Eun-HjZjiNeD - Slashdot User

Achievements and Optimizations 294

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday April 06, 2009 @11:45AM from the because-we-can dept.

This week's code refresh has added a number of really irritating story display bugs that we're working on. But, it also added a number of cool optimizations that should improve performance for a lot of readers. Tap that link below to read a brief description of them, and also a few serious notes about the achievement system we launched last Wednesday.

Columnist Fired For Reviewing Pirated Movie 466

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday April 06, 2009 @09:35AM from the don't-mess-with-rupert dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Roger Friedman, an entertainment columnist for FoxNews.com, discovered over the weekend just what Rupert Murdoch means by 'zero tolerance' when it comes to movie piracy. On Friday, the film studio 20th Century Fox — owned by the News Corporation, the media conglomerate ruled by Mr. Murdoch — became angry after reading Friedman's latest column, a review of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine,' a big-budget movie that was leaked in unfinished form on the Web last week. Friedman posted a mini-review, adding, 'It took really less than seconds to start playing it all right onto my computer.' The film studio, which enlisted the FBI to hunt the pirate, put out a statement calling Friedman's column 'reprehensible' while News Corporation weighed in with its own statement, saying it had asked Fox News to remove the column from its Web site. 'When we advised Fox News of the facts,' the statement said, 'they promptly terminated Mr. Friedman.'"

Antarctic Ice Bridge Finally Breaks Off 505

Posted by timothy on Monday April 06, 2009 @01:50AM from the invest-in-arizona-beaches dept.

GreennMann writes "An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice the size of Jamaica to two islands in Antarctica has snapped. Scientists say the collapse could mean the Wilkins Ice Shelf is on the brink of breaking away, and provides further evidence of rapid change in the region. Sited on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins shelf has been retreating since the 1990s. Researchers regarded the ice bridge as an important barrier, holding the remnant shelf structure in place. Its removal will allow ice to move more freely between Charcot and Latady islands, into the open ocean."

Comment Re:Obligitory: Lame Poll (Score 1) 432

by Eun-HjZjiNeD on Tuesday March 31, 2009 @02:21AM (#27398565) Attached to: I typically stick with the same desktop environment

I have been using bb4win [xoblite and bblean] since 2005 when I stumbled upon it, and fluxbox on linux. one thing I really like about bb4win is that the styles are transferable between fluxbox and bb4win. I can have the exact same desktop experience on windows as I have in Suse. I can't stand the default explorer shell on windows anymore. It feels backwards and uncomfortable.

Comment Re:Dell missed its opportunity (Score 1) 174

by Eun-HjZjiNeD on Saturday March 21, 2009 @10:57PM (#27284911) Attached to: Dell's Smartphone Rejected — Too Dull

I bought an HX4700 before Dell came out with the x51v. If I had waited 2 months I would have got the Axim over the iPaq. Not to mention the 'touch pad' is freakishly annoying on the hx4700. I had the chance to use an axim, however, and the panel dell used was very sub par. My hx4700 still works and looks beautifully, except the touch pad has broken, and would cost me over 100$ to replace it. None of HP pdas to date appeal to me as a replacement, even though my current PDA is slightly broken... IMO, the smartphone industry killed the PDA. Thats why Dell dropped out and HP make such crapty PDAs as of late. If dell made a smartphone now with simmilar specs to the old axim, but with a better panel [like the sony panel on the hx4700] I would buy one in a heartbeat. As long as it's NOT running win mobile.

Morality of Throttling a Local ISP? 640

Posted by kdawson on Sunday March 15, 2009 @08:27PM from the what-would-larry-do dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I work for a small (400 customers) local cable ISP. For the company, the ISP is only a small side business, so my whole line of expertise lies in other areas, but since I know the most about Linux and networking I've been stuck into the role of part-time sysadmin. In examining our backbone and customer base I've found out that we are oversubscribed around 70:1 between our customers' bandwidth and our pipe. I've gone to the boss and showed him the bandwidth graphs of us sitting up against the limit for the better part of the day, and instead of purchasing more bandwidth, he has asked me to start implementing traffic shaping and packet inspection against P2P users and other types of large downloaders. Because this is in a certain limited market, the customers really only have the choice between my ISP and dial-up. I'm struggling with the desire to give the customers I'm administering the best experience, and the desire to do what my boss wants. In my situation, what would you do?"

Comment Re:Insomnia (Score 1) 605

by Eun-HjZjiNeD on Friday March 13, 2009 @03:43AM (#27178153) Attached to: My longest stretch without sleep (catnaps count) ...

Actually, yes. As 'Nightspirit' said below, I just kinda sat in my desk chair and wrote nonsense. Some pretty great depressing stuff came out of those 9 days. Worst part was that I had to work the morning shift during that week as well. [0400 to 1300]

Comment Insomnia (Score 1) 605

by Eun-HjZjiNeD on Thursday March 12, 2009 @10:30PM (#27176659) Attached to: My longest stretch without sleep (catnaps count) ...

9 days, no coffee, no stimulants. I was more awake than I had ever been. It sucked.

DHS To Use Body Odor As a Lie Detector 206

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 12, 2009 @07:57AM from the we-can-smell-the-truth dept.

The US Department of Homeland Security is studying lies, damned lies, and smells. They hope to prove that human body odor could be used to tell when people are lying. The department says they are already "conducting experiments in deceptive behavior and collecting human odor samples" and that the research it hopes to fund "will consist primarily of the analysis and study of the human odor samples collected to determine if a deception indicator can be found."

Microsoft Executive Tapped For Top DHS Cyber Post 138

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 12, 2009 @03:31AM from the reboot-to-be-safe dept.

krebsatwpost writes "The Department of Homeland Security has named Microsoft's 'chief trustworthy infrastructure strategist' Phil Reitinger to be its top cyber security official. Many in the security industry praised him as a smart pick, but said he will need to confront a culture of political infighting and leadership failures at DHS. From the story: 'Reitinger comes to the position with cyber experience in both the public and private sectors. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2003, he was executive director of the Defense Department's Computer Forensics Lab. Before that, he was deputy chief of the Justice Department's Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property section, where he worked under Scott Charney, who is currently corporate vice president for trustworthy computing at Microsoft.'"

Apple Touch-Screen Netbook? 291

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:23PM from the heard-this-before dept.

je ne sais quoi writes "The Apple rumor mill is churning today. Reuters and the DOW Jones news wire are reporting that an anonymous source in Taiwan has leaked that Apple has ordered some 10-inch touch-screens from WinTek, the maker of the touch-screen for the iPhone. It looks like an Apple netbook could possibly be in the works for a delivery date in Q3 of this year, in time for back-to-school sales. CNET and Engadget have completely unsubstantiated mock-ups."

Asthma Risk Linked To Early TV Viewing 266

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @01:53AM from the near-the-carpet dept.

Ponca City, We love you writes "The number of children with asthma has been rising for many years. About 1 in 10 children in the UK develop asthma, compared with about 1 in 25 in the 1960s. The reason for this isn't clear, although several theories have been put forward such as keeping our homes cleaner, and having central heating and more soft furnishings where house dust mites can multiply. Now based on more than 3,000 children whose respiratory health was tracked from birth to 11.5 years of age, researchers have found a new correlation with young children who spend more than two hours glued to the TV every day doubling their subsequent risk of developing asthma. 'This study has shown for the first time a positive association between increased duration of reported TV viewing in early childhood and the development of asthma by 11.5 years of age in children with no symptoms of asthma in early childhood,' said the researchers, led by A. Sherriff, from the University of Glasgow. It's not clear exactly how sedentary behaviors like television watching are tied to asthma, but there is some evidence to suggest exercise and deep breaths that come with it stretch the smooth muscles in the airways, while lack of exercise may make the lungs overly sensitive. The results add asthma to a catalog of undesirable outcomes, including obesity, diabetes, smoking, and promiscuity, tied to TV viewing."

IE8 May Be End of the Line For Internet Explorer 380

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 10, 2009 @04:17PM from the don't-let-the-door-hit-you dept.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy reports on rumors that IE8 may be Internet Explorer's swan song: 'IE8 is the last version of the Internet Explorer Web browser,' Kennedy writes. 'It seems that Microsoft is preparing to throw in the towel on its Internet Explorer engine once and for all.' And what will replace it? Some are still claiming that Microsoft will go with WebKit, which is used by Safari and Chrome. The WebKit story, Kennedy contends, could be a feint and that Microsoft will instead adopt Gazelle, Microsoft Research's brand-new engine that thinks like an OS. 'This new engine will supposedly be more secure than Firefox or even Chrome, making copious use of sandboxing to keep its myriad plug-ins isolated and the overall browser process model protected.'" The sticking point will be what Microsoft does about compatibility for ActiveX apps.

Packing Algorithms May Save the Planet 195

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 09, 2009 @09:19AM from the that-might-be-an-overstatement dept.

An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist reports on how competitions to devise better packing algorithms could help cut the environmental impact of deliveries and shipping. A new record setter at packing differently-sized discs into the smallest space without overlapping them has potential to be applied to real world 3D problems, researchers claim." Ok the title might be a little ridiculous, but the ridiculous packaging used to ship a few tiny objects by some shippers is pretty shameful.

Emulation Explosion On the PS3 Via Linux 425

Posted by timothy on Monday March 09, 2009 @02:24AM from the like-your-very-own-time-machine dept.

Marty writes "The PlayStation 3 has recently seen an explosion of releases of emulators and games for the Yellow Dog Linux distro for PS3; once you have installed Yellow Dog Linux you then have the ability to try out MAME, SNES, Amiga, Dos, Commodore and Atari emulators (that's the tip of the iceberg) and such games as Quake 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Hexen 2 and Alephone. Time to start installing Linux on your PS3?"

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