Comment API (Score 1) 100
To me, this means that someone in the government understands what an API is. This is great news!
Comment Mixed Units... (Score 1) 297
"... save consumers $300 million a year in electricity costs and reduce the carbon pollution that fuels dangerous climate change. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) projects that the new standards for external power supplies alone will cut nearly 47 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over 30 years, equivalent to the annual electricity use of 6.5 million homes"
As many above also noticed, the $300 million/year reduction stood out to me ( $1/citizen), but maybe the reduced greenhouse gas makes up for the small gain? Let's see... 47M tons of CO2 over 30 years = roughly 1.57M tons/year. Last figure I saw was about 5.4B tons of CO2 produced in the US/year as a by-product of energy creation, so about a 0.03% reduction, annually. I'm not saying that every little bit helps, but at the cost of new wall warts (manufacture, distribute, packaging), this has got to be a net loss...
Comment Re:Could be worse (Score 4, Insightful) 234
You forgot to mention that the guy handing out the ice lollies has been convicted several times in the past for putting turds in them...
Comment Am I the only one (Score 5, Insightful) 433
Am I the only one who finds this article comparing terrorist orginizations to (US) corporations darkly humorous? ... Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee this morning.
Comment Just like you'd eat a whale... (Score 1) 983
One byte at a time.
Comment Re:XBMC ftw (Score 1) 420
I'd suspcect a permissions issue before a codec issue with Plex. I know that I've forgotten to go back in and change the owner/group of the files I just transferred to the shared directory on my Plex server numerous times, and the "new" media will either not show up on the dash, or not stream. Fixing the permissions has (almost) always fixed this.
Submission + - Towel Day (towelday.org)
kyldere writes: Today is Towel Day, and marks the 11th rememberance of the passing of Douglas Adams. Do you know where your towel is?
Why Sony Cannot Stop PS3 Pirates 378
Sam writes "A former Ubisoft exec believes that Sony will not be able to combat piracy on the PlayStation 3, which was recently hacked. Martin Walfisz, former CEO of Ubisoft subsidiary Ubisoft Massive, was a key player in developing Ubisoft's new DRM technologies. Since playing pirated games doesn't require a modchip, his argument is that Sony won't be able to easily detect hacked consoles. Sony's only possible solution is to revise the PS3 hardware itself, which would be a very costly process. Changing the hardware could possibly work for new console sales, though there would be the problem of backwards compatibility with the already-released games. Furthermore, current users would still be able to run pirated copies on current hardware."
An anonymous reader adds commentary from PS3 hacker Mathieu Hervais about Sony's legal posturing.
Comment Re:Blackboard execs should all be killed (Score 1) 142
Odd... I spent the first part of my technical career working for a company that got bought out by BlackBaord.
Comment Re:in person (Score 1) 542
I second this idea. Good old sneakernet might even result in faster transfer speeds. If you are really concerned about the data, you can have a send someone with the data and someone else with the decryption algorithm.
Submission + - Google Maps has Traffic Information
An anonymous reader writes: Has nobody else noticed that Google Maps now has Traffic information?
Submission + - Novell/MS detail collaboration in whitepaper
Kennon writes: "You probably work at a business that uses both open source and proprietary software to run mission critical applications. And chances are you struggle with issues of interoperability between these technology worlds.
In order to solve these issues, Novell® and Microsoft have announced a partnership to bridge the worlds of proprietary and open source technology. Together, Novell and Microsoft are introducing new technology that improves interoperability between SUSE® Linux Enterprise and Windows, which will allow you to save money, gain flexibility and streamline your company operations. We are doing this in four areas: virtualization, systems management, directory integration and identity, and office document formats.
On November 2, 2006, Novell, Inc. and Microsoft Corporation announced a series of agreements to jointly build, market and support new solutions to improve interoperability (and make a few million dollars) and make Microsoft and Novell® products work better together. Novell and Microsoft are bridging the worlds of proprietary and open source technology, and we have built this bridge based on a foundation of mutual respect for intellectual property. (cough) http://novellevents.novell.com/t/1706983/54356689/ 3534/0/ marketting survey then links to PDF: http://www.moreinterop.com/tca-roadmap.pdf"
In order to solve these issues, Novell® and Microsoft have announced a partnership to bridge the worlds of proprietary and open source technology. Together, Novell and Microsoft are introducing new technology that improves interoperability between SUSE® Linux Enterprise and Windows, which will allow you to save money, gain flexibility and streamline your company operations. We are doing this in four areas: virtualization, systems management, directory integration and identity, and office document formats.
On November 2, 2006, Novell, Inc. and Microsoft Corporation announced a series of agreements to jointly build, market and support new solutions to improve interoperability (and make a few million dollars) and make Microsoft and Novell® products work better together. Novell and Microsoft are bridging the worlds of proprietary and open source technology, and we have built this bridge based on a foundation of mutual respect for intellectual property. (cough) http://novellevents.novell.com/t/1706983/54356689
Submission + - Is There a Unifying Theory of Biology?
Dekortage writes: "Is there a unifying theory of biology — a set of laws and models that describe and predict complex ecological systems? As reported by The Scientist, a few scientists believe they have stumbled onto this very thing. Called "metabolic theory," these scientists claim it is "perhaps the single most pervasive theme underlying all biological diversity." Some additional analysis includes comments from critics."
Submission + - Microsoft: Format War is Over
jeevesbond writes: "Microsoft Office program manager Brian Jones, whose work has centered around the Open XML document format, now says the so-called format war with OpenDocument is officially over. The winner, he says, is both.
My translation: Sharepoint (and its tight integration with Office 2007) is what's important now, something FLOSS has no equivalent for.""I think at this point we can really move onto more productive and collaborative discussion and admit that we are no longer in any sort of "file format war."
Submission + - A Google Earth for the body?
Morten Skogly writes: "I had this idea for a virtual body as a opensource project, and I was wondering if anyone had any input.
The idea is Google Earth and / or a Google Map for the body, where you could rotate and navigate the human body in 3d, zoom in, but instead of stopping on the surface, the zoom should continue through the skin, so that you could look on all the diffrent layers, organs etc, read news, and have an open api and import format that would let people add data and layers to it, just like Google earth.
http://pappmaskin.blogspot.com/2007/03/idea-google -earth-for-body.html"
The idea is Google Earth and / or a Google Map for the body, where you could rotate and navigate the human body in 3d, zoom in, but instead of stopping on the surface, the zoom should continue through the skin, so that you could look on all the diffrent layers, organs etc, read news, and have an open api and import format that would let people add data and layers to it, just like Google earth.
http://pappmaskin.blogspot.com/2007/03/idea-googl
