greginnj - Slashdot User

Submission + - Orson Scott Card reveals truth behind IPCC numbers

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22, 2007 @12:06PM

An anonymous reader writes: The numbers behind the now famous IPCC report on global warming, apparently, are faked, and on purpose. The numbers have been cooked from the word go. From the article:

All in a Good Cause

Here's a story you haven't heard, and you should have.
An intelligence source, working for a government agency. He's not a spy, he's an analyst. He uses computers to crunch numbers and at the end of his work, out pops the truth that was hiding in the original data. Let's call him "Mann."
The trouble with Mann is, he has an ideology. He knows what he wants his results to be. And the original numbers aren't giving him that data. So the agency he works for won't be able to persuade people to fight the war he wants to fight.
Well, that's not acceptable.

Submission + - Conn. Lawmakers Debate Image Protection

Submitted by Boom on Thursday March 22, 2007 @12:02PM

Boom writes: For actor Paul Newman, a state law is needed to protect people's images and words from being used without their permission in commercials or derogatory ways. For film and media companies, the law would conflict with their First Amendment rights and open up the entertainment industry to a slew of lawsuits.

Submission + - Space X Falcon 1 launch failure speculation

Submitted by jafac on Thursday March 22, 2007 @11:59AM

jafac writes: As discussed in this SpaceDaily article, the video footage from the launch, earlier this week (available at www.spacex.com), of the Falcon 1 vehicle, seems to show a problem with the stage separation. I noticed this when I watched the video last night — it appears that the top of the first stage bumps the engine nozzle.

The upper stage guidance does a good job of setting the craft straight after this bump, but some odd things happen after that, including some kind of ring flying off the engine, and a wobble that gets progressively worse until the vehicle goes completely out of control. I've been fascinated by the availability of these kinds of videos more and more; but this is the first one I've seen that documents a failed launch — (Elon Musk's denials notwithstanding), and because of that, it's probably the coolest video I've seen all year.

Submission + - How to Overclock the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Series

Submitted by

Olin Coles

on Thursday March 22, 2007 @11:57AM

Olin Coles writes: "How to Overclock the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Series

Intro:

Presently, the 640MB version of the GeForce 8800 GTS is the second-best video card available on the market. Gamers and computer enthusiasts alike have already speculated on how the GTS could be made to perform to the same level as the GeForce 8800 GTX with some tweaking. Unfortunately, this just isn't possible. What is possible though is taking a great product and making it even better; and do it all for free.

For this overclocking project I have selected the FOXCONN NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS as my test subject, which I reviewed back in November 2006. It should be noted that the older GeForce 6 and 7 generation video cards may also be overclocked using the same methods discussed here.

Full Article URL:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_c ontent&task=view&id=13&Itemid=1"

Submission + - Who invented the GUI?

Submitted by

athloi

on Thursday March 22, 2007 @11:44AM

athloi writes: "To amuse co-workers, I found some screenshots of early versions of Windows, but they came with a surprise. I didn't remember that Windows began development in 1981, inspired by the Xerox Star project. That's before Lisa, Mac, Atari, Amiga, et al but not before the early graphical interfaces Apple II and Commodore programmers added to their war-dialers, compression algorithms and copy protection obliterators. I find myself reaching the frightening conclusion that M$ has been in this game since day one. Is anyone else unsettled by this?"

Submission + - Virtualization vendors fight to control hardware

Submitted by virtualization_dork on Thursday March 22, 2007 @11:43AM

virtualization_dork writes: Let's play an analogy game. Microsoft is to the operating system as ____ is to virtualization software. In this column, Alessandro Perilli breaks down what all of the big guys (VMware, Microsoft, VirtualIron, XenSource, etc) are doing in the virtualization space. From the article:

How is virtualization political? The company that controls the lowest level of the software stack has the power to deeply influence the entire market, in effect deciding which vendors to support for the hardware below and the software above.

This kind of political influence isn't new to technology. Think of Microsoft and the operating system (OS). When Microsoft decides to stop supporting an old version of its Windows OS, independent software vendors have to develop new versions of their products or they will be forced out of the market. With server virtualization, OS vendors will lose their leverage, since they only have to handle a standardized set of hardware. Power will shift in favor of hypervisor vendors.

The column gets even better towards the end:

VMware went after the Windows licensing model with the publication of a paper pushed hard by marketing channels. In the paper, VMware accused Microsoft of trying to slow down and thereby control the adoption of virtualization. The possible motive behind the paper: VMware hoped to jump-start its own licensing strategies before the release of Viridian.

In response, Microsoft flexed its political muscle by reminding VMware of its long-term partnership with parent company EMC Corp. Then Microsoft continued to sign alliances with VMware competitors such as SWsoft.

It's not too difficult to imagine what will happen if Microsoft gets really aggressive. Perhaps the company will start to acquire some of VMware's key partners such as Vizioncore and PlateSpin. Microsoft may even choose to hit VMware in the summer of 2007. That's when EMC has announced plans for VMware's initial public offering.
...a must-read if you're interested in virtualization.

Submission + - News Corp. and NBC create YouTube competitor

Submitted by Chinzilla on Thursday March 22, 2007 @11:33AM

Chinzilla writes: Rumors of NBC and News Corp creating a YouTube-killer took off this morning just hours before the two officially announced their partnership. They'll be creating an ad-supported distribution channel for TV shows and possibly even movies that will be syndicated on sites like MySpace and Yahoo!

The service will launch this summer with a number of TV shows — such as "Heroes," "24" and "My Name Is Earl." The service will also feature movies, including the ever-popular "Boat" at launch.
...
It's believed that users be allowed to embed videos from the service on their own sites and upload their own user-generated videos, mirroring YouTube's popular sharing format, but such a feature is currently unconfirmed.

Submission + - Lie Group E8 SOLVED

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22, 2007 @11:29AM

An anonymous reader writes: One Hundred Twenty year old math puzzle solved. From ITWire More here.

Submission + - Does web 2.0 lead to hack 2.0

Submitted by

Madas

on Thursday March 22, 2007 @11:17AM

Madas writes: "Plugging one of my stories here. I've spoken to a security expert about web 2.0 and he reckons that this gives hackers an easier time in hacking systems as you can blend different forms of attack in order to gain access to back-end systems. Is this true or just a lot of scaremongering? Will we have to stop using Digg? Personally I think that if security is built in there is going to be less of an attack surface for hackers anyway."

Submission + - ESR gives up on Fedora

Submitted by

greginnj

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:49AM

greginnj writes: "Noted Linux evangelist Eric S. Raymond (ESR) has publicly announced that he is giving up on Fedora and switching to Ubuntu: http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2 007-February/msg01006.html Not content to alert RedHat alone, it appears he has also sent out press releases to alert the media: http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/02/21/13402 37 . The announcement has already drawn smackbacks from David Cantrell of RedHat and Alan Cox."

Submission + - Astro Breakdown Spells Changes for Mars Mission

Submitted by FloatsomNJetsom on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:20PM

FloatsomNJetsom writes: Popular Mechanics has a fascinating story on what the Lisa Nowak astronaut lovetriangle/breakdown/attempted murder charges could mean for Mars Mission crew decisions: With a 30-month roundtrip, this isn't the sort of thing you'd want to happen in space. Scientists have been warning about the problems of sex on long-term spaceflight, and experts are divided as to whether you want a crew of older married couples, or a-sexual unitard-wearing eunuchs. But the big deal is that NASA's current archetype of highly-driven, task-oriented people might be precisely the wrong stuff for a Mars expedition. In addition, this is crazy, scientists might use genomics or even functional MRI in screening astronauts, in addition to facial-recognition computers to monitor mental health during the mission. "You're putting together the crew psych workup, aren't you HAL?"

Submission + - PCI-SIG releases external cable spec for PCIe

Submitted by Alvis Dark on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:18PM

Alvis Dark writes: Ars Technica is reporting that the PCI Special Interest Group has released a new external cable specification for PCI Express. 'The External Cabling specification standardizes the use of PCIe technology over copper cable, defining connector retention, identification, labeling, cabling attributes, and identification. Included in the specification are standardized cables and connectors for the entire gamut of link widths from 1x to 16x and supports signaling rates of 2.5GTps (giga transactions per second). Most importantly, the specification is designed to be compatible with existing hardware and software.' Good for crowded PC cases, but even better for laptop owners.

Submission + - Botnet Stalkers Share Takedown Tactics at RSA

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:17PM

An anonymous reader writes: From EWeek: A pair of security researchers speaking here at the ongoing RSA Conference Feb. 7 demonstrated their techniques for catching botnet operators who use secret legions of infected computers to distribute malware programs and violent political propaganda. Addressing a packed room of conference attendees, Chris Boyd, director of malware research at FaceTime Security Labs, and Wayne Porter, director of special research for the company, detailed their efforts to infiltrate the botnet community and find the people responsible for running underground networks believed to have harbored as many as 150,000 compromised computers. In the case of the other zombie net, run by a group identifying itself as the Q8Army, individuals used IM-borne adware programs to deliver malware rootkits that stole credit card information for the purpose of committing fraud. The programs also served up pop-ups that carried URLs of militant Arabic Web sites that endorse violent means for achieving "world domination," the researchers said.

Submission + - Have You Sold Your Brain?

Submitted by

Mateo_LeFou

on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:12PM

Mateo_LeFou writes: "I've been a freelance web developer for a couple years, but got placed in a "regular" job recently by an IT staffing company. I was very disturbed by their employment agreement, as it seems to assert ownership over anything I think during the contract, and for six months afterward. Additionally, the recruiter kept saying it was all "just a bunch of legal jargon" that neither she nor I should try to understand. But I tried to understand anyway, and was shocked at what it seemed to say. Unless I'm missing something, I find it very difficult to accept these terms. What do you think?"

Yahoo Pipes 94

Posted by kdawson on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:07PM from the let-the-tubes-jokes-begin dept.

ahab_2001 writes "Yahoo has introduced a new product called Pipes. It seems to be a GUI-based interface for building applications that aggregate RSS feeds and other services, creating Web-based apps from various sources, and publishing those apps. Sounds very cool. TechCrunch has a decent write-up, and Tim O'Reilly is all over it. The site was down for a few hours and is just back up. Has anybody tried this?" From the TechCrunch article: "Pipes is... akin to a shell scripting environment for the web rather than just a simple conduit between applications."

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