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Announcements

Obama Sets End of Iraq Combat For August 31st 659

Posted by CmdrTaco from the end-of-an-era dept.
eldavojohn writes "President Barack Obama has announced that on August 31st the United States will cease all combat operations in Iraq, although 50,000 troops will remain until the end of 2011. It's been a long seven-and-a-half years, with no guarantee of this announcement actually signifying the end of violence. Pundits are already speculating on whether or not this withdrawal speech is 'Mission Accomplished 2.' It's possibly the most significant confirmation of and commitment to a withdrawal the world will hear from the United States in Iraq."
Power

Panasonic Begins To Lock Out 3d-Party Camera Batteries 450

Posted by timothy from the humbly-meeting-customer-demands dept.
OhMyBattery writes "The latest firmware updated for Panasonic digital cameras contains one single improvement: it locks out the ability to use 'non-genuine Panasonic' batteries. It does so for safety reasons, it says. It seems to indicate that this is going to be the norm for all new Panasonic digital cameras. From the release: 'Panasonic Digital Still Cameras now include a technology that can identify a genuine Panasonic battery. For the protection of our customers Panasonic developed this technology after it was discovered that some aftermarket 3rd party batteries do not meet the rigid safety standards Panasonic uses.' The firmware warning is quite clear as to what it does: 'After this firmware update your Panasonic Digital Camera cannot be operated by 3rd party batteries (non genuine Panasonic batteries).'"
Democrats

Senator Arlen Specter Becomes a Democrat 1124

Posted by kdawson from the crossing-the-aisle dept.
Akido37 was one of many readers letting us know that US Sen. Arlen Specter has changed parties to become a Democrat. This gives the Democrats 59 seats in the Senate, and 60 if and when Al Franken gets seated from Minnesota. However, Specter said in his announcement that he will not be an automatic 60th vote for breaking Republican filibusters. While the senator's move seems to have surprised many Republicans, it is understandable to moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who said, "You haven't certainly heard warm encouraging words of how they [Republicans] view moderates. Either you are with us or against us." Specter noted that in his home state of Pennsylvania, 200,000 formerly Republican voters switched party allegiance last year.
Worms

Conficker Worm Strike Reports Start Rolling In 508

Posted by Soulskill from the be-on-the-lookout dept.
Nieriko writes "Reports are trickling in about the impact from the Conficker worm, as infected systems passed zero hour at midnight and began downloading additional malicious components. Here are a couple of the more notable incidents caused by Conficker so far, according to published reports: — '... shortly after midnight local time, an ATM in the capital city of Reykjavik began spewing 100-Krona notes. ... A nuclear missile installation near Elmendorf Air force Base outside of Anchorage, Alaska briefly went on a full-scale military alert after technicians manning the bunker suspected that several of their control systems were infected with Conficker.'"

Comment Re:Yeah, right (Score 1) 472

by adh72 (#27256817) Attached to: The 100 Degree Data Center
Yes and it is 2009 not fucking 1900. The reason you don't see factories that hot anymore is not because it benefits the workers, it is because a comfortable worker is a productive worker and a productive worker benefits the company. Believe me your productivity in a 100 degree room will be well below your productivity at a more comfortable 70 degrees.

Comment Re:Improved distance from the DSLAM? (Score 1) 110

by adh72 (#27242037) Attached to: World-First VDSL2 Demo Gets 500Mbps Data Transfers
What's mobile phone service? You mean people can actually use their cell phones in areas where they live? I am shocked.

Sarcasm aside I understand that I live in a rural area and I won't have access to the most modern of conveniences. As matter of fact I never expect to have broadband or cell signal at my home unless AT&T sells my area to a smaller company or I move. I am however calling attention to the fact that many people consider speeds that are 1-2 generations ahead of what I have slow. While the rest of the country keeps getting upgrades and the internet evolves I am left to wonder at what point does the net become completely unusable for me?

I have looked into alternatives such as ISDN, T1 and satellite but they are as follows:

ISDN: Unavailable without 3rd party support so I have to pay 2 bills for it-one to AT&T and one to the 3rd party which is none existent where I live.

T1 : Can't afford $600/month

Satellite: A friend has it and I found it just as slow as dial-up but with bandwidth caps and 3x as expensive for the lowest tier.

Comment Re:Improved distance from the DSLAM? (Score 1) 110

by adh72 (#27225325) Attached to: World-First VDSL2 Demo Gets 500Mbps Data Transfers
I'd be happy with anything above 28k. It sucks living in a rural area served by AT&T. 1 county to the north a small phone company that serves primarily rural areas has DSL available to every home they serve. The also just announced that they are rolling out fiber the the home over the next 5 years to every address in their area. ATT will never do that because they only see profit margins while the small companies who provide the same services just sees profit.

Comment Re:Physical is still the best bandwidth (Score 1) 478

by adh72 (#27076389) Attached to: How Much Longer Will Physical Game Distribution Survive?
Been online for about the same amount of time want to see my speeds each year?

1999 15k
2003 28k (modem upgrade)
2004 28k
2005 28k
2006 28k
2007 28k
2008 28k

At this point I have given up on broadband reaching me (Satellite is not broadband) and the industry will lose a paying customer when every game has to be downloaded.
Image

Sewage Plant Yields Brown Gold 5

Posted by samzenpus from the crap-4-gold dept.
A sewage treatment facility in Nagano prefecture has recorded a higher gold yield from sludge than can be found at some of the world's best mines. An official said the high percentage of gold found at the Suwa facility was probably due to the large number of precision equipment manufacturers in the area. The facility recently recorded finding 1,890 grammes of gold per tonne of ash from incinerated sludge. The prefecture is so far due to receive 5 million yen ($55,810) for the gold, minus expenses. I can't wait to see the game show they make out of this. I bet the physical challenges are brutal.
Networking

All Korea To Have 1Gbps Broadband By 2012? 386

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the gotta-have-good-net-for-starcraft-binges dept.
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that while 60 Mbps may be enough to get us excited in the US, Korea is making plans to set the bar much higher. The entire country is gearing up to have 1 Gbps service by 2012, or at least that is what the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) is claiming. 'Currently, Koreans can get speeds up to 100 Mbps, which is still nearly double the speed of Charter's new 60 Mbps service. The new plan by the KCC will cost 34.1 trillion ($24.6 billion USD) over the next five years. The central government will put up 1.3 trillion won, with the remainder coming from private telecom operators. The project is also expected to create more than 120,000 jobs — a win for the Korean economy.'"
Image

Christmas Tree Made From 70 SCSI Hard Drives 248

Posted by samzenpus from the free-time dept.
Trigger writes "At our work we were decomissioning six old HP/Compaq servers to clear up space for new servers and, naturally, each server had a fairly large raid array. Instead of formatting every hard drive (would have taken weeks performing a DoD level wipe) and disposing them all together with the servers, I decided to disassemble the hard drives and recycle them into something neat. With a lot (a lot) of patience, I made this shiny Xmas tree. In total there are around 70 old SCSI hard drives, between 9gb and 18gb in size each. They were nice and chunky, oldschool style. There were quite a few different hard drive models, which is good because they each had different bits which I could use. The Xmas tree is made with parts from hard drives only except for one nut which I had to purchase for $0.39." It's good to see that this guy has plenty to do at work.

Comment Re:more exciting (Score 1) 322

by adh72 (#25844395) Attached to: Resurrecting the Mighty Mammoth, Cheaply

is, from the same story, relegated to second interest, for some reason, the idea of resurrecting a neanderthal, the same way as the woolly mammoth. using chimpanzee as the starting cell lineage rather than human, for ethical considerations of course

but this guy won't be dumb. somebody will have to explain to him he's not the last of his kind... he is the 50,000 year old cloned reconstruction of his kind

weird, lonely, and possible on our lifetime

very cool, very freaky

There is probably a Geico commercial in here somewhere.....

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