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Google

Google To Shut Down 10 Products 167

Posted by Soulskill from the you-are-the-weakest-links dept.
Google announced yesterday that it is closing a number of its current products and merging others into similar services. Many of them will continue to be available in the near future to facilitate the transition. The list of affected services includes Aardvark, Desktop, Fast Flip, Maps API for Flash, Google Pack, Google Web Security, Image Labeler, Notebook, Sidewiki, and Subscriber Links. Google's Alan Eustace wrote. "This will make things much simpler for our users, improving the overall Google experience. It will also mean we can devote more resources to high impact products—the ones that improve the lives of billions of people. All the Googlers working on these projects will be moved over to higher-impact products. As for our users, we’ll communicate directly with them as we make these changes, giving sufficient time to make the transition and enabling them to take their data with them." The link contains brief descriptions of how each service is getting phased out.

Comment Horse (Score 1) 122

by bboyers (#37052056) Attached to: The Biggest Dangers to Your Fiber

When I was at Sprint I heard the story of a cut fiber line. They go to check out the location and the ground is disturbed where the cut is. The tech thought the culprits left before they got there. When they dig down they find a dead decaying horse. The farmer buried his horse on the edge of his property without knowing he cut the fiber.

Another farmer put up a new fence and used the fresh laid fiber line as a guide. He proceeded to cut the fiber numerous times over a half mile with his fence posts. Talk about a costly fence post error.

Comment Re:I'm Pretty Sure That's Illegal (Score 1) 266

by bboyers (#34258124) Attached to: Debt Collectors Using Facebook To Embarrass Those Who Owe

Even if the $180 was actually owed, if they failed to contact you for 2 years or more, then they have lost the legal right to the money. Also ask for documentation on the debt so you know what the debt is about, if they can't prove the debt they can't collect it. No matter what you do, don't pay a single penny to the company no matter how much they threaten you. Paying any money will reset the 2 year clock. BTW, I would not trust any website of these collection companies, only do certified return receipt postal mail so you have a paper trail of your efforts.

I had a bogus debt and a collection agency tried to collect it. I asked for documentation and they sent me a screen capture of the account balance window, it showed $0.00 was owed. I sent their own documentation back to them as proof I didn't owe the debt. My collection account was resold every few months and a new collection agency would try the same thing. This kept on for 4 YEARS.
Image

Subversive Groups Must Now Register In South Carolina 849

Posted by samzenpus from the are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-been-a-member-of-the-communist-party dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Raw Story reports that terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina's Secretary of State and declare their intentions — or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison. The 'Subversive Activities Registration Act' passed last year in South Carolina and now officially on the books states that 'every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States ... shall register with the Secretary of State.'"

Comment Johnstown for the best bang for the buck (Score 1) 697

by RedDirt (#29865959) Attached to: Low-Power Home Linux Server?

You can get an Intel Johnstown board (Atom N270 - 1.6ghz) for around $110. RAM will set you back another $20 or so. The Johnstown board is nice in that it has a built-in PSU and just requires an external 12v brick. If you don't have one, that's another $20. For the chassis, it depends on what sort of storage you want to put in it. Anything that'll hold an ITX board will do, though I like the mini-box cases (an M350 will set you back $40 though it requires the use of laptop drives). An M300 is more expensive at $60 but allows the use of a single 3.5" drive so you can recycle a hard drive you already own.

Anyway, I think the best bang for the buck is one of the Intel Mini-ITX boards. They're inexpensive, capable and familiar. Be aware that the older Intel boards (Little Falls, Little Falls 2) have no integrated PSUs so that drives their prices up relative to the Johnstown.
Biotech

Robotic Mold 118

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the he-slimed-me dept.
Canis Lupus writes to mention that researchers from the University of West England are designing the world's first biological robot, constructed from mold. The robot, "Plasmobot," will be created using vegetative slime mold called plasmodium (Physarum polycephalum) that is commonly found in forests, gardens, and most damp places in the UK. "This new plasmodium robot, called plasmobot, will sense objects, span them in the shortest and best way possible, and transport tiny objects along pre-programmed directions. The robots will have parallel inputs and outputs, a network of sensors and the number crunching power of super computers. The plasmobot will be controlled by spatial gradients of light, electro-magnetic fields and the characteristics of the substrate on which it is placed. It will be a fully controllable and programmable amorphous intelligent robot with an embedded massively parallel computer."
Power

Fusion-Fission System Burns Hot Radioactive Waste 432

Posted by kdawson from the super-x-divertor dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A hybrid fission-fusion process has been developed that can be used in some traditional fission reactors to process radioactive waste and reduce the amount of waste produced by 99%. This process uses magnetic bottle techniques developed from fusion research. This seems like the first viable solution to the radioactive waste problem of traditional nuclear reactors. This could be a big breakthrough in the search for environmentally friendly energy sources. Lots of work remains to take the concept to an engineering prototype and then to a production reactor."

Steve Jobs Issues Update On His Health 320

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can't-believe-this-is-news dept.
i4u writes "Rumors about Steve Jobs' health have been flying high again after Apple announced that he will not be holding the keynote at the Macworld 2009. Today Steve Jobs issued a letter with a rather personal update on why he was losing weight in 2008. The reason for losing weight in 2008 is a hormone imbalance that has been reducing proteins. The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward according to Jobs. Steve and his doctors predict that he will have normal weight again by Spring. So stop the rumors and enjoy Macworld 2009."
The Internet

China To Run Out of IPv4 Addresses In 830 Days 619

Posted by CmdrTaco from the blame-canada dept.
JagsLive writes "China is running out of IP addresses unless it makes the switch to IPv6. According to the China Internet Network Information Center, under the current allocation speed, China's IPv4 address resources can only meet the demand of 830 more days and if no proper measures are taken by then, new Chinese netizens will not be able to gain normal access to the Internet. Li Kai, director in charge of the IP business for CNNIC's international department, says that if a netizen wants to get access to the Internet, an IP address will be necessary to analyze the domain name and view the pages. At present, most of the networks in China use IPv4 addresses. As a basic resource for the Internet, the IPv4 addresses are limited and 80% of the final allocation IP addresses have been used."

Comment Small Steps (Score 1) 1806

by bboyers (#24397003) Attached to: How Do Geeks Exercise?

I would suggest performing a series of small steps to improve all around health. Like...

  • Taking the stairs (helps if you work on the 4th floor)
  • Park as far away from the entrance to your work place. Those extra hundred feet to/from work every day adds up.
  • During the workday, go to the bathroom on the far side of the building (or another floor). Every step counts.
  • Beware of the jelly donuts that show up on Fridays at the workplace. Those things contain hundreds of calories. Just think of how much exercise is needed to break even after eating that donut.
  • Fast food is evil. The reason it is called fast food is because it kills you fast and turns to belly fat fast.
  • No one over the age of 20 should drink non-diet cola (unless it is mixed with alcohol).
  • Learn to snack on healthy stuff. Snack on fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts, just don't snack on processed crud.
  • Vegetables are our friends. They fill us up so we don't eat junk.
  • Eat breakfast. It really is the most important meal of the day. Cereal has lot of nutrients and is generally healthy. Eat a reasonable serving (most people eat 2-3 times the serving size and kill any health benefits of the healthy breakfast. BTW, eat cereal from a smaller bowl, you will eat less.
  • Ease into exercise. It take a long time to get fit. People expect too much too soon and usually injure themselves in the process. (I use to do this until I took it easy and allow myself to improve slowly but steadily.)

My top weight was 197 when I was in my late twenties. I knew the longer I waited the tougher it would be to lose weight. I'm 33 now and weight 157 and feel awesome. I lost the first half of my weight through exercise, but the second half was due to quality eating once I was married.

Good Luck,
Brian
The Internet

EFF, ACLU Back WikiLeaks 116

Posted by CmdrTaco from the scratching-eachother's-backs dept.
souls writes "Seems like the forces to protect freedom-of-speech in the groundsetting Wikileaks.org case have spoken: Henry Weinstein at LA Times reports that a coalition of media and public interest organizations today urged judge Jeffrey White to rescind the shutdown of Wikileaks.org, which presents 'restraint on free speech that violated the First Amendment,' and is generally considered to become a representative case for free online speech. The dirty dozen organizations fighting for your voice and mine include the EFF, the ACLU, The Times, AP, Gannett, Hearst, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Society of Professional Journalists. Lets hope that is enough muscle to stop a judge running wild in favor of a bunch of offshore bankers! Meanwhile wikileaks is still going strong via all available other domains, and is currently organizing support and donations."

The Future of Love and Sex - Robots 510

Posted by Zonk from the oh-robot-girlfriend dept.
nem75 writes "The New York Times has a review of British AI researcher David Levy's book 'Love and Sex with Robots'. He claims that within a span of about 50 years the day will come when people could actually fall in love with life-like robots. While this may seem far fetched at first, he has some pretty interesting views. 'He begins with what scientists know about why humans fall in love with other humans. There are 10 factors, he writes, including mystery, reciprocal liking, and readiness to enter a relationship. Why can't these factors apply to robots, too?' The case he builds goes much further though, and certainly provides food for thought." Update: 12/14 16:16 GMT by Z : This article is very similar to a discussion we had recently.
Games

CA Game Bill Struck Down, Governor Vows Appeal 106

Posted by Zonk from the like-a-bad-tennis-match dept.
GamePolitics has the full story today on the removal of California's violent games law. A judge has found it unconstitutional after a protracted legal battle. The law was originally passed back in 2005. "The bill, championed by then-Assembly Speaker Leland Yee (D) was signed into law by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (left) on October 7th, 2005. The video game industry filed suit to block the law 10 days later. Judge Ronald Whyte issued a preliminary injunction on December 22nd, blocking the California law from its planned effective date of January 1st, 2006. Since then, both sides have been waiting for Judge Whyte's final ruling. Today it has come." The law's sponsor Leland Yee is quite disappointed by the ruling, of course, and Governor Schwarzenegger plans to appeal the decision.

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