Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
The Internet

Windows 8 Changes Host File Blocking 1030

Posted by samzenpus from the try-it-like-this dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Windows 8 has been confirmed to not only ignore, but also modify the hosts file. As soon as a website that should be blocked is accessed, the corresponding entry in the hosts file is removed, even if the hosts file is read-only. The hosts file is a popular, cross-platform way of blocking access to certain domains, such as ad-serving websites."
Image

US Scientists Invited To Russian Yeti Hunt 195

Posted by samzenpus from the bring-two-pairs-of-boots dept.
First time accepted submitter Lindan9 writes "After an apparent increase of yeti sightings in the Kemerovo and Altai region of Siberia, a group of scientists from around the world are meeting to examine evidence possibly proving yeti existence. The scientists suspect there is a population of several dozen living in the area. The team hopes to spot a yeti or still living neanderthal man during their search of the area's mountains." I hope they find two pristine horns faster than I did.
Communications

Chemical "Infofuses" Communicate Without Electricity 115

Posted by kdawson from the can-you-see-me-now dept.
Al writes "Researchers at Harvard and Tufts University have developed a way to send coded messages without using electricity. David Walt, professor of chemistry at Tufts, and Harvard's George Whitesides have developed 'infofuses' that can transmit information simply by burning. The fuses — metallic salts depositing on a nitrocellulose strand — emit pulses of infrared and visible light of different colors whose sequence encodes information. They were developed in response to a call from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for technologies to allow soldiers stranded without a power source to communicate. In the first demonstration of the idea, they used the infofuses to transmit the message look mom no electricity." Currently the researchers are "trying to figure out a way to dynamically encode a message on the fly in the field without specialized equipment."
Supercomputing

Creating a Low-Power Cloud With Netbook Chips 93

Posted by timothy from the but-what's-the-wattage-equivalent-cfl dept.
Al writes "Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have created a remarkably low-power server architecture using netbook processors and flash memory cards. The server design, dubbed a 'fast array of wimpy nodes,' or FAWN, is only designed to perform simple tasks, but the CMU team say it could be perfect for large Web companies that have to retrieve large amounts of data from RAM. A set-up including 21 individual nodes draws a maximum of just 85 watts under real-world conditions. The researchers say that a FAWN cluster could offer a low-power replacement for sites that currently rely on Memcached to access data from RAM."
Government

Submission + - CIA says most voting machines can be hacked (mcclatchydc.com)

Submitted by ISoldat53
ISoldat53 writes: "The CIA, which has been monitoring foreign countries' use of electronic voting systems, has reported apparent vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela, Macedonia and Ukraine and a raft of concerns about the machines' vulnerability to tampering." mcclatchydc.com
Upgrades

Linux 2.6.28 Promises Year-End Presents 305

Posted by timothy from the my-holiday-thanks-go-mostly-to-the-finnish-guy dept.
darthcamaro writes "Little penguins all around the world are waiting for Penguin-Master Linus Torvalds to deliver some Glogg inspired Xmas cheer in the form of the new 2.6.28 kernel. Among the innovations in 2.6.28 are ext4 as stable, wireless USB drivers, better KVM support and the GEM graphic memory management technology. 'We now have a proper memory manager for video memory, the GEM [Graphics Execution Manager] memory manager,' Greg Kroah-Hartman said. 'This gives Linux much better graphics performance than it previously had.'"
Space

Iran Announces Manned Space Mission Plans 559

Posted by timothy from the look-out-below dept.
Lucas123 writes "After Iran's first attempt to launch a satellite on Sunday fell noticeably short of the Earth's atmosphere (though Iran claimed it made it into orbit), government officials stated they intend to put a man into space within 10 years. The long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into space can also be used for launching weapons. Iran says it has no intention to use the technology for launching nuclear warheads."
Microsoft

Microsoft Pulls Vista SP1 Update 268

Posted by CmdrTaco from the undo-undo-undo dept.
1shooter writes "news.com reports that Microsoft is withdrawing SP1 for Vista. Nick White, Microsoft product manager blogged 'We've heard a few reports about problems customers may be experiencing as a result of KB937287,' wrote White. 'Immediately after receiving reports of this error, we made the decision to temporarily suspend automatic distribution of the update to avoid further customer impact while we investigate possible causes.'"
Communications

First Nations Want Cellphone Revenue 513

Posted by samzenpus from the the-great-spirit-wants-his-cut dept.
Peacenik45 writes "The CBC is reporting that First Nations in Manitoba want compensation for every cell phone signal that passes through their land because it violates their airspace. The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs recently resolved to negotiate revenue sharing with Manitoba Telecom Services. Ovide Mercredi of the Grand Rapids First Nations says "When it comes to using airspace, it's like using our water and simply because there's no precedent doesn't mean that it's not the right thing to do." This move may inspire First Nations in other provinces to follow suit."

Feed NSA Spy Documents Stay Sealed (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
A federal judge rejects a bid by Wired News and other media outlets to unseal whistle-blower papers in a lawsuit over surveillance of Americans. In 27B Stroke 6.


Data Storage

Everything You Know About Disks Is Wrong 330

Posted by kdawson from the mean-time dept.
modapi writes "Google's wasn't the best storage paper at FAST '07. Another, more provocative paper looking at real-world results from 100,000 disk drives got the 'Best Paper' award. Bianca Schroeder, of CMU's Parallel Data Lab, submitted Disk failures in the real world: What does an MTTF of 1,000,000 hours mean to you? The paper crushes a number of (what we now know to be) myths about disks such as vendor MTBF validity, 'consumer' vs. 'enterprise' drive reliability (spoiler: no difference), and RAID 5 assumptions. StorageMojo has a good summary of the paper's key points."

IT and Divorce? 943

Posted by Cliff from the career-hazards dept.
frank_tudor asks: "I am graduate student and work as a web developer. I am also getting a divorce and I have a son caught in the middle. I believe my profession had a part in it. For my graduate thesis I am writing a paper about Dads who work in the computer industry, divorce and custody. I think our industry causes a high rate of divorce but I need some help from the Slashdot community. My questions are: How many of you computer Dads have also gone through divorce and have retained either half or full custody of your children? Do you think your job had something to do with it? What were some of your hardest challenges and are your kids happy?"

Comment Re:It's unfortunate (Score 3, Interesting) 586

by good-n-nappy (#14997726) Attached to: Microsoft's Not So Happy Family
The only reason I read the comments on this story was to figure out what the heck Microsoft could have been doing all this time. Microsoft has a bad reputation with regard to the quality of their code. But they have a really good reputation for shipping products. I also know some really smart people working at Microsoft - and I'm sure there are lots of others I don't know.

So I'm trying to figure out what all these smart people known for shipping products could have been doing all this time. The only thing that makes sense is a scenario like the one you described. In other words, that the management had some unrealistic requirement that they were unwilling to compromise. Porting mountains of existing code to .NET sounds exactly like one of the few things that could have bogged down so many smart people for so long. Maybe Microsoft finally is too big for their own good and they're collapsing under the weight of all the pointy haired bosses.

Slashdot Top Deals

DEC diagnostics would run on a dead whale. -- Mel Ferentz

Close