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Comment Re:True Romance (Score 1) 893

by BFlatSeven (#59118758) Attached to: Slashdot Asks: What's Your Favorite Underappreciated Movie?
Yes! Definitely one of my all-time favorite movies - I had it on LaserDisc back in the day, and now I have it on BlueRay. Great acting, with a great script and a good story. I'd put the scene with Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper up against any movie, any day. And there are so many other great scenes in that movie. I'm always amazed at how many famous actors were cast in that movie: Gary Oldman (who was amazing), Brad Pitt (OK, not amazing, but it was really funny to see him play that role), Samuel L. Jackson, James Gandolfini (before The Sopranos, in a role that surely must have helped get him there), Bronson Pinchot (OK, not exactly famous, but ... Balki!). I still have a crush on Patricia Arquette purely because of that movie. Oh, and it has a really great soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, too. Hard to beat!

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 408

by BFlatSeven (#56145078) Attached to: Learning To Program Is Getting Harder
That is EXACTLY the kind of thing I used to do in the beginning! It's like you were there. It's amazing how messing around on the computer back in the day has turned into a full time profession now, and I'm fairly certain that it would never have happened if I had to go out of my way to do it. It was all right there, and dead simple.

Submission + - Next Carsharing Advance: Electric Cars From A Vending Machine

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: When you're in a waiting room and get hungry, what do you do? You hit the vending machine for a candy bar or some salty snack food. Now, if you're in China and you need to borrow an electric car from the local car-sharing service, you can do exactly the same thing: go and get one from the vending machine. Just like the Smart-car dispensers seen across Europe, the Kandi car-sharing service dispenses two-seat electric cars with a 75-mile range from a big tower that looks like a huge vending machine full of candy, errrrr, cars. It costs $3.25 an hour to rent one, and China hopes it'll help cut emissions from transportation. So the next time you're in China, and you need a car, just hit up the biggest vending machine you can find.

Submission + - Why Charles Stross Wants Bitcoin to Die in a Fire

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: SF writer Charles Stross writes on his blog that like all currency systems, Bitcoin comes with an implicit political agenda attached and although our current global system is pretty crap, Bitcoin is worse. For starters, BtC is inherently deflationary. There is an upper limit on the number of bitcoins that can ever be created so the cost of generating new Bitcoins rises over time, and the value of Bitcoins rise relative to the available goods and services in the market. Libertarians love it because it pushes the same buttons as their gold fetish and it doesn't look like a "Fiat currency". You can visualize it as some kind of scarce precious data resource, sort of a digital equivalent of gold. However there are a number of huge down-sides to Bitcoin says Stross: Mining BtC has a carbon footprint from hell as they get more computationally expensive to generate, electricity consumption soars; Bitcoin mining software is now being distributed as malware because using someone else's computer to mine BitCoins is easier than buying a farm of your own mining hardware; Bitcoin's utter lack of regulation permits really hideous markets to emerge, in commodities like assassination and drugs and child pornography; and finally Bitcoin is inherently damaging to the fabric of civil society because it is pretty much designed for tax evasion. "BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind—to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions," concludes Stross. "The current banking industry and late-period capitalism may suck, but replacing it with Bitcoin would be like swapping out a hangnail for Fournier's gangrene."

Submission + - Roku Finally Adds YouTube to its Iconic Media Player (linuxgizmos.com)

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: Roku's popular Linux-based media players have long been criticized for their glaring omission of YouTube video support. As of Dec. 17, that is no longer the case, provided you have the high-end Roku 3 player and live in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, or the U.K. Google's YouTube channel is available immediately for the Roku 3 in resolutions up to 1080p, and will be supported on additional models (though probably just Roku 2) next year, according the company. Previously, the only way to run YouTube over a Roku box was to use the third-party, subscription based PlayOn service, which requires a connected PC or Mac running the PlayOn app. The YouTube update also adds a Send to TV feature, letting you send videos to the Roku for display on the TV with a single click.
The Internet

Submission + - FCC May Tweak Broadband Plan

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: Despite a recent ruling that said the FCC did not have the right to interfere in Comcast's network management issues, the agency is pushing ahead with its national broadband plan, though there might be some tweaks. Since the case was won on the fact that FCC based its decision on its Internet Policy Principles, a set of guidelines the agency developed internally several years ago regarding broadband Internet service and not actual rules that went through a formal, open rulemaking process, they are invalid as is the enforcement action. In the event of this decision FCC general counsel Austin Schlick acknowledged that the court's decision may affect a significant number of important plan recommendations because of which the commission is assessing the implications of the decision for each one, to ensure that the commission has adequate authority to execute the mission laid out in the plan.
The Internet

Submission + - Chinese ISP Hijacks The Internet (Again) (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: For the second time in two weeks, bad networking information spreading from China has disrupted the Internet. On Thursday morning, bad routing data from a small Chinese ISP called IDC China Telecommunication was re-transmitted by China's state-owned China Telecommunications, and then spread around the Internet, affecting Internet service providers such as AT&T, Level3, Deutsche Telekom, Qwest Communications and Telefonica. 'There are a large number of ISPs who accepted these routes all over the world,' said Martin A. Brown, technical lead at Internet monitoring firm Renesys. Brown said the incident started just before 10 a.m. Eastern and lasted about 20 minutes. During that time IDC China Telecommunication transmitted bad routing information for between 32,000 and 37,000 networks, redirecting them to IDC China Telecommunication instead of their rightful owners. These networks included about 8,000 U.S. networks including those operated by Dell, CNN, Starbucks and Apple. More than 8,500 Chinese networks,1,100 in Australia and 230 owned by France Telecom were also affected.
Science

Submission + - Completely farm bred unagi, world first (examiner.com)

Submitted by JoshuaInNippon
JoshuaInNippon writes: Japanese scientists at the National Research Institute of Aquaculture, Fisheries Research Agency have reported that they successfully completed an artificial cultivation cycle for unagi, or eel, a world first. Unagi is a traditional delicacy in Japan, and can commonly be found in baked-form at sushi restaurants. The fish has long been caught either matured, or still young and then fattened on farms. Sadly as a result, natural stocks of unagi have plummeted in recent years. However, the research news has indicated a future method to completely farm breed the tasty creature in mass quantity. Good news for sushi-lovers, Japanese businesses, and wild eel alike.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft promises to fully support OOXML... later (msdn.com)

Submitted by Raul654
Raul654 writes: OOXML is the word document format that Microsoft rammed through the ISO last year. Last week, Slashdot ran a story about a blog post by Alex Brown, who was instrumental in getting the OOXML approved by the ISO. Brown criticized Microsoft for reneging on their promise to support OOXML in the upcoming release of Office 2010, and for its lackadaisical approach to fixing the many bugs which still remain in the specification. Now, Doug Mahugh has responded to Brown's post, promising that Microsoft will support OOXML "no later than Office 15."
Intel

Submission + - Intel To Ship 48-Core Test Sytems To Researchers (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Just when you thought your 6-core chip was the fastest processor on the planet, Intel announces plans to ship systems equipped with an experimental 48-core CPU to a handful of lucky researchers sometime by the end of the second quarter. The 48 cores are arranged with multiple connect points in a serial mesh network to transfer data between cores. Each core also has on-chip buffers to instantly exchange data in parallel across all cores. According to Sean Koehl, technology evangelist with Intel Labs, the chip only draws up between 25 and 125 Watts."
Firefox

Submission + - Why Mozilla Needs to Go Into Survival Mode (tomshardware.com)

Submitted by Crazzaper
Crazzaper writes: I have been using Firefox for the longest time (many years), and the war of the browsers have been around for longer than that. It just so happens that now we have a lot of options out there, IE, FF, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and others. People are always talking about how one browser is going to take down another. But maybe that's not the issue at all. It seems very possible that a browser, like Firefox, can be taken down by multiple browsers at once, whether or not there was any intention to compete directly with Firefox or not. I hadn't seen it this way, but I do now.

Comment Re:But does it have Bluetooth or not? (Score 1) 208

by BFlatSeven (#20605785) Attached to: How the iPod Touch Works
In Chicago, where I live, a "hands free" headset is required by law if you're going to talk on your phone while driving (9-40-260 Use of mobile telephones ). True, "hands free" does not necessarily mean "wireless", but I'd rather not be trying to untangle wires as I pull out my headset to answer a call while on the road. Wireless is a lot easier, safer, and more convenient.
The Courts

Submission + - Prosecutor announces charges against Pirate Bay

Submitted by paulraps
paulraps writes: Almost a year after a police raid on the Pirate Bay's servers, a Swedish prosecutor has announced that he intends to press charges against the individuals behind the file-sharing giant. They will be prosecuted for various breaches of copyright law, reports The Local. But a Pirate Bay spokesman was defiant, saying, "I think they feel they have to do it. It would look bad otherwise, since they had 20 to 30 police officers involved in the raid."
Windows

Submission + - The Story Behind a Windows Security Patch Recall

Submitted by
bheer
bheer writes: "Raymond Chen's blog has always been popular with Win32 developers and those interested in the odd bits of history that contribute to Windows' quirks. In a recent post, he talks about how an error he committed led to the recall of a Windows security patch (and there's also a link to a technical explanation of the famous "Dear aunt ... double the killer delete select all" bug)."

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