Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Image

Cooking With Your USB Ports Screenshot-sm 188

tekgoblin writes "Wow, I would never have thought to try and cook food with the power that a standard USB port provides, but someone did. A standard port provides 5V of power, give or take a little. I am not even sure what it takes to heat a small hotplate, but I am sure it is more than 5V. It looks like the guy tied together around 30 USB cables powered by his PC to power this small hotplate. But believe it or not, it seems to have cooked the meat perfectly."
Piracy

Submission + - Rockstar uses no-cd patch for Max Payne 2 on Steam (steampowered.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Liamaj posted on the steam forums a screenshot of the Max Payne 2 exe as viewed on Notepad ++.

As you can see there's an ASCII "Myth" logo, which is an old cracking team that were quite prevelent a while back. Seems Rockstar got a little lazy and used this crack instead of recompilling their executable without DRM.

Government

Submission + - China Considering Cuts on Rare-Earth Metal Exports

SillySnake writes: A draft report by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6082464/World-faces-hi-tech-crunch-as-China-eyes-ban-on-rare-metal-exports.html
Input Devices

The Mice That Didn't Make It 202

Harry writes "For every blockbuster of the mouse world (such as Microsoft and Logitech's big sellers) there have been countless mice that flopped, or never made it to market. Mice shaped like pyramids; mice shaped like Mickey; mice that doubled as numeric keypads or phones. Even one that sat on your steering wheel. I've rounded up some evocative patent drawings on twenty notable examples."
Censorship

Submission + - AT&T blocks img.4chan.org from customers (reddit.com) 11

bmecoli writes: "AT&T seems to be blocking img.4chan.net which hosts the infamous /b/ (random) board, as well as /r9k/. Those who have contacted AT&T representatives were told that the site is in fact blocked, so this isn't a technical problem, and all the other 4chan subdomains work fine."
Software

Submission + - Why is Firehose so hostile? 15

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Can anyone explain to me why Slashdot's Firehose is made to be so unfriendly? It's a great idea, but in practice it's infuriating. If you see a submitted article, and click on one of the links, you can't go back to the story. You have to start all over again. If you set the filters to what you're interested in, you have to re-set them all over again. Even if you just RTFA you are punished by losing your settings. Why shouldn't Slashdot encourage people to participate in the Firehose. For a busy person, it's almost impossible to be involved. And this bizarre lack of 'stickiness' makes everything take 10 times as much times as it needs to."
The Internet

Journal Journal: Improving Slashdot Moderation

Here's an idea for improving moderation for the Slashdot Editors.

Ask the members what Slashdot Topics they are experts in. This data could then be used for two things that would be useful to Slashdot, improving moderation, and targeted advertising.

Google

Submission + - Google Unveils Hybrid Car that plugs into Grid (foxnews.com)

mytrip writes: "Not content with seeking to control the information super-highway, Google wants to influence what kind of car you drive.

The online search company has unveiled a new, hyper-advanced model of hybrid car that can be charged directly from the grid, and, when its battery is not in use, the stored electricity can be sold back to the utility company.

By selling their excess electricity to the grid owners of plug-in hybrids will be able to earn up to $3,000 a year. Such savings are likely to be offset by the higher initial retail price of hybrid cars."

Books

Submission + - OJ Simpson's Book Leaked to BitTorrent (digg.com)

joshzweig writes: "In 2006 O.J Simpson announced he was releasing a book in which he would detail what would have happened, had he really committed the horrific murders of his ex-wife and her boyfriend in 1994. After public outrage, the book was shelved and 400,000 copies of the book were destroyed but now a digital version has been leaked to BitTorrent.

"If I Did It" is the title of an unreleased book by ex-NFL player and actor O.J Simpson where he gave a hypothetical account of what would've happened, had he committed the double knife-murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994. According to reports, Simpson was paid $3.5m for writing the book.

The PDF file is 118 pages, and 8 chapters long. The author's note is only eight words long, reading "If I did it, this is what happened." Unfortunately, the book is not very well written, and is exceptionally dull."

Slashdot Top Deals

HELP!!!! I'm being held prisoner in /usr/games/lib!

Working...