cmholm - Slashdot User

Submission + - webOS Goes Open, Will Anyone Care?

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cmholm

on Sunday December 11, 2011 @12:13AM

cmholm writes: "After only three years on the market, and lacking better options after a series of business fubars, HP has decided to release webOS as an open source product. But, as it currently ships on only a couple of poorly selling devices and with no known hardware ports for a user community to leverage, will anyone care?"

Submission + - Steve Jobs Dies

Submitted by

cmholm

on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @07:46PM

cmholm writes: "As reported from numerous outlets and , Steve Jobs has died after an 8 year battle with pancreatic cancer."

Submission + - Users: US Broadband "Fast Enough", Whatever It Is

Submitted by

cmholm

on Tuesday June 01, 2010 @08:35PM

cmholm writes: "The FCC has released the results of their 2010 broadband usage survey. Cutting to the chase, 91% of broadband users responded "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" when asked about the speed of their home connection. On the other hand, 80% didn't know the advertised speed of their connection. As the FCC announcement points out, ignorance can be costly, to the tune of hundreds of additional dollars a year for "faster" plans which don't actually deliver much more aggregate bandwidth than a baseline plan."

Submission + - HS Student Isolates Polystyrene-eating Microbe (wired.com)

Submitted by

cmholm

on Thursday July 30, 2009 @11:18AM

cmholm writes: "Although I had for years assumed that plastics eventually biodegrade, my recent reading of Weisman's The World Without Us reminded me that just because garbage has broken down into pieces that I can't see doesn't mean it isn't still polluting the biosphere. Weisman's book suggests that we're pretty much stuck with most plastics until something evolves to eat them. Perhaps we just need to introduce the diner to the dinner. A Waterloo, Ontario teen's 2008 science fair experiment found polystyrene's match in the team of the relatively uncommon Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas bacterias. At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, with a bit of sodium acetate thrown in, Burd achieved 43 per cent degradation within six weeks, rather than thousands of years."

Submission + - Baghdad Real Estate: Shop Online

Submitted by

cmholm

on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @11:03PM

cmholm writes: "I inadvertently turned up a gem of a real estate site. As far as I can tell, it's for real: Baghdad Property.com

As with any other market, location is key. In my neck of the woods, realtors tout homes that are "next to Wailea." In Los Angeles there is "Beverly Hills adjacent." In Baghdad, how does an enterprising salesman puts some polish on an apartment to let? By describing its neighborhood as "generally regarded as a green zone", as opposed to in the Green Zone (ie. the International Zone, security courtesy US Army).

While President Talabani's mansion is a block away, and the American company Corporate Security Solutions is but a strong stone's throw, they enjoy 24/7 armed security. On the plus side, it does seem to be a nice neighborhood with a number of maintained swimming pools. Copy these coordinates into Google Earth and check it out for yourself:

33 16' 53.34" N, 44 24' 02.26" E

Talabani's place is the riverfront palace directly to the south. While Mr. al-Attia is dealing with what's arguably the high end, and can at least afford to pay his hosting fees, for most brokers, the local market is a tough row to hoe."

Submission + - ITT Fined $100mil For Outsourcing Classified Tech

Submitted by

cmholm

on Wednesday March 28, 2007 @03:46AM

cmholm writes: "After fighting the Federal Government for years over accusations that it outsourced highly classified military night vision technology to Singapore, China, and the UK as a cost saving measure, ITT faced the music to the tune of $100 million. A key point in the NYT article, something virtually all military contractors are constantly reminding their employees: "There's not much point in outspending the rest of the world on military technology if countries like China can get it on the cheap.""

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