Comment: What about Road Construction? (Score 1) 374
The worst part of spring happens to be the fact that they can start up road construction on all those major roads. It's not that the roads don't need worked on, it's just bloody inconvenient.
IBM Suspended From US Federal Contracts 136
Posted
by
Zonk
from the shouldn't-aught-to-have-done-that dept.
from the shouldn't-aught-to-have-done-that dept.
theodp writes "IBM has been temporarily banned from receiving future contracts with federal agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed on Monday. The suspension went into effect last Thursday due to 'concerns raised about potential activities involving an EPA procurement,' the agency said in an e-mailed statement. Under a reciprocal agreement among federal agencies, when one issues a ban, the others follow it. The EPA said it will not comment further on the matter. An IBM spokesman said he had no immediate comment. 'You don't see this very often, particularly for large companies,' commented a stunned industry analyst, mentioning a bankrupt MCI as a notable exception. IBM earned an estimated $1.5 billion in revenue from federal prime contracts in fiscal 2007."
+ - Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90->
Submitted
by
Afromelonhead
Afromelonhead writes "BBC News is reporting that science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke has died at the age of 90. He's perhaps best known for his work 2001, A Space Odyssey, although he wrote many other novels over the course of his life."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
+ - Enviromental DVD wrecks Apple drives->
Submitted
by
FST777
FST777 writes "The British Mail on Sunday has published it's latest DVD giveaway on the EcoDisc, a DVD-format half as thin a easily bendable that is supposed to be more environmental-friendly than regular DVD's. Despite the clear warning ("No Apple slot in drive") some Mac users dicided to give it a go, resulting in a damaged drive.
From the article:
Link to Original Source
From the article:
"The EcoDisc's manufacturer, ODS, insists the disc won't break drives. "We've produced over ten million of these discs — we've had less than a dozen phone calls," says managing director, Ray Wheeler. "There are ways to get the discs out."
Wheeler says the problem stems from Apple's slot-loading drives. "It uses an ejection system that doesn't get approval from the DVD Forum." He claims the EcoDisc should work in other types of slot-loading drive, although admits that it hasn't been tested in the PlayStation 3.
Link to Original Source
Stallman Selling Autographs 335
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the happy-hacking-should-be-trademarked dept.
from the happy-hacking-should-be-trademarked dept.
UltimaGuy writes "Sports stars, musicians, and other celebrities have been charging for autographs for years, but who would have thought Richard Stallman would be doing the same? Is this just for fun, or a clever, highly effective protest? Hackers, geeks and nerds gathered together at the 7th FISL - Internacional Free Software Forum, in Porto Alegre (Brazil) last week, were astounded when they got word that Richard Stallman, the founding father of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the GPL, was charging R$ 10 (about US$ 3) for an autograph and R$ 5 (less than US$ 2) to get his picture taken by free software enthusiasts at the event floor."
Golf's Digital Divide 228
Posted
by
CowboyNeal
from the pay-to-play dept.
from the pay-to-play dept.
theodp writes "Are $50,000 simulators and $4,500 sensor vests driving a wedge between golf's haves and have-nots? That's the question posed by the WSJ, who reports that a new generation of expensive high-tech tools is stoking a costly arms race among golfers looking for an edge in a sport that already has an elitist reputation."
Building a Scalable Mail System? 109
Posted
by
Cliff
from the multiple-mail-servers dept.
from the multiple-mail-servers dept.
clusteredMail asks: "I work for a small ISP that up until now has survived with single servers for most critical roles, including the mail server. We are planning to introduce multiple mail servers (primarily for email collection via POP3 and IMAP) and want to put in place the most scalable, resistant to failure system that we can manage. Everything is currently running on one or another flavour of Linux. In my mind, the ultimate scenario would be to have some sort of distributed/clustered file system between the multiple machines, so that any user could log onto any server, and the loss of a single server would not cause downtime for any group of users. Has anyone in the Slashdot community had to put together a system like this using Linux and Open Source Software? If so, how did you fare and what were the major stumbling blocks?"