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Comment pdf.js (Score 5, Informative) 132

by AntiTuX (#47624771) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best PDF Handling Library?

pdf.js is great for parsing and manipulating pdfs.

I can't go into great detail as to how I've used it (Still under NDA), but it's rendering and manipulating of pdfs is pretty darn good.

As for converting office formats to pdf, your best bet is to use office automation. It can be built to scale up, but it needs a lot of work to do so.

Comment I lived in Alaska for 5 years... (Score 5, Informative) 397

by AntiTuX (#46564727) Attached to: Drone-Assisted Hunting To Be Illegal In Alaska

From what I recall from the hunting laws, you had to have a 72-hour "cooling down" period after using a helicopter or aircraft to spot animals.

Honestly, we (my father and I) were more interested in terrain issues than we were the animals. You want to try to find the path of least resistance, and also making sure that we could actually cross specific rivers, and at what points they were broken open during the winter time. At some places the snow would be so deep that if you stepped wrong, you would be up to your neck almost instantly. That doesn't even count making sure that you weren't in a hunting route for a grizzly bear, which makes things even more difficult. Having something that is the size of a VW beetle running at you full-bore at around 40 MPH is not something I want to ever repeat. It was hard living. It was more a survival thing for us.

Every winter, there was a herd of about 400,000 caribou that would come within about 50 miles of town. Honestly, getting to the animals was the hard part. Getting one was as easy as taking a 200 yard shot with a high-powered rifle.

Keep in mind that where I lived, we were 500 miles away from any major city, and the only way in and out was by aircraft. We actually lived off of what we killed and made use of it. We weren't out there looking for the big racks. We were doing it for survival, and we also followed the rules.
Privacy

Supreme Court Ruling Relaxes Warrant Requirements For Home Searches 500

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the arrest-everyone-until-someone-consents dept.
cold fjord writes with news that the Supreme Court has expanded the ability of police officers to search a home without needing a warrant, quoting the LA Times: "Police officers may enter and search a home without a warrant as long as one occupant consents, even if another resident has previously objected, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday ... The 6-3 ruling ... gives authorities more leeway to search homes without obtaining a warrant, even when there is no emergency. The majority ... said police need not take the time to get a magistrate's approval before entering a home in such cases. But dissenters ... warned that the decision would erode protections against warrantless home searches." In this case, one person objected to the search and was arrested followed by the police returning and receiving the consent of the remaining occupant.
Programming

Submission + - 10 Open Source Solutions You Should Be Using

Submitted by
waukarusa
waukarusa writes: "Linux tends to take center stage when it comes to support and other services for enterprise open source users. However, there are literally thousands of other solid open source packages available that perform a wide variety of functions. Unfortunately, there's a real lack of information about the options and considerations for selecting open source that not only meets the functional and technical requirements of specific tasks, but has the support and backing that enterprises need to manage risk. As a result, with enterprise developers lost in a sea of open source options, it can be a daunting task to make the best choice. http://opensource.sys-con.com/read/368028.htm"
Microsoft

Submission + - Vista Training Camp

Submitted by
Tony Keller
Tony Keller writes: "The problems with Vista have been well noted, especially within a corporate environment. Helping circumvent the headaches, Training Camp, made famous for borrowing the military's 'bootcamp methodology,' will launch their 3-day Vista Bootcamp. They will ship trainees off to a reclusive, distraction free, environment to train IT pros on everything there is to know about the new operating system. This 'hell-weekend' will allow trainees to gain a complete understanding of the installation and administration of upgrading to Windows Vista — allowing them to troubleshoot some of the biggest complaints; Post-Installation Settings, Security even Mobile Computing. And when you're done, you'll have exactly what your major corporation needs to make the journey a smooth one."
The Internet

Submission + - P2P Networks Hijacked forDDoS Attacks

Submitted by
1sockchuck
1sockchuck writes: "Peer-to-peer networks are being hijacked to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on web sites, according to security researchers and network service providers. In these attacks, large numbers of client computers running P2P software are tricked into requesting a file from the intended target of the DDoS, allowing the attacker to use the P2P network to overwhelm the target site with traffic. As many as 100,000 machines have been used in some of the attacks, which may be attractive to attackers, as they don't require the use of an existing "botnet" of compromised computers."
Power

Submission + - Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 1 Restarted

Submitted by Firethorn
Firethorn writes: From Decatur Daily
Shut down 22 years ago in 1985, the Tennessee Valley Authority has reactivated Unit 1 at Browns Ferry Nuclear plant in response to rising demand for electricity in North Alabama. It's the first reactor activated since 1996.

It's expected to produce 1,155 megawatts, power 650,000 homes, and employ an extra 100 workers at the plant.

Renovations cost $1.8 Billion, but they expect the payback to be done within 4-5 years, down from the 7-8 years estimated in 2002, mostly because of increased fuel costs for the alternatives.

Feed Brown Dwarf Star Joins The Jet-set (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Jets of matter have been discovered around a very low mass "failed star," mimicking a process seen in young stars. This suggests that these "brown dwarfs" form in a similar manner to normal stars but also that outflows are driven out by objects as massive as hundreds of millions of solar masses down to Jupiter-sized objects.
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Reminicent of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Submitted by
bsjpark
bsjpark writes: "One of my colleague forwarded me an article written by Dr. Michio Kaku, physicist and author, in an interview at KurzweilAI.net that ranges from the Multiverse to "The Matrix." (Equally entertaining in its own way is the classic geek
fight in the comments attached to the interview.)

When I read the below phrases regarding how we might be able to find/recognize/communicate with extra-terrestrial if we do ever meet them, it does makes perfect sense. Ever since I was a young boy (who was addicted to Star Wars and Star Trek), I always had similar questions because it doesn't always makes sense and not plausible to think that extra-terrestrial would every be in similar size, physical form, and/or in same spectrum of intelligence.

Many people believe that they would be some what recognizable... which I have no idea why would those people who would think such a thing. I believe most of the display of so called "aliens" are drawn in such a way for entertainment reasons as well as for people to be able to relate and recognize them. Think about it. If the aliens are indeed illumination form which are not recognized by any of the human senses and not interactive with people, think of how boring it would be. Human and aliens living together without even noticing each other. You cannot make a movie nor media material with such thing!

" I personally think that SETI is looking in the wrong direction. If, for example, we're walking down a country road and we see an anthill, do we go down to the ant and say, "I bring you trinkets, I bring you beads, I bring you knowledge, I bring you medicine, I bring you nuclear technology, take me to your leader"? Or, do we simply step on them? Any civilization capable of reaching the planet Earth would be perhaps a Type III civilization. And the difference between you and the ant is comparable to the distance between you and a Type III civilization. Therefore, for the most part, a Type III civilization would operate with a completely different agenda and message than our civilization.

        Let's say that a ten-lane superhighway is being built next to the anthill. The question is: would the ants even know what a ten-lane superhighway is, or what it's used for, or how to communicate with the workers who are just feet away? And the answer is no. One question that we sometimes ask is if there is a Type III civilization in our backyard, in the Milky Way galaxy, would we even know its presence? And if you think about it, you realize that there's a good chance that we, like ants in an anthill, would not understand or be able to make sense of a ten-lane superhighway next door.""

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