Bitcoin Starts a New Year by Tumbling, First Time Since 2015 (bloomberg.com) 267

Posted by msmash on Monday January 01, 2018 @07:13PM from the closer-look dept.

Bitcoin is already having a bad year. From a report: For the first time since 2015, the cryptocurrency began a new year by tumbling, extending its slide from a record $19,511 reached on Dec. 18. The virtual coin traded at $13,440 as of 3:55 p.m. in New York, down 6.1 percent from Friday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That's also a fall from the $14,156 it hit Sunday, according to coinmarketcap.com, which tracks daily prices. Bitcoin got off to a much stronger start last year, and then kept that momentum going, eventually creating a global frenzy for cryptocurrencies. In a sign of its phenomenal price gain in 2017, it rose 3.6 percent on the first day of 2017 to $998, data from coinmarketcap.com show. It ended the year up more than 1,300 percent.

Submission + - 16 teraflop Cray to replace IBM at UK Met Office (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Memetic on Tuesday October 28, 2014 @03:16AM

Memetic writes: The UK weather forecasting service the Met Office is replacing its IBM supercomputer with a 16 teraflop,17 petabyte of storage Cray XC40 — Cray's biggest deal outside the US.

It should be 13 times faster than the current system. The aim is to enable more accurate modeling of the unstable UK climate, with UK-wide forecasts at a resolution of 1.5km run hourly, rather than every three as now.

The official release http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/ne... has the bare bones, the BBC report, linked has more comparative details.

Submission + - Raging debate over systemd exposes the two factions tugging at modern-day Linux (infoworld.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd on Monday October 27, 2014 @06:54PM

walterbyrd writes: In discussions around the Web in the past few months, I've seen an overwhelming level of support of systemd from Linux users who run Linux on their laptops and maybe a VPS or home server. I've also seen a large backlash against systemd from Linux system administrators who are responsible for dozens, hundreds, or thousands of Linux servers, physical and virtual.

Submission + - Yahoo! Mail Compromised - Users Urged to Change Passwords Immediately (tumblr.com) 1

Submitted by MAXOMENOS on Friday January 31, 2014 @02:40AM

MAXOMENOS writes: Today Yahoo! announced via their Tumblr page that Yahoo! Mail was hacked, and advised their users to change their passwords immediately. Quoting:
Based on our current findings, the list of usernames and passwords that were used to execute the attack was likely collected from a third-party database compromise. We have no evidence that they were obtained directly from Yahoo’s systems. Our ongoing investigation shows that malicious computer software used the list of usernames and passwords to access Yahoo Mail accounts. The information sought in the attack seems to be names and email addresses from the affected accounts’ most recent sent emails.

Comment To quote Betteridge's law (Score 1) 115

by Introspective on Saturday October 26, 2013 @04:05PM (#45246841) Attached to: Is Google Building a Floating Data Center In San Francisco Bay?

... Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered "no"

I just can't see how an underwater data centre could be more economical than a normal one on land. Maybe they're experimenting with some new offshore cooling system, but a whole data centre? No.

Comment Re:Cisco isn't going anywhere, yet (Score 2) 192

by Introspective on Sunday October 20, 2013 @09:26PM (#45184787) Attached to: Your Next Network Operating System Is Linux

Cisco is already ahead of you there.
Cisco's NX-OS is based on Linux, but with a IOS-like CLI on top of that.

Comment Re:The two I talked to apparently couldn't hang up (Score 1) 212

by Introspective on Wednesday September 21, 2011 @10:28PM (#37475546) Attached to: Microsoft Dumps Partner For Fake Support Call Scam

Then again, it's possible that the minimum wage staff in their call centre honestly believe that the script they're following is legit.
From the calls I've got myself and the ones reported by others, it really sounds like the callers truly believe what they're saying and don't know much better.

Lies, Damned Lies and Cat Statistics 175

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday August 18, 2010 @06:53PM from the nine-lies dept.

spopepro writes "While un-captioned cats might be of limited interest to the /. community, I found this column on how a fabricated statistic takes on a life of its own interesting. Starting with the Humane Society of the United States' (HSUS) claim that the unsterilized offspring of a cat will '...result in 420,000 cats in 5 years,' the author looks at other erroneous numbers, where they came from and why they won't go away."

Girl Quits On Dry Erase Board a Hoax 147

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday August 11, 2010 @08:30AM from the take-this-job-and-shove-it dept.

suraj.sun writes "It's the same old story: young woman quits, uses dry erase board and series of pictures to let entire office know the boss is a sexist pig, exposes his love of playing FarmVille during work hours." Story seem too good to be true? It probably is, at least according to writer Peter Kafka. Even so, Jay Leno and Good Morning America have already reached out to "Jenny."

The Sun Unleashes Coronal Mass Ejection At Earth 220

Posted by Soulskill on Monday August 02, 2010 @04:54PM from the return-fire dept.

astroengine writes "Yesterday morning, at 08:55 UT, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a C3-class flare erupt inside a sunspot cluster. 100,000 kilometers away, deep within the solar atmosphere (the corona), an extended magnetic field filled with cool plasma forming a dark ribbon across the face of the sun (a feature known as a 'filament') erupted at the exact same time. It seems very likely that both eruptions were connected after a powerful shock wave produced by the flare destabilized the filament, causing the eruption. A second solar observatory, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, then spotted a huge coronal mass ejection blast into space, straight in the direction of Earth. Solar physicists have calculated that this magnetic bubble filled with energetic particles should hit Earth on August 3, so look out for some intense aurorae — a solar storm is coming."

Submission + - AG Corbett Subpoenas Twitter to Name Bloggers (whtm.com)

Submitted by Dthief on Thursday May 20, 2010 @05:57PM

Dthief writes: The state attorney general's office has issued a subpoena threatening officials of the social networking service Twitter with arrest unless they reveal the names of two bloggers who have been critical of Attorney General Tom Corbett and his public corruption investigation. ...
Vic Walczak of the American Civil Liberties Union told Pittsburgh's WTAE-TV that the court action "raises grave concerns about abuse of the grand jury process to retaliate against political critics and opponents." He said Americans "have a right to criticize government officials and to do so anonymously."

Submission + - Updated from previous submissionBenchmark Software

Submitted by tdisalvo on Thursday May 20, 2010 @04:26PM

tdisalvo writes: I am wondering what is the best type of benchmark software out there. We are doing a Windows 7 roll-out and I will have to compare major PC vendors and I am looking for vendor neutral tests that will give me the data I need to present an educated opinion to my CIO. Clear pretty charts are nice since it is for C level execs and we need to make it understandable for nontechnical as well as technical people. More specifically I am looking for something that will clearly show how the same processor performs better or worse with a particular build, motherboard, RAM Power Supply, ect. My plan is to try and get very similar machines from major vendors and see which ones build has the highest independent bench marks. Something that would be able to roll up test on multiple computers and report on the differences in score would be idea. Also free is better :-)

Officials Sue Couple Who Removed Their Lawn 819

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday March 03, 2010 @01:39AM from the revenge-of-the-lawn dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The LA Times reports that Orange County officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for replacing the grass on their lawn with wood chips and drought-tolerant plants, reducing their water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009. The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their front yard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water — and hundreds of dollars — each year. 'We've got a newborn, so we want to start worrying about her future,' said Quan Ha, an information technology manager for Kelley Blue Book. But city officials told the Has they were violating several city laws that require that 40% of residential yards to be landscaped predominantly with live plants. Last summer, the couple tried to appease the city by building a fence around the yard and planting drought-tolerant greenery — lavender, rosemary, horsetail, and pittosporum, among others. But according to the city, their landscaping still did not comply with city standards. At the end of January, the Has received a letter saying they had been charged with a misdemeanor violation and must appear in court. The couple could face a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for their grass-free, eco-friendly landscaping scheme. 'It's just funny that we pay our taxes to the city and the city is now prosecuting us with our own money,' says Quan Ha."

Man Uses Drake Equation To Explain Girlfriend Woes 538

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 13, 2010 @07:57PM from the less-math-more-social-science dept.

artemis67 writes "A man studying in London has taken a mathematical equation that predicts the possibility of alien life in the universe to explain why he can't find a girlfriend. Peter Backus, a native of Seattle and PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, near London, in his paper, 'Why I don't have a girlfriend: An application of the Drake Equation to love in the UK,' used math to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. In describing the paper on the university Web site he wrote 'the results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.'"

Air Canada Ordered To Provide Nut-Free Zone 643

Posted by samzenpus on Friday January 08, 2010 @07:09PM from the no-nuts dept.

JamJam writes "Air Canada has been told to create a special 'buffer zone' on flights for people who are allergic to nuts. The Canadian Transportation Agency has ruled that passengers who have nut allergies should be considered disabled and accommodated by the airline. Air Canada has a month to come up with an appropriate section of seats where passengers with nut allergies would be seated. The ruling involved a complaint from Sophia Huyer, who has a severe nut allergy and travels frequently. Ms. Huyer once spent 40 minutes in the washroom during a flight while snacks were being served."