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The typical small UPS system has some amount of surge protection built-in. But it's typically only good for at most a couple thousand joules. But then, if you get a spike that is big enough to blow a varister, you also get to buy a new ups.

A better solution is to put a "whole house" surge protector on the circuit-breaker panel. It protects everything, with a much higher number of joules. Five or six pounds of varisters can absorb a lot more shock than one ounce of varisters. They cost about $100, and can be found at most big hardware stores or electrical supply houses. That doesn't eliminate the need for a ups. It does protect the ups, along with the other equipment, from most voltage spikes.

Last year, lightning hit the power pole 20 feet from my house. We know where it hit because the pole caught fire. My next-door neighbors on both sides lost every single piece of electrical equipment -- not just computers, TV's, and stereos, but also fridge, microwave, water heater, and range. All of it was damaged beyond repair. We barely noticed the hit, except for the bright flash of light, and had no damage at all.

I can offer you a Happy Thought UPS. It's a box of puppies. Be careful though, it only has 500 puppy Amps of capacity.

Realistically, this article is light on the quotes of Linus because the article is trying to make a big deal out of Linus' words "I personally consider security bugs to be just 'normal bugs'. I don't cover them up, but I also don't have any reason what-so-ever to think it's a good idea to track them and announce them as something special."

At that point, slashdot and schneier.com are just trolling. Read the whole email I quote above:

We went through this discussion a couple of weeks ago, and I had absolutely zero interest in explaining it again.

I personally don't like embargoes. I don't think they work. That means that I want to fix things asap. But that also means that there is never a time when you can "let people know", except when it's not an issue any more, at which point there is no _point_ in letting people know any more.

So I personally consider security bugs to be just "normal bugs". I don't cover them up, but I also don't have any reason what-so-ever to think it's a good idea to track them and announce them as something special.

So there is no "policy". Nor is it likely to change.

It's a flamebait email thread. Linus has harsh words for BSD. Nobody ever said Linus doesn't do that -- but this is not security through obscurity.

His take on security issues is simply: they're bugs. Deal with it.

The article quote is completely out of context, go read the full thread and see what he really said. His main point is that security bugs are like any other bug. He doesn't see the point in putting code that can trip bugs into the git reports, whether it is a security bug or otherwise.

junctionvin writes "The company Sustainable Power Corp. claims to have created a form of bio-crude oil from agricultural refuse. They use agro-waste from cracked soy beans, rice and cotton seed hulls, grain sorghum, milo, and jatropha and turn it into bio-crude oil. This crude can then be further refined into everything from gasoline to jet fuel and just about every petrochemical in between. The CEO is quoted: 'Our biggest problem is that we are too good to be true. We can literally replace every gallon of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel in the United States using just 12 percent of the waste byproducts in the country.' They also claim that their fuel burns to near 100 percent efficiency." The article doesn't mention what price the "vetrolium" would command in today's market or going forward, except to report the CEO's promise "to one day sell his gasoline for $1 less than the pump price for regular fuel, no matter what the cost. 'Even if it's $2 per gallon, I'll sell mine for $1,"' he said."

They say a girl should always dress for the man she wants
so why am I laying here thin and bare and gaunt?
It's all because some hacker came and murdered me
So now I'm being dug up so he can cop a plea

I should have gone to free credit report dot com
I could have seen him comin at me like an atom bomb
They monitor your credit and send you email alearts
So you don't end up being used as wormfood in the dirt.

I can't speak for McCain, but go watch Obama at Google and tell me that he has no passion for tech issues. Half of his broader economic plan boils down to putting our faith in science and technology again -- we'll never be competitive with China at building toys out of injection-molded plastic -- we can be competitive in the technological arena.

Half the reason I started following him back before it was popular was because he was one of the few candidates that I heard that even acknowledges the war on science and all the ill effects that we've suffered as a result.

The people who write those reviews are almost always elitist movie snobs, who are missing the point that it's a *movie*, not high art.

They aren't missing the point. You are. There's only so much information you can pack into a 'star rating'

Movie Critics are rating movies by how good they are on a multitude of levels. A 4 star movie has to be entertaining, interesting, thought provoking, well written, well directed, well acted, etc, etc, etc.

The Phantom Menace might hit the entertaining button but its a dismal fail on most other criteria. Its poorly acted, poorly written, poorly directed...

People go to the movies to be entertained for 2 hours. A simple popcorn-muncher is sometimes all you really want.

You are practically admitting it right here, that you KNOW and AGREE they are crappy movies!! But you like watching them anyway. That's fine... I do too... a one or two star rating doesn't mean you won't enjoy the movie and shouldn't go see it, but rather you shouldn't expect it be a 'Godfather II'.

I'm personally looking forward to the new Indy.

Me too. However I'm now expecting it to be 'summer popcorn fun' not 'groundbreaking brilliant'. (Which if you'd seen the previous 3, 'summer popcorn fun' is really what you should have been expecting all along.)

The other thing that ruins reviews like this is a fanboy gets his crush on, and waits in anticipation for 10-20 years, and has all these grandiose ideas of what the movie should or shouldn't look/feel/smell like, and then there's no possible way for the movie to live up to that much internal-hype.

To a point, but I don't think it affects the movie's rating overall as much as all that. The last crusade came out in 89. Anyone under 25 is pretty much immune to that effect and will see the movie for its own merit. A lot of people under 30 haven't even seen the first 3.

That's what happened with the new Star Wars trilogy (although Jar-Jar made me want to stab Lucas in the throat...)

No. The new Star Wars was just shit. The originals were defining movies for a generation. Most kids today have already forgotten the new trilogy. They had no pent up expectations, and they still couldn't care less about them. Face it, they just weren't that good.

None of the new star wars movies made the imdb top 250. All 3 of the Lord of the Rings movies made the top 30. Both trilogies had MASSIVE fanboy followings and pent up expectations and both movies faced the wrath of the screaming fanboys. But at the end of it all Star Wars competely sucked. LotR didn't. It's just that simple.

Google has begun blurring faces in its Street View service, which has spawned privacy concerns since its introduction last year.

My understanding is that people in public should have no expectations of privacy. Or is that just a U.S. thing? Furthermore, as their algorithms get better, will Google skip blurring the faces of famous people? They certainly have no expectations of privacy in public.

drfireman writes "I know I'm not alone in looking forward to the availability of a decent LED light bulb to replace my short-lived, electricity-hogging, hot-running incandescents and my garish, mercury-filled compact fluorescents. The C. Crane company seems to pop up near the top of my searches, so I end up at their site a lot, and their new bulb, the GeoBulb, seems finally to be orderable (but "out of stock" until 5/14), after a while of being in a "coming soon" mode. The price is of course horrifying (about $120 per bulb). But the specs look good — about 800 lumens for less than 8 watts, and it's available in three color temperatures. I have no affiliation with this company, I haven't even bought any of their other products, but I'm seriously tempted to buy a few of these, and try them in some spots where the other kinds of bulbs don't thrive. Am I right to get excited about these, or do I just need to learn how to read the second page when Googling for LED bulbs?"

Socguy writes "Few Canadians are taking a controversial new cholesterol-lowering drug compared with millions in the United States, where the medication has been heavily promoted, according to a new study that suggests advertising may have a greater influence on the use of a medication than scientific evidence.

Ezetimibe is not recommended by health authorities as the first option for patients seeking to control cholesterol in Canada or the United States, according to the study, and has been the subject of growing debate over its effectiveness compared with other medication.

That has led researchers to believe that other factors — particularly heavy promotion to U.S. consumers — have contributed to its rapid sales growth in that country and its sluggish performance here.

The study said that more than $200-million (U.S.) was spent on direct-to-consumer advertising for Vytorin in 2007 and that sales of the drug recently eclipsed $5-billion.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080331.wldrugs31/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home"
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080331.wldrugs31/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home

SatanicPuppy writes "The online newspaper advertising group QuadrantOne just scored a significant coup, bringing in enough media organizations to effectively double its size. The AP reports that 26 new newspaper companies, including McClatchy, Belo, and Media General, have joined in with QuadrantOne. Given print media's still-unchallenged dominance of local markets, this could have far reaching impact for national online advertising; despite the current state of the industry, a united industry would be a fierce market competitor.

Has print media finally gotten its act together, or is this just the last gasp of a dying industry?"

After talking with a few colleagues recently, I realized I needed to brush up on my Perl knowledge for my professional work. I've been programming as an amateur and a professional for about 28 years (yeah, I started programming that young on a Commodore PET's and 64's), so filling in the gaps in my knowledge on Perl has been very easy and enjoyable.

I was pretty happy to realize that Perl is really a coder's programming or scripting language from the perspective of a traditional programmer like me, dealing with a lot of tediousness and rigidity of traditional languages I'm used to. Not like I haven't used Perl in a professional sense before, but it was pretty much for the purpose of troubleshooting problem CGI's or writing quick-and-dirty *NIX scripts to get a job done.

As I was going through the standard paces of learning a language from the ground-up to fill in any gaps I have, I realized something. I can use Perl for more than just my Linux server and network appliance work, Perl may actually be the modern programming language that I've been looking for to teach my kids the basics of programming like I did when I was about their age.

Not like Perl is the simplest of languages for a 6 or 8 year old to learn (hey, I started when I was about 8 to 10 years old), but the simple beginning-level exercises you go through are a great way to spark curiosity in kids about software development. From there you can move them along to other things that are even more relevant to modern computing and the Internet.

So, as I move forward consuming all knowledge about Perl to advance myself, I have a question for anyone out there who may be reading this. How do you use Perl? I've had other people ask me the same thing, so I'd like to hear how other people use Perl to automate server administration, processes, or anything else. Hell, I might get some cool ideas for my little geeks, so let me know!

The company’s chairman and chief executive, Samuel J. Palmisano, was paid $1.8 million in salary, $5.8 million in bonuses, and stock equivalents worth $12.3 million.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/business/11ibm.html?ex=1363060800&en=1ccb304fef57250b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Workplace bullying, such as belittling comments, persistent criticism of work and withholding resources, appears to inflict more harm on employees than sexual harassment, according to researchers.

http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/247937081/080308090927.htm