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Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Magnetic avalanches cause hard drive failure

An anonymous reader writes: According to this report by IT PRO, scientists working at the University of California have discovered the main reason of hard drive failure. According to researchers, some materials used in hard drives are better at damping spin precession than others. Spin precession of magnetic material effects its neighbors' polarity and this can spread and cause sections of hard drives to spontaneously change polarity and lose data. This is known as a magnetic avalanche. So next time Windows fails to start, you'll know why!
Privacy

Submission + - Is Your Printer Spying on You?

gnujoshua writes: "In 2005, the EFF alerted the world to how laser printers are spying their users by providing tracking information in the form of a unique smattering of barely detectable yellow dots that appear on every printout. Revitalizing this issue, the Computing Counter Culture Group at the MIT Media Labs has launched Seeing Yellow. They provide instructions to see the tracking dots, as well as provide you with a list of clever questions, and appropriate contact information so that you can confront your laser printer manufacturer. Let's act before this issue slips through the cracks again and send the message that manufacturers' must respect our privacy and our right to anonymous free speech."
Music

Submission + - Eight corporate anthems to die for...well (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: "As corporate anthems go, it's not a splash but we are always surprised to see companies come out with new ones. Here we have a recent song from SalesForce.com: "Dev Life". It contains the lyrics:" I'm coding Unix Windows Linux; I've got the dev life going mama; I'm like the coding Dalai Lama." Coding like the Dalai Lama? ! Yikes. But IBM isn't alone in these off beaters. Fujitsu, Checkpoint Symantec, Texas Instruments and many others have entered the rarified air of corporate songbirds. Here are links to eight of our favorite ditties. I know there are tons more out there, send them along if you get the chance. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1750 4"
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - H1-B Abuse: the smoking gun (dailykos.com)

MsGeek writes: "Ever gotten suspicious about IT want ads? Ever thought that they aren't really looking for IT workers in good faith, but are looking to justify hiring people from Russia or India or China via the H1-B program? Guess what: you're right! The Programmer's Guild has released a video from a seminar held by an immigration law firm about how to game the job search process to make sure that no American IT worker can ever be qualified enough to fill the sham position.

This makes it possible for the firm to go to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and say, "Gosh, we ran an ad for a month and we got no qualified applicants...can we look for H1-B workers to fill this position?" H1-B visas are being abused. This is the smoking gun. They don't want qualified American IT workers to fill the position, they want foreign slave labor that they can pay peanuts to and bully around.

IT jobs are not going begging. IT jobs are not being offered to American IT professionals in good faith, so that companies don't have to pay prevailing American wages. Write your congresscritter and senators. This is an outrage."

The Internet

Submission + - 2012 Olympic Logo gets thumbs down

Murthy writes: "There is lot of criticism against 2012 Olympic Logo. ABC News Online reports that "Nearly 45,000 people have so far signed a petition demanding London's 2012 Olympics logo be scrapped". What is the opinion of Slashdot readers on 2012 Olympic Logo? Should we give lot of importance to the logo?"
United States

Journal SPAM: Naomi Wolf: Fascist America, in 10 easy steps 5

If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

Operating Systems

Submission + - CentOS 5 Released

LivinFree writes: Today marks the release of CentOS 5.0. The release notice clarifies that the i386 and x86_64 are the only architectures available, but others are on the way. Fire up your BitTorrent client of choice and head to the mirror re-direct!
It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - BOFH

nerdin writes: I was teaching a couple of newbies what a Real Sysop must be, so I googled for BOFH. It was sad news for me to find this . At first I asked myself where in the Universe I had been that I didn't notice, so I made a search in /. to read his nerd peers eulogy, just to find nothing. So let's preserve his memory and -late better than never- recognize his role in IT industry, spanning a least 2 generations of sysadmins
Space

Submission + - Water Found in Exoplanet's Atmosphere

anthemaniac writes: Astronomers have long suspected that water should exist in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets. Now they have evidence. Water has been discovered in a planet called HD209458b, which was previously found to have oxygen. From the article: 'The discovery ... means one of the most crucial elements for life as we know it can exist around planets orbiting other stars.' But don't go looking for little green men. You might remember HD209458b as a 'hot jupiter' that boils under the glow of its very nearby star.
NASA

Submission + - Scientists Design Open-Source Program at NASA

Barkmullz writes: NASA scientists plan to announce a new open-source project this month called CosmosCode — it's aimed at recruiting volunteers to write code for live space missions. The program was launched quietly last year under NASA's CoLab entrepreneur outreach program, created by Robert Schingler and Jessy Cowan-Sharp of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. Members of the CosmosCode group have been meeting in Second Life and will open the program to the public in the coming weeks.
United States

Journal SPAM: Beware Dominionist Sleeper Cell in the U.S.A. 15

If another nation had specifically trained agents in ways to subvert our constitution, and then managed to get these agents embedded into positions throughout the government, would we be afraid? Very afraid!

Slashdot.org

Submission + - How to resurrect reputation

athloi writes: "This is probably a dumb question, but it might relate to the large number of phantom accounts on Slashdot. What happens when a user, such as myself, makes some useful contributions but then stumbles into a fractious area like, say, Windows Vista fandom or Mac advocacy, and then gets modded down to the point where no future posts are even considered? With karma at -1, without any trolling or other bad behavior, it seems my only choice is to create another account and try again. Is this what Slashdot editors or users want, or is there another way to get in the good graces of a site I enjoy, even if I sometimes make slightly snarky comments about our large corporate overlords?"
User Journal

Journal Journal: April Fool's Submissions Overboard and Underfunny 2

I agree with some of the comments and submissions I have seen today that the yearly stupidity on Slashdot is just plain dumb. Unfortunately, these comments are drowned out. One or two good hoaxes would have made my day. ("Google Paper" was actually quite good). A score of idiotic and unbelievable posts just ruins the site and real news is buried. Having looked through the Firehose at several points today, there have been several serious submissions that have been voted up but have never made

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A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. -- Thomas Jefferson

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