Grimfaire - Slashdot User

Submission + - DoJ closing porn stars bank accounts.

Submitted by MouseTheLuckyDog on Friday May 02, 2014 @12:24PM

MouseTheLuckyDog writes: In a recent story on reason.com it was reported that the DoJ is closing down the bank accounts of porn stars.
Not knowing the site I googled around and found another site, the Guardian.

The story does not end there. It turns out that this is part of a larger scheme ( ironically ) called Operation Choke Point. Also reported in a Washington Post article that downplays the practice.

According to Cryptocoin news. There are thirty industries the DoJ is now targeteting:
*Ammunition Sales *Cable Box De-scramblers *Coin Dealers *Credit Card Schemes
*Credit Repair Services *Dating Services *Debt Consolidation Scams *Drug Paraphernalia
*Escort Services *Firearms Sales *Fireworks Sales *Get Rich Products *Government Grants
*Home-Based Charities *Life-Time Guarantees *Life-Time Memberships *Lottery Sales
*Mailing Lists/Personal Info *Money Transfer Networks *On-line Gambling *PayDay Loans
*Pharmaceutical Sales *Ponzi Schemes *Pornography *Pyramid-Type Sales *Racist Materials
*Surveillance Equipment *Telemarketing *Tobacco Sales *Travel Clubs

But more can be added. ( I notice alcohol sales is not on the list).

Submission + - Predicting the Risk of Suicide by Analyzing the Text of Clinical Notes (plosone.org)

Submitted by J05H on Wednesday January 29, 2014 @06:11PM

J05H writes: Soldier and veteran suicide rates are increasing due to various factors. Critically the rates have jumped in recent years. Bayesian search experts use gathered, anonymous Veteran's Administration notes to predict suicide risks. The main link is to the paper in PLoS One. A related effort by Mr. Poulin is the Durkheim Project that uses opt-in social media data for similar purposes http://www.durkheimproject.org...

Submission + - Researchers tout electricity storage tech that could recharge devices in minutes (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @03:42PM

coondoggie writes: Vanderbilt University researchers say they have come up with a way to store electricity on a silicon-based supercapacitor that would let mobile phones recharge in seconds and let them continue to operate for weeks without recharging.

Submission + - DARPA issues $2mil Cyber Grand Challenge

Submitted by Papa Fett on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @11:43AM

Papa Fett writes: DARPA announced the Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC)--the first-ever tournament for fully automatic network defense systems. International teams will compete to build systems that reason about software flaws, formulate patches and deploy them on a network in real time. Teams would be scored against each other based on how capably their systems can protect hosts, scan the network for vulnerabilities, and maintain the correct function of software. The winning team would receive a cash prize of $2 million, with second place earning $1 million and third place taking home $750,000. If DARPA is as successful as they were with their Grand Challenge of self driving cars, according to The Register, "it's Brown trousers time for some in antivirus industry."

Submission + - Patriot Act Author Introduces Bill to Limit Use of Patriot Act (dailydot.com)

Submitted by wjcofkc on Friday October 11, 2013 @02:44PM

wjcofkc writes: In an ironic but welcome twist, author of the Patriot Act, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), is introducing the USA FREEDOM Act, a bill specifically aimed at countering the portions of the Patriot Act that were interpreted to let the NSA collect telephone metadata in bulk. The congressman has been a vocal opponent of the NSA's interpretation and misuse of the Patriot Act since Edward Snowden first leaked evidence of the program in June. On Wednesday, he wrote to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that the “collection of a wide array of data on innocent Americans has led to serious questions about how government will use—or misuse—such information.”

DOJ Fights To Bury Court Ruling On Government Surveillance 100

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 30, 2013 @05:03PM from the gotta-know-when-t'-holder dept.

coolnumbr12 writes with this IBTimes excerpt: "The Justice Department may soon be forced to reveal a classified document that details unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens. The Justice Department has fought to keep the document secret for about a year, but a recent court order demands that they respond to a formal request filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation by next week, June 7, 2013."

Submission + - NASA Asteroid Capture Mission to Be Proposed in 2014 Budget (yahoo.com)

Submitted by

MarkWhittington

on Friday March 29, 2013 @01:11PM

MarkWhittington writes: "Included in President Obama's 2014 budget request will be a $100 million line item for NASA for a mission to capture and bring an asteroid to a high orbit around the moon where it will be explored by asteroinauts. Whether the $2.6 billion mission is a replacement or a supplement to the president's planned human mission to an asteroid is unclear. The proposal was first developed by the Keck Institite in April, 2012 and has achieved new impetus due to the meteor incident over Russia and new fears of killer asteroids."

Comment Tough Road (Score 1) 3

by Grimfaire on Friday June 08, 2012 @11:56AM (#40258265) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Getting a tech job with skills but no formal degree

I've been working in IT for almost 20 years now and my lack of a degree still hurts me on the job market. Doesn't matter that I know more and have been doing actual work if they have a candidate with a degree I lose out every time.

Submission + - Will IBM's Watson Kill Your Career? (slashdot.org)

Submitted by

Nerval's Lobster

on Friday June 08, 2012 @11:08AM

Nerval's Lobster writes: "IBM’s Watson made major headlines last year when it trounced its human rivals on Jeopardy. But Watson isn’t just sitting around spinning trivia questions to stump the champs: IBM is working hard on taking it into a series of vertical markets such as healthcare, contact management and financial services to see if the system can be used for diagnosing diseases and catching market trends. Does this spell the end of your BI career? Not really, but it does raise some interesting thoughts and issues."

Submission + - Scott Kemp on the next arms race: cyberweapons (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by __aaqpaq9254 on Thursday June 07, 2012 @11:32AM

__aaqpaq9254 writes: Scott Kemp writes about the similarities between the nuclear arms race and the use of cyberweaponry for offensive purposes. As the article points out, offensive cyberwarfare leaves a nation's own citizenry vulnerable to attack as government agencies seek to keep weaknesses in operating systems (such as Windows) secret. A very thoughtful article.

Comment Need 2 - sometimes 3 (Score 1) 1002

by Grimfaire on Monday May 16, 2011 @05:46PM (#36145570) Attached to: Do Developers Really Need a Second Monitor?

When I started my most recent job, they gave me a monitor to hook to the laptop they gave me. I mirrored the desktops for a while as the larger print on the monitor made things a bit easier. As time went on and I found myself doing more and more, I switched over to extending the desktop. The ability to have one screen filled with items that are only used occasionally but are often needed quickly and throughout the day and the other filled with dynamic content that is being updated continuously. More than once, I've had times where a 3rd monitor would be helpful. Between remote desktops, instant messaging, email/calendar, ticketing systems, and more; having to keep track of so many different things in a single monitor is just not feasible if you plan on obtaining any sort of production.

Submission + - New MacBook Pro Teardown Reveals 'Shoddy Assembly' (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Monday February 28, 2011 @04:06PM

CWmike writes: "Apple's new MacBook Pro shows some build-quality problems that shouldn't be seen in a notebook that costs $1,800, a teardown expert said on Monday. iFixit.com found several signs of substandard assembly while disassembling a 15-in. MacBook Pro. Among them: A stripped screw near the subwoofer enclosure and an unlocked ZIF (zero insertion force) socket for the IR (infrared) sensor. '[These] should not be things found inside a completely unmolested computer with an $1,800 base price,' iFixit said in the teardown description. iFixit also spotted an unusual amount of thermal paste applied to both the CPU and the GPU. 'Holy thermal paste! Time will tell if the gobs of thermal paste applied to the CPU and GPU will cause overheating issues down the road,' iFixit said. The refreshed MacBook Pro models launched last Thursday in what one analyst called a 'ho-hum' upgrade."

Comment Not so much (Score 1) 1

by Grimfaire on Wednesday November 24, 2010 @01:29PM (#34333984) Attached to: Wikipedia Hacked

After reading this, went to the site on a secure system just to be safe and found no evidence of this. Looks more like the OP was the one with malware.

PC Gamers Too Good For Consoles Gamers? 324

Posted by Soulskill on Friday July 23, 2010 @05:35PM from the commence-flame-war-now dept.

thsoundman sends in a blog post from Rahul Sood, CTO of HP's gaming business, who claims there was once a project in development at Microsoft to let Xbox users compete against PC users playing the same game. According to Sood, the project was killed because the console players kept getting destroyed by their PC counterparts. He wrote, "Those of us who have been in the gaming business for over a decade know the real deal. You simply don't get the same level of detail or control as you do with a PC over a console. It's a real shame that Microsoft killed this — because had they kept it alive it might have actually increased the desire of game developers and gamers alike to continue developing and playing rich experiences on the PC, which would trickle down to the console as it has in the past."

Video Game Legends To Be Inducted Into Hall of Fame 94

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday July 21, 2010 @01:12AM from the fierce-competition-between-tetrominoes dept.

killdashnine writes "Last year we discussed the creation of the International Video Game Hall of Fame and Museum in Ottumwa, Iowa, and a first event in 2009 which brought 3,500 people to witness it. Since then, there's been much progress toward creation of the museum, including the upcoming 'Big Bang 2010' exhibition. Their first event kicks off with formal induction ceremonies, tournaments, record-setting attempts, and an array of concerts from 8-bit music to modern rock. This serves as the first official fundraiser for this new non-profit. Iowa is positioning itself as the Video Game Capital of the World. While some sneer and scoff at this, pointing to LA or Seattle as gaming giants and rightful heirs to the title, the real goal is not to glorify software developers but rather to memorialize the 'heroes of video games,' from the iconic Pac Man to pioneers such as Ralph Baer." Here's a list of this year's inductees. Who gets your vote for next year?

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