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Submission + - Why does Slashdot block posting with Tor? (torproject.org)

Submitted by
matthew_t_west
matthew_t_west writes: "Tor's website states that Slashdot blocks posting using a Tor exit relay IP. If you allow posting by "Anonymous Cowards," why don't you allow people to try and do it fairly anonymously? Tor's site alludes to "anonymous jerks messing with its web pages," but nothing in particular. Have there been abuses of posting anonymously?"
Censorship

More Websites Offending Thai Monarchy Blocked 220

Posted by timothy from the really-could-skip-the-whole-prison-thing-altogether dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Thailand is ramping up their media wide censorship of anything that remotely offends Thai royalty. In the last three weeks, another 2,300 websites have been blocked. Another ~4,000 are soon expected. And not just websites, but books as well as the Economist have been blocked. And anyone caught publishing such material, including foreigners, will get 3 to 15 years in a Thai prison. You don't want to be in a Thai prison!"
Data Storage

Stanford's Quantum Hologram Sets Storage Record 210

Posted by timothy from the whiffs-of-ephemera dept.
eldavojohn writes "It's often assumed that representing data reaches a limit when you get to the point that an atom represents one bit in some form or fashion. But Stanford University researchers have used a quantum hologram model to store the characters 'S' and 'U' by encoding the data at a rate of 35 bits per electron."
The Almighty Buck

When To Consider Taking Shares In an IT Company? 315

Posted by timothy from the opportunity-costs-and-the-time-value-of-time dept.
pgpark writes "I've been working as a key resource for a small IT consulting firm in the US. While the job has been interesting and the company's growth quite impressive over the last few years, it's been almost half a dozen years now and being ready for something new, I was ready to quit for consulting. It looks like the CEO would prefer to see me stay, as she is offering me ten percent of shares in the company in exchange for five additional years of my services. So the big question for me now is 'should I stay or should I go now?' Have you guys on Slashdot ever been dealing with such a situation? What points would you consider in order to make your choice?"
The Internet

Charter Launches 60 Mbps Service 299

Posted by timothy from the deepening-the-digital-divide dept.
ndogg writes "While other companies are throttling their services, and capping bandwidth, Charter Communications, the cable company, is launching a 60/5 Internet service, starting in St. Louis, MO. It's certainly not cheap, starting at 129.99 per month (add another 10 if it's not being bundled with television or phone.) Currently, it's the fastest down stream speed available, and being a cable company, they potentially have greater reach than FiOS." However, there may be a risk to putting too much money down on this service; Charter Communications as a company faces some serious financial problems right now. As reader Afforess writes, "rumors abound that Paul Allen may just cut his losses and run," by selling the company. (Allen is the majority stockholder.)
Communications

Scientists "Teleport" Quantum Information One Meter 107

Posted by timothy from the teleport-a-child-and-we'll-be-impressed dept.
the4thdimension writes "While we may not be beaming up to the Enterprise anytime soon, a team of scientists from the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan have managed to teleport information between two atoms up to a meter apart. Until this point, only very tiny distances were able to be traveled. However, using a complicated system of photons, ions, lasers, and electromagnetics, scientists have managed to 'teleport' information contained on one atom to another atom that is in a separate sealed container. This can lead to a wide range of developments in computing and communications." Update: 01/29 22:29 GMT by T : Sorry, it's a dupe, but today's article in Time is better reading than the abstract anyhow.
Data Storage

The Case Against Web Apps 431

Posted by timothy from the only-as-strong-as-its-weakest-data-link dept.
snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister offers five reasons why companies should re-consider concentrating their development efforts on browser-based apps. As McAllister sees it, Web apps encourage a thin-client approach to development that concentrates far too much workload in the datacenter. And while UI and tool limitations are well known, the Web as 'hostile territory' for independent developers is a possibility not yet fully understood. Sure, Web development is fast, versatile, and relatively inexpensive, but long term, the browser's weaknesses might just outweigh its strengths as an app delivery platform."
Communications

CMU Video Conference System Gets 3D From Cheap Webcams 94

Posted by timothy from the little-bit-disorienting dept.
Hesham writes "Carnegie Mellon University's HCI Institute just released details on their "why-didn't-I-think-of-that-style" 3D video conferencing application. Considering how stale development has been in this field, this research seems like a nice solid step towards immersive telepresence. I was really disappointed with the "state-of-the-art" systems demoed at CES this year — they are all still just a flat, square, video stream. Hardly anything new. What is really cool about this project, is that researchers avoided building custom hardware no one is going to ever buy, and explored what could be done with just the generic webcams everyone already has. The result is a software-only solution, meaning all the big players (AIM, Skype, MSN, etc.) can release this as a simple software update. 'Enable 3D' checkbox anyone? YouTube video here. Behind the scenes, it relies on a clever illusory trick (motion parallax) and head-tracking (a la Johnny Lee's Wiimote stuff — same lab, HCII). It was just presented at IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia in December."
Education

OLPC 2.0 — One Laptop Foundation Reboots 187

Posted by timothy from the mouse-keeps-roaring dept.
Greg Huang writes "In early January, the One Laptop Per Child Foundation laid off half its staff and shed work on the Sugar graphical interface. Now, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte and president Chuck Kane for the first time detail the foundation's new plans, describe how the XO laptop will do what netbooks can't do, and share their hope to keep working with Sugar developer Walter Bender, who left OLPC last year."
Graphics

AMD Adds OpenGL 3.0 Support To Graphics Drivers 102

Posted by timothy from the stars-are-aligning dept.
arcticstoat writes "Just a few months after The Khronos Group unveiled the Open GL 3.0 spec last year, AMD has included full support for the new API in its first WHQL driver of 2009 — Catalyst 9.1. OpenGL 3.0 requires DirectX 10-level hardware, such as AMD's Radeon HD series of GPUs. However, unlike Direct3D 10, OpenGL 3.0's features can be enabled on both Windows XP and Vista, as well as Linux and Mac OS, which could be a bonus for game developers looking for a broad base of customers. The Khronos Group claims that OpenGL 3.0 has a 'rough feature parity' with Direct3D 10, and it provides Shader Model 4.0 support, including features such as the Geometry Shader. The Khronos Group also says that the new API will interoperate with the GPGPU API OpenCL, which could allow OpenGL 3.0 to compete with the Compute Shader promised in Microsoft's DirectX 11 API."
Role Playing (Games)

"Live Expansion" Announced for Warhammer Online 170

Posted by Soulskill from the stepping-up-their-game dept.
Zonk brings word that Mythic has announced their plans to expand Warhammer Online in the coming months using a series of live events that will open up new careers, gear, and zones. The first event, planned for sometime in March, will allow access to the Dwarf Slayer and the Orc Choppa, as well as a new RvR scenario. Later, players will race to unlock a massive new zone, the Lands of the Dead. The expansion itself is titled "A Call to Arms," and it will be rolled out free of charge.
Security

Fannie Mae Worker Indicted For Malicious Script 325

Posted by Soulskill from the good-thing-their-engineers-bailed-them-out dept.
dfdashh writes "A former Fannie Mae contractor has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Baltimore, MD for computer intrusion. He attempted to propagate a malicious script throughout the company's 4,000 servers. The DC Examiner has details of the incident: 'Had this malicious script executed, [Fannie Mae] engineers expect it would have caused millions of dollars of damage and reduced if not shutdown operations at [Fannie Mae] for at least one week. ... The virus was set to execute at 9 a.m. Jan. 31, first disabling Fannie Mae's computer monitoring system and then cutting all access to the company's 4,000 servers, Nye wrote. Anyone trying to log in would receive a message saying "Server Graveyard." From there, the virus would wipe out all Fannie Mae data, replacing it with zeros, Nye wrote. Finally, the virus would shut down the servers.'"
Technology

LED Lighting As Cheap As CFLs Invented 553

Posted by Soulskill from the bright-ideas dept.
mcgrew writes "New Scientist reports that a British team has overcome the obstacles to cheap LED lighting, and that LED lamps as cheap as CFLs will be on the market in five years. Quoting: 'Gallium nitride cannot be grown on silicon like other solid-state electronic components because it shrinks at twice the rate of silicon as it cools. Crystals of GaN must be grown at 1000C, so by the time a new LED made on silicon has cooled, it has already cracked, rendering the devices unusable. One solution is to grow the LEDs on sapphire, which shrinks and cools at much the same rate as GaN. But the expense is too great to be commercially competitive. Now Colin Humphreys's team at the University of Cambridge has discovered a simple solution to the shrinkage problem. They included layers of aluminium gallium nitride in their LED design... These LEDs can be grown on silicon as so many other electronics components are. ... A 15-centimetre silicon wafer costs just $15 and can accommodate 150,000 LEDs making the cost per unit tiny.'"
Privacy

More Claims From NSA Whistleblower Russell Tice 271

Posted by Soulskill from the where-does-it-end dept.
eldavojohn writes "Russell Tice, former NSA employee & whistleblower, has revealed yet more details claiming that wiretapping was combined with credit card data to target civilians. He also suggests the CEOs of major companies hold the truth: 'To get at what's really going on here, the CEOs of these telecom companies, and also of the banking and credit card companies, and any other company where you have big databases, those are the people you have to haul in to Congress and tell them you better tell the truth.' Will Congress follow his suggestions?" This adds to information revealed by Tice last week that the wiretaps targeted journalists in particular.

Comment Re:1998 called. It wants its issues back. (Score 1) 445

by matthew_t_west (#26117479) Attached to: The Economist Suggests Linux For Netbooks
I have the same experience with home/family support. I work in IT at a college and I can also explain computers and their functions to people so they understand and replicate what they need.

I bought my wife and will be giving my children Apple machines. Easy to use, has a pretty decent command prompt, is transparent as I want in most circumstances, rarely needs a restart, and well, is just the best computer for the money. I don't see it as that "Luxury." Buy a used/refurbished iBook/MacBook or iMac or MacMini and try it out. Get the warranty. Use an educational discount. Show your cleavage and ask for discounts. Save your coffee/beer/weed/crack money for a couple of months. Whatever. It's still worth it IMO.

I would love to switch my extended family over to OS X or Linux, but they choose to stay with Windows. God anything would be better than windows. Fucking Minix would be better than Windows.

BUT

My father-in-law "has to use Outlook." That's just a shitty policy for any company, yes, including blue shops, but let's not get into that. That ties him to Windows. Period. No Parallels, No VMWare, and hell no WINE.

Same with all my other extended family. They have some app they cling to or "don't want to learn a new OS." Most don't even know what an OS is. How do you overcome that? Put it on things they use. If you have some amazing netbook that everyone wants, they will use Linux if that's what comes on it. If some amazing phone comes out that natively runs linux and gets market share, then people will use linux.

I'm just happy that Dell and ASUS offer Linux support at all.

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