Comment Exclusive? (Score 1) 164
Seriously, everyone I know (at least in IT) has Google+...
Submission + - WHO: Cell Phones Are "Possibly Carcinogenic" (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: Whether or not cell phones cause brain cancer is a question that's been debated (but not answered) for years, and today the World Health Organization (WHO) stepped into the fray. A WHO committee that evaluates various potential cancer-causing agents concluded that radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, including cell phones, are "possibly carcinogenic" to people.
Submission + - WHO Declares Cell Phones to be Class 2B Carcinogen (inhabitat.com) 2
lucidkoan writes: Today the World Health Organization declared electromagnetic radiation from cell phones to be a class 2B carcinogen (pdf) — the same classification as lead, auto exhaust, and the pesticide DDT. The announcement was spurred by a series of studies peer-reviewed by a team of 31 scientists from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, who found that radiation emitted by cell phones is "possibly carcinogenic to humans".
Comment Re:In rural Greece we have a word for that (Score 1) 202
That's interesting. Here in Portugal we also have that superstition, although no special word for it, afaik. Curiously, hours before the latest strong quake (6.0, Richter scale, 12/2009), I remember thinking to myself about the "earthquake heat" that could be felt on that particular hot night. Weird coincidence, I am sure, since the epicenter was located 265 km (165 miles) away.
Submission + - Doctors Are Creating Too Many Patients 2
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "H. Gilbert Welch writes in the LA Times that the threshold for diagnosis has fallen too low with physicians making diagnoses in individuals who wouldn't have been considered sick in the past, raising healthcare costs for everyone. Welch, a a practicing physician and professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, says that part of the explanation is technological: diagnostic tests able to detect biochemical and anatomic abnormalities that were undetectable in the past. "But part of the explanation is behavioral: We look harder for things to be wrong. We test more often, we are more likely to test people who have no symptoms, and we have changed the rules about what degree of abnormality constitutes disease (a fasting blood sugar of 130 was not considered to be diabetes before 1997; now it is)." Welch says that the problem is that low thresholds have a way of leading to treatments that are worse than the disease and while clinicians are sued for failure to diagnose or failure to treat, there are few corresponding penalties for overdiagnosis or overtreatment so doctors view low thresholds as the safest strategy to avoid a courtroom appearance. "We are trained to focus on the few we might be able to help, even if it's only 1 out of 100 (the benefit of lowering cholesterol in those with normal cholesterol but elevated C-reactive protein) or 1 out of 1,000 (the benefit of breast and prostate cancer screening)," writes Welch. "But it's time for everyone to start caring about what happens to the other 999.""
Comment Re:KeePass (Score 1) 268
I'm very happy with KeePass. It enabled me to have a poor man's authentication token:
Instead of using a password to unlock the database, I use a key file stored in an SD card. I mapped one of my laptop's multimedia buttons to the hot key that triggers the global auto-type feature, so that when I need to authenticate somewhere I just have to press that button and hit enter to unlock the database. The authentication is done automatically and the database stays unlocked for 5 minutes. When I leave the computer I take the card with me and when I get back all I need to do is insert it again. Pretty cool.
This system makes it tolerable to use a master key in Firefox and Thunderbird.
I keep the most important passwords (homebanking, for example) in a different database, requiring both a key file and a password to unlock it.
Comment Re:CCNA (Score 1) 480
Besides Cisco docs, I recommend the following books:
- HALSALL, Fred, Computer Networking and the Internet
- TANEMBAUM, Andrew S., Computer Networks
- FOROUZAN, Behrouz A., TCP/IP Protocol Suite
Can't go wrong with these ones.
Comment Re:Maybe if .NET 3 and 4 never happened (Score 1) 257
Who comes up with data structures that throw an exception because you asked it if something was inside and the answer was 'no'?
I'm intrigued... What data structures are you talking about? I don't remember seeing that behavior.
Comment Re:soundcard recording (Score 1) 369
Many soundcards have a mode of recording called something like "What You Hear" (Creative, IIRC) or "Stereo Mix" (Realtek). If you select this as the recording device, you can record everything that is sent to the speakers ("what you hear").
In Windows 7, Realtek's Stereo Mix is disabled by default (at least I had it disabled), to enable it right-click on the speaker icon on the taskbar and select "Recording devices" (I don't have Windows in English, so the wording might be a little different). If your soundcard supports it, it should be in the list.
However, I prefer to either download the FLV from youtube and rip the audio or record a stream with VLC.
Comment Re:Why do you tolerate this? (Score 1) 538
Er... I was actually thinking that was an incredibly generous cap.
Me too. Here in Portugal I have 60GB / month for 20eur (24Mbs) and it used to be much lower...
Comment Re:Lawnmowers (Score 1) 83
The mower's blades can't inflict serious wounds, the company insists
By previous boss, who retired and moved to Florida about five years ago, had one when he was still working.
Guess the wounds are kind of serious after all.
Comment Re:Hopefully... (Score 2, Informative) 229
doesn't WPA encrypt using a specified key for all users of the same wireless network rather than providing specific individual keys on a per user basis?
I just want to add to what others have said that in order to have specific individual keys on a per user basis you would need something like RADIUS based authentication.
Comment Re:Broken News... (Score 1) 264
She is Rollo's sister [from Faithless].
Submission + - UVB-76 undergoes maintenance
luder writes: After several voice messages were heard back in August, the Russian shortwave radio station UVB-76 went silent on September 1, when it appears to have gone down for maintenance. Later that day, it started to play a pattern consisting of a piece from the "Swan's Lake" and 10 buzzer sounds [mp3 file]. From September 2 to 5, a large amount of CW and voice messages were observed, while at the same time the first confirmed pirate transmissions were observed by European amateurs, including fake voice messages, shortwave graffiti and morse code with personal messages. The UVB-76 got finally back on air on September 8, with stronger signal than many have ever seen. However, several voice broadcasts on September 8 have been starting with the callsign MDZhB, which rises the question of the callsign change for the station, although this remains an open question at the moment. Uvb-76.net is providing live streams as received 900km NW from the station, for those of us who don't own a SW receiver or are too far to get a reception.
Submission + - Swiss court finds tracking p2p illegal (wordpress.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A swiss court has declared the activities of Logistep AG to track down the IP addresses of P2P transactions at the request of rights holders to be illegal and has ordered the arrest of its director.
