Comment Re:How about the converse (Score 1) 598
Don't forget that it's your anniversary too. :-)
Comment Re:GERMS ARE GOOD..... (Score 1) 695
When we kill germs with powerful disinfectants, we eliminate the chances of allowing our immune system to strengthen itself. I see commercials for cleaners that kiil 99.9% of bacteria, commercials for disinfectants aimed at parents using children as an excuse for sanitizing everything they touch so they don't get a cold.
The more we continue to push for stricter standards, and the increased sanitization of our homes, workplaces, and restaurants, the weaker our immune systems will get, and the more deadly previously harmless germs will become.
GERMS ARE GOOD!
All I can say is "I told you so.".
I agree with your premise - people aren't dirty enough these days, and it's bad for them. However, this is a virus, not a "germ". Disinfectants like the ones you describe do not work against viruses, and will neither help nor hinder the spread of the swine flu virus.
Comment "Little Brother" come to life (Score 2, Interesting) 240
It seems like more and more of Cory Doctorow's book "Little Brother" is coming to life. In relation to this article, see chaff.
Comment Re:same game, different maps? (Score 2, Informative) 205
Unreal Tournament 2004 is very bright. It has fantastic lighting - eye strain is never an issue.
Comment Easy, sure... (Score 1) 233
Sure, it's easy if you work for Google. :-(
Comment /usr/bin/calc (Score 2, Informative) 776
I use it all the time in place of a desktop widget. I keep a Yakuake window w/ a couple tabs open minimized at all time. If I need a calculator, I just hit F12, type "calc", and I'm on my way.
Very handy.
Comment UT2004 (Demo) (Score 1) 205
Not open, I know, but it is free. It's also Linux-native and a lot of fun, with super-fast, relatively balanced gameplay.
Submission + - Microsoft Should Acquire SAP not Yahoo
Reservoir Hill writes: "Randall Stross has an interesting article in the NY Times that says that if Microsoft thinks this is the right time to try a major acquisition on a scale it has never tried before, it should not pursue Yahoo but another major player in business software, merging Microsoft's strength with that of another. This is more likely to produce a happier outcome than yoking two ailing businesses, Yahoo's and Microsoft's own online offerings, and hoping for a miracle. Stross points to Oracle as a company that has picked up key products and customers while avoiding an "oops" slip, venturing too far away from its core business, or paying too much and recommends that Microsoft set its sights on $59 billion business software company SAP. Microsoft's acquiring of SAP and leaving it alone as an autonomous division would avoid a cross-cultural integration fiasco and large enterprise customers are arguably the best customers a software company can have. A few dozen well-paying Fortune 500 customers may actually be more valuable than tens of millions of Web e-mail "customers" who pay nothing for the service and whose attention is not highly valued by online advertisers."
Submission + - DNS attack ushers in new era of Phishing 2.0 (computerworld.com.au)
Bergkamp10 writes: Researchers at Google and the Georgia Institute of technology are studying a new virtually undetectable form of attack that exploits 'open recursive' DNS servers, which are used to tell computers how to find each other on the Internet by translating domain names like google.com into numerical Internet Protocol addresses. Some 17 million open-recursive DNS servers are on the Internet, and unlike other DNS servers they answer all DNS lookup requests from any computer on the net, making them the perfect target for would be hackers and attackers. Criminals are apparently using these servers in tandem with new attack techniques to develop a generation 2.0 of phishing.
Here's how an attack would work. A victim would visit a Web site or open a malicious attachment that would exploit a bug in his computer's software. Attackers would then change just one file in the Windows registry settings, telling the PC to go to the criminal's server for all DNS information. If the initial exploit code was not stopped by antivirus software, the attack would give attackers virtually undetectable control over the computer. Once they'd changed the Windows settings, the criminals could take victims to the correct Web sites most of the time, but then suddenly redirect them to phishing sites whenever they wanted — during an online banking session, for example. Because the attack is happening at the DNS level, anti-phishing software would not flag the phoney sites.
Submission + - FTC: payment processor schemes took millions (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: "The Federal Trade Commission and seven states have charged a payment processor with violating federal and state laws by debiting, or attempting to debit from consumers' bank accounts on behalf of numerous fraudulent telemarketers and Internet-based merchants.Between June 23, 2004 and March 31, 2006, the payment processing company, Your Money Access, processed more than $200 million in debits and attempted debits to consumers' bank accounts and more than $69 million of the attempted debits were returned or rejected by consumers or their banks for various reasons, indicating the lack of consumer authorization, the FTC complaint alleges.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/22935"
Submission + - NIST Creates Perpetual Motion (dailytech.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The DailyTech writes that "The National Institute of Standards and Technology, in conjunction with the University of Maryland's Joint Quantum Institute, created a short-lived "proof of concept" of perpetual motion. Using an exotic type of matter known as a Bose Einstein condensate, or BEC, the team demonstrated true perpetual motion. Though the state persisted only ten seconds, team members say it will one day lead to real-world applications."
http://www.dailytech.com/NIST+Creates+Perpetual+Motion++But+Only+for+10+Seconds/article9865.htm
Submission + - Google Maps GPS simulator now out (appleinsider.com) 1
garbletext writes: A new version of Google Maps introduced this week includes a beta feature dubbed My Location that was designed to simulate the GPS experience on mobile phones and handheld devices that do not include GPS hardware, like Apple's iPhone. Essentially, the My Location feature takes information broadcast from mobile towers near non-GPS equipped mobile phones to approximate the device's current location on the map down to about 10 city blocks. "It's not GPS, but it comes pretty close (approximately 1000m close, on average)," the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant explained on its website. "We're still in beta, but we're excited to launch this feature and are constantly working to improve our coverage and accuracy." The My Location feature is currently available for most web-enabled mobile phones, including Java, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices.
Submission + - Top Ten Strangest or Cruellest Science Experiments 1
aalobode writes: "The Times of London has a current story based on the review of a book by Alex Boase, Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments. There they list the top science experiments — including the one from which the book gets its name — that were conducted by otherwise sane humans who tragically or otherwise ignored the effect of their research on the subjects themselves. Nowadays, most institutions have a review board for research on human subjects which would flag most proposals that could lead to harm for the subjects, but not so in the past. See for yourself at the url
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2779808.ece?OTC-HPtoppuff&ATTR=elephants"
Submission + - Ohio University finds key to getting RIAA to stop 7
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio, has found the key to getting the RIAA to stop inundating it and its students with "settlement" letters. According to the university's student online publication, the university paid $60,000, plus $16,000 per year "maintenance", to Audible Magic, the business partner of the RIAA's all-purpose expert witness Dr. Doug Jacobson, for its "CopySense" filtering software. Once it made the payments, the letters stopped. This of course raises a lot of questions as to the 'disinterestedness' of Dr. Jacobson, whose deposition in the UMG v. Lindor case was the subject of interesting Slashdot commentary."
Submission + - Crysis to Turn PC Gaming On Its End (pcper.com)
Vigile writes: "Pretty much anyone that plays PC games has been hearing about the upcoming Crysis title for some time and yesterday the single player PC demo was finally released! After being just about a month late, you can grab the 1.7GB at all the popular file hosting sites and gamers can get their hands on the most anticipated title of the year. It was expected that Crysis would set a new benchmark for image quality but the initial performance preview over at PC Perspective indicates it might be even more of a system crippler than initially thought. Even the best-in-class 8800 GTX has trouble at common resolutions like 1600x1200!!"
