JBL2 - Slashdot User

Best Man Rigs Newlyweds' Bed To Tweet During Sex 272

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 17, 2009 @09:40PM from the nice-feed dept.

When an UK man was asked to be the best man at a friend's wedding he agreed that he would not pull any pranks before or during the ceremony. Now the groom wishes he had extended the agreement to after the blessed occasion as well. The best man snuck into the newlyweds' house while they were away on their honeymoon and placed a pressure-sensitive device under their mattress. The device now automatically tweets when the couple have sex. The updates include the length of activity and how vigorous the act was on a scale of 1-10.

NASA Tests Flying Airbag 118

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 09, 2009 @03:10PM from the drop-the-cloud-anchor dept.

coondoggie writes "NASA is looking to reduce the deadly impact of helicopter crashes on their pilots and passengers with what the agency calls a high-tech honeycomb airbag known as a deployable energy absorber. So in order to test out its technology NASA dropped a small helicopter from a height of 35 feet to see whether its deployable energy absorber, made up of an expandable honeycomb cushion, could handle the stress. The test crash hit the ground at about 54MPH at a 33 degree angle, what NASA called a relatively severe helicopter crash."

Sharp Rise In Jailing of Online Journalists; Iran May Just Kill Them 233

Posted by timothy on Tuesday December 08, 2009 @10:20AM from the your-ethics-may-vary dept.

bckspc writes "The Committee to Protect Journalists has published their annual census of journalists in prison. Of the 136 reporters in prison around the world on December 1, 'At least 68 bloggers, Web-based reporters, and online editors are imprisoned, constituting half of all journalists now in jail.' Print was next with 51 cases. Also, 'Freelancers now make up nearly 45 percent of all journalists jailed worldwide, a dramatic recent increase that reflects the evolution of the global news business.' China, Iran, Cuba, Eritrea, and Burma were the top 5 jailers of journalists." rmdstudio writes, too, with word that after the last few days' protest there, largely organized online, the government of Iran is considering the death penalty for bloggers and webmasters whose reports offend it.

Comment How is Facebook going to distribute... (Score 5, Interesting) 179

by JBL2 on Friday October 30, 2009 @02:03PM (#29926567) Attached to: Facebook Awarded $711 Million In Anti-Spam Case

... the money to the users who suffered damage?

Comment Re:Anonymous Coward (Score 1) 102

by JBL2 on Friday August 21, 2009 @09:31AM (#29145521) Attached to: ACP, One of the Oldest Open Source Apps

"How it was" -- when the value of the system was concentrated in the hardware. The whole system was set up to serve the most valuable part, and software was seen as "directions to run the hardware" -- important, one supposed, but not the showy part. With commodity hardware, the value is in the bits and bytes now.

Comment Basics (Score 2, Insightful) 1146

by JBL2 on Wednesday August 05, 2009 @05:16AM (#28953743) Attached to: Navigating a Geek Marriage?

My experience: 1. Find out what's important to HER. For instance, birthdays never seemed a big deal to me, but she likes a little bit of a celebration -- nothing fancy, mind, but a few ribbons here & there. 2. Listen beyond the words. Something that doesn't usually bother her might get to her sometimes; find out why she was unhappy to start with. Work, relationship, family, ... 3. Do something unexpected and nice once in a while. 4. Trust her. I know it sounds obvious, but I was hesitant to tell her about some things first. I did, anyway, and eventually found that it's much less a big deal when you're in it together. Good luck!

Comment Re:That's not a good replacement (Score 1) 891

by JBL2 on Wednesday July 01, 2009 @12:26PM (#28544115) Attached to: GPS-Based System For Driving Tax Being Field Tested

Agreed. Using odometers to track mileage gets them the information they need, and not the information more subject to abuse, at less cost.
The federal government doesn't need to track individual cars, just the aggregate. Lots of state DOTs already do that, with standard traffic-analysis tools. Why build more bureaucracy?

Comment Re:old/weird cars? (Score 1) 891

by JBL2 on Wednesday July 01, 2009 @12:12PM (#28543787) Attached to: GPS-Based System For Driving Tax Being Field Tested

Don't forget: this is a GOVERNMENT program. Remember digital TV? By the time it's implemented, your "'65 Porsche" will be a 2065 Porsche.

Comment Yahoo has a good page, too (Score 2, Informative) 106

by JBL2 on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @11:20AM (#28452901) Attached to: Google To Promote Web Speed On New Dev Site

Yahoo! has a handy page (http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/) with lots of good info. It includes YSlow (a Firefox add-on), a set of "Best Practices," and some good research. Also references a couple of O'Reilly books (which, to be fair, I haven't read).

More specifically, CSS sprites (see http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sprites/) and consolidating Javascript may be back (reducing HTTP requests), and a few other things that may surprise or inform.

Comment do it yourself (Score 1) 448

by JBL2 on Monday September 15, 2008 @09:36AM (#25009061) Attached to: Successful Moonlighting For Geeks?

Buy the Home Despot or Black & Decker book, learn some new skills. You will save a ton, and can use those skills next time around. (Words of warning: read the explanations first, especially for plumbing and electrical, and check into permits/inspections. And draw good diagrams -- it'll pay off handsomely in short order.)

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