sandoval88419 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Have You Tried a Standing Desk?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06, 2015 @11:22AM

An anonymous reader writes: Evidence is piling up that sitting down all day is really bad for you. I work primarily from home, and as I grow older, I'm starting to worry about long term consequences of riding a desk full-time. We talked about this a few years ago, but the science has come a long way since then, and so have the options for standing desks. My questions: do you use a standing desk? What kind of setup do you have? There are a lot of options, and a lot of manufacturers. Further studies have questioned the wisdom of standing all day, so I've been thinking about a standing/sitting combo, and just switching every so often. If you do this, do you have time limits or a particular frequency with which you change from sitting to standing? I'm also curious about treadmills — slowly walking could work during parts of my work, and the health benefits there are easy to measure. Also, any ergonomic tips? A lot of places seem to recommend: forearms parallel to the ground, top of monitor at eye level, and get a pad for under your feet. Has your experience been the same? Those of you who have gone all-out on a motorized setup, was it worth the cost? The desks are dropping in price, but I can still see myself dropping upward of $1k on this, easily.

Submission + - 'It's a graveyard': The software devs leaving Greece for good (zdnet.com)

Submitted by TheHawke on Monday July 06, 2015 @11:01AM

TheHawke writes: "In the last three years, almost 80 percent of my friends, mostly developers, left Greece," Panagiotis Kefalidis told ZDNet. He's now a software developer in Vancouver, Canada. "When I left for North America, my mother was not happy, but... it is what it is."

Submission + - Supercomputing Cluster Immersed in Oil Yields Extreme Efficiency (datacenterfrontier.com)

Submitted by 1sockchuck on Monday July 06, 2015 @10:55AM

1sockchuck writes: A new supercomputing cluster immersed in tanks of dielectric fluid has posted extreme efficiency ratings. The Vienna Scientific Cluster 3 combines several efficiency techniques to create a system that is stingy in its use of power, cooling and water. VSC3 recorded a PUE (Power Usage Efficiency) of 1.02, putting it in the realm of data centers run by Google and Facebook. The system avoids the use of chiillers and air handlers, and doesn't require any water to cool the fluid in the cooling tanks. Limiting use of water is a growing priority for data center operators, as cooling towers can use large volumes of water resources. The VSC3 system packs 600 teraflops of computing power into 1,000 square feet of floor space.

Submission + - What goes into a decision to take software from proprietary to open source

Submitted by Lemeowski on Monday July 06, 2015 @10:02AM

Lemeowski writes: It's not often that you get to glimpse behind the curtain and see what led a proprietary software company to open source its software. Last year, the networking software company Midokura made a strategic decision to open source its network virtualization platform MidoNet, to address fragmentation in the networking industry. In this interview, Midokura CEO and CTO Dan Mihai Dumitriu explains the company's decision to give away fours years of engineering to the open source community, how it changed the way its engineers worked, and the lessons learned along the way. Among the challenges was helping engineers overcome the culture change of broadcasting their work to a broader community.

Submission + - First Windows 10 RTM candidate is build 10176 (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson on Monday July 06, 2015 @07:51AM

Mark Wilson writes: With just over three weeks until the launch of Windows 10, preview builds are still popping out left, rights, and center — some more official than others. Microsoft is beavering away on the final build which will start to roll out on 29 July, and it seems that the RTM version could be signed off as early as this week.

Build tracking site BuildFeed shows that Windows 10 Build 10176 from the th1 branch (a reference to threshold, Windows 10's codename) is now being tested as a release candidate. With a full build string of 10.0.10176.16384.th1.150705-0552, the appearance of this version ties in neatly with a rumor that RTM might be reached this week — perhaps as early as Thursday.

Submission + - EasyDNS removes site after Andy Lehrer wins CausePimps defamation case (easydns.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26, 2015 @08:50PM

An anonymous reader writes: A Canadian online defamation case against Canadian ISP EasyDNS and Tim Rourke has concluded. The plaintiff, Andy Lehrer was awarded $25,000 in damages against Tim Rourke and his website and EasyDNS took the website down in accordance with an earlier out of court settlement. (URL fixed)

Submission + - Chinese stock market sees biggest single day loss since dot com bubble (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26, 2015 @07:11PM

An anonymous reader writes: Two biggest stock exchanges in mainland China, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, were seeing dramatic drop in tech companies stock prices this week. The biggest loss occurred on Shenzhen Stock Exchange, that is knows as Chinese analog of NASDAQ, on Friday, June 26 as its composite index dropped by 8%.

Analysts are concerned as this crash may cause a domino effect in tech industry as the capital loss follows the path of Chinese investments and devaluation of company shares given as collateral to Western creditors.

Submission + - AppleCare+ now covers batteries that drop to 80% (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson on Friday June 26, 2015 @06:37PM

Mark Wilson writes: For anyone concerned about their new Apple device, AppleCare+ protection can sound appealing — even if it might seem expensive in some instances. Today Apple has updated the terms of AppleCare+ for iPhone, iPad, iPod and Apple Watch giving a better deal for people worried about their batteries.

Previously, the extended warranty only covered batteries that would hold 50 percent charge or less. Now this has been updated so that you can request a free replacement within the coverage period is your device's battery is only able to hold 80 percent of full charge. The new terms to no apply to everyone — it all depends on when you bought your Apple device.

If you bought your iPhone, iPad, iPod or Apple Watch before April 10 2015, you're stuck with the old terms.

Submission + - NIST Updates Random Number Generation Guidelines (phys.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26, 2015 @05:52PM

An anonymous reader writes: Encryption weighs heavily on the public consciousness these days, as we've learned that government agencies are keeping an eye on us and a lot of our security tools aren't as foolproof as we've thought. In response to this, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued a formal update to its document on how to properly generate a random number — crucial in many types of encryption. The update (as expected) removes a recommendation for the Dual_EC_DRBG algorithm. It also adds extra options for CTR_DRBG and points out examples for implementing SP 800-90A generators. The full document (PDF) is available online.

Submission + - Charter Hires Net Neutrality Activist To Make Policy (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26, 2015 @05:29PM

An anonymous reader writes: The Federal Communications Commission has been at loggerheads with many ISPs lately, after the agency pushed through net neutrality rules that have now gone into effect. The defeat of Comcast's attempted acquisition of Time Warner Cable was hailed by many net neutrality activists as a victory, but then came the news that Charter was looking to buy TWC instead — which brought the worries back. But now Charter has taken the unusual step of hiring one of those activists to help develop its policy: Marvin Ammori. He says, "Charter hired me—which, to be honest, took some humility on its part since I have helped lead public campaigns against cable companies like Charter—to advise it in crafting its commitment to network neutrality. After our negotiation, I can say Charter is offering the strongest network neutrality commitments ever offered—in any merger or, to my knowledge, in any nation. In fact, in the end, I personally wrote the commitments." Put briefly, Charter agreed to abide by the interconnection mandates and prohibition of pair prioritization — regardless of the outcome of pending litigation from the ISPs fighting it — for a minimum of three years. The company has also committed to no data caps and no usage-based billing.

Submission + - Lexus' Hoverboard: What Does Physics Tell Us About It? (insidescience.org)

Submitted by benonemusic on Friday June 26, 2015 @05:10PM

benonemusic writes: Lexus' hoverboard may never become commercially available, but is it scientifically feasible? You'd need to place a superconducting material in a magnetic field powerful enough to support the board and the rider. Steve Gourlay of Lawrence Berkeley Lab's Superconductor Magnet Group provides insights, including the possibility that Lexus put some very strong rare-earth magnets underneath the sidewalk in the video.

Submission + - Corals may survive global warming thanks to "genetic rescue" (techienews.co.uk) 1

Submitted by hypnosec on Friday June 26, 2015 @04:08PM

hypnosec writes: Researchers have found that some coral populations already posses genetic variants that could help them tolerate the increasing ocean temperatures and if such corals are mixed and matched with corals from different latitudes they can be made to survive global warming through 'genetic rescue'. Researchers exposed the corals' larvae to increasingly warm temperatures for long periods of time, and then analyzed the genes of the surviving individuals. Their results reveal that the more heat-tolerant corals produced larvae that were 10 times more likely to survive heat exposure than the larvae of the less heat-tolerant corals.

Submission + - Why is Google Opening a New Data Center in a Former Coal-Fired Power Plant?

Submitted by HughPickens.com on Friday June 26, 2015 @01:26PM

HughPickens.com writes: Quentin Hardy reports at the NY Times that Google just announced that it is opening its 14th data center inside a former coal-fired power plant in Stevenson, Alabama. While there is considerable irony in taking over a coal-burning plant and promoting alternative power, there are pragmatic reasons Google would want to put a $600 million data center in such a facility. These power facilities are typically large and solid structures with good power lines. The Alabama plant is next to a reservoir on the Tennessee River with access to lots of water, which Google uses for cooling its computers. There are also rail lines into the facility, which makes it likely Google can access buried conduits along the tracks to run fiber-optic cable. In Finland, Google rehabilitated a paper mill, and uses seawater for cooling. Salt water is corrosive for standard metal pipes, of course, so Google created a singular cooling system using plastic pipes. Once fully operational, Google's Alabama data center will employ up to 75 employees in a variety of full-time and contractor roles, including computer technicians, engineers, and various food services, maintenance and security roles. "This a fantastic and exciting day for Jackson County," says Jackson County Commission Chair Matthew Hodges.

Submission + - NASA to get space station view of Earth-bound asteroids, meteors (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie on Friday June 26, 2015 @01:00PM

coondoggie writes: NASA will by the end of July get a birds-eye view of meteors and asteroids from a special camera mounted on the inside of the International Space Station. The Meteor investigation camera is programmed to record known major meteor showers during its two-year orbit and could also spot unpredicted showers. The Meteor study will help scientists better understand the asteroids and comets crossing Earth’s orbit and could help protect spacecraft and Earth from potential collisions with this celestial debris., NASA said.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Is security-related slowness inevitable?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26, 2015 @12:51PM

An anonymous reader writes: Our organization's PC's are growing ever slower, with direct hard-drive encryption in place, and with anti-malware scans running ever more frequently. The security team says that SSD's are the only solution, but the org won't approve SSD purchases. It seems most disk scanning could take place after hours and/or under a lower CPU priority, but the security team doesn't care about optimization, summarily blaming sluggishness on lack of SSD's. Are they blowing smoke?

Slashdot Top Deals