Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Possibly the coolest cyberwar article I've read (Score 4, Insightful) 131

The part about the differences in loyalties of the Symantec researchers was telling, though.

"We don't care if this harms something important our country is doing to stop madmen from getting the Fist of God. We have customers to do business with!"

You're looking at this the wrong way; fighting computer viruses is akin to fighting biological viruses, it benefits everyone. Even if stuxnet was being used in some sort of covert fashion, you don't go around using viruses as weapons without having an effective vaccination/cure in place.

Comment Re:LAMP (Score 1) 467

Yeah, I picked up Linux when I was about 13 or 14. I was trying to set up a web server for a forum my friends and I ran. While my server never really got off the ground, I used what I learned to set up web servers and websites for business and student organizations at school.

Comment Re:Germany w/o Petroleum = Sorta Wrong (Score 1) 764

Today we have massive amounts of both relatively easily obtained oil from oil shale.

Actually, shales are predominantly a source of Natural Gas. The permeability (measurement of ability to transport) of shales is so small due to the tight pore space, that very few liquids actually make it to the wellbore. Its much easier for the gas molecules to make it to the wellbore.
Speaking of natural gas, I believe that's what we'll be running our vehicles on in the upcoming years. Combustion engines only require a few modifications to burn it and we have abundant sources in all the new shale plays being produced right now. Reservoir estimates indicate we have a 200 year supply of natural gas.

Submission + - Trouble sleeping? Maybe it's your iPad (cnn.com)

An anonymous reader writes: More than ever, consumer electronics — particularly laptops, smartphones and Apple's new iPad — are shining bright light into our eyes until just moments before we doze off. Now there's growing concern that these glowing gadgets may actually fool our brains into thinking it's daytime. Exposure can disturb sleep patterns and exacerbate insomnia, some sleep researchers said in interviews.

Comment Re:It should read 'stoopid people hath spoken' (Score 5, Insightful) 982

As stupid as it is, its the law. He has an obligation to follow the law, not a moral technical compass. If there is a problem with the law then it needs to be changed not broken. You are your technical vigilantes need to be stopped from taking technology into your own hands.

How exactly was he breaking the law? As I understand it, the whole issue wasn't that he tampered with anything. Instead, he refused to disclose the passwords when the person requesting them did not follow proper protocols.

Comment Comparison to movies. (Score 2, Insightful) 278

The problem with comparing this to movies is that MPAA Rating system isn't law, merely a voluntary policy (Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_America_film_rating_system) Stores that refuse to sell/rent R-Rated Movies/M-Rated games to minors are well within their rights; stores are free to conduct their business as they wish. However, on that same note, stores can also choose to sell these movies/games to whoever they want.

Comment Re:and...? (Score 2, Interesting) 664

With the quality of some professors, you could learn more my specifically not going to class.

I totally agree with this statement. I'm a engineering sophomore right now and there are just some teachers who are just plain horrible. I specifically recall one physics lecture where my grade IMPROVED when I stopped going to lecture. This semester, there are some other classes with the same "quality" teaching, which I'd really like to skip, but the professor has an attendance policy. So, my laptop has become my saving grace. Mind, I dont do anything too distracting, usually just surfing the web or working on other assignments. I've come to find that the classes with attendance policies either mean either the class or the professor is worthless.

Comment Re:TBO 100 hours (Score 1) 303

It takes me 30 minutes to drive to work every day. It is a 22 mi (no I am not converting it to km for the rest of you) drive one way. So if I follow the windy ass road through the farm fields and behind all of the big rigs and tractors, I get there in 30 minutes. If I get thirty minutes in the air, point my jet pack at the proper flight azimuth to go straight to work, I wager I could make it most of the way there every morning. At the least, I could make it to the petrol station and refill.

Good enough for me.

Comment Re:False analogy. (Score 1) 664

In fact often the exact opposite - one of my friends back when we where studying told me that he remembers lectures better when doodling (he got top marks in his masters degree), back then I started doodling and found that I have the same experience, doodling "removes" the bored part of me and helps me focus on whats going on.

These days I do the same during meetings and I find that I cope better with the meeting and often remember better what went on.

Comment Re:Wait.... (Score 1) 664

It has to do with practicality. You've got limited numbers of professors, and huge amounts of students. For some general courses, packing 200 students into a lecture hall is about the only way to cover the material.

When it comes to more specific courses, where you're only going to get 20 students anyway, a seminar format works better.

And yes, I'm a grad student.

Comment Re:Sun had 20 years, and still lost the OS battle. (Score 2, Interesting) 241

So, they made a single error (not releasing Solaris under the GPL 10 years earlier) and wound up losing one battle because of it. They did not lose the Java battle (although if Oracle does not pull it together, Java may yet be crushed by .NET) and they did not lose the OpenOffice.org/StarOffice battle (they do not have Microsoft's market share, but adoption of OpenOffice.org is certainly growing), and those two are probably much more important than Solaris, in the long run; had Sun realized this sooner, perhaps they would not have been taken over.

Slashdot Top Deals

I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

Working...