ackatack - Slashdot User

Submission + - SPAM: Type of Phone used

Submitted by Thelasko on Tuesday June 10, 2008 @02:53PM

Thelasko writes: After the article on the new iPhone I am curious what kind of phones Slashdotters use. Since there are so many phones out there we will stick with major brands. The options are:

Apple
LG
Motorola
Nokia
Palm
RIM (Crackberry)
Sony Ericsson
OpenMoko (Neo1973)
CowboyNeal

Submission + - SPAM: A 2-billion-year window into the Earth

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Monday April 14, 2008 @01:17PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "An international team of researchers has discovered 2 billion-year-old unaltered rocks on the ocean floor during two North Pole expeditions. Their findings led them to conclude that the Earth' mantle history is more complex than previously thought. The researchers were astonished to find rocks that had not been remixed inside the mantle for two billion years. The rocks found beneath Gakkel Ridge, a 1,000-mile-long underwater mountain range between Greenland and Siberia, were precisely dated because of the presence of isotopes of osmium. As said the lead researcher, 'I just about fell off my chair. We can't exaggerate how important these rocks are — they're a window into that deep part of the Earth.' But read more for additional details and pictures, including a beautiful section of one of these 2 billion-year-old peridotite rocks."

Submission + - Did the Apple fall from the tree?

Submitted by Hmmm2000 on Monday April 14, 2008 @11:50AM

Hmmm2000 writes: Company claims to be offering a Mac clone for considerablly less than the standard Apple price. A typical Mac Pro runs about $1999, and this company is selling their "compatible" system for $399. I'm no fan of closed hardware systems, but the law is on Apples side .. I wonder how long it will take before Pystar get poked by Apple.

Journal SPAM: Ask You All: Joomla or Drupal Experience? 6

Journal by stoolpigeon on Thursday April 10, 2008 @05:15PM

Anybody here do any major work with Joomla! or Drupal? Anyone work with both? Anyone have any experience or advice to share with someone considering using one of them - possibly to do a bunch of stuff like crm, social networking, etc.

Thanks in advance for any who can share.

Submission + - SPAM: Elementeo, a game for learning chemistry

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Wednesday April 09, 2008 @01:27PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "At the 235th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in New Orleans, Anshul Samar, a 14-year-old CEO, has introduced Elementeo, a trading card game intended to teach chemistry while having fun. The game is based on a 121-card deck of chemical elements, compounds and catalysts. And players have 'to reduce the opponents electrons to zero through strategic use of each card's chemical properties.' If this young CEO can find $500K during the ACS meeting, the game should be available at the end of the month for about $25. But read more for additional details about the game, his creator and pictures of some of the very informative Elementeo cards, such as the ones for oxygen, carbon dioxide or nuclear fusion."

Submission + - SPAM: US lacks secure national space strategy, GAO says

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Thursday March 27, 2008 @02:25PM

coondoggie writes: "The Government Accountability Office today issued a biting report on the lack of communication between the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies involved in developing the national space program. The GAO said: "DOD and the intelligence community have not developed, agreed upon, or issued a National Security Space Strategy. The National Security Space Office developed a draft strategy in 2004, but it was never issued." [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source

Submission + - SPAM: Beluga SkySails returns from maiden voyage

Submitted by

stoolpigeon

on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @03:08PM

stoolpigeon writes: "The multi-purpose heavy-lift project carrier 'Beluga SkySails' has completed its almost 2 month long maiden voyage. The test of the Sky-Sails System was judged to be a success and bodes well for construction of other ships with larger sails in the future. Beluga Shipping GmbH in Bremen expects a drop in bunker costs of approximately $2,000 per operating day."
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Google's IT Infrastructure Secrets

Submitted by

Ponca City, We Love You

on Tuesday March 18, 2008 @01:19PM

Ponca City, We Love You writes: "The Wall Street Journal has an interesting interview with Douglas Merrill, Google Inc.'s chief information officer on how Google gives their workers the technology they need and keeps them safe without imposing too many restrictions on how they do their job. On Google's IT structure: "Google's model is choice. We let employees choose from a bunch of different machines and different operating systems, and [my support group] supports all of them. It's a little bit less cost-efficient — but on the other hand, I get slightly more productivity from my [Google's] employees." On Security: "The traditional security model is to try to tightly lock down endpoints, and it makes people sleep better at night, but it doesn't actually give them security. We have programs in our infrastructure to watch for strange behavior. This means I don't have to worry about the endpoint as much." On Enterprise Software: "Fifteen years ago, enterprise technology was higher-quality than consumer technology. That's not true anymore. It used to be that you used enterprise technology because you wanted uptime, security and speed. None of those things are as good in enterprise software anymore. The biggest thing to ask is, "When consumer software is useful, how can I use it to get costs out of my environment?"""

Submission + - SPAM: FTC fines annoying online ad firm record $2.9M

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Monday March 17, 2008 @12:21PM

coondoggie writes: "It probably won't do away with those annoying "YOU HAVE WON" banner ads but online advertiser ValueClick, today agreed to pay a record $2.9 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that its advertising claims and e-mails were deceptive and violated federal law. Aside from being deceptive and generally annoying, the FTC also charged that ValueClick and its subsidiaries, Hi-Speed Media and E-Babylon failed to secure consumers' sensitive financial information, despite their claims to do so. The FTC alleged the companies published online privacy policies claiming they encrypted customer information, but either failed to encrypt the information at all or used a non-standard and insecure form of encryption. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Archive Formats Kill Antivirus Products 2

Submitted by nemiloc on Monday March 17, 2008 @10:54AM

nemiloc writes: From F-Secure website: "The Secure Programming Group at Oulu University has created a collection of malformed archive files. These archive files break and crash products from at least 40 vendors — including several antivirus vendors...including us." It is not new anymore that security producs have have security problems... What makes this special is that antivirus software is a perfect target. They are run on critical places with high privileges and autoupdates keeps versions coherent. More information: Test material by OUSPG and Joint advisory by CERT-FI and CPNI

Submission + - SPAM: Frozen researchers set Antarctic ballooning record

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Friday January 04, 2008 @06:08PM

coondoggie writes: "The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said today they had set a new record in the almost 20-year history of scientific ballooning in Antarctica, by launching and operating three long-duration sub-orbital flights simultaneously within a single southern-hemisphere summer. Scientists use data collected from such high-altitude balloons to study ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, search for anti-matter and look at other environmental or astrophysical experiments. The NSF supports long-duration balloon flights in Antarctica to conduct astrophysical experiments. Circling the continent on unique stratospheric winds at altitudes of roughly 23 miles for periods of up to 31 days, experiments operate in an area that is almost free of atmospheric interference. For some experiments, this provides scientists with conditions equivalent to flight aboard a satellite or the space shuttle, at much lower cost. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source

Submission + - The worst (but funniest) photo of Steve Ballmer (computerworld.com)

Submitted by jcatcw on Thursday November 29, 2007 @04:11PM

jcatcw writes: Don Tennant, the Vice President/Editorial Director, Computerworld & InfoWorld, has some funny pictures in his files. The few people who have seen this one before agree that it's the worst picture of Steve Ballmer ever taken, but definitely the funniest. Here then, for the first time ever in a public forum, is that photo.

Submission + - What's the best way to learn to program?

Submitted by

LuckyLefty01

on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @04:46PM

LuckyLefty01 writes: "I'd like to learn how to program. I've always liked the kind of logical thought that goes into stuff like math and the solving of logic problems, but I somehow never got around to learning to code (I'm 21). I very much enjoy doing things like messing around with universal turing machines and using excel spreadsheets to find the most +EV course of action in a situation. As far as current programming knowledge goes, mine is probably about as minimal as you can get while still spending some time around geeks and websites populated by them. So I guess what I'd really like some advice on would be where do I start? What language should I learn (first)? Are there any specific sites or books (especially the latter) that I could read that you guys recommend to give me a good start? I'm definitely planning to take a class at my local Community College as well in a couple months, but I'd like to get a head start and have some idea of what I'm getting into (and to be able to supplement the class with other knowledge and experience, since I have no idea how good it will be). The main reason for my interest is pure curiosity. I don't have any particular use for this knowledge in mind down the road yet, but I would not mind learning something that might actually be useful to me in the real world eventually (by getting a better (i.e. some) understanding of how the people who do this for a living actually do it if nothing else)."

Submission + - Extrasolar Planet Predicted, Then Found (astrobio.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @03:43PM

An anonymous reader writes: Breaking news! It has been more than 150 years since astronomers last predicted the orbit of an unknown planet — and then found it. Last time around, the planet was Neptune. This time, it is a Saturn-mass planet orbiting a sun-like star more than 200 light years away. The discovery is a feather in the cap of astronomers Rory Barnes and Sean Raymond. Their new theory that solar systems are "packed," as full of planets as they can be, led to the successful prediction of the distant world.

Submission + - RIAA Sues Usenet, Decries it as Napster, Kazaa (wired.com) 1

Submitted by

mytrip

on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @02:17PM

mytrip writes: "The Recording Industry Association of America is suing usenet.com, decrying it as the next Napster, Kazaa and other peer-to-peer, illicit file-sharing sites.

"Defendant provides essentially the same functionality that P2P services such as Napster, Aimster, Grokster and Kazaa did (prior to being enjoined by the federal courts) — knowingly providing the site and facilities for users to upload and download copyrighted works — except that defendant goes further than even the P2P services to facilitate and encourage copyright infringement by its users," said the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. "Defendant customizes its service to make it as convenient and seamless as possible for subscribers to distribute and obtain copyrighted music without authorization and without paying for that music."

The suit, comes two weeks after the RIAA won its first pirating jury trial targeting an individual. A Duluth, Minnesota jury ordered Jammie Thomas to pay the RIAA $222,000 for pirating 24 songs on the Kazaa system in 2005."

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