Tiger4 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Layoffs at Google 1

Submitted by Tiger4 on Wednesday January 14, 2009 @11:06PM

Tiger4 writes: the Los Angeles Times reports, "Google, the company that always seems to be hiring, has finally started firing. And it's starting with the people responsible for the hiring. The search giant said today that it planned to let go about 100 recruiters. The cuts were first reported by Valleywag and quickly confirmed on the Official Google Blog by Laszlo Bock, the company's vice president of people operations."

More positions in the engineering division will be released as well. The article states Google is a 25,000 person operation, so these aren't a relatively large number. But still, Google has the rep of being invincible, so a downturn that touches them is definitely significant.

Submission + - Test for Prostate Gene soon to be available

Submitted by Tiger4 on Friday January 02, 2009 @08:26PM

Tiger4 writes: CNN.com reports a simple test to determine the presence of genes linked to Prostate Cancer. These five genes, if present, can increase the risk of prostate cancer up to nine times. "More than 25,000 American men will die from prostate cancer this year. But prostate cancer can be treated successfully if the disease is caught early. A blood test that can detect whether a man is at high risk for developing prostate cancer is on the horizon. The study was published in the February 28, 2008, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine." It turns out the company actually wants to test saliva, making the test significantly easier and more convenient.

Compare this to the tests available for BRCA, the so called Breast Cancer genes. Finding you have the gene can be devastating, but knowing well in advance of developing cancer allows many more options to be considered.

Submission + - Lin v. Win Performance Comparison

Submitted by Tiger4 on Saturday December 20, 2008 @02:27PM

Tiger4 writes: I know it will invite the inevitable flamebait, but I will ask anyway: Which is faster, Windows or Linux? Serious question. At the application and processing level, and at the humans-performing-a-task level, are there any good apples to Apples comparisons of throughput or time to completion of a task. Desktop, server room, network infrastructure, shop floor, custom specialty, whatever. This would be especially nice if people could point to equivalent software running in both environments to take that variable out of the equation.

Submission + - Obama's Mobile Phone records compromised, Shared?

Submitted by Tiger4 on Friday November 21, 2008 @06:03AM

Tiger4 writes: CNN, Reuters, and the AP all report that Verizon has confirmed some of its employees have accessed and perhaps shared calling records of President Elect Barack Obama. Verizon says the people involved have all been put on leave with pay as the investigation proceeds. Some of the employees may have accessed the information for legitimate purposes, but others may have been curiosity seekers and may have even shared the information around. The account was "only" a phone, not a Blackberry or similar device, and Verizon believes it was just calling records, not voicemail or email that was compromised.

The articles do not dip into the similarity to the warrantless wiretapping or hospital records compromise situations of recent months. But thaty immeditately sprang to mind for me.

Submission + - Cyberwarfare threats are real for the US (cnn.com)

Submitted by Tiger4 on Monday August 18, 2008 @11:52AM

Tiger4 writes: According to numerous sources, CNN reports that the DDOS attacks preceding the Russian Georgian war are just the beginning.

"Nobody's come up with a way to prevent this from happening, even here in the U.S.," said Tom Burling, acting chief executive of Tulip Systems, an Atlanta, Georgia, Web-hosting firm that volunteered its Internet servers to protect the nation of Georgia's Web sites from malicious traffic.
Major utilities, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, may be wide open.
"This is such a crucial issue. At every level, our security now is dependent on computers," said Scott Borg, director of the United States Cyber Consequences Unit, a nonprofit research institute. "It's a whole new era. Political and military conflicts now will almost always have a cyber component. The chief targets will be critical infrastructure, and the attacks will emerge from within our own computer systems."

Botnets are of course being blamed in this one case. But we can assume a well resourced opponent would not just hire out such a potentially devastating pre-emptive attack.

Submission + - What is my end-to-end (open) HD video solution?

Submitted by Tiger4 on Tuesday February 19, 2008 @11:29AM

Tiger4 writes: Toshiba has Surrendered in the Format War. Sony and others will now be cranking out discs in Blu-Ray format. Players will doubtless fall in price now, for those who don't already have Playstation 3. HD TVs have been out for a while. So we will soon have all the elements of an industry standard, DRM reinforced, consumer cash cow system in place. What about the rest of us? Those who want High Def video, played by machines we control, on machines we control? What are the hardware and software solutions available for minimal DRM, Do-It-Yourself storage, distribution, players, and displays? Open and Free would be nice too, but I don't want to start another war ;-)

Submission + - How to secure IP ? 1

Submitted by Tiger4 on Thursday August 30, 2007 @09:58AM

Tiger4 writes: Let's say I have a photograph, or a television script, or have finally perfected the water-to-gasoline conversion process, or some other piece of non-software but copywritable or patentable IP. I know I want it secured in my name, on this date, in a provable and verifiable way. But being an Open Source, free-to-the world sort of person, I'm willing to share my knowledge to the world, as long as all credit points unambiguously to me. Any attempts at theft could, would, and must be immediately rebuffed by my offer of proof from when I first secured the IP. What, if any, tool or method is available to me in the digital world?

MD5 and the like are available to show that copied files are the same as the original source, but they don't show time of authorship unambiguously. The same with Public Key crypto. I could lock it up with a time stamp, but what prevents me from faking the stamp that locks the file? Where is my way to homestead a little chunk of time with my IP's name on it?

Submission + - Dreamworks Dumps Wallace and Gromit

Submitted by Tiger4 on Friday February 02, 2007 @01:19AM

Tiger4 writes: Aardman Animation and Dreamworks are splitting their relationship. Apparently Dreamworks feels they lost money on "Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit" and "Flushed Away". So off to their separate ways they go. Aardman is going back to stop motion and clay, Dreamworks will be staying with their CGI ways.

Submission + - California Sec of State on Computer Voting

Submitted by Tiger4 on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @12:14AM

Tiger4 writes: Bruce McPherson is the California Secretary of State. He is up for reelection next week, and he is being taken to task for, among other things, approving the use of Computer Voting machines in the state. Hear what he has to say to charges that the review was not adequate and the machines don't work. This is the guy that signed on the dotted line that it was OK to go forward with electronic voting. His opinion is the one that really counts, in the most populous state in the US.

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