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Comment Tap into America (Score 3, Interesting) 345

I had a similar situation with my DSL ... it was fast during the day but slowed dramatically in the evening. It turns out that there was a tap on the line someplace. The first two techs were clueless, but finally somebody brought out a special piece of diagnostic equipment and found that there was a tap on the line exactly 2200 feet (or whatever) from the house. (I would guess they send a burst down the line and wait for a reflection.) A day or two later they sent someone out to remove the tap and all was well. Good luck!
Google

Google Caffeine Drops MapReduce, Adds "Colossus" 65

An anonymous reader writes "With its new Caffeine search indexing system, Google has moved away from its MapReduce distributed number crunching platform in favor of a setup that mirrors database programming. The index is stored in Google's BigTable distributed database, and Caffeine allows for incremental changes to the database itself. The system also uses an update to the Google File System codenamed 'Colossus.'"

Comment Re:try photoshop elements (Score 1) 326

Agreed! I was surprised Photoshop Elements wasn't mentioned earlier in all these replies. It writes data to the files and also stores it in a db, so you get the best of both worlds: your photos are portable, with all their info, and as a bonus for you tech guys and gals, you can hack the SqlLite db it uses.

However I don't believe it does non-destructive edits, if that's important to you. Personally, the fact the Picasa doesn't write the edits to the file is a dealbreaker for me.

Comment Re:Not NEWS? (Score 1) 125

In the late 60's or early 70's Mad magazine had a few pages of cartoons ("art"?) made on a typewriter. One that struck me was a rocket, looking something like this:

A
H
H
I

(imagine it in Courier ...)

A few years later I had a BASIC programming class, and when we finally got a few CRTs (to replace the printout only outputs we had previously) one of the first things I did, now that things could really "move"!, was to write a program to make this Ascii rocket take off! I remember showing it off to others in the class.

But, alas, this discovery from 1968 means I can no longer claim to be "the father of computer animation." Oh well, it was time for new business cards anyway ...

Comment Mad Magazine - PDP 7 (Score 1) 125

In the late 60's or early 70's Mad magazine had a few pages of cartoons ("art"?) made on a typewriter. One that struck me was a rocket, looking something like this: A H H I (imagine it in Courier ...) A few years later I had a BASIC programming class, and when we finally got a few CRTs (to replace the printout only outputs we had previously) one of the first things I did, now that things could really "move"!, was to write a program to make this Ascii rocket take off! I remember showing it off to others in the class. But, alas, this discovery from 1968 means I can no longer claim to be "the father of computer animation." Oh well, it was time for new business cards anyway ...

Comment Re:Well... Why? (Score 1) 208

I'm sure these were as far the the bank could tell proper and secure transactions.

Based on what? That the thief had the routing and checking account numbers? Those numbers are so easy to get it's equivalent to no security at all.

How about if automated clearing house transfers only worked if you'd authorized the payee in advance?

This would probably mean some practices would need to change, but isn't that better than what we have now, where anybody you've ever written a check to can scoop money out of your account any time they want?

Operating Systems

Submission + - DragonFly BSD to develop own filesystem

An anonymous reader writes: Matt Dillon has decided to develop a new filesystem from scratch to support DragonFly's clustering, rather than port an existing one. From his post: "There are currently two rough spots in the design. First, how to handle segment overflows in a multi-master environment. Such overflows can occur when the individual masters or slaves have different historical data retention policies. Second, where to store the regeneratable indexes."
Movies

Submission + - Jesus: Tales from the Crypt

gollum123 writes: "Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you 'The Titanic' is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he's sinking is Christianity ( http://time-blog.com/middle_east/2007/02/jesus_tal es_from_the_crypt.html ). In a new documentary, Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn't resurrected — the cornerstone of Christian faith — and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene. Let's go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem. The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua. But film-makers Cameron and Jacobovici claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, archeological evidence and Biblical studies, that the 10 coffins belong to Jesus and his family. Cameron is holding a New York press conference on Monday at which he will reveal three coffins, supposedly those of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene."

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