cbailey64 - Slashdot User

Scientists Cut Greenland Ice Loss Estimate By Half 414

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday September 09, 2010 @04:57AM from the not-so-bad-after-all dept.

bonch writes "A new study on Greenland's and West Antarctica's rate of ice loss halves the estimate of ice loss. Published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the study takes into account a rebounding of the Earth's crust called glacial isostatic adjustment, a continuing rise of the crust after being smashed under the weight of the Ice Age. 'We have concluded that the Greenland and West Antarctica ice caps are melting at approximately half the speed originally predicted,' said researcher Bert Vermeeersen."

Two Unpatched Flaws Show Up In Apple iOS 171

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday August 04, 2010 @07:55PM from the rotten-apple dept.

Trailrunner7 writes "The technique that the Jailbreakme.com Web site is using to bypass the iPhone's security mechanisms and enable users to run unapproved apps on their phones involves exploiting two separate vulnerabilities. One of the vulnerabilities is a memory-corruption flaw that affects the way that Apple's mobile devices, including the iPad and iPod Touch, display PDFs. The second weakness is a problem in the Apple iOS kernel that gives an attacker higher privileges once his code is on a targeted device, enabling him to break out of the iOS sandbox. The combination of the two vulnerabilities — both of which are unpatched at the moment — gives an attacker the ability to run remote code on the device and evade the security protections on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. The technique became public earlier this week when the Jailbreakme.com site began hosting a set of specially crafted PDF files designed to help users jailbreak their Apple devices and load apps other than the ones approved by Apple and offered in its official App Store."

EVE Online PVP Tournament Streamed Live 101

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday June 06, 2010 @12:21PM from the enemy's-gate-is-down dept.

infinitevalence writes "Every few months the good Viking programmers of the north organize and present one of the most geeky e-sports out there. Thanks to them, for three weekends in a row we get to watch player-controlled spaceships fight it out for accolades and unique in-game items available only to the first, second, and third place winners. This year CCP has all of the content live online and streaming in HD for your viewing pleasure. So find a drink, whip up some snacks, watch the shiny explosions, and listen to the soothing words of player experts as they walk you through the action!"

Linux Needs Critics 1127

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday April 02, 2009 @10:06AM from the that-which-does-not-kill-us dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Keir Thomas berates the fact that the world of Linux almost entirely lacks critics. In fact, he says, Linux people tend to see genuine critical evaluation as a bad thing. FTA: 'The problem with this anti-criticism approach is that it's damning Linux to an eternity of navel gazing. Nothing can ever get any better. The best hope we have are the instances where a few bright sparks, with their heads screwed on the right way, get together and make something cool (as happened with, say, Firefox back in the day). But that's rare and can't be relied upon.'"

Comment Re:Patent 101.... (Score 2, Informative) 191

by cbailey64 on Friday March 20, 2009 @10:23PM (#27276473) Attached to: Red Hat Claims Patent On SOAP Over CGI

A patent is not infringed upon unless all claims within the patent are infringed upon.

You are wrong. A single patent in the US may have multiple independent claims. Inside the patent there are also dependent claims that refine either an independent claim or a dependent claim. Duplicating any of them is an infringement. Period. Think of it as a venn diagram.

Look Out, Firefox 3 — IE8 Is Back On Top For Now 662

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday March 19, 2009 @11:44AM from the because-it-can dept.

CWmike writes "Internet Explorer 8 has shipped in its final version and is ready to take on its rivals. Preston Gralla reviewed it and says the latest version of Microsoft's browser leapfrogs its closest competition, Firefox 3, for basic browsing and productivity features — it has better tab handling, a niftier search bar, a more useful address bar, and new tools that deliver information directly from other Web pages and services. IE8 has also been tweaked for security and includes a so-called 'porn mode,' new anti-malware protection, and better ways to protect your privacy. The most noticeable new features? Accelerators and Web Slices. Think of an Accelerator as a mini-mashup that delivers information from another Web site directly to your current browser page. Web Slices deliver changing information from a Web page you're not actively visiting directly to IE8. There's one big problem for many, though. No add-ins, and there doesn't appear to be such an ecosystem on the horizon. So if you're a fan of add-ins and customizing the browser itself, writes Gralla, Firefox is superior. But for the actual browsing experience, IE8 has the upper hand — for now."

The Real Reason For Microsoft's TomTom Lawsuit 408

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday March 05, 2009 @02:03PM from the get-your-conspiracy-on dept.

Glyn Moody writes "We now know that Microsoft's lawsuit isn't just against TomTom, but against Linux too: but what exactly is Microsoft hoping to achieve? Samba's Jeremy Allison has a fascinating theory: 'What people are missing about this is the either/or choice that Microsoft is giving Tom Tom. It isn't a case of cross-license and everything is ok. If Tom Tom or any other company cross licenses patents then by section 7 of GPLv2 (for the Linux kernel) they lose the rights to redistribute the kernel *at all*. Make no mistake, this is intended to force Tom Tom to violate the GPL, or change to Microsoft embedded software.' Maybe embedded Linux is starting to get too popular."

Comment Re:I believe it's totally worth it! (Score 1) 409

by cbailey64 on Wednesday January 28, 2009 @12:46PM (#26640395) Attached to: Umbilical Cord Blood Banking?

That's a fair point! Although $2800->$15500 in 18 years is pretty aggressive. Actually doubling every 7 years doesn't usually happen without significant risk. But back to the meat of the point. As a part of the decision for us, the $2,800 doesn't really affect our financial year, or even our quarter, so it was a lot easier to spend. Imagining a slightly different situation where perhaps we had to save for six months just to pay the initial $1,000 I definitely agree it would be much more difficult.

Comment I believe it's totally worth it! (Score 2, Informative) 409

by cbailey64 on Wednesday January 28, 2009 @06:44AM (#26636565) Attached to: Umbilical Cord Blood Banking?

I have a ten month old son and we chose to bank his cord blood. We live in Canada and we used LifeBank. It essentially cost $1,000 to sign up, get the kit, collect the blood, and have it tested. They test for sample quality and such. We then paid $1,800 up front for 18 years of storage. My point is, the cost is $2,800 today and we don't have to think about it again. Our decision was mostly based on it being the cheapest insurance you can buy. Cord blood isn't only potentially useful to your child, but also to any blood relative. It's already being used to treat several forms of Leukemia, various forms of anemia, and a bunch of stuff I don't know what it is, but also helpful helping a patient recover from chemotherapy. Then there's all the current clinical trials on common diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Heart Disease. My wife's family has a history of Cancer, and my family has a history of Heart Disease. I think one of two things will happen: 1) 18 years will go by and we'll never think about it again. Then we'll have to decide if we want to spend $100/year for this 'insurance'. At least we'll better be able to afford it. 2) Something tragic will happen and we'll be able to use our 'insurance' to minimize the damage. If we chose not to bank the blood and something happened that could be mitigated by having it, I can't imagine the grief of saying "why didn't we?" -- Especially when the amazing new computer I bought for the same $2,800 was outdated years earlier. Christopher

Report Claims 95% of Music Downloads Are Illegal 331

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 16, 2009 @07:57PM from the seems-low dept.

Un pobre guey writes "The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) press release claims that 95% of music file downloads in 2008, an estimated 40 billion files, were illegal. Oddly enough, digital music sales are up: 'The digital music business internationally saw a sixth year of expansion in 2008, growing by an estimated 25 per cent to US$3.7 billion in trade value. Digital platforms now account for around 20 per cent of recorded music sales, up from 15 per cent in 2007. Recorded music is at the forefront of the online and mobile revolution, generating more revenue in percentage terms through digital platforms than the newspaper (4%), magazine (1%) and film industries (4%) combined... Despite these developments, the music sector is still overshadowed by the huge amount of unlicensed music distributed online. Collating separate studies in 16 countries over a three-year period, IFPI estimates over 40 billion files were illegally file-shared in 2008, giving a piracy rate of around 95 per cent.'"

Atari Talks Ghostbusters Date, Popular Franchises 33

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @02:30AM from the i-guess-we're-gonna-call-atari dept.

Early last month, Atari announced the production of a new Ghostbusters game featuring many of the original actors and set for some time in 2009. Now, they've announced that the game will be scheduled for June. Atari executives also took the opportunity to discuss several of their popular franchises, saying they had plans to revisit the Neverwinter Nights series as well as Baldur's Gate. A console version of The Witcher was confirmed, and Atari detailed "a partnership with famed rhythm-game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Q! Entertainment on a new music-based game for the Wii. Details on the game are slim, and it's operating under the working title 'QJ.'"

Fundraiser For "White Male" Illness Dropped 241

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday November 27, 2008 @02:32PM from the stop-the-penis-party dept.

gubachwa writes "The student association at Carleton University in Canada recently voted that Cystic Fibrosis was a charity unworthy of receiving money raised during orientation week fund-raising activities. The reason behind the decision, as given in the motion on which the student association voted, is that Cystic Fibrosis 'has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men.'" I'm speechless.

First Secure Quantum Crypto Network Up and Running 102

Posted by timothy on Friday October 10, 2008 @07:47AM from the all-new-perfect-forever-place-your-bets dept.

John Lam was one of many readers to send in news that on Thursday, "at a conference in Vienna, Austria, as reported by the BBC, a European Community science working group built a quantum backbone using 200-km of standard commercial optical fiber running among seven sites and successfully demonstrated the first secure quantum cryptographic key distribution network. In addition, each of the seven links used a different kind of quantum encryption, demonstrating interoperability between the technologies. To paraphrase, the project focused on the trusted repeater paradigm and developed an architecture allowing seamless integration of heterogeneous quantum-key distribution-link devices in a unified framework. Network node-modules managing all classical communication tasks provide the underlying quantum devices with authentic classical channels. The node-module architecture uses a layered model to provision network-wide, end-to-end, provably secure key distribution."

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