msmoriarty - Slashdot User

Submission + - Mysterious Sprite Photographed by ISS Astronaut (discovery.com)

Submitted by

astroengine

on Thursday July 12, 2012 @02:04AM

astroengine writes: "A very rare and beautiful view of a red sprite has been photographed by Expedition 31 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) hovering just above a bright flash of lightning in a thunderstorm over Myanmar. First documented in a photo in 1989, red sprites are very brief flashes of optical activity that are associated with powerful lightning discharges in storms — although the exact mechanisms that create them aren't yet known. But the orbiting outpost seems like the perfect vantage point to learn more about them!"

Submission + - Will Windows Storage Go from SAN Back to NAS with SMB 3.0? (redmondmag.com)

Submitted by msmoriarty on Wednesday May 02, 2012 @07:45PM

msmoriarty writes: According to Redmond magazine columnist Greg Sheilds, with Windows 8/Windows Server 2012, the Windows world may be moving away from SAN and back to NAS. From the article: " "Consider the high-level requirements you place on storage: excellent performance with low CPU overhead, fault tolerance, load balancing, simultaneous access by multiple cluster hosts, back-up support...Achieving all of this today with a SAN requires added protocols, techniques and management tools because today's SMB protocol doesn't support today's storage requirements. But why not just update the SMB protocol?" And that's what it appears Microsoft has done with SMB 3.0.

Submission + - Nokia sues HTC, RIM and Viewsonic (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by

angry tapir

on Wednesday May 02, 2012 @07:11PM

angry tapir writes: "Nokia has filed claims in the U.S. and Germany saying that products from HTC, Research In Motion (RIM) and ViewSonic infringe a number of the company's patents. Nokia has filed actions against all three companies in Mannheim's and Munich's respective regional courts. Nokia has also filed complaints against HTC before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), the Federal District Court of Delaware and the regional court in Düsseldorf. RIM will also have to dispatch its lawyers to Düsseldorf for a Nokia lawsuit filed there, while ViewSonic's legal team have to defend the company against a suit in Delaware."

Submission + - Former MakerBot COO creates the world's first $500 3D printer (geek.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02, 2012 @06:26PM

An anonymous reader writes: At first glance Sam Cervantes and his latest invention may seem questionable, but after spending some time talking with him I’m sure what he’s showing off is legit. Cervantes and his team are working on the first $500 3D printer, a device known as the Solidoodle. At the risk of sounding cliche, what you’re witnessing in the video is truly game-changing; the Solidoodle is a significant step towards making 3D printing accessible to the average consumer.

Submission + - When Was Slashdot's Heyday? 5

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02, 2012 @05:59PM

An anonymous reader writes: In the past few years, Slashdot editors have introduced a multitude of changes to our site that have been met with mostly negative comments. Yesterday, SlashdotBI was introduced. A few weeks ago, Slashdot editors announced plans for their SlashdotTV. Slashdot's last overhaul occurred on January 25th 2011, which revamped the existing HTML and CSS code. In all of these announcements and many more, a multitude of Slashdot users have expressed concern that the site simply is not good enough as it was in the past. This concern goes back all the way to a 2000 Geeks in Space episode, where Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda asked the GIS panel: "When did Slashdot start sucking?" A lot of people reminisce about "the good old days" and how things were inherently "better" back then. My question to Slashdot users everywhere is: Is Slashdot's best years gone? When was Slashdot's heyday in terms of popularity, enjoyment, information, and intelligent discussions? How can Slashdot return back to what many users regard as their former glory?

Comment Re:HuluPlus? (Score 1) 648

by msmoriarty on Monday April 30, 2012 @06:18PM (#39851257) Attached to: Hulu To Require Viewers To Have Cable Subscriptions

I don't see anywhere in that report where it clarifies on HuluPlus. Would like to see that specifically addressed, just to confirm (BTW:if so, I'll be cancelling my Hulu Plus -- already annoyed by ads, and lack of cable was only thing that drove me to them in the first place. I'm not going to have both.

Submission + - Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore Business Machines, dies at age 83 (forbes.com)

Submitted by LoTonah on Monday April 09, 2012 @03:54PM

LoTonah writes: Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore Business Machines and later, the owner of Atari, died Easter Sunday. He was 83. He undoubtedly changed the computing landscape by bringing low cost computers to millions of people, and he started a price war that saw dozens of large companies leave the market. He also took a bankrupt Atari and managed to wring almost another decade out of it. The 6502 microprocessor would have withered on the vine if it weren't for Tramiel's support. Could anyone else have done all of that?

Submission + - Planetary Cosmic Pinball: 30 Million MPH planets shoot through space (csmonitor.com)

Submitted by

retroworks

on Friday March 23, 2012 @08:07PM

retroworks writes: "Christian Science Monitor reports: "Planets in tight orbits around stars that get ejected from our galaxy may actually themselves be tossed out of the Milky Way at blisteringly fast speeds of up to 30 million miles per hour, or a fraction of the speed of light." The report cites a report from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, describing stars that are thrown out of the Milky Way, and how some of those starts which themselves had planets could hurl those planets as the "fastest objects" in space, potentially creating a game of "cosmic pinball". The hypervelocity stars were discovered in 2005, travelling at a mere 2 million MPH velocity."

Submission + - Steep SQL Server 2012 Price Hikes Due To Licensing Changes (redmondmag.com) 2

Submitted by msmoriarty on Friday March 23, 2012 @07:25PM

msmoriarty writes: Thanks to changes in the way Microsoft will license SQL Server 2012 (including switching the licensing basis from counting processors to counting cores), organizations that have machines with more than four cores per processor can expect steeper pricing with the Enterprise edition of SQL Server 2012. The difference amounts to pricing increases in the tens of thousands of dollars (see chart).

Submission + - ask slashdot -- fired for inappropriate password? 2

Submitted by cover_me_porkins on Monday March 19, 2012 @07:03PM

cover_me_porkins writes: A friend was recently fired, the stated reason being that the password he had been using was offensive. I *almost* didn't get the job I am about to start because my password was described as "unprofessional" by my future manager. This was discovered when my username and password were emailed in plaintext to he and I by an HR person. I chose to write a carefully worded letter to persuade them I was still the best person for the job, saving my criticism for lax security for later. Really what other option do you have in such a situation?

Submission + - Google: Illegal phone number harvesting scam (imgur.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19, 2012 @06:43PM

An anonymous reader writes: Today I went online to access one of the email accounts I use for sensitive personal information and emails.

Instead of letting me log on, google refused me access unless I gave them my phone number "for verification purposes". Verify how? The account has no friends and no contacts connected. This is a plain phone number harvesting scam.

According the laws of my country, a database of phone numbers is illegal without special written governmental permission. Google violates this and breaks the law in a way that opens it up to serious lawsuits. In addition, to me it seems extremely unethical to force me to give them my phone number or refuse me access to my email.

Is kind of extortion legal in your country?

Submission + - How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp (guardian.co.uk) 2

Submitted by

TheNextCorner

on Monday March 19, 2012 @06:07PM

TheNextCorner writes: "Incredible to read this sad story:

"There was torture, starvation, betrayals and executions, but to Shin In Geun, Camp 14 – a prison for the political enemies of North Korea – was home. Then one day came the chance to flee

His first memory is an execution. Shin In Geun was four years old, too young to understand the speech that came before that killing.... ...The teacher ordered the girl to the front of the class and told her to kneel. Swinging his wooden pointer, he struck her on the head again and again. As Shin and his classmates watched in silence, lumps puffed up on her skull, blood leaked from her nose and she toppled over on to the concrete floor. Shin and his classmates carried her home. Later that night, she died...."

Submission + - Elder Scrolls MMO to be revealed soon by Bethesda (tech-stew.com)

Submitted by techfun89 on Monday March 19, 2012 @01:29PM

techfun89 writes: Move over Knights of the Old Republic, we may have a new player in town. For some time its been rumored that an Elder Scrolls MMO will be coming, with news of it soon, possibly in May. Sources claim that Bethesda is working on the MMO project and this project will be a big feature of E3 this June.

The Elder Scrolls MMO will apparently take place hundreds of years, if not 1000 years, before Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim.

Submission + - MIME Co-Creator Discusses 'Defensive' Patents (adtmag.com)

Submitted by msmoriarty on Monday March 19, 2012 @01:14PM

msmoriarty writes: MIME Co-Creator Nathaniel Borenstein, who sent out the first MIME message on March 11, 1992, never patented the technology, and continues to believe that "patents are deeply evil." However, he also endorses a recent patent that the company he now works for filed. Why? He explains in this interview: "Unfortunately...it's also true that deeply evil people can hurt you, and you really have a responsibility to protect yourself."

Submission + - 8200+ Strong, Researchers Demand Journals To Open Access (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by

kkleiner

on Monday March 19, 2012 @11:58AM

kkleiner writes: "Academic research is behind bars and an online boycott by 8,209 researchers (and counting) is seeking to set it freewell, more free than it has been. The boycott targets Elsevier, the publisher of popular journals like Cell and The Lancet, for its aggressive business practices, but opposition was electrified by Elsevier’s backing of a Congressional bill titled the Research Works Act (RWA). Though lesser known than the other high-profile, privacy-related bills SOPA and PIPA, the act was slated to reverse the Open Access Policy enacted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2008 that granted the public free access to any article derived from NIH-funded research."

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