Submission + - Terry Pratchett has Alzheimers (smh.com.au) 1
Hecatonchires writes: A blow to discworld fans everywhere. Terry Pratchett has announced he has a rare form of early onset alzheimers.
Submission + - Terry Pratchett has early onset Alzheimer's
JaJ_D writes: According to Paul Kidby's website, Terry Pratchet has been diagonsed with early onset Alzheimer's.
From the site:
would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, which lay behind this year's phantom "stroke".
Jaj
From the site:
would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, which lay behind this year's phantom "stroke".
Jaj
Submission + - A&E beaming adverts directly into your head. 2
Fantastic Lad writes: Hear Voices? It May Be an Ad. New Yorker Alison Wilson was walking down Prince Street in SoHo last week when she heard a woman's voice right in her ear asking, "Who's there? Who's there?" She looked around to find no one in her immediate surroundings. Then the voice said, "It's not your imagination." Indeed it isn't. It's an ad for "Paranormal State," a ghost-themed series premiering on A&E this week. The billboard uses technology manufactured by Holosonic that transmits an "audio spotlight" from a rooftop speaker so that the sound is contained within your cranium.
Submission + - Germany moves to ban Scientology (bbc.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: "German federal and state interior ministers declared the Church of Scientology unconstitutional on Friday, opening the door for a possible ban on the organization.
Earlier this week, a Berlin district set up an office to deal with complaints about Scientology.
Koerting said Germany's domestic intelligence agencies should continue gathering information on the legality of Scientology's activities in Germany so that a decision could be made on what to do about it next year."
Earlier this week, a Berlin district set up an office to deal with complaints about Scientology.
Koerting said Germany's domestic intelligence agencies should continue gathering information on the legality of Scientology's activities in Germany so that a decision could be made on what to do about it next year."
Submission + - NIST Creates Perpetual Motion (dailytech.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The DailyTech writes that "The National Institute of Standards and Technology, in conjunction with the University of Maryland's Joint Quantum Institute, created a short-lived "proof of concept" of perpetual motion. Using an exotic type of matter known as a Bose Einstein condensate, or BEC, the team demonstrated true perpetual motion. Though the state persisted only ten seconds, team members say it will one day lead to real-world applications."
http://www.dailytech.com/NIST+Creates+Perpetual+Motion++But+Only+for+10+Seconds/article9865.htm
Submission + - Should we have the right to breed? 11
An anonymous reader writes: I just finished reading Garret Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons and I'm having a little trouble coming to grips with it. In the essay Hardin argues that in a world with finite resources we must stabilize the population at less than the carrying capacity in order to maintain quality of life. However, "Confronted with appeals to limit breeding, some people will undoubtedly respond to the plea more than others. Those who have more children will produce a larger fraction of the next generation than those with more susceptible consciences. The differences will be accentuated, generation by generation." Hardin therefore suggests that we must legally restrict freedom to breed.
However such restrictions would require a invasion of our privacy to a degree that strikes me as simply intolerable. But I'm curious, what do slashdot readers think? Is Hardin's logic sound? If it is, is controlling the population important enough that we should give up what we have long accepted as some of our most basic rights in order to achieve it?
However such restrictions would require a invasion of our privacy to a degree that strikes me as simply intolerable. But I'm curious, what do slashdot readers think? Is Hardin's logic sound? If it is, is controlling the population important enough that we should give up what we have long accepted as some of our most basic rights in order to achieve it?
Submission + - Comment Spam with a twist - help!
An anonymous reader writes: My wife is the victim of porn comment spam. It isn't her site that's hit; it's her name. Some scum-bag porn-link site with about 10,000 pages dedicated to the most obnoxious "click here!" porn, is using comment spam to drive up it's search rank. Nothing new, right? But usually those comment links are a drug name or the name of a porn-star. This idiot, or his robot, however, have decided that my wife, due to her poetry page, is a porn star, and now a google search on her name comes up with a huge number of comment-spam hits. Those links, if you click them, take you to a pages filled with porn. Help!!
My wife is a very kind, moral, feminist, porn-hating, religious person, and a preacher's kid to boot. Needless to say, she's never stared in a porno, and none of those pics are of her. Her name is quite unique, and the offending source page has a ton of text copied from her site (without permission) to ensure it gets picked up in the searches — there is no coincidence in the name.
She's frenzied and quite beside herself. I've tried the obvious — the porn site is, of course, not listed with a real email or address in whois. The registrar doesn't seem reputable, and won't respond to emails. I keep submitting the blog or gallery pages with the comment spam on them to google's abuse department, but the scum-bag's comment spam robot can generate a lot more of these than I can.
My wife is on the verge of changing her name and moving to Tibet. All we want is for the offending page to be removed, and the spammer to stop using her name. How can I get through to these people?
I really don't want to drive up the hits on this site, but you can see the kind of page it is by opening nnnn dot sneerpan dot info, where nnnn is any four digit number (definitely NOT safe for work!) I'm desperate for any advice from the Slashdot community! Please help me prevent my wife's imminent nervous breakdown.
My wife is a very kind, moral, feminist, porn-hating, religious person, and a preacher's kid to boot. Needless to say, she's never stared in a porno, and none of those pics are of her. Her name is quite unique, and the offending source page has a ton of text copied from her site (without permission) to ensure it gets picked up in the searches — there is no coincidence in the name.
She's frenzied and quite beside herself. I've tried the obvious — the porn site is, of course, not listed with a real email or address in whois. The registrar doesn't seem reputable, and won't respond to emails. I keep submitting the blog or gallery pages with the comment spam on them to google's abuse department, but the scum-bag's comment spam robot can generate a lot more of these than I can.
My wife is on the verge of changing her name and moving to Tibet. All we want is for the offending page to be removed, and the spammer to stop using her name. How can I get through to these people?
I really don't want to drive up the hits on this site, but you can see the kind of page it is by opening nnnn dot sneerpan dot info, where nnnn is any four digit number (definitely NOT safe for work!) I'm desperate for any advice from the Slashdot community! Please help me prevent my wife's imminent nervous breakdown.
Submission + - CAPTCHA broken - thanks to a virtual stripper (bbc.co.uk) 3
Dynamoo writes: "A few months ago there was some speculation that spammers had managed to break the security CAPTCHA for many webmail systems and were using them to spread viruses and junk email. The problem was that no-one could actually demonstrate a mechanism to defeat the security code.
However, an novel approach has been documented by the BBC, suggesting that a virtual stripper application may be partly to blame. The woman in the application progressively undresses if the user types in the correct CAPTCHA code.. a code that is actually being generated by the Yahoo! mail security check. The application itself is a trojan, dubbed TROJ_CAPTCHAR.A by Trend."
However, an novel approach has been documented by the BBC, suggesting that a virtual stripper application may be partly to blame. The woman in the application progressively undresses if the user types in the correct CAPTCHA code.. a code that is actually being generated by the Yahoo! mail security check. The application itself is a trojan, dubbed TROJ_CAPTCHAR.A by Trend."
Submission + - Genuine offer to hack my computer (rustylime.com)
Gumbercules!! writes: "This is a genuine, most definitely one time only offer to attempt to tell me the root password to my own computer. You see, I am shutting down my ADSL account in a day and a half and before it goes, I thought it would be fun to see if the box that's kept me online since 2001 is really all that secure.
The full story is located at http://www.rustylime.com/show_article.php?id=945. Unfortunately, you only have until the 1st of November 2007 to break the password before the account is terminated."
Submission + - Ubuntu may be killing your laptop's hard drive 1
wwrmn writes: There's a debate [bugs.launchpad.net] on whether it's the Ubuntu, BIOS, hard drive manufacturer or pick any player's fault, but Ubuntu (and perhaps any OS) may be dramatically shortening the life of your laptop's hard-drive due to an aggressive power saving feature/acpi bug/OS configuration. Regardless of where the fault lies or how it's fixed, you might want to take some actions now to try to prevent it.
Submission + - How to turn lots of small machines into storage? 1
cyber-dragon.net writes: I am trying to build a storage system which will accommodate the throughput of running about 400 VMWare ESX images without the cost of a SAN or NAS. I know... insert comments about PHBs and budgets.
What I DO have access to is LOTS of appliance level machines which are Linux capable that are small enough I can put two per 1U. They have 80Gb drives or thereabouts and Celeron processors as well as gigabit nics. As I researched storage I kept running across articles about how Google uses tons of small machines for fast access and thought there was a chance this could work for me . Yes I know their requirements are different and that style of array is not what I need but something using the same concepts might work.
The main problems to overcome:
What I DO have access to is LOTS of appliance level machines which are Linux capable that are small enough I can put two per 1U. They have 80Gb drives or thereabouts and Celeron processors as well as gigabit nics. As I researched storage I kept running across articles about how Google uses tons of small machines for fast access and thought there was a chance this could work for me . Yes I know their requirements are different and that style of array is not what I need but something using the same concepts might work.
The main problems to overcome:
- Data redundancy... if I loose one box I want to be able to just plug another one in
- Access speed... needs to be fast enough to support 400 running virtual machines so would likely have to span the data across several since each individual HD is not fast enough to support more than one.
Data point on this... a pair of 10k RPM SCSI drives in RAID 0 runs 12 of these just fine. - Adding space... would love to be able to just plug another one in and get more space
Submission + - Bioshock cracked
An anonymous reader writes: In less than a week after the official release first fully-working cracks for popular Bioshock game are circulating in torrent communities. Most effective of cracks completely removes any need for any serial number, registration, or even the presence of the internet connection.
One can't help but ponder did the money poured into the protection scheme, support for the said protection scheme, and backslash caused by inconveniencing users accomplish any of the goals they were aiming for. I myself will be enjoying this title the way God intended — without anyone watching over me, and without my game calling home every 10 seconds.
One can't help but ponder did the money poured into the protection scheme, support for the said protection scheme, and backslash caused by inconveniencing users accomplish any of the goals they were aiming for. I myself will be enjoying this title the way God intended — without anyone watching over me, and without my game calling home every 10 seconds.
Submission + - Windows Is Free (... or at least thought to be) (tlug.jp)
ebisudave writes: "Most debate on Windows, Mac, and Linux seems to omit the overwhelming impact that pirated software has on the marketplace. Whether or not Linux is incrementally better, or a little worse but for free, is irrelevant to most consumers because they are already running free software. The cost of moving from one platform to another is entirely in the unfamiliarity.
This article explores the issue, and concludes with a bit of a reality check for use in your next debate about operating systems."
This article explores the issue, and concludes with a bit of a reality check for use in your next debate about operating systems."
Submission + - Hover cars have arrived for sale (news.com.au)
Obsidianau writes: "FLying hover cars commercialised for between $90,000 and $140,000
gentlemen start your hovercars"
Submission + - USPTO Rejects Eolas Plug-In Patent Claims
theodp writes: "As Microsoft and Eolas work towards settling their long-running web plug-in patent lawsuit that resulted in a $521 million judgment against Microsoft and gave rise to the click-to-activate-and-use-this-control web, the USPTO has issued a non-final rejection of the patent's claims, citing the work of Pei-Yuan Wei as prior art."
