busonerd - Slashdot User

Submission + - The Great Iraq Swindle

Submitted by Drahgkar on Sunday August 26, 2007 @06:25PM

Drahgkar writes: Have you ever wondered where all the money the government has spent on the war in Iraq has gone? Wonder no more as you read The Great Iraq Swindle on Rolling Stone's website. "How is it done? How do you screw the taxpayer for millions, get away with it and then ride off into the sunset with one middle finger extended, the other wrapped around a chilled martini? Ask Earnest O. Robbins — he knows all about being a successful contractor in Iraq."

Submission + - Blueprints for quantum computer RAM (newscientist.com)

Submitted by

willatnewscientist

on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @11:22AM

willatnewscientist writes: "Researchers in Italy have produced a paper about RAM for quantum computers. Vittorio Giovannetti of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, and colleagues point out that the way RAM currently works would be unsuitable for quantum computers, because it would result in too much interference. Their simplified scheme would allow let quantum computer to access its RAM without losing data. The original paper can be found here."

Submission + - Do hackers prevent the release of source code? 3

Submitted by

HotdogsFolks

on Monday August 20, 2007 @05:12PM

HotdogsFolks writes: "I've been considering releasing the source code from one of my job websites under the GPL licence for quite some time now. It's a fully functioning, everything-you-could-possibly-want system, so I'm happy to give it away to save people from having to write a similar system from scratch.

The only thing holding me back is the cycle of security patches I'll no doubt find myself in once the bad guys start analysing my code.

I'm not a security expert — I code for fun — so I'm not totally confident I'd be able to spot security issues even if I analysed my code myself.

What would you do if you were in my shoes? How do I get my software out there in the least painful way possible?"

Submission + - The Whole House-Off Switch 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @02:44PM

An anonymous reader writes: Wouldn't it be convenient if you had just one switch to power-off the whole house? Something like what you have at hotels, but over there it's your room key that does the trick. For homes its better to fit the Whole House-Off Switch by designer Jack Godfrey Wood. The idea behind the concept is to turn off of the unnecessary power in the house when you step out, with a single switch. The Whole House-Off Switch was designed to make "the green way the most convenient way," and was part of a larger project to "encourage 'green' action among the environmentally disenfranchised."

Submission + - Jonathan Schwartz on Sun's Open Source Strategy (cnet.com)

Submitted by

enaiel

on Friday August 10, 2007 @10:28AM

enaiel writes: "At LinuxWorld, Matt Assay did an interesting interview with Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems about Sun's Open Source strategy:

One of our biggest strategic challenges is that we have roughly 4,000 quota-bearing salespeople. To me, it feels like my biggest competitors have 4 trillion sales reps. I'm not going to beat them by hiring more sales reps. I'm going to beat them by leveraging the single-biggest sales channel the world has ever known: the Internet.
Think about this: nearly every Brazilian sees my logo. Every day. Not because a sales rep puts it in front of them, but because they see it on OpenOffice, which their government or they downloaded for free.
Customers now find us. When I see Sun's free software downloads in Western China or Siberia, two regions where we have no sales presence at all, and yet we're doing business there, I have to ask how my competitors are going to survive when no one knows about them.
The question to ask is, "What portion of the world knows my brand?"
With the Java platform I'd guess we reach 20 to 30 percent of the Internet every day (powering the games kids play online, the intranet application at a bank, etc.). Each of these constituents may think about Java in different ways, but in each case Java "sells" my brand. If you believe that brand is central to the next wave of Internet monetization — and I believe it is absolutely central — then the more people that know my brand, the more benefit inures to me.
We distributed nine million licenses of Solaris in the last two years. I guarantee we wouldn't have been able to make nine million sales calls. Seventy percent of these licenses are on Dell, HP, and IBM. This gives us a great platform to build a partnership with these hardware companies, and it also gives us a great pool of users, some percentage of which will want to pay us.
Why? How do we monetize these? When that technology is run in a Fortune 100 company in a mission-critical app, the CIO will hunt me down to pay me money. The cost of downtime for them is huge compared to the cost. "

Submission + - Journalist detained for Segway-photo (webwereld.nl)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10, 2007 @09:56AM

An anonymous reader writes: Dutch IT-Journalist Brenno de Winter was detained Tuesday (in Dutch)for taking a picture of Dutch Railway staff on a Segway. The transporters are generally outlawed in the Netherlands making the device quite rare. When asked to hand over his camera De Winter refused and Railway Police were called to the scene. When ordered to remove the picture the journalist agreed under protest, but was still detained. After cops confiscated the camera they removed the image and searched the other pictures. After promising 'serious consequences' if the photo would be made public somewhere. Despite the fact that Dutch Railways forbids photographs for journalistic purposes, a legal expert writes that European Human Rights prevail over civil rights. The Netherlands Association of Journalists has officially protested on behalf of De Winter and is demanding an apology, removal of the criminal record and compensation. They also have demanded that Dutch Railways adjust their rules to align it with the freedom of press.

Old School Linux Remembered, Parts 0.02 & 0.03 163

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday August 02, 2007 @11:14PM from the turn-back-the-clock dept.

eldavojohn writes "Following our last history lesson of Linux 0.01, the Kernel Trap is talking about the following announcements that would lead to one of the greatest operating systems today. A great Linus quote on release 0.02 (just 19 days after 0.01): 'I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got minix. This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've enjoyed [sic] doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use and modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have.'"

Submission + - Sun Releasing 8-Core Niagara 2 Processor

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 02, 2007 @10:11PM

An anonymous reader writes: Sun Microsystems is set to announce its eight-core Niagara 2 processor next week. Each core supports eight threads, so the chip handles 64 simultaneous threads, making it the centerpiece of Sun's "Throughput Computing" effort. Along with having more cores than the quads from Intel and AMD, the Niagara 2 have dual, on-chip 10G Ethernet ports with crytopgraphic capability. Sun doesn't get much processor press, because the chips are used only in its own CoolThreads servers, but Niagara 2 will probably be the fastest processor out there when its released, other than perhaps the also little-known 4-GHz IBM Power 6.

Submission + - Minimig: Amiga on FPGA with GPL'd verilog code (hetnet.nl)

Submitted by

akkartik

on Thursday August 02, 2007 @07:43PM

akkartik writes: "Minimig stands for Mini Amiga. Minimig is an FPGA-based re-implementation of the original Amiga 500 hardware. In it's current form, Minimig is a single PCB measuring only 12*12cm which makes it the smallest "Amiga" ever made and the first new "Amiga" in almost 14 years!"

Submission + - First Armed Robots on Patrol in Iraq

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 02, 2007 @06:16PM

An anonymous reader writes: Robots have been roaming Iraq, since shortly after the war began. Now, for the first time — the first time in any warzone — the 'bots are carrying guns. The SWORDS robots, armed with M249 machine guns, "haven't fired their weapons yet," an Army official says. "But that'll be happening soon." The machines have actually been ready to a while, but safety concerns kept 'em off the battlefield. Now, the robots have kill switches, so "now we can kill the unit if it goes crazy," according to the Army. I feel safer already.

Submission + - Make Life Easy with XML Schema Standard Library

Submitted by IdaAshley on Thursday August 02, 2007 @05:34PM

IdaAshley writes: XML validation enables you to create complex rules that define acceptable data. But they're no good to anybody unless you use them. In this tip, you learn to use the XML Schema Standard Type Library to simplify the process of requiring formatted data such as e-mail addresses and telephone numbers.

Feed Nuke Lab Makes Powerful Dust Rag (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Friday March 02, 2007 @08:12PM

A research chemist at a Tennessee weapons plant creates a dust rag that mops up deadly beryllium particles 20 times smaller than the naked eye can see. By the Associated Press.

Dell To Linux Users — Not So Fast 356

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @12:12AM from the still-with-the-Windows-tax? dept.

PetManimal writes to tell us that after all the hubbub over Dell's note about manufacturing Linux-friendly Dells and choosing distros, the company is now telling users not to expect factory-installed Linux laptops and desktops anytime soon. According to the article, Dell says that lining up certification, support, and training will 'take a lot of work.' "The company said today that the note was just about certifying the hardware for being ready to work with Novell SUSE Linux, not an announcement that the computers would be loaded and sold with the operating system in the near future..."

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