WhiteRider - Slashdot User

Comment Punishment should be imposed... (Score 0) 1

by WhiteRider on Thursday November 01, 2007 @04:23PM (#21201909) Attached to: Seagate offer refunds on 6.2 million hard drives

on the originator of this class action lawsuit. Something along the lines of death by "sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads" sounds appropriate.

Ever since I started working with computers I've known that the different numbering systems caused problems.

I guess the only good thing that may come out of this is that hard drive manufacturers may start using the base-2 system when defining space on the drives.

Submission + - New iPod Checksum Cracked (kde.org) 1

Submitted by on Sunday September 16, 2007 @07:41PM

An anonymous reader writes: After 36 hours of reverse engineering, the method for producing the checksum on new iPods has been discovered.

Submission + - Black screen of darkness to haunt Vista pirates (computerworld.com)

Submitted by jcatcw on Tuesday September 11, 2007 @09:50AM

jcatcw writes: Microsoft's Reduced Functionality mode was explained in an email to OEMs as the consequence of Vista piracy. It includes a black screen after 1 hour of browsing, no start menu or task bar, and no desktop. Using fear as a motivator, the email warns resellers to 'make sure your customers always get genuine Windows Vista preinstalled.'

Submission + - IBM beats Microsoft over the head with own code (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

bednarz

on Tuesday September 11, 2007 @08:36AM

bednarz writes: "IBM added a delicious twist on its new commitment to help OpenOffice.org battle Microsoft Office by donating code that was originally derived in part from a Microsoft-developed technology. IBM's iAccessible2, code-named Project Missouri, is a specification for technology used to help the visually impaired interact with Open Document Format (ODF)-compliant applications and was developed in part using Microsoft Active Accessibility (MAA)."

Submission + - Music Industry Brain Damage - The 1

Submitted by mrneutron2003 on Tuesday September 11, 2007 @05:44AM

mrneutron2003 writes: Just when you thought stupid ideas had become an endangered species, the RIAA presses forward and shows us how naive we were. The RIAA has officially backed a move by the recording industry to reintroduce the CD single. Populated with two songs and a "ringtone", this brilliantly clueless idea is to be marketed as a "ringle", complete with an even more clueless retail price of $6-7 per CD. Apart from the fact the industry hasn't agreed on how the ringtone is to be redeemed (Sony BMG, the initial proponent of the idea...is this any suprise....is the exception here), the pricing puts it way out of the league of legitimate digital music downloads. http://www.fastsilicon.com/off-the-wall/music-industry-brain-damage-the-ringle.html?Itemid=60

Submission + - French Threat to ID Secret US Satellites (beskerming.com)

Submitted by

SkiifGeek

on Sunday September 09, 2007 @07:24PM

SkiifGeek writes: "Space.com has reported that the French have identified numerous objects in orbit that do not appear in the ephemeris data reported by the US Space Surveillance Network. Since the US has claimed that if it doesn't appear in the ephemeris data, then it doesn't exist, and the French claim that at least some of the objects have solar arrays, it seems that the French have found secret US satellites.

While the French don't plan to release the information publicly, they are planning to use it as leverage to get the US to suppress reporting of sensitive French satellites in their published ephemeris.

The Graves surveillance radar (the French system) and a comparable German system may form the basis of a pan-European Space Surveillance network — another system that the Europeans don't want to rely on the US for."

Submission + - AMD to open ATI specs (0xdeadbeef.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 06, 2007 @02:25AM

An anonymous reader writes: AMD has announced they are releasing the specs for all new radeon chipsets, and will be working with the open source community to develop a fully functional 2d and 3d graphics driver. AMD appears to be following in Intel's footsteps with upcoming releases. If AMD is successfull NVidia will have real competition in the GNU/Linux gaming arena. While past support by ATI was unsatisfactory the new AMD buyout appears to be having some effect.

Submission + - Sweeden's Vote on OOXML Invalidated (groklaw.net)

Submitted by

Groklaw Reader

on Thursday August 30, 2007 @04:18PM

Groklaw Reader writes: "After Microsoft's attempts to buy the Swedish vote on OOXML came to light, SIS declared its own vote invalid. SIS has therefore changed its vote from yes to abstain in a bid to restore their integrity after Microsoft's ballot stuffing. Apparently, not everyone can be bought."

Submission + - "Viacom hit me for infringing my own copyright (blogspot.com) 2

Submitted by

Chris Knight

on Wednesday August 29, 2007 @02:23PM

Chris Knight writes: "Long story short: I ran for school board where I live this past fall and created some TV commercials including this one with a "Star Wars" theme. A few months ago VH1 grabbed the commercial from YouTube and featured it in a segment of its show "Web Junk 2.0". Neither VH1 or its parent company Viacom told me they were doing this or asked my permission to use it, but I didn't mind it if they did. It was great to see the commercial was being enjoyed by a far wider audience than I'd expected. I was honored that they chose to use it and thought that Aries Spears's commentary about it was pretty hilarious, so I posted a clip of VH1's segment on YouTube so that I could put it on my blog. This morning I got an e-mail from YouTube saying that the video has been pulled because Viacom is claiming that I'm violating its copyright. Viacom used my video without permission on their commercial television show, and now says that I am infringing on THEIR copyright for showing the clip of the work that Viacom made in violation of my own copyright! Talk about chutzpah! Needless to say, I would like to fight this: not for any kind of monetary compensation, but just for the right to employ my own self-created material per Fair Use."

Submission + - Acer to acquire Gateway for $710 million (infoworld.com)

Submitted by downix on Monday August 27, 2007 @08:31AM

downix writes: On the way into work today, I heard about Acer buying Gateway. A bold move strategically, I wonder what consequences this will have for Gateway's employees and customers. As the purchase price was at $1.90 per share, those of us that purchased Gateway shares a few years ago are reminded just how far it has fallen.

Submission + - Wine 0.9.44 released (winehq.org)

Submitted by

jshriverWVU

on Friday August 24, 2007 @03:19PM

jshriverWVU writes: "This is release 0.9.44 of Wine, a free implementation of Windows on Unix. What's new in this release: — Better heuristics for making windows managed. — Automatic detection of timezone parameters. — Improvements to the builtin WordPad. — Better signatures support in crypt32. — Still more gdiplus functions. — Lots of bug fixes."

Submission + - Seagate to offer solid state drives in 2008 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Thursday August 23, 2007 @04:49PM

Lucas123 writes: "Seagate will introduce drives based on flash memory in various storage capacities across its range of products including desktop and notebook PCs, according to Sumner Lemon at IDG News Service. The drives are expected to consume less power (longer battery life), offer faster data transfer rates and be more rugged than spinning disk, which has moving parts that can be damaged from an impact."

Submission + - Star Wars fan puts himself in Carbonite (thesneeze.com)

Submitted by sneezesteve on Monday August 20, 2007 @12:30AM

sneezesteve writes: How do you secure your nerd-cred for eternity? By acquiring a life-size replica of Han Solo in Carbonite, having Han's face removed, and replacing it with your own.

"It is made from fiberglass, and the short story is that a friend who is a special effects guy owned the piece, which was a direct casting off the original prop. He was moving, (aka getting married and yelled at) and asked me if I wanted it. I screamed a huge lispy "Yes!", and picked it up, but knew I wanted to do something cool with it. So I called my other nerdy special effects pals, and they offered to replace Harrison Ford's face with mine. I was so tired of hearing this offer in my daily life, but decided to finally consider it, so off it went.

KNB Effects in the valley took an algae mold of my entire head, then cut off Han Solo's, and replaced it with mine. They even added the frozen saliva that rushed out when Han got frozen."

Submission + - How to turn a Mini Maglite into a powerful laser (lifehacker.com) 3

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @11:20AM

Lucas123 writes: "Using the laser from a DVD burner, this instructional video shows you how to create a hand-held laser that is powerful enough to light a match and pop a balloon. There's some soldering involved and the Maglite's bulb housing needs to be drilled out to fit the new laser diode, but with some basic skill, most people could do this. Just plain cool."

Submission + - Finaly we get new elements in HTML 5

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @10:28AM

An anonymous reader writes: Pure HTML enhancements grew hardly at all in the last eight years. It basicaly stopped in 1999 with HTML 4. Now the future looks bright. Recently, HTML has finaly came back to life. Eight years is a long time to wait for new features, especially in the fast-moving world of the Web. Take a look at how HTML 5 is restoring some of the excitement of the early days of the web with its new enhancements.

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