plasticpixel - Slashdot User

Comment Homebrew Raid (Score 1) 371

by plasticpixel on Sunday November 27, 2011 @04:36PM (#38183804) Attached to: Good Disk Library Solutions?

I struggled with this problem too and ended up building a homebrew raid using OpenSolaris and a large CoolerMaster case full of drives. The ZFS filesystem has been bullet proof on this box since 2005. I ripped all my DVDs to ISO format so that I could preserve the DVD menus on those discs. The box sits on my network and is shared via NFS and Samba.

To play back all those movies on my TV, I put my older Mac Mini on it and have it boot up into a default user and start VLC right away. I use VLC Remote on the ipad to access the library that is NFS mounted on the Mac Mini.

The overall experience has been great! Using the iPad, I can browse hundreds of ISO images, select one and it plays within a few seconds.

The iPad remote solution was the final peice to this puzzle as I was previously using a mouse and keyboard to navigate the movies.

Comment Re:DeVry was no cake-walk. (Score 1) 580

by plasticpixel on Friday September 02, 2011 @02:56PM (#37289716) Attached to: Mr. President, There Is No (US) Engineer Shortage

As a DeVRY grad (EET) I have to agree. Some of the best engineers I ever met came from DeVRY. Next time you look at at a micro controller from Microchip or a SPARC processor from Sun/Oracle, you can be 100% sure that a DeVRY grad had something to do with the architecture.

Also, I've met my share of mediocre engineers from MIT, Brown, Carnegie-Mellon and the like. It's more about what you do with your degree than the degree itself.

Comment NetScape-on-a-stick! (Score 1) 120

by plasticpixel on Monday July 25, 2011 @10:27PM (#36879266) Attached to: Boot To Gecko – Mozilla's Web-Based OS

We looked at doing this at Sun about 15 years ago. We called it "Netscape on a stick". Never really panned out but we had SunOS-on-a-stick that booted rather quickly off a 80MB PCMCIA drive in a tablet prototype we had developed. Yes, Sun had a working tablet in 1995.

Submission + - User held in contempt for not giving up passphrase (truecrypt.org)

Submitted by pushf popf on Friday June 24, 2011 @04:45PM

pushf popf writes: Matthew Bumgardner is being held for Contempt of Court for Failing to disclose his pass-phrase

Submission + - Mars Hit By Cosmic Buckshot, Again (discovery.com)

Submitted by

astroengine

on Monday June 13, 2011 @04:57PM

astroengine writes: "Mars is no stranger to meteorite impacts, it's tenuous atmosphere allows more than its fair share of space rock through to its surface. With the help of the HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), objects as small as 1 meter wide can be resolved on the Martian surface, allowing us to see a very recent series of small impact craters. These craters, formed some time between 2002 and 2008 in the Terra Sabaea region, most likely originated from a single meteoroid that disintegrated on entry into the Martian atmosphere."

Submission + - Flying Saucers are coming, the unmanned kind (suasnews.com)

Submitted by

garymortimer

on Saturday May 21, 2011 @05:13AM

garymortimer writes: "An autonomous flying saucer for all, get ready for an increase in UFO sightings.

Aerobat Aviation Inc and Attopilot International have teamed up to add for the first time an autopilot to the innovate circular flying wing design. The circular winged craft promises flight performance increases across a wide speed range."

Submission + - US Senator Calls for DOJ Investigation of Sony PSN (ngohq.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29, 2011 @09:38PM

An anonymous reader writes: US Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) today called for the Department of Justice to investigate all aspects of the Sony PlayStation Network data breach, sending Attorney General Eric Holder a letter urging DOJ “to immediately open an investigation to track down and hold accountable those who have stolen sensitive personal information, and to examine any potential wrongdoing in Sony’s response to this matter.”

Submission + - Sludge in Flask Gives Clues to Origin of Life (sciencemag.org) 1

Submitted by sciencehabit on Tuesday March 22, 2011 @02:18PM

sciencehabit writes: In the 1950s, scientist Stanley Miller conducted a series of experiments in which he zapped gas-filled flasks with electricity. The most famous of these, published in 1952, showed that such a process could give rise to amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. But a later experiment, conducted in 1958, sat on the shelf--never analyzed by Miller. Now, scientists have gone back and analyzed the sludge at the bottom of this flask and found even more amino acids than before--and better evidence that lightning and volcanic gasses may have helped create life on Earth.

Submission + - Sun produces first cycle 24 X class solar flare

Submitted by radioweather on Monday February 14, 2011 @10:58PM

radioweather writes: The heart of the sun came alive the evening of Valentines day. For the first time since solar cycle 24 began, the sun produced a massive X-class solar flare, the strongest type of flare event. This comes from sunspot group 1158, which produced an M-class solar flare on Sunday.

The EVE X-ray imager on the solar dynamics observatory shows a bright explosion on the sun, so bright it made a lens flare.

The last X-class solar flare was on December 13th, 2006 and was part of solar cycle 23. Look for spectacular auroras in about 2 days as the slower Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) hits earth. This will be a test of how well our newest technology handles stray energy from such solar disruptions.

Submission + - Exoplanet hunt turns up 54 potentially habitable w (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by NervousWreck on Sunday February 06, 2011 @12:15PM

Submission + - RoboEarth - a web for robots (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk on Sunday February 06, 2011 @09:24AM

mikejuk writes: A world wide web for robots? It sounds like a crazy idea but it could mean that once a task is learned any robot can find out how to do it just by asking RoboEarth. You use the web to find out stuff, including where you are and how to do something so why not robots.
Shades of SkyNet? Surely not.....

Submission + - Yahoo's Buggy IMAP Server Affects iPhone Too (withinwindows.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun on Thursday February 03, 2011 @02:04PM

suraj.sun writes: Maybe Yahoo should have done their homework a little bit more before accusing Microsoft for the data leakage problems on Windows Phone 7. Upon reading the accusations, Rafael Rivera took it upon himself to prove that it did occur on other platforms, the iPhone in this case.

He ran a similar test with the help of a friend’s iPhone and got a similar result whereby the Yahoo servers returned more data than requested. So much for it being a WP7 problem only.

WMPoweruser: http://wmpoweruser.com/yahoo-mails-data-leak-also-affects-the-iphone/

WithinWindows: http://www.withinwindows.com/2011/02/02/yahoo-your-buggy-imap-server-affects-iphone-too-thanks-for-playing-though/

Submission + - Live action spy RPG (5-wits.com)

Submitted by tallpaul on Tuesday February 01, 2011 @02:19AM

tallpaul writes: Espionage is 5-wits third generation live action role playing game for geeks and non-geeks alike. Players are immersed in cracking safes, defusing bombs and dodging laser security. Each game has many possible outcomes and scalable difficulty levels. 5-wits is responsible for creating the "Operation Spy" game for the Washignton DC Spy museum and has honed their live action special effects to a fine art. An second game at the same location based on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea will be opening very soon.

Submission + - PBS Nova: AstroSpies (Full Documentary) Must See! (ufobulletin.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24, 2011 @01:36AM

An anonymous reader writes: Millions remember the countdowns, launchings, splashdowns and parades as the U.S. raced the USSR to the Moon in the 1960s, but few know that both superpowers also ran parallel covert space programs to launch military astronauts on spying missions.

Submission + - Amazon-banned author goes to B&N, sells 18K eb (bnet.com)

Submitted by bizwriter on Thursday January 13, 2011 @02:09PM

bizwriter writes: Amazon has been tossing some erotica books and ebooks off its virtual shelves for violating its content guidelines — but leaving up books even more explicit and extreme. A number of writers are looking to Barnes & Noble to help take up the slack. One suddenly found her ebook sales at B&N skyrocket to nearly 19,000 in December — all after the Amazon ban went into place.

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