comcn - Slashdot User

Comment: Breakthrough everyone's been waiting for? (Score 1) 500

by comcn on Monday December 27 2010, @05:10PM (#34679842) Attached to: Putin Orders Russian Move To GNU/Linux

It's always "the breakthrough free software has been waiting for"... free software has been growing over the years, but these sorts of things never seem to make the big global impact that the news reports they will. (Not saying this is a bad thing, though!)

Comment: Any colony optimisation (Score 1) 394

by comcn on Monday October 25 2010, @11:07AM (#34013488) Attached to: Bees Beat Machines At 'Traveling Salesman' Problem

Or just use Ant Colony Optimisation, which has been doing this for 18 years.

Using the Earth to Cool Your Data Center-> 0

Submitted by

1sockchuck

on Tuesday August 25 2009, @08:48AM

1sockchuck writes "With data centers using enormous amounts of electricity, some companies are using the earth to reduce their power bills. Prairie Bunkers plans to use geothermal cooling in a Nebraska project that will convert former World War II ammo bunkers into data centers. This follows news that an Iowa data center used geothermal cooling to achieve the highest rating possible for energy-efficient buildings. Geothermal cooling uses vertical wells housing closed-loop piping systems filled with water or coolant. The cool earth allows the underground piping system to serve as a heat exchanger."
Link to Original Source

UK Officially Proposes to Cut-Off Internet Pirates-> 0

Submitted by

MJackson

on Tuesday August 25 2009, @06:00AM

MJackson writes "The UK government has officially proposed an amendment to its Digital Britain report, which would include the controversial measure of suspending illegal file sharers from their ISP. The disconnection proposal was originally ruled out in favour of letter warnings and technical measures (service speed reductions, website blocks etc.). That followed several years of largely unproductive wrangling between consumer groups, ISPs and Rights Holders. Law firms currently track suspected illegal P2P activity by monitoring IP addresses, which are assigned to every computer when you go online, yet IP's can easily be spoofed, redirected, shared over big networks or even hijacked (open Wi-Fi etc.). The download itself could also be encrypted, making it nearly impossible for the ISP to verify; but of course the UK has ignored all that."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:Tools exist (Score 1) 209

by comcn on Monday April 27 2009, @11:18AM (#27731631) Attached to: Cross-Distro Remote Package Administration?

...and to add to that, all servers have an Apt proxy setting pointing them to a squid proxy, so security.debian.org doesn't get hit hard either - this is something that anyone can do, even without a local mirror.

The whole system was not described in one measly little /. post...

Comment: Re:Tools exist (Score 1) 209

by comcn on Monday April 27 2009, @11:14AM (#27731557) Attached to: Cross-Distro Remote Package Administration?

We're a university - we run a local Debian mirror.

Comment: Re:Tools exist (Score 3, Informative) 209

by comcn on Monday April 27 2009, @06:06AM (#27728085) Attached to: Cross-Distro Remote Package Administration?

As another "sub 7-digit guy" - there is a reason for this... There is no way I'm going to let over 60 servers automatically install patches without me checking them first! Download, yes. Install, no.

At work we use cfengine to manage the servers, with a home-built script that allows servers to install packages (of a specified version). Package is checked and OK? Add it to the bottom of the text file, GPG sign it, and push it into the repository. cfengine takes care of the rest (our cf system is slightly non-standard, so everything has to be signed and go through subversion to actually work).

How silicon-based drugs could treat cancer

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Saturday February 03 2007, @12:13PM

Roland Piquepaille writes "The lives of almost living organisms on Earth, including ourselves, are carbon-based. And when we're sick, we're exclusively treated with carbon-based medicines. But now, a team of chemists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison had a bright idea. Why not replace carbon atoms by silicon atoms? And by modifying a drug named indomethacin, used to treat arthritis and some cancers, they found that silicon medicines may have extraordinary therapeutic value for treating human disease. The modified drug both slowed the growth of cancer cells and killed cancer cells directly. Right now, the researchers only have worked with a specific drug — and in their labs. So I guess a vast amount of work needs to be done before silicon-based drugs could be used on humans. But read more for additional details and references about this discovery."

Alex Ionescu blog suspended after Vista DRM crack

Submitted by on Saturday February 03 2007, @08:30AM

An anonymous reader writes "http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1289.html 4 days ago security researcher Ionescu described how he had managed to crack DRM protection in Vista by accident. Today his blog and domain account are suspended. Has pressure been applied by Microsoft to censor the truth?"

World of Warcraft now the size of New York City

Submitted by

DeadBugs

on Thursday January 11 2007, @02:07PM

DeadBugs writes "World Of Warcraft has passed 8 Million subscribers. This would put it on par with the population of New York (the largest city in the United States). With the first expansion coming out since the game was released, the game could easily pass 10 million people.

From the press release: "Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. Today, World of Warcraft is available in seven different languages and is played in North America, Europe, mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.""