Neriak - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Why JWs don't celebrate birthdays (Score 1) 470

by Neriak on Wednesday March 28, 2012 @08:28PM (#39503421) Attached to: NYC Bans Mention of Dinosaurs, Dancing, Birthdays On Student Tests

They're forgetting Job 1:4, where the whole family gets together and has a pleasant time. It's just the rulers birthdays you have to watch out for.

Except that the Hebrew words for "day" and "birthday" are not the same. The word "day" at Job 1:4 denotes a interval of time from sunrise to sunset. A banquet was held at each day at a different son's house. This was done yearly, but has no relation to their birthdays.

Comment Obligatory XKCD (Score 2, Funny) 154

by Neriak on Tuesday March 20, 2012 @11:12AM (#39413583) Attached to: The Risk of a Meltdown In the Cloud

What if someone trips on it?

Scientifically, You Are Likely In the Slowest Line 464

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 23, 2010 @08:18PM from the why-to-shop-online dept.

MojoKid writes "As you wait in the checkout line for the holidays, your observation is most likely correct. That other line is moving faster than yours. That's what Bill Hammack (the Engineer Guy), from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois — Urbana proves in this video. Ironically, the most efficient set-up is to have one line feed into several cashiers. This is because if any one line slows because of an issue, the entry queue continues to have customers reach check-out optimally. However, this is also perceived by customers as the least efficient, psychologically."

10 Dos and Don'ts To Make Sysadmins' Lives Easier 246

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 23, 2010 @03:57PM from the sorry-dave-can't-let-you-do-that dept.

CowboyRobot writes "Tom Limoncelli has a piece in 'Queue' summarizing the Computer-Human Interaction for Management of Information Technology's list of how to make software that is easy to install, maintain, and upgrade. FTA: '#2. DON'T make the administrative interface a GUI. System administrators need a command-line tool for constructing repeatable processes. Procedures are best documented by providing commands that we can copy and paste from the procedure document to the command line.'"

Torrent Users Fight Back 238

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @02:31PM from the we're-not-going-to-take-it dept.

eonlabs writes "Torrent users being blamed for illegally downloading Far Cry are fighting back. In a 96-page lawsuit, the lawyers at Dunlap, Grubb, and Weaver are being accused of: 'extortion, fraudulent omissions, mail fraud, wire fraud, computer fraud and abuse, racketeering, fraud upon the court, abuse of process, fraud on the Copyright Office, copyright misuse, unjust enrichment, and consumer protection violations.'"

The World's Smallest Legible Font 280

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday November 16, 2010 @04:25PM from the because-he-can dept.

hasanabbas1987 writes "From the article: 'Well 'technically' they aren't the smallest fonts in the world as if they were you wouldn't be able to read even a single letter, but, you should be able to read the entire paragraph in the picture given above... we did. A Computer science professor called Ken Perlin designed these tiny fonts and you can fit 500 reasonable words in a resolution of 320 x 240 space. There are at the moment the smallest legible fonts in the world.'"

The Time Travel Paradoxes of Back To the Future 454

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 25, 2010 @09:27AM from the one-for-emmett dept.

brumgrunt sent in a fun little piece to get your brain going on a cloudy monday morning. Despite countless viewings of BTTF I still never thought of a few of these. "Throughout Back To The Future Part III, there has to be two Deloreans in 1885. Also, why don't George and Lorraine recognize their son? Why doesn't the time machine disappear in the alternative 1985? These and more Back To The Future paradoxes explored..."

10 Oddly Useful Specialty Web Browsers 72

Posted by timothy on Saturday October 23, 2010 @12:43PM from the pornovation dept.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner looks beyond Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and IE to uncover 10 alternative browsers that offer specialized advantages for 3-D searching, social networking, easy scriptability, powerful page manipulation, and the like. Each provides a targeted browsing environment, enabling users to browse Web tables into spreadsheets, browse leaner, browser in text, browse socially, browse musically, or browse smarter on the Mac. 'A purist might object that these hybrids are not much different from a standard browser with extra plug-ins. There's some truth to this, but not always — some of the unique capabilities can only be done deep inside the software. In any case, the job of parsing the terms and creating an exact definition of the Web browser isn't as much fun as embracing the idea that there are dozens of alternatives.'"

Comic Sales Soar After Artist Engages 4chan Pirates 305

Posted by kdawson on Friday October 22, 2010 @03:02PM from the more-flies-with-honey dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Steve Lieber, the artist behind the graphic novel Underground, discovered that someone on 4chan had scanned and posted the entire comic. Rather than complaining, he joined the conversation, chatting with the 4channers about the comic... and the next day he saw his sales jump to unheard-of levels, much higher than he'd seen even when the comic book was reviewed on popular sites like Boing Boing."

Apple Deprecates Their JVM 451

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday October 21, 2010 @08:45AM from the zomg-i'm-posting-a-java-story dept.

Mortimer.CA writes "In some recent release notes Apple has deprecated their JVM: 'As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the version of Java that is ported by Apple, and that ships with Mac OS X, is deprecated.' In the past Sun (now Oracle) has always let Apple do this: 'Apple Computer supplies their own version of Java. Use the Software Update feature (available on the Apple menu) to check that you have the most up-to-date version of Java for your Mac.' I wonder how much heads-up Oracle was given for this change, and if the Java team has any code ready to go, or whether they'll have to ramp up porting for Mac OS 10.7 (aka 'Lion')."

Microsoft Unbundles Software For NY City 131

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 20, 2010 @07:02PM from the take-another-little-piece-of-my-software dept.

doishmere writes "Microsoft has agreed to sell individual pieces of software to NY City workers, rather than forcing each seat to buy a full suite of software. The city has created three classes of users based on which pieces of software they need to perform their job, and Microsoft will sell software packages tailored to each class at a reduced price."

Chrome OS Arrives On the iPad — No, Seriously! 325

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday October 06, 2010 @08:43AM from the because-you-can dept.

Thinkcloud writes "A user named Hexxeh has posted a video online of the iPad running Google's upcoming Chrome OS. Hexxeh was able to put Chrome OS on an iPad because the open source code for the operating system is available in its Chromium state, but it's not necessarily true that Apple will allow iPads to run other operating systems going forward. That's typically not a level of openness found in the Apple playbook. Nevertheless, it's worth considering what it might mean to have a robust OS like Apple's on the same tablet as one that runs a cutting-edge operating system like Chrome OS. Why wouldn't users love that?"

Verizon Wireless To Issue $90 Million In Refunds 184

Posted by samzenpus on Monday October 04, 2010 @07:57AM from the have-some-cash dept.

tekgoblin writes "Verizon Wireless had somehow been charging customers extra money on their bills for data that they actually hadn't been using. Approximately 15 million customers were affected by the billing error. According to BGR the FCC had been pressuring Verizon to respond to the hundreds of complaints that had been piling up. So Verizon's answer was to refund all of the overcharged money as soon as possible."

Brooklyn Father And Son Launch Homemade Spacecraft 243

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday October 03, 2010 @05:30PM from the treehouse-not-so-cool-now dept.

Adair writes "A father and son team from Brooklyn successfully launched a homemade spacecraft nearly 19 miles (around 100,000 feet) above the Earth's surface. The craft was a 19-inch helium-filled weather balloon attached to a Styrofoam capsule that housed an HD video camera and an iPhone. The camera recorded video of its ascent into the stratosphere, its apogee where the balloon reached its breaking point, and its descent back to earth. They rigged a parachute to the capsule to aid in its return to Earth, and the iPhone broadcast its GPS coordinates so they could track it down. The craft landed a mere 30 miles from its launch point in Newburgh, NY, due to a quick ascent and two differing wind patterns. The pair spent eight months researching and test-flying the craft before launching it in August. Columbia University Professor of Astronomy Marcel Aguera said, 'They were very good but also very lucky.'"

NASA Tests All-Composite Prototype Crew Module 67

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 26, 2010 @12:25PM from the just-don't-try-to-take-a-slap-shot-with-it dept.

coondoggie writes "With an eye toward building safer, lighter and tougher spacecraft, NASA said today its prototype space crew module made up of composite materials handled tests simulating structural stresses of launch and atmospheric reentry. The idea behind NASA's Composite Crew Module project is to test new structural materials for possible future NASA spacecraft. According to NASA, composite materials are being looked at because they are stiff and lightweight and can be formed into complex shapes that may be more structurally efficient. In space travel, where every additional pound of weight drives costs higher, any weight savings provides increased payload capacity and potentially reduces mission expense."

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