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Comment Re:Am I the only one? (Score 1) 135

by WarPresident (#34666142) Attached to: Problems With Truncation On the Common Application

Yes, you are being cynical. While it is important to know if the applicant is an alumni relation (big points!) or employee dependent (extra point!), if daddy made a big contribution to the school admissions would already know about it one way or another. So called development cases, or "dean specials" (read: Dean of Basket Weaving's golf buddy's son needs a second chance after getting expelled from a better school), always get flagged for special consideration.

Comment Re:Answer (Score 1) 135

by WarPresident (#34666088) Attached to: Problems With Truncation On the Common Application

It's ridiculous to print out an electronic application! There are document management database systems out there that have access controls and workflow that help keep the processing and admissions departments from drowning in a sea of folders and paper. Try OnBase, for one: today's document management system with a GUI from 1992.

Limits are there for a reason. Not just because conciseness is important, but because the admissions office has to read 30K apps in a reasonable amount of time.

The limits that Common App doesn't enforce are staggeringly stupid. Could someone tell them that 1990 called and wants their free-form date field back? I'm tired of finding and fixing the one idiot in a batch of 3,000 apps who was born on 9/31, or who entered this year as their DOB. No sanity checks at all!
Music

Submission + - EMI distributed music illegally on Rapidshare

Submitted by Carol
Carol writes: EMI and MP3tunes are currently in a three year legal battle over illegal distribution of copyright music. Michael Robertson, the owner of MP3tunes, was able to get hold of secret EMI e-mails, in which representatives of the group admitted to having used Rapidshare to distribute copyrighted material as a form of viral marketing. In court, EMI is accusing MP3tunes of allowing illegal music downloads. The stance now appears to be highly hypocritical. The company distributed its music via file sharing websites and then sued users for downloading their music without paying. It has come to light that EMI employs a team of advertising people, artists, and agents who have placed together so many free music downloads on the Internet that EMI itself has trouble distinguishing between authorized and unauthorized links.
Botnet

Submission + - Researchers Tracking Emerging 'Darkness' Botnet (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Researchers are tracking a new botnet that has become one of the more active DDoS networks on the Internet since its emergence early last month. The botnet, dubbed "Darkness," is being controlled by several domains hosted in Russia and its operators are boasting that it can take down large sites with as few as 1,000 bots. The Darkness botnet is seen as something of a successor to the older Black Energy and Illusion botnets and researchers at the Shadowserver Foundation took a look at the network's operation and found that it is capable of generating large volumes of attack traffic.

"Upon testing, it was observed that the throughput of the attack traffic directed simultaneously at multiple sites was quite impressive," Shadowserver's analysts wrote in a report on the Darkness botnet. "It now appears that 'Darkness' is overtaking Black Energy as the DDoS bot of choice. There are many ads and offers for DDoS services using 'Darkness'. It is regularly updated and improved and of this writing is up to version 7. There also appear to be no shortage of buyers looking to add 'Darkness' to their botnet arsenal."

Submission + - A Nude Awakening — TSA and privacy (oudaily.com)

Submitted by DIplomatic
DIplomatic writes: The Oklahoma Daily has a terrific, well-written editorial about the current state of airport security. Though the subject has overly-commented on, this article is well worth the read.

          The risk of a terrorist attack is so infinitesimal and its impact so relatively insignificant that it doesn’t make rational sense to accept the suspension of liberty for the sake of avoiding a statistical anomaly.
          There's no purpose in security if it debases the very life it intends to protect, yet the forced choice one has to make between privacy and travel does just that. If you want to travel, you have a choice between low-tech fondling or high-tech pornography; the choice, therefore, to relegate your fundamental rights in exchange for a plane ticket. Not only does this paradigm presume that one'(TM)s right to privacy is variable contingent on the government's discretion and only respected in places that the government doesn't care to look — but it also ignores that the fundamental right to travel has consistently been upheld by the Supreme Court.
          If we have both the right to privacy and the right to travel, then TSA's newest procedures cannot conceivably be considered legal. The TSAâ½Â's regulations blatantly compromise the former at the expense of the latter, and as time goes on we will soon forget what it meant to have those rights.

Submission + - Explosive-laden Calif. Home to be Destroyed (yahoo.com) 1

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Neighbors gasped when authorities showed them photos of the inside of the Southern California ranch-style home: Crates of grenades, mason jars of white, explosive powder and jugs of volatile chemicals that are normally the domain of suicide bombers.

Now authorities face the risky task of getting rid of the explosives. The property is so dangerous and volatile that that they have no choice but to burn the home to the ground this week in a highly controlled operation involving dozens of firefighters, scientists and hazardous material and pollution experts.

Comment The iPad isn't ready for prime time (Score 1) 449

by WarPresident (#34298266) Attached to: Why Tablets Haven't Taken Off In Business

At least the iPad isn't ready for real business purposes or even college student uses at my university. Our CMS and helpdesk system uses Silverlight (not available on the iPad) so that's the entire IT department out. Our LMS uses Java and Flash (not available on the iPad) for content delivery, so that's the Instructors, Staff and Students out. Same for the HRIS and SIS which uses some hairy Javascript code. I suppose if we were to flush millions down the toilet, we could use the iPad's straight-jacketed functionality. Not. Gonna. Happen.

Comment Re:It seems to me (Score 1) 117

by Hello Kitty (#32930434) Attached to: Apple, RIM, Google All Bid On Palm

Don't discount that plump aftermarket battery -- I bought one for my Pre and love it. It adds about 4mm to the dept of the thing and actually gives it a really contour in the, uh, palm. Bonus feature: No more smudgy battery cover! (Yeah, also not Touchstone, but I wasn't in love with the inductive stuff...)

Everything the AC above said -- terrific interface, great notifications, multitasking, freedom of apps-catalog choice -- it's all true. I'll grant that I was already a big fan of Matias Duarte's interface work, but the Pre just...makes sense. Damn shame the Sprint marketing campaign didn't; I've seen the more recent ad with the cute girleen shoe-shopping and wondered if things would have gone differently for the Pre if the first brand "face" had been her and not that spooky ginger lady.
Idle

Submission + - Academia not amused by Neanderthal lawsuit 3

Submitted by
tcpiplab
tcpiplab writes: "The civil class action suit "H. neanderthalensis v. H. sapiens, et al" (where collection from any positive judgment will be held in trust pending DNA verification of co-defendants based on percentages of h. neanderthalensis DNA and mDNA) has gained "pre-litigation" status at the Permanent Court of International Justice, sometimes called the World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands.
          Litigants seek to be awarded "reparations, to be held in trust, in kind or property" for what they claim was the "coordinated dislocation, displacement and extinction [of] H. neanderthalensis at the will of and supervision of H. sapiens" from mainland Europe, where H. neanderthalensis was the "primary occupant and predator...prior to the African exodus and subsequent and consequent incursion by H. sapiens."
          "We're proving a point here, striking a blow for victims of Speciesism, currently at a historical high point. We're sending a message to future generations that extragenus branching is not mutation and is not justification for destruction of a subspecies or sister-species", said Dr. Hans Guerder, advocate general for Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Law & Justice, based in Hamburg, Germany.
          Controversy, incredulity, and Internet parodies have dogged the group since their 2005 filing at The World Court in The Hague. The very idea that such a potentially massive financial judgment, â100 Billion — however remote the possibility of an award — has attracted numerous special interest groups as well as criticism from governments, academia, and even the normally quiet world of paleoarcheology.
        Herbert Schuman, professor of archeology and geological history at UniversitÃt Heidelberg in Heidelberg, Germany is not amused, "This is an affront to an important and serious evolutionary avenue of research and historical investigation. The idea that there exists a pecuniary value to life, the life of any species, prior to monetization of property, let alone the invention of money, is outrageous and a wasteful distraction from the real funding challenges that [Neanderthal] research and exploration is facing today. It's an insult."
          But Dr. Schuman may have to wait a long time for the furor in the scientific and legal communities to fade away. The newly emerging bioancestry market, where anyone can mail a cheek swab containing their DNA to a company who will research the geographic and ethnic origin of their heritage, has been growing at an estimated 800% per year.
          Dr. Guerder's office is already receiving calls from potential "plaintiffs".
--
Berlin Free Legal Journal, Thursday, 17 September, 2009"

Submission + - FCC expected to announce support for Net Neutralit (wired.com)

Submitted by
risingfish
risingfish writes: ""Federal regulators next week are expected to seek to turn controversial "net neutrality" principles into formal rules intended to give the nation's computer users the right to use whatever services and devices they like without interference from their ISPs." Good news indeed!"
Social Networks

Submission + - SPAM: Facebook will shut down Beacon to settle lawsuit

Submitted by
alphadogg
alphadogg writes: "Facebook has agreed to shut down its much maligned Beacon advertising system in order to settle a class-action lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed in August of last year, alleged that Facebook and its Beacon affiliates like Blockbuster and Overstock.com violated a series of laws, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Video Privacy Protection Act, the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and the California Computer Crime Law."
Link to Original Source
Government

Submission + - Cali Publishes Television Efficiency Standards for (google.com) 1

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "It's been nine months since California announced intentions for new regulations for energy consuming televisions in their state but yesterday the California Energy Commission released the first draft (more information from the horse's mouth). If you live in another state, you may be unfamiliar with California's history of mandating power usage among anything from dishwashers to washing machines and other household appliances. This has also led to California pushing to ban incandescent light bulbs. From their FAQ on TV Efficiency Standards: 'The proposed standards have no effect on existing televisions. If approved, they would only apply to TVs sold in California after January 1, 2011. The first standard (Tier 1) would take effect January 1, 2011, and reduce energy consumption by average of 33 percent. The second measure (Tier 2) would take effect in 2013 and, in conjunction with Tier 1, reduce energy consumption by an average of 49 percent.' The Draft from December 2008 is available on their site (with a shorter "Just the Facts" flier for those of you without two hours to burn), no indication if that's what they're going with or if it's been updated since."
Businesses

Submission + - London Stock Exchange to dump Microsoft-based trad 10

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There were some rumors in the past but now it's official: the Exchange will replace its .NET trading platform with the acquisition of MilleniumIT, a company based on Sri Lanka with strong backgrounds on Solaris.

Born in 2005, the Infolect/TradElect was claimed by Microsoft as one of the success stories in the famous "Get the facts" campaign against Linux.

Interestingly, the London Stock Exchange website already switched from Microsoft to Linux in june. What are the facts now?

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