GaryW - Slashdot User

Comment Re:What do they mean by cloud? (Score 1) 25

by GaryW on Thursday August 21, 2014 @11:20AM (#47720833) Attached to: National Science Foundation Awards $20 Million For Cloud Computing Experiments

You're right, "cloud computing" is a hopelessly vague term, and the headline by itself does very little to describe what these projects are. In the standard set of buzzwords, "infrastructure as a service" probably comes closest.

But read the first link text carefully -- these are "projects to create cloud computing testbeds". Not creating clouds; creating testbeds in which cloud experiments can be conducted. The users of these testbeds are NOT users of a "cloud"; the users of these testbeds bring up their OWN clouds (or other experiments). In commercial clouds such as EC2, users have control over one or more VMs; instead, these projects are intended to give users control over everything, down to and including the hardware (compute servers, switches, network links...).

As the CloudLab web page says, "the bare metal's the limit".

Yahoo Offers Compensation For Unplayable Music 143

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday July 30, 2008 @07:25PM from the no-music-for-you dept.

DrEnter writes "According to this article, Yahoo will offer some compensation after they turn off their DRM servers and Yahoo Music customers will no longer be able to access their music. The company said Wednesday it is offering coupons on request for people to buy songs again through Yahoo's new partner, RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody. Those songs will be in the MP3 format, free of copy protection. Refunds are available for users who 'have serious problems with this arrangement,' Yahoo said. Nice to see them step up and do something, especially without trading one DRM scheme for another."

Dual Boot Not Trusted, Rejected By Vista SP1 525

Posted by timothy on Wednesday July 30, 2008 @04:28PM from the that's-south-of-luckless dept.

Alsee writes "Welcome to our first real taste of Trusted Computing: With Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate, Service Pack 1 refuses to install on dual boot systems. Trusted Computing is one of the many things that got cut from Vista, but traces of it remain in BitLocker, and that is the problem. The Service Pack patch to your system will invalidate your Trust chain if you are not running the Microsoft-approved Microsoft-trusted boot loader, or if you make other similar unapproved modifications to your system. The Trust chip (the TPM) will then refuse to give you your key to unlock your own hard drive. If you are not running BitLocker then a workaround is available: Switch back to Microsoft's Vista-only boot mode, install the Service Pack, then reapply your dual boot loader. If you are running BitLocker, or if Microsoft resumes implementing Trusted Computing, then you are S.O.L."

VMware ESXi Available For Free Starting Today 241

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday July 28, 2008 @02:52PM from the free-always-sounds-better dept.

Mierdaan writes "VMware's bare-metal hypervisor is available for free starting today. ESXi, which can either be installed or run from an embedded device available in certain servers, has a 32MB footprint and gives small businesses an easy way to get into the virtualization world, with easy upgrade paths to enterprise-level features such as (H)igh (A)vailability and (D)istributed (R)esource (S)cheduler. ESXi runs on most any hardware with a server-class disk controller, and previously retailed for $495. VMware is obviously shooting to prevent Microsoft's Hyper-V technology from gaining a foothold in the marketplace."

Purported ACTA Wishlist Would Put DMCA To Shame 348

Posted by timothy on Tuesday July 01, 2008 @10:51AM from the shame-is-such-a-strong-word dept.

ulash writes "Ars Technica has an article about the (alleged) leaked 'wishlist' that RIAA submitted to the US government back in March of this year listing what they wish to see as a part of ACTA. The list includes such gems as forced filtering of materials by the ISPs, gutting the parts of the DMCA that provides safe harbor to the ISPs, and even restricting supplies of 'optical grade polycarbonate' in countries 'with high rates of production of pirated optical discs.' While the effectiveness of such a 'wishlist' on the law is not by any means objectively measurable, if one takes into account how *AA was instrumentative in the passing of DMCA, I think it is more than likely that they will get at least some of their wishes."

Comment Re:And here we go again (Score 1) 898

by GaryW on Sunday June 29, 2008 @05:06PM (#23993375) Attached to: Anti-Evolution "Academic Freedom" Bill Passed In Louisiana

No; medical care is a right. (See Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.)

Happy Birthday! X86 Turns 30 Years Old 362

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday June 05, 2008 @10:00AM from the break-out-the-chips-and-dips dept.

javipas writes "On June 8th, 1978 Intel introduced its first 16-bit microprocessor, the 8086. Intel used then "the dawn of a new era" slogan, and they probably didn't know how certain they were. Thirty years later we've seen the evolution of PC architectures based on the x86 instruction set that has been the core of Intel, AMD or VIA processors. Legendary chips such as Intel 80386, 80486, Pentium and AMD Athlon have a great debt to that original processor, and as recently was pointed out on Slashdot, x86 evolution still leads the revolution. Happy birthday and long live x86."

US Ignores Unwelcome WTO IP Rulings 448

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 26, 2008 @08:51PM from the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do dept.

Eye Log writes "The United States is a big fan of leaning on other countries to tighten IP and copyright protection, but has a tendency to ignore its own obligations when it doesn't get its way. 'Two ongoing cases illustrate the point. First, the European Union is pushing for the US to change a pair of rules that it calls "long-standing trade irritants." Despite World Trade Organization rulings against it, the US has not yet corrected either case for a period of several years... Apparently, it's easy to get hot and bothered when it's industries from your country that claim to be badly affected by rules elsewhere. When it comes to the claims of other countries, though, even claims that have been validated by the WTO, it's much easier to see the complexity of the situation, to spend years arguing those complexities before judges, and to do nothing even when compelled by rulings.'"

The International Cyber Cop Unit 127

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 19, 2008 @09:40PM from the cool-job-title dept.

coondoggie writes "A group of international cyber cops is ramping up plans to fight online crime across borders. The unit, known as the Strategic Alliance Cyber Crime Working Group, met this month in London and is made up of high-level online law enforcement representatives from the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. One of the main goals of the group is to fight cyber crime in a common way by sharing intelligence, swapping tools and best practices, and strengthening and synchronizing their respective laws."

Install Copyright Filters on PCs, Says RIAA Boss 391

Posted by Zonk on Thursday February 07, 2008 @03:41PM from the one-solution-not-my-favorite dept.

Don't squeeze the Sherman writes "At a conference last week, RIAA president Cary Sherman said he didn't support mandatory filtering by ISPs, but in a video clip posted by Public Knowledge, Sherman offers a far more troubling 'solution': installing filters on users' PCs. From Ars Technica's coverage: 'The issue of encryption "would have to be faced," Sherman admitted after talking about the wonders of filtering. "One could have a filter on the end user's computer that would actually eliminate any benefit from encryption because if you want to hear [the music], you would need to decrypt it, and at that point the filter would work."'"

HD Monitor Causes DRM Issues with Netflix 540

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday January 03, 2008 @08:10PM from the new-years-low-resolution dept.

Jeremiah Cornelius points us to Davis Freeberg's blog, where he discusses his "nightmare scenario" of losing access to his DRM-protected purchases by upgrading his PC monitor. "When I called them they confirmed my worst fears. In order to access the Watch Now service, I had to give Microsoft's DRM sniffing program access to all of the files on my hard drive. If the software found any non-Netflix video files, it would revoke my rights to the content and invalidate the DRM. This means that I would lose all the movies that I've purchased from Amazon's Unbox, just to troubleshoot the issue. Because my computer allows me to send an unrestricted HDTV feed to my monitor, Hollywood has decided to revoke my ability to stream 480 resolution video files from Netflix. In order to fix my problem, Netflix recommended that I downgrade to a lower res VGA setup."

Creative Commons Launches CC+ License 67

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @05:34PM from the all-about-just-gettin-paid dept.

A user writes "Creative Commons has this week released their CC+ protocol, which provides a way for authors to allow other people to commercially reuse their work, and give them a pre-negotiated fee or percentage. It makes it easy for people to release the Material under CC-No-Commercial, and then have a way to charge for commercial use if companies are interested."

Google Honors Veterans Day, Finally 693

Posted by kdawson on Monday November 12, 2007 @03:52AM from the that-wasn't-so-hard-was-it dept.

theodp writes "It took nearly a decade, but Google has done a turnabout and is honoring Veterans Day with a special holiday design for its famous logo. Users who log onto Google's home page are greeted with three World War I-era helmets capping the letters 'o' and 'e' in Google's name. The decoration is a marked departure for the company, which has come under fire from veterans' groups for ignoring American holidays such as Veterans Day and Memorial Day since Google's inception in 1999."

NASA Knows How To Party 341

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday November 10, 2007 @11:24AM from the open-bar-so-drink-up dept.

doug141 writes "NASA spends between $400,000 and $1.3 million on a party at every shuttle launch, according to CBS. Select personnel are treated to 5 days at a 4 star hotel. This year alone, they've spent $4 million on parties. NASA asked for, and was given, $1 billion more from the Senate this year. NASA proponents argue it makes more sense to give money to talented, productive people in exchange for scientific knowledge, than spend in on unproductive people in the form of straight welfare."

MLB Fans Who Bought DRM Videos Get Hosed 299

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday November 07, 2007 @05:20PM from the digital-restrictions-management dept.

Billosaur writes "Major League Baseball has just strengthened the case against DRM. If you downloaded videos of baseball games from MLB.com before 2006, apparently they no longer work and you are out of luck. MLB.com, sometime during 2006, changed their DRM system. Result: game videos purchased before that time will now no longer work, as the previous DRM system is no longer supported. When the video is played, apparently the MLB.com servers are contacted and a license obtained to verify the authenticity of the video; this is done by a web link. That link no longer exists, and so now the videos will no longer play, even though the MLB FAQ says that a license is only obtained once and will not need to be re-obtained. The blogger who is reporting this contacted MLB technical support, only to be told there are no refunds due to this problem."

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