Comment Paper usage (Score 1) 306
How much more paper will get wasted because of this?
Submission + - Wikipedia Global Outage (wikimedia.org)
gnujoshua writes: The Wikimedia Tech Blog has a post explaining why many users are unable to reach Wikimedia sites due to DNA resolution failure. The article states,
Due to an overheating problem in our European data center many of our servers turned off to protect themselves. As this impacted all Wikipedia and other projects access from European users, we were forced to move all user traffic to our Florida cluster, for which we have a standard quick failover procedure in place, that changes our DNS entries.
However, shortly after we did this failover switch, it turned out that this failover mechanism was now broken, causing the DNS resolution of Wikimedia sites to stop working globally. This problem was quickly resolved, but unfortunately it may take up to an hour before access is restored for everyone, due to caching effects.
We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.Wikimedia Tech Blog.
Comment Re:Post ideas here. (Score 1) 427
Why should our tax dollars pay for some clerk to spend 5 seconds per page of a 100 page document to flip every image, when it's the $500/hour attorney who screwed things up and who should refile, at his or her own expense?
there is a batch processing. and it's not lawyer's fault that USPTO exists in a stone age.
Comment Re:Uhhhh, excuse me but... (Score 1) 305
This would be the same people who just tried to engineer a winter without snow in Russia
no. it's not the same people. and the link you're providing has nothing whatsoever to do with your claim. No executing agency is mentioned, and Moscow ain't Russia.
Comment Re:Andy Oram also edited... (Score 1) 81
Neat idea that needs to be advertised! Not every one enjoys being tricked into support of charities. I, for one, think that Beautiful Code was very poorly edited/organised and written. The only real ideas about beautiful code were Matsumoto's. And they certainly don't warrant either spending money on a book, nor supporting AI.
Submission + - Gmail down worldwide
Firmafest writes: "For the past hour, Gmail has been down as reported by number of users . Google has issued a small statement claiming that it only affects small subset of their users. I've become used to the stability of Gmail, but what happens when you urgently need a piece of your data and the service is down? Is this the price you pay for free, good email?"
Submission + - VIP Stalkers Likely Suffer Serious Mental Illness
Hugh Pickens writes: "A study of 8,000 people stalking members of the royal family from 1988 to 2003 shows that the majority of VIP stalkers suffer from serious psychotic illnesses. "We didn't expect such high rates of psychosis. It was very surprising to us," says Paul Mullen, a forensic psychiatrist at Monash University. Around 3000 of the files covered incidences that were judged to be pranks, or committed by people accidentally or while they were drunk but when Mullen's team examined a sample of the remaining 5000 people judged to be true stalkers about 80% had a serious psychotic illness, including schizophrenia, delusions and hallucinations,. The finding contrasts sharply with people who stalk non-famous people who tend to be rejected lovers, who while they may be depressed and socially inept, don't usually suffer psychosis. Researchers are currently investigating ways to identify which stalkers are likely to pose a threat. "[Stalkers] who are fixated on a cause, and have a highly personalized quest for 'justice', often delusional in nature, are the ones most likely to breach security, and to be carrying weapons," says David James, a forensic psychiatrist at the North London Forensic Service."
Submission + - Major blow for OLPC (bbc.co.uk)
carvell writes: According to reports, it looks like Intel have pulled out of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, citing "philosophical" differences as the reason.
Back in May 2007 the OLPC founder, Nicholas Negroponte said that Intel should be ashamed of themselves, as they had planned a "rival" "classmate" laptop, intended to drive out the OLPC competition. Could this latest development be related to the classmate at all?
Although OLPC appear to be using AMD processors, surely the loss of a major company backing the project will have repercussions for the OLPC project as a whole.
Submission + - Intel drops OLPC support (bbc.co.uk)
siddesu writes: Intel has pulled out of the OLPC project, citing "philosophical differences". An Intel representative, Chuck Molly has commented that OLPC project has asked Intel to drop support for "rival" low-cost PC projects, including Classmate PC, and "to focus on the OLPC platform exclusively. At the end of the day, we decided we couldn't accommodate that request."
The OLPC has not yet commented on the story.
More available on the BBC site and here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119940537839566305.html
The OLPC has not yet commented on the story.
More available on the BBC site and here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119940537839566305.html
Submission + - Intel remove support from OLPC
smithberry writes: The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has not to look far for its troubles lately, as stories on /. over the last few weeks prove. The BBC are now reporting that Intel are removing their support. The article is very brief, but it says
Arstechnica say it changes very little because OLPC are committed to AMD, but I wonder what the long term outlook for OLPC is now? Is this the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end? Have they simply paved the way for some similar project to come along with newer and cheaper hardware and gain from the OLPC concept? So many questions, and only time will tell.Citing "philosophical" differences, Intel has withdrawn its funding and technical help from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project.
Submission + - Google is down
An anonymous reader writes: I've never known Google to be down, but it is as I type this.
http://www.google.com/
Submission + - Google Down? 3
matt writes: "Hey, I don't know what's going on, but it looks like all of Google went down about 10 minutes ago."
Submission + - Should 'unlimited' mean unlimited? 2
Tom Colimbone writes: Recently, Verizon Wireless agreed to settle a probe into the marketing of its Internet usage plans and reimburse $1 million to customers for wrongful account termination. The issue was centered around the use of the word 'unlimited' in its marketing campaigns for mobile Internet access. Interestingly, O2 in the UK just changed its iPhone tariff, as many potential buyers noticed that the 'unlimited' data package that came with the iPhone was actually capped at 200MB, which wasn't unlimited at all. Outside of wireless providers this might seem like a bizarre question to ask but should the word 'unlimited' truly mean unlimited and if so, should anyone misusing the word have to face similar repercussions to Verizon.
Submission + - Intel To Rebrand Processors In 2008 (techarp.com) 1
DJ writes: We just heard from an anonymous source that Intel will be rebranding their processors in 2008. From the Centrino mobile platform to the Itanium 2 server processors, Intel will revamp and consolidate their product lines under these new brands. These new brand names will come into effect on the first day of 2008. Intel hopes that these new brands will not only leverage the strong Core 2 brand but also make it less confusing for the consumer.
At the moment, the Intel Centrino mobile platform has five different logos with brands like Centrino, Centrino Duo and Centrino Pro. Starting from January 1, 2008, Intel will consolidate the Centrino Duo and Centrino brands under the Intel Centrino brand, and rename the Centrino Pro as Intel Centrino with vPro Technology.
Submission + - Font Freedom Day (trumpetpower.com)
TrumpetPower! writes: "On September 29, 1988, the Library of Congress Copyright Office issued a notice of policy decision (4 Mbyte coralized PDF) in the Federal Register “to inform the public that the Copyright Office has decided that digitized representations of typeface designs are not registrable under the Copyright Act because they do not constitute original works of authorship.” In observance of Font Freedom day, go ahead and share some of your favorite fonts with your friends — and do so entirely guilt-free!"
