Comment Trick Question (Score 3, Insightful) 465
It is a trick question to see who is paying attention.
Comment where do you Stand? (Score 1) 604
The real question is, will you be heading to Boulder or to Vegas?
Comment google (Score 1) 398
Relax, it's all in the google cache.
Comment Trackball (Score 4, Insightful) 191
I use a trackball, it works well on any surface at all - sand, carpet, wood, jello, etc.
Feed New Scientist: Invention: The hibernation diet (pheedo.com)
Submission + - Top 10 Tech product ads in vintage style
An anonymous reader writes: Newlaunches.com has compiled a list of Top 10 vintage styled ads for modern day tech products and companies. The Nintendo Wii gets the vintage treatment and Adobe Photoshop gets the 80's look.
Submission + - In an email, Bill wanted ACPI to be Windows only
denis-The-menace writes: In an email, PDF'd in the link below, Bill Gates wanted to make the ACPI to work only with Windows.
http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.o rg/011607/3000/PX03020.pdf
I wonder what those MS apologists have to say about their favorite company,now?
I wonder what those MS apologists have to say about their favorite company,now?
Submission + - Microsoft: Word 2007 flaws are features, not bugs
PetManimal writes: "Mati Aharoni's discovery of three flaws in Word using a fuzzer (screenshots) has been discounted by Microsoft, which claims that the crashes and malformed Word documents are a feature of Word, not a bug. Microsoft's Security Response Center is also refusing to classify the flaws as security problems. According to Microsoft developer David LeBlanc, crashes aren't necessarily DoS situations:
Computerworld's Frank Hayes responds to LeBlanc and questions Microsoft's logic:You may rightfully say that crashing is always bad, and having a server-class app background, I agree. Crashing means you made a mistake, bad programmer, no biscuit. However, crashing may be the lesser of the evils in many places. In the event that our apps crash, we have recovery mechanisms, ways to report the crash so we know what function had the problem, and so on. I really take issue with those who would characterize a client-side crash as a denial of service. If you can crash my app so that I can't restart it, or have to reboot my system, well, OK — that's a DoS. If you blew up my app, and I just don't load that document again, big deal. On the server side, all crashes are bad — though it is still better to drop the service than to give the attacker a command prompt.
"So can we expect to see that approach in other products that use Windows Embedded? Like maybe...a TV that, when the cable service goes pixellated, shorts out all the circuitry in your house? ("Users can reset circuit breakers to resume normal operations.") A car CD player that, when it's fed a scratched disc, disconnects the steering and brakes and disengages the clutch? ("Users who survive can restart the car to resume normal operations.")
If your application code is in control, it can gracefully reject bad input. If your app code ISN'T in control, you crash. You're already owned. This suicide-before-capture approach isn't "by-design" behavior. It's lack-of-design behavior.
Submission + - Closest Look Ever of the "Face of Mars"
Riding with Robots writes: "The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has returned the sharpest view ever of the famous "Face of Mars." The formation's reputation as an alien artifact stemmed from a 1970s Viking image. In recent years, different lighting conditions and much, much higher resolution views have dispelled the illusion of an ancient Martian monument, but the new pictures give modern Mars explorers additional clues about the water ice that may lie just below the surface. You can download the full-resolution version, which the circumspect MRO team has labeled simply, "Popular Landform in Cydonia Region." Meanwhile, NASA has just released a report explaining the likely fate of the Mars Global Surveyor, which went suddenly silent last year after a decade of service."
Submission + - Did NASA Accidentally "Nuke" Jupiter?
An anonymous reader writes: Title: Did NASA Accidentally "Nuke" Jupiter?
Source: Enterprise
URL Source: http://www.enterprisemission.com//NukingJupiter.ht ml
Published: Apr 11, 2007
NASA's decision to finally terminate Galileo in September 2003 via a fiery plunge into Jupiter, was designed to prevent any possible biological contamination of Europa from a future random collision with the spacecraft, once its fuel was exhausted.
An engineer named Jacco van der Worp claimed that, plunging into Jupiter's deep and increasingly dense atmosphere, the on-board Galileo electrical power supply — a set of 144 plutonium-238 fuel pellets — would ultimately "implode"; that the plutonium Galileo carried would ultimately collapse in upon itself under the enormous pressures of Jupiter's overwhelming atmosphere and go critical.
Noone listened. One month later ... October 19, 2003 — an amateur astronomer in Belgium, Olivier Meeckers, secured a remarkable image, a dark black "splotch" showing up on the southern edge of Jupiter's well-known "North Equatorial Belt," trailing a fainter "tail" southwest (image center).
Richard Hoagland http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?Art Num=183496 has now calculated that, given the slow fall through a highly pressurised atmosphere, it is possible that the splotch is the result of about 50lb of plutonium going critical 700 miles below. Way to go, NASA!
Submission + - MIT Professor: Who Cares About Global Warming?
Jomama writes: Noted climate expert Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, writes in a recent Newsweek article that the global warming debate is irrelevant because global warming is actually a good thing that has naturally occured throughout the Earth's history. From the article:
Looking back on the earth's climate history, it's apparent that there's no such thing as an optimal temperature — a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.
Submission + - Where are the Women?
TechEGrl writes: A recent article in CIO Insight says there's a decline in the number of women going into technology careers. But it stops short of actually answering the question why. A similar article on Forbes.com shows that fewer women are reaching the boardroom — and says that nominating committees "need to be more imaginative and flexible about recruiting women."
Any thoughts on the reason for this decline?
Any thoughts on the reason for this decline?
Submission + - Make a viral video, lose your job
Raul654 writes: "Philip de Vellis, the author of the Hilary Clinton viral video was outed today on the Huffington Post. The company he works for, Blue State Digital, has now fired him as a result. Said Vellis: "I made the 'Vote Different' ad because I wanted to express my feelings about the Democratic primary, and because I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process.""
Submission + - Birth, life and death of a photon
Roland Piquepaille writes: "Two days ago, I told you that German physicists had built a single-photon server (read more on Slashdot or on ZDNet). But French researchers also have used ultra cold atoms of rubidium to record the full life of a photon. This was one of Einstein's dreams, but it was thought as an impossible one before. In fact, a photon disappears when it delivers its information. But with what has been described as an 'experimental masterwork,' the physicists have observed the 'quantum jumps' done by single photons for as long as half a second. This discovery should lead to important developments for future high performance computers and quantum computing — and certainly to the field of physics. Read more for additional references and a picture of how the team recorded the full life of a photon — not present in the short AFP article"
Submission + - Microsoft's project to classify Linux users
RJ2770 writes: "Microsoft has started a project for their partners to help identify the personas of different Linux users in an attempt to sway them toward Microsoft products. They've created a web site (http://www.linuxpersonas.com) and released a webcast (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?f amilyid=fc78610a-711d-4de7-9ae5-cc8b57d38d7d&displ aylang=en&tm). Hurry over and find out how Microsoft classifies you!"
