THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER - Slashdot User

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to introduce 7-year-old son to programming

Submitted by THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER on Thursday April 09, 2015 @04:40PM

THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER writes: I'm a professional programmer and have been programming since I was a small boy. I want to introduce this to my 7-year-son but know nothing about teaching this to children. Since he enjoys Roblox and Minecraft very much, and knows how to use computers already, I suspect teaching him to write his own small games would be a good starting point. I'm aware of lists like this one, but it's quite overwhelming. There are so many choices that I am overwhelmed where to start. Anyone in the Slashdot in the community have recent hands-on experience with such tools/systems that he/she would recommend?

Submission + - Caffeine Linked to Lower Skin Cancer Risk (go.com)

Submitted by THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER on Monday July 02, 2012 @11:32AM

THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER writes: The curative effects of coffee continue to be discovered as the Harvard School of Public Health and Boston's Brigham & Women's Hospital published a new study today that links caffeine consumption with reduced skin cancer rates. Quoting:

The study of nearly 113,000 men and women found those who drank three or more cups of coffee a day had a 20 percent lower risk of basal cell carcinoma than those who said no to Joe.

Caffeine in non-coffee substances was found equally effective. The cause is speculated to be related to caffeine's ability to "kill off damaged skin cells," said Dr. Josh Zeichner, assistant professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. "If you get rid of these cells that are damaged, then they don't have the opportunity to grow and form cancers."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to become paperless? 3

Submitted by THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER on Saturday February 11, 2012 @01:07PM

THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER writes: I've had numerous ADF scanners over the years, and all of them jam or grab multiple pages at a time (thereby missing pages). Like you, I've got years of tax returns and legal documents to scan, but with these kinds of barriers, it would take months to scan everything. Enterprise-grade machines cost 5 figures. How do Slashdotters become paper-free?

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to securely share passwords? 1

Submitted by

THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER

on Sunday October 30, 2011 @10:52PM

THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER writes: "My tech-savvy father died suddenly and unexpectedly. He did everything online: bill-pay, banking, ebay sales (and other auction sites), paypal, investing, etc. When he died, he still had online auctions up for sale, items I had no idea how to fulfill when sold. He still had unprocessed auction refunds, people claiming they returned items and are waiting for a refund.

Fortunately, he left gmail.com open and logged in when he died. So I was able to configure his account to forward to mine for any future emails he received.

He even had his health insurance automatically debited from his checking account (who needs heath insurance when you're dead?)

I had no way to log into these systems to cancel pending transactions. I called every institution; some were willing to help while others required me to fax/mail death certificates and proof of executorship (which I didn't have yet). Meanwhile, auctions were selling for items I had no idea how to fulfill; debits from his checking account were occurring even though they were irrelevant; etc. You get the idea.

How can I share my login credentials with my siblings so they don't have to go through this when I'm gone? I change my passwords every month and never use the same password on more than one site. I don't want my siblings to be able to impersonate me unless I'm dead, so publishing a monthly list to them won't help and would be insecure."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Best way to destroy 10-15 hard drive 5

Submitted by THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER on Thursday September 29, 2011 @02:43PM

THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER writes: I have 10-15 old hard drives I want to trash, some IDE and some SATA. Even if I still had IDE hardware, I don't want to wait several weeks to run DBAN on all of them. I could use a degausser, but they are prohibitively expensive. I could send them to a data destruction firm, but can they be trusted? What's the fastest, cheapest DIY solution?

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