "What happens when you die? Or, more to the point, what happens to your data? We lock everything up with passwords and encryption nowadays so that undesirables can't get into our private data. But will your family be able to access the photos and videos on your hard drive after you're dead? Will your employer, employees, or partners be able to get into your calendar and spreadsheets to get vital information? Ask Leo recently addressed the question of what happens when you die and how to prepare for it."

Submission + - Check Scams Targeting Lawyers (ca.gov)

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Sunday July 13, 2008 @03:28AM

gbulmash writes: "You've probably received a job scam spam, offering you a "financial representative" job where they're trying to get you to cash checks and send the money to another country. Now the crooks have started targeting lawyers for this scam. Their favorite marks are lawyers who specialize in collecting debts for foreign clients, because they're used to cashing checks for clients and wiring the funds overseas, and the crooks can pick up six figures in a single transaction. One lawyer would have been out $193,000 if his bank hadn't been smarter than he was."

Submission + - A Space Elevator Made of Bologna?

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Tuesday May 20, 2008 @01:02AM

gbulmash writes: "'Of course, I still come back to 100,000 kilometers of bologna slices, laid end to end. Bologna has nowhere near the tensile strength to be used as a construction material for the space elevator ribbon, but that much of it (985,434,353 slices) would weigh 61,589,647 pounds, contain 88,689,091,770 Calories and 17,375,178 pounds of fat... or for a Rough Equivalent... just the fat in 100,000 kilometers of Oscar Mayer bologna slices laid end to end would weigh as much as 2,465,897 babies.' — From Rough Equivalents"

Submission + - How Important Is Execution Speed?

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Sunday January 20, 2008 @06:46PM

gbulmash writes: "Recently, I found echoing 3x more data increased the execution time of a PHP script by nearly 100x. The reason I found for the slowing was that "echo" created more communications overhead to handle once a certain size was exceeded, particularly waiting for ACKs. So I wondered if the 100x increase in execution time was actually 100x more computationally expensive, or did all the waiting create holes into which other tasks could be slipped, such as processing more instances of that same script in parallel?

Is measuring the execution time a good/fair/poor indicator of a script's overall performance and processor demands? And if it's not good, are there better ways to estimate a script's demands on your server aside from massive stress-testing?"

Submission + - Barnes & Noble Too Swamped To Answer Mail

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @05:15PM

gbulmash writes: "On December 23rd, Greg Bulmash received a notice from Barnes & Noble that his order was ready to ship. Only one problem... it already arrived three days earlier. Wanting to head off a possible duplicate, he e-mailed their customer service department. Three days later, they replied that they were too busy to reply. Huh?"

Submission + - Google AdSense Meltdown Continues

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Friday October 26, 2007 @04:23PM

gbulmash writes: "The Google AdSense reporting meltdown continued on Friday, with even worse reporting discrepancies coming to the fore and web publishers blaming it for real losses in income, while Google just says "don't worry, we're working on it" and that's it. With this problem dating back to the "scheduled maintenance" last Saturday, it's screaming toward being a week old, yet Google remains tight-lipped. Could we end up seeing some lawsuits as fallout?"

Submission + - Microsoft's XO Laptop Strategy... Huh? 2

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Thursday October 25, 2007 @10:57PM

gbulmash writes: "Microsoft is spending a "non-trivial" amount of money to get Windows XP working on the OLPC project's XO laptop. But why? Despite the conjecture that the Linux-based XO could convince millions of people in the developing world that they don't need Windows and build a huge base of developers for Linux, there still remains the question of how Microsoft would convince owners of XO laptops to buy and install Windows XP over the functional Linux-based OS already on it. It's doublful that Microsoft could encourage or coerce Negroponte to put XP on the machine, so whose arms will they twist?"

Submission + - Google AdSense Reporting Broken For Second Day

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Wednesday October 24, 2007 @02:57PM

gbulmash writes: "For the second day, webmasters running Google AdSense are seeing discrepancies in their reporting numbers that are becoming worrisome. A Google representative posted to a Google Groups thread on the subject that Google was aware of it, but that has been all the communication from Google so far. There has been no mention of it on the actual AdSense reporting site, nothing on the AdSense blog and no follow-ups to the post. AdSense publishers can only sit and wait."

Submission + - CNN Slams Apple For Trialware

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Saturday October 20, 2007 @02:41PM

gbulmash writes: "When you think of computers that have been overloaded with unwanted trialware and demo programs to try to improve the manufacturer's margins, who do you think of? CNN apparently thinks of Apple. In a video story on how to avoid excessive amounts of trialware on your new PC, they displayed 25 seconds (from 2:07 to 2:32) of footage of an Apple store while their expert described how stores will charge you up to $130 to remove trialware and optimize the machine you just bought. Is this fair, or does CNN owe Apple an apology?"

Submission + - Have You Tried Rebooting The Death Ray

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @01:29PM

gbulmash writes: "Schmerz von Evilstein: I just fired it at Switzerland to prove my evil intent to the U.N. According to observers on the ground, 3 chickens exploded, a goat lost its equilibrium, and a farmer had a burning sensation when he peed... though I can't be sure we're responsible for that last one.

Brad: Have you tried rebooting the death ray?

Full article"

Submission + - Ashton Kutcher's VOIP Service Has Fatal Flaw (brainhandles.com)

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Tuesday September 18, 2007 @03:54PM

gbulmash writes: "In this article, a tech reviewer describes his experience with the beta of the new VOIP service, Ooma, which names Ashton Kutcher as it's creative director. The service uses the landlines of its subscribers to help it provide last mile connections for long distance calls, and the author points out two potential pitfalls for Ooma (slow adoption, telco lawsuits). But a blogger has pointed out the true fatal flaw in Ooma's plan... a simple TOS change by the telcos could turn your Ooma hub into a $400 paperweight."

Submission + - Why No High-MPG Diesels For The U.S.?

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Thursday August 23, 2007 @08:26PM

gbulmash writes: "While looking for a high-MPG minivan, wagon, or SUV, I've been finding that the pickings in the U.S. are pretty slim, but that there are plenty of fuel-efficient diesel models in Europe that get even better mileage than some of the larger hybrids for sale in the U.S. With the U.S. having so many people driving so many miles, it seems ridiculous that even Ford is offering highly fuel efficient diesels in Europe that they don't/won't offer here. Is there an actual plausible reason why these models aren't being brought to American markets aside from "marketing objectives"?"

Submission + - Parallels Adds 3D Support to Windows on Mac (fundraw.com)

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Thursday May 31, 2007 @07:02PM

gbulmash writes: "Parallels sent out a pre-order notice for the 3.0 version of their virtualization software for running Windows on Intel Macs. In the e-mail, they note that the 3.0 version will support 3D graphics, and in the v3.0 upgrade info sheet, they state the new version offers "3D graphics support to play the hottest games and run the most popular applications." If it lives up to the marketing... woo hoo!"

Submission + - MySpace Gets False Positive In Sex Offender Search

Submitted by

gbulmash

on Tuesday May 29, 2007 @11:27PM

gbulmash writes: "In its eagerness to clear sex offenders off its site and publish their identities, MySpace identified an innocent woman as a sex offender. She shares a name and birth month with a sex offender who lives in a neighboring state and that was apparently enough to get MySpace to wrongly brand her and completely ignore her protests."

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