CNETNate - Slashdot User

Submission + - The Pirate Bay will not be blocked in Norway (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by C4st13v4n14 on Friday November 06, 2009 @01:36PM

C4st13v4n14 writes: In a sudden outbreak of uncommon sense today, the decision was handed down that Telenor, Norway's largest ISP, will not have to block access to The Pirate Bay. Telenor was sued earlier this year by the IFPI after being threatened and not backing down.

Submission + - Why won't they die? The tech we won't forget (cnet.co.uk)

Submitted by CNETNate on Friday November 06, 2009 @10:16AM

CNETNate writes: Fax machines, for one, refuse to be replaced entirely. As do landline telephones. But why? Why are so many technologies which have been succeeded and bettered over time, still in use? This article details 8 pieces of technology which, for one reason or another, have defied the downfall time should've provided, and are still commonly used today. There are probably 80 others not listed, of course.

Submission + - Google's plans for an interplanetary internet (wired.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06, 2009 @09:41AM

An anonymous reader writes: Vint Cerf, Google's internet evangelist, has unveiled a new protocol intended to power an interplanetary internet. The Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol emerged from work first started in 1998 in partnership with Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The initial goal was to modify the ubiquitous Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to facilitate robust communications between celestial bodies and satellites, but they realised that TCP simply couldn't cope with the massive delay and data loss caused by celestial motion. "The planets rotate, and we haven't figured out how to stop that," Cerf admitted.

Submission + - Exclusive Q+A with Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales (silicon.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06, 2009 @06:47AM

An anonymous reader writes: In this exclusive interview, Jimmy Wales is asked first off whether he's a hero or a villain! The interview then goes on to discuss where the future of wikipedia is going, why the site needs geeks — computer geeks and poetry geeks appararenty according to Wales, and why he couldnt live unplugged. and he tells his thoughts on people who try and get agressive in articles — and whether things should be free or not.

Submission + - Top Ten Geek Recipes - What do nerds cook?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06, 2009 @06:31AM

An anonymous reader writes: CNET has just posted the Top Ten Geek Recipes, which details the favourite foods of famous geeks, and how to cook it at home. Apparently Mary Shelly loved crumble, Wozniak enoys spaghetti from a Telegraph Hill cafe, and Bill Gates is a regular at Dick's Drive-In on 45th Street, Seattle. The list explains how to make 10 dishes, including "Steve Jobs Ice Cream", "Gates Burgers" and "Hopper Picosecond Steak". From the article "It's easy to forget that every geek has a food-port in the middle of their facial interface zone. But when they weren't redefining the fabric of modern society, many of the world's most famous nerds took time out to snarf a burger. Not so in the case of Steve Jobs, of course — he's far more likely to be nibbling on a couscous flan."

Submission + - What does Google Suggest suggest about humanity? (cnet.co.uk)

Submitted by CNETNate on Thursday November 05, 2009 @09:19AM

CNETNate writes: You'll laugh, but mostly you'll cry. Some of the questions Google gets asked to deliver results for is beyond worrying. 'Can you put peroxide in your ear?', 'Why would a pregnancy test be negative?', and 'Why can't I own a Canadian?' being just a selection of the truly baffling — and disturbing — questions Google is regularly forced to answer.

Murderer With "Aggression Genes" Gets Reduced Sentence 507

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @11:49AM from the blame-it-on-genetics dept.

Noiser writes "New Scientist reports: 'In 2007, Abdelmalek Bayout admitted to stabbing and killing a man and received a sentence of 9 years and 2 months. An appeal court judge in Trieste, Italy, cut Bayout's sentence by a year after finding out he has gene variants linked to aggression.'"

Submission + - Plug vs Plug: Which nation's plug socket is best? (cnet.co.uk)

Submitted by CNETNate on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @11:18AM

CNETNate writes: Is the American mains socket really so much worse than the Italian design? And does the Italian socket fail at rivaling the sockets in British homes? This feature explores, in a not-at-all-parodic-and-anecdotal fashion, the designs, strengths and weaknesses of Earth's mains adapters. There is only one conclusion, and you're likely not to agree if you live in France. Or Italy. Or in fact most places.

Submission + - SPAM: Symantec posts on fake Mac malware

Submitted by t-9000 on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @09:50AM

t-9000 writes: Threats targeting the Macintosh platform are much less common than those targeting Windows. The same can be said about video games, where Windows is the dominate platform of the two. Combining games and malware has happened before, but a Mac game performing malicious activities? That’s something relatively new ..

While interesting in its own right, there’s nothing stopping someone with more malicious intentions from modifying it slightly and then passing it on to unsuspecting users, causing significant damage to a computer. As a result, we’re detecting this threat as OSX.Loosemaque.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Interview: Behind the scenes of Zero Punctuation (cnet.co.uk)

Submitted by CNETNate on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @09:41AM

CNETNate writes: Zero Punctuation is one of the most popular videogames shows on the Web. It's creator — Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw — holds little restraint in insulting the most atrocious titles, evident in such lines as "Ninja Gaiden 2 is part of a dying breed, so I'm inclined to be nice towards it as I would towards anyone else with a terminal illness." In a rare interview talked to CNET to explain how he makes the show, his views on censorship, and the doors the show's popularity has opened for him — a full novel entitled Mogworld scheduled to be released next year.

Submission + - AT&T sues Verizon over TV ads (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @08:53AM

An anonymous reader writes: "Through the use of a coverage map in [Verizon] ads, they suggest through all white or blank space, not only that AT&T doesn't offer 3G coverage but no coverage at all," spokesman Mark Siegel said in an interview. "That's misleading and that's why we filed the lawsuit." In response, Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Brenda Raney said: "We feel the maps are accurate ... we make sure they are accurate." She said the TV ads clearly indicate in text that appears on the screen that the white areas are places where there is no 3G coverage, and not that there is no coverage at all.

Submission + - Allianz goes to z10 from 60 boxes in 48 hours (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @06:35AM

An anonymous reader writes: Insurance giant Allianz took 48 hours to migrate its entire web facing applications stored on 60 WinTel boxes to one z10 mainframe with zLinux.

The corporation took a year to plan the move and decided on going with a mainframe over x86 virtualisation. They will also move all of their COBOL operations onto the z10 from another older mainframe within 18 months.

The article quotes the CIO as saying: "It has really ticked all the boxes. It reduced the dependency on a data centre, it reduced the complexity from over 60 servers down to one box, it enabled us to put a lot more robustness around it in terms of DRP and scalability, and was environmentally friendly as well," Coles said. "It took our kVA power usage down from about 40 to 4 – so a significant environmental benefit as well."

Submission + - Piracy Demo Fails In Federal Court (itnews.com.au) 3

Submitted by bennyboy64 on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @05:09AM

bennyboy64 writes: The court battle between the film industry and Australian internet service provider iiNet today saw the film industry attempt to demonstrate how piracy could occur by accessing the Pirate Bay website. iTnews reports that website blocking software installed within Sydney's Federal Court brought proceedings to a halt. Upon the film industry proposing the demonstration before the Court, Justice Cowdroy said he expected such a demonstration would work. The judge said he would have the Pirate Bay website unblocked. Wait untill they find out that certain ports will be blocked too!

Submission + - Mandriva Linux 2010 Released (warpedsystems.sk.ca)

Submitted by

Linegod

on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @03:06AM

Linegod writes: "Mandriva Linux, code name Adelie, is the 25th version of Mandriva Linux and has been released as of November 3rd, 2009. Mandriva Linux on 2010 is available in three editions: One, Powerpack and Free, for architectures i586 and x86-64. One and Free can be free downloaded from official Mandriva mirrors and via BitTorrent. Torrents are available at http://torrent.mandriva.com/public/2010.0 . Early seeders began yesterday, so the torrents should be quick."

Submission + - AT&T sues Verizon over "Map for that" ads

Submitted by MahlonS on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @01:42AM

MahlonS writes: AP is reporting on a suit filed in Northern Georgia in which AT&T claims that Verizon's "There's a Map for That" ads are misleading and amount to deceptive trade practices. AP's article is available here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ATT_VERIZON_LAWSUIT?SITE=KVUE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT Verizon had already agreed to modify their original ad to include a tag line that voice and data services are available outside 3G coverage areas. Personally, I have my own evidence that Verizon's ad is misleading. At our summer home in Maine, Verizon's map claims full 3G coverage, but we rarely have voice coverage, even outdoors.

Slashdot Top Deals