bpechter - Slashdot User

Justice Department Seeks Ebonics Experts 487

Posted by samzenpus on Monday August 23, 2010 @01:37PM from the my-mama-no-raise-no-dummies-I-dug-her-rap dept.

In addition to helping decipher their Lil Wayne albums, the Justice Department is seeking Ebonics experts to help monitor, translate and transcribe wire tapped conversations. The DEA wants to fill nine full time positions. From the article: "A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a 'DEA Sensitive' security clearance, will help investigators decipher the results of 'telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media.'”

Apple, RIM, Google All Bid On Palm 117

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 15, 2010 @07:00PM from the face-palm-apple dept.

imamac writes "It seems HP was only one of many bidders for the struggling Palm. The others included Apple, RIM and even Google. You may now commence speculation on why the various companies wanted Palm."

OpenSUSE 11.3 Is Here 156

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 15, 2010 @03:19PM from the lovely-little-lizard dept.

lukehashj writes "The openSUSE Project is pleased to announce the release of the latest incarnation of openSUSE, with support for 32-bit and 64-bit systems. OpenSUSE 11.3 is packed with new features and updates including SpiderOak to sync your files across the Internet for free, Rosegarden for free editing of your audio files, improved indexing with Tracker, and updates to Mozilla Firefox, and Thunderbird."

36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist 268

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday June 30, 2010 @03:33AM from the found-a-cliff-real-quick dept.

Zerocool3001 writes "The recently featured 36-hour port of the original Palm version of Lemmings to the iPhone and Palm Pre has received a cease and desist letter from Sony. Only one day after submitting the app for approval on the two app stores, the developer has put up a post stating that he 'did this as a tribute to the game — we can only hope that Sony actually does a conversion for platforms like iPhone and Palm Pre in the near future.' The text of the cease and desist letter is available from the developer's website."

Comment Re:Age Discrimination is Reality in IT (Score 1) 543

by bpechter on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @09:33AM (#32652260) Attached to: At Google, You're Old and Gray At 40

As a 56 year old in IT... You're damned right.

But as an IT guy I'd rather be a Wal-Mart greeter than in management. I'd sleep nights because I won't have to be the guy doing the right-sizing.

I'm just looking to survive these days with a kid headed for college and a mortgage. Finding new and exciting challenges in IT is nice, but a steady paycheck beats a startup right now.
(Unless it's my own startup.)

Unfortunately, that's just the way it is.

Doctors Seeing a Rise In "Google-itis" 368

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 17, 2010 @02:29PM from the sounds-like-rickets-to-me dept.

It's one of the fastest-growing health issues that doctors now face: "Google-itis." Everyone from concerned mothers to businessmen on their lunch break are typing in symptoms and coming up with rare diseases or just plain wrong information. Many doctors are bringing computers into examination rooms now so they can search along with patients to alleviate their fears. "I'm not looking for a relationship where the patient accepts my word as the gospel truth," says Dr. James Valek. "I just feel the Internet brings so much misinformation to the (exam) room that we have to fight through all that before we can get to the problem at hand."

Comment www.google.com/ie gone -- also used by the blind. (Score 4, Interesting) 281

by bpechter on Tuesday May 11, 2010 @11:44AM (#32170080) Attached to: Scroogle Has Been Blocked

The wife used the www.google.com/ie interface for accessability reasons. It worked much better for her with her screen reader. She's totally blind. She'll miss the interface and I know there were others using it for the same reason.

Lower Merion School's Report Says IT Dept. Did It, But Didn't Inhale 232

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 06, 2010 @03:46PM from the so-what's-a-few-snapshots-anyhow dept.

PSandusky writes "A report issued by the Lower Merion School District's chosen law firm blames the district's IT department for the laptop webcam spying scandal. In particular, the report mentions lax IT policies and record-keeping as major problems that enabled the spying. Despite thousands of e-mails and images to the contrary, the report also maintains that no proof exists that anyone in IT viewed images captured by the webcams."

Comment Time to bring back usenet (Score 1) 157

by bpechter on Wednesday May 05, 2010 @11:30AM (#32098936) Attached to: Spam Causes Microsoft To Kill Newsgroups

Time to bring back point to point newsfeeds which limit access. Spam control by knowing exactly who you'll feed -- and who you cut off for spam.

Bring back the days before Eternal September and the great renaming.

Writer Peter Watts Sentenced; No Jail Time 299

Posted by timothy on Friday April 30, 2010 @10:30PM from the new-spirit-of-openness dept.

shadowbearer writes "SF writer Peter Watts, a Canadian citizen, whose story we have read about before in these pages, was sentenced three days ago in a Port Huron, MI court. There's not a lot of detail in the story, and although he is still being treated like a terrorist (cannot enter or pass through the US, DNA samples) he was not ordered to do any time in jail, was freed, and has returned home to his family. The judge in the case was, I believe, as sympathetic as the legal system would allow him to be."

Man Accused of Trying To Sell Kids On Craigslist 172

Posted by samzenpus on Friday April 23, 2010 @02:16PM from the in-what-section-does-one-list-children? dept.

crimeandpunishment writes "You can get a lot of good deals on Craigslist, apparently including children. A New York State man has been arrested for allegedly trying to sell his children on the online marketplace. From the article: 'State Police Investigator Bryan Blum said Joshua A. Stagnitto, 24, was charged with one count of third-degree falsely reporting an incident, a misdemeanor, after a report was made to Monroe County Child Protective Services advising them of the posting on the online marketplace. The posting indicated a person was selling their children. Police said an investigation revealed Stagnitto was the source of the posting.'"

Comment Re:ClearOS (Score 1) 618

by bpechter on Monday April 12, 2010 @08:32AM (#31815668) Attached to: What Advice For a Single Parent As Server Admin?

ClearOS (I used the earlier ClarkConnect 3.x and 4.x) was ok but a bit more than I needed (web shares and pages were more than I
needed).

I've added most of what I need on top of IPCOP. Filtering, time based controls are available.

I put in my own dhcp and dns to allow me to redirect the gateway to a non-existant IP so I can have a time period when my kid can use the network based printer and computer for homework -- but not get to the outside world to screw around with Social Networking or games... I ssh in and run a script to restart dhcp to allow access to the outside when the work's done.

Having openvpn so I can get to the home network securely was a plus.

Iron Alloy Could Create Earthquake-Proof Buildings 107

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 25, 2010 @01:37AM from the shake-all-you-want dept.

separsons writes "Researchers at Japan's Tohoku University designed a new shape memory metal alloy. The super elastic iron alloy can endure serious stretching and still return to its original shape. The scientists say that once optimized, the material could be used in everything from braces to medical stents to earthquake-proof buildings!"

Need Help Salvaging Data From an Old Xenix System 325

Posted by timothy on Sunday March 21, 2010 @08:23AM from the warrior-princess dept.

Milo_Mindbender writes "I've recently gotten ahold of an old Altos 586 Xenix system (a late '80s Microsoft flavor of Unix) that has one of the first multi-user BBS systems in the US on it, and I want to salvage the historical BBS posts off it. I'm wondering if anyone remembers what format Xenix used on the 10MB (yes MB) IDE hard drive and if it can still be read on a modern Linux system. This system is quite old, has no removable media or ethernet and just barely works. The only other way to get data off is a slow serial port. I've got a controller that should work with the disk, but don't want to tear this old machine apart without some hope that it will work. Anyone know?"

Funeral Being Held Today For IE6 194

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 04, 2010 @12:44PM from the good-riddance dept.

An anonymous reader writes "More than 100 people, many of them dressed in black, are expected to gather around a coffin Thursday to say goodbye to an old friend. The deceased? Internet Explorer 6. The aging Web browser, survived by its descendants Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8, is being eulogized at a tongue-in-cheek 'funeral' hosted by Aten Design Group, a design firm in Denver, Colorado."

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