Comment What?!... (Score 1) 695
Get your own!
Leave me alone!
Get off my lown!
Comment You do have secrets... (Score 0) 303
We all have our little secrets. It's not hard to find a question/answer nobody else could figure out... Unless you are such a nice, innocent and transparent person, like Sarah.
Anyways, this is an old topic and
Comment Re:Not for all (Score 1) 159
The servers are already inside a big freezer.
But I believe you are right. It doesn't leak any coolant (at least not directly to the servers) he he
Comment Not for all (Score 5, Interesting) 159
I worked in several banks using IBM mainframes. The server room was always like a freezer.
I think for now, many companies are perfectly ok with air cooling solutions. Besides, it's much safer to have air-conditioning and fans than some liquid flowing. The simpler the system, the less accidents occur within it...
And believe me when I say that, if a company owns an IBM mainframe, they pay big bucks and they *don't* want any accidents.
Submission + - Toshiba sues over DVD patents (idg.com.au)
angry tapir writes: "Toshiba has filed suit in a US court against Imation and several manufacturers and distributors of recordable DVD media for the alleged infringement of its patents. Imation and the other defendant companies named in the complaint do not have license agreements covering recordable DVD media with Toshiba or the DVD6C Licensing Group (DVD6C), and have engaged in the import and sale of recordable DVD media in the US without permission, according to Toshiba."
Submission + - HP recalls 70,000 laptop batteries (goodgearguide.com.au)
angry tapir writes: "Hewlett-Packard has recalled Lithium-Ion batteries used in some of its laptops, as they pose a fire hazard. The recall covers about 70,000 batteries used in the company's HP and Compaq-branded laptops. The affected laptops can be found here"
Submission + - Lend your ears to science! (ed.ac.uk)
MikeRozak writes: "The Blizzard Challenge is an annual online listening test run by text-to-speech (synthesized speech) researchers to help improve their technology. Around 17 research organizations were provided with 10 hours of audio recordings of single speaker. They were locked in their labs for two months, and told to produce the best synthesized voice they could from the recordings.
Two months later, the doors have been unbolted, and the researchers need your help!
Please take the time to go through the listening test at http://groups.inf.ed.ac.uk/blizzard/blizzard2009/english/register-ER.html. You will be played examples of synthesized speech from the different research organizations, and asked to rate how good (or bad) they sound. The technology has come a long way since Stephen Hawking's synthesized voice; some of the synthesized examples are very good.
Your ratings help the researchers identify which techniques produce the most realistic voices, so that next year's text-to-speech will sound better. Improved text-to-speech helps the blind, people who lost their voice (like Stephen Hawking), those hated computerized telephone operators, and PC games! Text-to-speech can even be humorous, see http://www.idyacy.com/cgi-bin/bushomatic.cgi for a talking George Bush."
Two months later, the doors have been unbolted, and the researchers need your help!
Please take the time to go through the listening test at http://groups.inf.ed.ac.uk/blizzard/blizzard2009/english/register-ER.html. You will be played examples of synthesized speech from the different research organizations, and asked to rate how good (or bad) they sound. The technology has come a long way since Stephen Hawking's synthesized voice; some of the synthesized examples are very good.
Your ratings help the researchers identify which techniques produce the most realistic voices, so that next year's text-to-speech will sound better. Improved text-to-speech helps the blind, people who lost their voice (like Stephen Hawking), those hated computerized telephone operators, and PC games! Text-to-speech can even be humorous, see http://www.idyacy.com/cgi-bin/bushomatic.cgi for a talking George Bush."
Submission + - IIS 6 Attack Could Let Hackers Snoop On Servers (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: "A flaw in the way that Microsoft's software processes Unicode tokens has been found to give attackers a way to view protected files on IIS Web servers without authorization. The flaw, exposed by Nikolaos Rangos, could be used to upload files as well. Affecting IIS 6 users who have enabled WebDAV for sharing documents via the Web, the vulnerability is currently being exploited in online attacks, according to CERT, and is reminiscent of the well-known IIS unicode path traversal issue of 2001, one of the worst Windows vulnerabilities of the past decade."
Submission + - Why Facebook Wants A Virtual Currency (informationweek.com)
eweekhickins writes: "Facebook is surely developing a form of virtual currency, but it's more than a plan to smooth out revenue streams. Facebook hopes its currency will become the virtual version of the U.S. dollar, the de facto standard for in-world purchases everywhere."
Submission + - Avoiding Gripes About Your Gripe Site
Hugh Pickens writes: "Recent attempts by to shut down a web site critical of Goldman Sachs makes EFF's new whitepaper on how to avoid getting shut down if you decide to put up a gripe site against your not-so-favorite company particularly timely. Here are six "simple things you can do in advance to either stave off complaints, or give yourself some tools to nip them in the bud." 1. Be noncommercial — no ads, no links to commercial sites, no affiliate links. "Several court rulings have held that noncommercial uses fall entirely outside the reach of federal trademark laws, and lack of commerciality can weigh in your favor under copyright law as well." 2. Don't use the target's name alone in the domain name — adding "sucks" is good, but you can be creative. www.ihatebadco.com is less likely to be perceived by a trademark owner as confusing. 3. Have a prominent disclaimer. 4. Find a service provider with backbone. A list of other service providers that reportedly "won't dump you at the first sign of controversy" can be found online. 5. Minimize use of materials from the target company and consider altering them in such a way that no one could possibly be confused about endorsement or sponsorship. 6. If a trademark-owner challenges your use of a mark in a domain name, don't offer to sell it . An offer to sell, particularly at an apparently inflated price, could be seen by a UDRP arbitrator (and possibly a U.S. court) as evidence that you are a cybersquatter. EFF emphasizes that following these rules "won't guarantee you won't get complaints. But it should help minimize your legal risk, so you can focus on the primary task — raising public awareness about the issues that are important to you.""
Submission + - New Material for Lithium Battery discovered 2
canadian_right writes: "Canadian scientists create new material with the potential to triple the power output of Lithium batteries. The new material uses sulphur formed into nano-scale ribbons for the cathode instead of traditional transition metals. The break through could lead to better batteries for everything from latops to cars."
Submission + - Law Prof to Argue Fair Use for P2P Filesharing
Hugh Pickens writes: "Ars Technica reports that Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson plans to defend accused file-swapper Joel Tenenbaum by arguing that it doesn't matter if Tenenbaum copied music; such noncommercial uses are presumptively "fair" and anyone seeking to squeeze file-swappers for statutory damages is entitled to precisely zero dollars. It's a gutsy move to claim that wholesale downloads of complete copyrighted works for no purpose higher than mere enjoyment of music somehow satisfies the famous "four factor test" for fair use claims, but Nesson believes he can win over a jury. "Defendant Tenenbaum expects and plans to offer the jury evidence relating to each one of these four factors," Nesson wrote in his court filing, "just as they are articulated in the statute, with the jury to decide their meaning as they apply to the facts of his particular case." Not everyone agrees with Nesson's approach. Lawrence Lessig wrote in an e-mail to Nesson that "of course [Tenenbaum's conduct] was against the law, and you do the law too much kindness by trying to pretend (or stretch) 'fair use' excuses what he did. It doesn't." Nesson's strategy is to convince the jurors that fair use goes far beyond the description in US law and should Nesson win, he will essentially legalize the sharing of all digital goods, copyrighted or not, by noncommercial users. Given that he wants to make the case about big principles like fair use and the applicability of statutory damages--and not about whether Joel Tenenbaum did what he is accused of doing--the music industry is likely to fight even harder to ensure that Nesson's preferred outcome is not realized. "The fireworks are scheduled to begin this summer in Massachusetts federal court.""
Comment Clikcin... Double clicking... (Score 1) 157
What do you expect from a company that patents "Double Clicking"? haaa....
Comment Toys (Score 1) 290
Vibrators are soooo last century... Bring it on - the new sensory sex toys ;)
Comment IT Crowd (Score 5, Funny) 876
BOSS - What do you know about computers?
- Well, receiving emails, sending emails, clicking, double clicking, the internet... The list goes on...
BOSS - What is that under my table?
- The... hard... drive(?)...
BOSS - Of course! You got the job!
