Vengance Daemon - Slashdot User

Comment The More the Merrier (Score 1) 357

by Vengance Daemon on Tuesday March 05, 2013 @10:13PM (#43087663) Attached to: Don't Want a Phonebook? Give Up Your Privacy

I have no problem receiving these phone books and I also am not bothered by junk mail. I think of all the jobs that they generate, from data collectors to layout artists to printers to delivery people. Particularly with the trouble the USPO is in, the junk mail is helpful; the postage prepaid envelopes in credit card ads even serve the USPO better. I find no real strain in putting such items in the recycle bin thus supporting even more jobs.

Mechanic's Mistake Trashes $244 Million Aircraft 428

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @09:09AM from the total-tool-awareness dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "An accident report is finally out for the Air Force E-8C Joint Surveillance Targeting and Attack Radar System that had started refueling with a KC-135 on on March 13, 2009 when the crew heard a 'loud bang throughout the midsection of the aircraft.' Vapor and fuel started pouring out of the JSTARS from 'at least two holes in the left wing just inboard of the number two engine.' The pilot immediately brought the jet back to its base in Qatar where mechanics found the number two main fuel tank had been ruptured, 'causing extensive damage to the wing of the aircraft.' How extensive? 25 million dollars worth of extensive. What caused this potentially fatal and incredibly expensive accident to one of the United States' biggest spy planes? According to the USAF accident report, a contractor accidentally left a plug in one of the fuel tank's relief vents (PDF) during routine maintenance. 'The PDM subcontractor employed ineffective tool control measures,' reads the report. Tool control measures? 'You know, the absolutely basic practice of accounting for the exact location of every tool that is used to work on an airplane once that work is finished.' Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz just told Congress, 'there is a JSTARS platform that was damaged beyond economical repair that we will not repair.' So, if this is the one Schwartz is talking about, then one mechanic's mistake has damaged a $244 million aircraft beyond repair."

US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing 409

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 13, 2012 @11:56AM from the if-you-can't-stand-the-heat-don't-link-to-the-kitchen dept.

Gimble writes "The BBC reports that UK student Richard O'Dwyer has lost a legal battle to block his extradition to the U.S., where he faces copyright infringement charges for running a file sharing site (ruling). O'Dwyer operated the site 'TV-Shack' from 2007 until 2010, which didn't offer any files itself, but posted links to streams and files hosted elsewhere. O'Dwyer was first arrested in June last year by British police acting on information from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The domestic investigation was subsequently dropped, but Mr. O'Dwyer was re-arrested in May on an extradition warrant to face charges in America."

Businesses Now Driving "Bring Your Own Device" Trend 232

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 19, 2011 @12:10PM from the taking-care-of-things-personally dept.

snydeq writes "Companies are no longer waiting for users to bring in their own smartphones and tablets into business environments, they're encouraging it, InfoWorld reports. 'Two of the most highly regulated industries — financial services and health care (including life sciences) — are most likely to support BYOD. So are professional services and consulting, which are "well" regulated. ... The reason is devilishly simple, Herrema says: These businesses are very much based on using information, both as the service itself and to facilitate the delivery of their products and services. Mobile devices make it easier to work with information during more hours and at more locations. That means employees are more productive, which helps the company's bottom line.' Even those companies who haven't yet embraced bring your own device policies yet already have one in place, but don't know it, according to recent surveys."

Windows OS Coming To the Mainframe 148

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 08, 2011 @12:24PM from the your-airplane-fell-into-my-peanut-butter dept.

msmoriarty writes "Following up on its May announcement, IBM has now confirmed that by December 16 it will support Microsoft Windows on zEnterprise via its zBX component."

Opera Proposes Switching Browser Scrolling For 'Pages' 320

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday October 11, 2011 @08:27PM from the what-is-this dept.

Barence writes "Opera has proposed a new browsing system that swaps scrolling on websites for flippable pages. The Norwegian browser maker is looking to remove the side scroll bar for documents or articles in favor of 'pages' of a set-size, similar to an ebook. Text can be reflowed into a column layout, and ads will be moved into the right spot in the text, with different ones displayed depending on the orientation of the device. Pages are flipped with gestures on tablets or with mouse clicks on the desktop. It's an 'opportunity to rethink the ads on the web and the user interface,' said Hakon Wium Lie, Opera's CTO." Their main focus for this is browsing on tablets.

Netflix Creates Qwikster For DVD Only Business 481

Posted by samzenpus on Monday September 19, 2011 @08:52AM from the judgement-of-solomon dept.

Frankie70 writes "Netflix CEO Reed Hastings just dropped a bombshell. In the wake of a rapid decline in Netflix's stock price last week, Hastings is taking a bold step by separating the DVD and video streaming services. The DVD-by-mail service will now be called Qwikster, and the streaming service will maintain the Netflix brand."

NYT Working On 'Magic Mirror' For Bathroom Surfing 138

Posted by Soulskill on Friday September 02, 2011 @10:09AM from the in-case-you-didn't-have-enough-webcams-by-your-toilet dept.

MrSeb writes "If the New York Times Research & Development Lab has its wicked way, you will soon be able to stop taking your mobile computer of choice into the bathroom — and use a 'magic mirror' instead. On average we spend an hour in the bathroom every day, and the magic mirror — which is built from a 'data-bearing' mirror, Microsoft Kinect, and a healthy dollop of ingenuity — is designed to capitalize on that time by letting you surf the web and increase the New York Times' advertising revenue."

8 Ways To Circumvent the PROTECT-IP Act 284

Posted by timothy on Sunday August 07, 2011 @06:52PM from the reserve-army-of-unemployed-pigeons dept.

Dangerous_Minds writes "One of the things that the PROTECT-IP act is said to do is make DNS servers censor websites that have been accused of copyright infringement. Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid decided to look in to how many ways he could come up with that would circumvent such censorship. He found 8 ways to circumvent such censorship. The article includes pros and cons and links to guides on how to carry out these methods. The methods are: using a VPN service, using your HOSTs file, using TOR, using freely available DNS lookup tools, changing your DNS server to a non-US server, using command prompt, using Foxy Proxy, and using MAFIAAFire. If anything, the list raises serious doubts that the PROTECT IP Act will even put a dent on copyright infringement online."

Comment Windmill Tilting (Score 1) 1017

by Vengance Daemon on Wednesday July 13, 2011 @07:51PM (#36756318) Attached to: Women Arrested For Refusing TSA Search of Children

It does no good whatsoever, but it is nice to see the very few brave people that stand up and say "no" to the TSA's searches and seizures. Rosa Parks would know just how these people feel.

Office 365: Suffer 18 Days' Outage, Still Pay Half Price 137

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 30, 2011 @03:12PM from the you-ungrateful-whelps dept.

rtfa-troll writes "Microsoft is preparing its customers for plenty of outage time according to the Register, with a scheme for Office 365 which will give customers some money back. The offer seems to be Microsoft's answer to Google offering a '100% uptime guarantee' (they even pay for maintenance time) The most interesting thing about the scheme is that you can have a one and a half day outage every month (or is that 18 solid days a year?) and still expect to pay half price. I wonder Microsoft have put the Sidekick management in charge of their customer's data. Looking forward my expense forms have getting eaten by the cloud so I have to fill them in again."

Oracle Shuts Older Servers Out of Solaris 11 203

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday June 29, 2011 @05:16AM from the hope-you're-done-with-them-'cause-we-sure-are dept.

PCM2 writes "The Register is reporting that Oracle has decided not to allow Solaris 11 to install on older Sparc hardware, including UltraSparc-I, UltraSparc-II, UltraSparc-IIe, UltraSparc-III, UltraSparc-III+, UltraSparc-IIIi, UltraSparc-IV, and UltraSparc-IV+ processors. The Solaris 11 Express development version released in November did not have this restriction, which suggests that the OS would likely run on these models. Unfortunately, the installer won't. All generations of Sparc T series processors and Sparc Enterprise M machines will be able to install and run Solaris 11, however."

Best Buy Releases Their Own Music Cloud 187

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday June 21, 2011 @10:12PM from the johnny-come-lately dept.

thewebblogger writes "In a move that more resembles 'me too' behavior rather than a well planned release, Best Buy has announced their own music cloud service, called simply Best Buy Music Cloud. The functionality is not complete yet; iOS / Android applications are not available at this point, and the only part that works is the Web Player. The premium version will cost $3.99/month and you'll have to upload your own music. iTunes is mandatory."

Comment Another Crisis? (Score 2, Insightful) 224

by Vengance Daemon on Monday November 23, 2009 @07:53PM (#30208306) Attached to: Program To Detect Smuggled Nuclear Bombs Stalls

Is there anything going on in the U.S. today that is NOT a "national crisis"? We need a break.

Gartner Tells Businesses to Forget About Vista 309

Posted by timothy on Saturday May 16, 2009 @05:44PM from the whereas-9.04-to-9.10-is-not-bad dept.

Barence writes "IT analyst firm Gartner has told businesses to skip Vista and prepare to roll out Windows 7. Companies have traditionally been advised to wait until the first Service Pack of an operating system arrives before considering migration. However, Gartner is urging organisations that aren't already midway through Vista deployments to give the much-maligned operating system a miss. 'Preparing for Vista will require the same amount of effort as preparing for Windows 7, so at this point, targeting Windows 7 would add less than six months to the schedule and would result in a plan that is more politically palatable, better for users, and results in greater longevity.' Even businesses that are midway through planning a Vista migration are urged to consider scrapping the deployment. 'Consider switching to Windows 7 if it would delay deployment by six months or less.'"

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