wesman83 - Slashdot User

Unexpected Slashdot Downtime 219

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday April 30, 2008 @11:32AM from the zomg-what-a-night dept.

Netcraft confirmed it ... Slashdot was dying for several hours (along with SourceForge, which shares a corporate overlord and router). Some planned downtime from our provider apparently didn't come back up quite as planned. Sorry for the inconvenience. On the upside, we're moving to a new network and hardware soon, so the site should be much faster and more stable rsn.

Whitehouse Emails Were Lost Due to "Upgrade" 482

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday April 30, 2008 @10:48AM from the upgrading-to-orwell dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "We now know how the Whitehouse managed to lose about five million emails. It seems that they 'upgraded' their Lotus Notes system, which had an automatic retention and backup system, for Microsoft Exchange, which did not support the automatic system. So they changed it to a manual process, where aides would manually sort emails one by one into individual PST files, which they call a 'journaling' archive system. They're still building a replacement for the retention system. Right when they had one finished, the White House CIO complained that it made Microsoft Exchange too slow, so they hired yet another contractor to build another one, causing a senior IT official to quit in protest. So they still haven't completed the project after almost eight years, and rely on humans to sort millions of emails."

Wikipedia Blocks Suspicious Edits From DoJ 294

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday April 30, 2008 @10:00AM from the watching-the-watchers dept.

kylehase writes "The release of Wikiscanner last year brought much attention to white-washing of controversial pages on the community-generated encyclopedia. Apparently Wikipedia is very serious in fighting such behavior as they've temporarily blocked the US Department of Justice from editing pages for suspicious edits."

Comment Re:yes (Score 1) 1130

by wesman83 on Monday April 21, 2008 @12:20PM (#23145842) Attached to: PETA Offers X-Prize for Artificial Meat

Having said that, veganism does lead to a Catch-22 of some sorts: If everyone were vegan, there would be much less use for animals and their numbers would dwindle. True, they wouldn't suffer, but what is worse: having a short life with a degree of suffering or no life at all? Another interesting debate for the pub, me thinks.

I've always found this argument ridiculous; a potential cow/pig/human is just that, potential, and it has no interests and needs no consideration on our part because it was never born.

Submission + - Tux Racer to enter Indy 500

Submitted by

flakeman2

on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @03:19PM

flakeman2 writes: "about a group of people trying to make the world take notice of Linux by sponsoring a race car in the Indy 500. "And just what is it that we will get in return for our support of Tux500? The ability to tell the world that we were a part of putting a car in the Indy 500. We were a part of making the world take notice of Linux. I don't know about you but that is something I want to be a part of.""

Submission + - Video Games-- Access for All - New KQED TV Story

Submitted by

on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @02:58PM

An anonymous reader writes: Hello, I'm writing from KQED Public Broadcasting in San Francisco. We recently did a TV story on video games that are accessible for everyone for QUEST, our multimedia series on environment, science and nature. We thought your readers might be interested in this story — it's posted in its entirely online and you can also embed the video in your site. Watch Video Games — Access for All: http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/view/276 Embed this video on your site: Thanks, and let me know if you have any questions, Sarah sskikne@kqed.org Quest KQED Public Broadcasting San Francisco, CA

Journal Journal: If We Taught English the Way We Teach Mathematics

Journal by Coryoth on Wednesday April 04, 2007 @03:51PM

Imagine that your only contact with "English" as a subject was through classes in school. Suppose that those classes, from elementary school right through to high school, amounted to nothing more than reading dictionaries, getting drilled in spelling and formal grammatical construction, and memorizing vast vocabulary lists -- you never read a novel, nor a poem; never had contact with anything beyond the pedantic complexity of English spelling and formal grammar, and precise definitions

Submission + - World's most eco-friendly electronics firm

Submitted by subl33t on Wednesday April 04, 2007 @03:51PM

subl33t writes: BBC has some distressing news for Apple fans and good news for Lenovo:

Compiled by Greenpeace, the quarterly report ranks firms by how green their production processes are and what they do to recycle hardware they sell.
In previous reports Lenovo ranked low for eco-friendliness but in 2007 it scooped the top spot over Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Dell, and Samsung.
Apple came last of the 14 firms Greenpeace profiled in the report.

Submission + - Greenpeace slams Apple on environmentalism

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Wednesday April 04, 2007 @03:33PM

Lucas123 writes: "According to an MSNBC/Associated Press story, Greenpeace has ranked Apple last in a group of 14 environmentally friendly electronics makers because they said the company continues to use dangerous chemicals in its manufacturing process. At the same time, the environmental organization gave its top slot for Lenovo Group Ltd. for going against a tide of polution in China."

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