Comment Re:Fire them (Score 1) 388
That should have said "you DON'T look at it until you have business need"
Comment Fire them (Score 1) 388
If you don't need access to the information, you shouldn't have it.
If you have access to the information and don't have business need to look a it, you look at it until you have business need.
If you can't handle this, you should be fired and perhaps prosecuted depending on how you used the information.
Comment Re:Of all the people that can access my data (Score 1) 405
I have a zigbee smart energy gateway. The power companies don't share the information needed to connect it to my meter. I suspect the reason is that they still have a certain amount of security through obscurity.
Comment Of all the people that can access my data (Score 2) 405
I seem to be the only person not allowed to collect data from the smart meter on my house.
I have allow Google to collect the data for me or I can't access it at all.
Comment Irony (Score 5, Funny) 168
Sounds like UI needs a better UI on their emergency notification system.
Bethesda Criticized Over Buggy Releases 397
SSDNINJA writes "This editorial discusses the habit of Bethesda Softworks to release broken and buggy games with plans to just fix the problems later. Following a trend of similar issues coming up in their games, the author begs gamers to stop supporting buggy games and to spread the idea that games should be finished and quality controlled before release – not weeks after."
Could CA Violent Game Law Lead To an Industry Exodus? 142
donniebaseball23 writes "Oral arguments for the California games law are set to begin on November 2. It's a hugely important court case for the industry, and if the Supreme Court sides with the legislators it could lead to an exodus of talent from the games business, says one attorney. 'Certainly less games would be produced and there would be a corresponding job loss,' said Patrick Sweeney, who leads the Video Game practice at Reed Smith LLP. 'But I expect the impact will likely be significantly deeper. I believe the independent development community would be severely impacted. Innovation, both from a creative and technological aspect, would also be stifled. The companies, brands and individuals that we should be embracing as the visionaries of this creative and collaborative industry will migrate their talents to a more expressive medium.' Meanwhile, Dr. Cheryl K. Olson, author of Grand Theft Childhood, notes that even if California gets its way, it could backfire."
Badgers Digging Up Ancient Human Remains 172
One of England's oldest graveyards is under siege by badgers. Rev Simon Shouler now regularly patrols the grounds of St. Remigius Church looking for bones that the badgers have dug up. The badger is a protected species in England so they can not be killed, and attempts to have them relocated have been blocked by English Nature. From the article: "At least four graves have been disturbed so far; in one instance a child found a leg bone and took it home to his parents. ... Rev. Simon Shouler has been forced to carry out regular patrols to pick up stray bones, store them and re-inter them all in a new grave."
Comment And people wonder why the US is falling behind (Score 5, Insightful) 446
If our kids aren't smart enough to use a ruler without injury, what can we really expect them to learn?
Comment What about a Roku Player (Score 1) 516
The Roku set top boxes have a pretty easy to use scripting language so you can buy one of those for less than $100 and write a quick channel to access your media. They have a table of the media the different players support on their website.
It's a very basic interface but its hard to beat for the price.
EVE Player Loses $1,200 Worth of Game Time In-Game 620
An anonymous reader writes "Massively.com has reported that an EVE Online player recently lost over $1,200 worth of in-game items during a pirate attack. The player in question was carrying 74 PLEX in their ship's cargo hold — in-game 'Pilot's License Extensions' that award 30 days of EVE Online time when used on your account. When the ship was blown up by another player, all 74 PLEX were destroyed in the resulting blast, costing $1,200 worth of damage, or over 6 years of EVE subscription time, however you prefer to count it. Ow."
Comment Re:I'm not worried about those hacks (Score 1, Interesting) 360
You haven't worked on a late model car before.
You can turn systems on an off to troubleshoot them. Before, you could do this mechanically. Now, you have to use a computer.
Setting the speedometer is pretty common when a tire size is changed.
Setting the odometer can usually only be done once each time you replace the instrument cluster.
All I know, as someone that still likes to turn their own wrenches, is that I don't want more security on the only way I can still work on my own car. If they lock me out of the diagnostics port, I won't buy the car.
Comment Re:A few bad apples (Score 0) 597
It seems like a few bad apples also spoil urban golf.
Home-Built Turing Machine 123
stronghawk writes "The creator of the Nickel-O-Matic is back at it and has now built a Turing Machine from a Parallax Propeller chip-based controller, motors, a dry-erase marker and a non-infinite supply of shiny 35mm leader film. From his FAQ: 'While thinking about Turing machines I found that no one had ever actually built one, at least not one that looked like Turing's original concept (if someone does know of one, please let me know). There have been a few other physical Turing machines like the Logo of Doom, but none were immediately recognizable as Turing machines. As I am always looking for a new challenge, I set out to build what you see here.'"
Dead Pigs Used To Investigate Ocean's "Dead Zones" 106
timothy writes "As places to study what happens to corpses, the Atlantic Ocean is both much larger and much more specialized than the famous 'body farm' in Knoxville, TN. But for all kinds of good reasons, sending human bodies into Davy Jones' locker just to see where they float and how they bloat is unpopular. Pigs don't pay taxes, and more importantly, they don't vote. So Canadian scientists have taken to using them as human-body proxies, to study what happens when creatures of similar size and hairlessness (aka, us) end up 86ed and in the drink."
