Comment Re:Jfc, don't look at the sun (Score 1) 90
Strong disagree.
I was fortunate enough to view the 2017 total solar eclipse, and it was in the top 5 events of my life.
Comment Re:An old piece of shit, upgraded to a ... (Score 1) 101
This was a fantastic read. 12 years old, and still relevent today.
Comment Re:So... what they are saying is... (Score 1) 75
Nah. That just means he's (almost certainly a male) in his late teenage years or possibly early 20's. It doesn't have much to do with intellectual skills, only social ones. And typical slashdot posters have always been deficient in that. (Look up the "hot grits" threads, e.g.)
Hot grits. Holy cow, what a callback to The Good Old Days(tm).
Comment Re:Has anyone tried using (Score 1) 156
a VPN that shows its location as being in one of the target cities?
I was curious about the same, so I tried it just now -- worked fine after I made myself appear to be coming from New York. Appears they are doing your run-of-the-mill geolocation based upon IP address.
A Massive Impact Crater Has Been Detected Beneath Greenland's Ice Sheet (gizmodo.com) 172
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: An unusually large asteroid crater measuring 19 miles wide has been discovered under a continental ice sheet in Greenland. Roughly the size of Paris, it's now among the 25 biggest asteroid craters on Earth. An iron-rich asteroid measuring nearly a kilometer wide (0.6 miles) struck Greenland's ice-covered surface at some point between 3 million and 12,000 years ago, according to a new study published today in Science Advances. The impact would've flung horrific amounts of water vapor and debris into the atmosphere, while sending torrents of meltwater into the North Atlantic -- events that likely triggered global cooling (a phenomenon sometimes referred to as a nuclear or volcanic winter). Over time, however, the gaping hole was obscured by a 1,000-meter-tall (3,200-foot) layer of ice, where it remained hidden for thousands of years. Remarkably, the crater was discovered quite by chance -- and it's now the first large crater to be discovered beneath a continental ice sheet.
Comment Re:And further (Score 1) 81
To further put this into context, if your body takes in 2 calories more per day than is needed, you will be obese in a year.
That doesn't sound right to me. An extra 2 calories per day for one year is 730 calories. Even eating an extra 1000 calories in a year isn't going to qualify someone as obese unless they are practically right at that line anyway.
My understanding is that one pound is roughly 3500 calories. So a 730 calorie overage, over the course of a year, would theoretically only represent ~0.2lb.
-jd
Software Patents Are Crumbling, Thanks To the Supreme Court 118
walterbyrd writes: In June, when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a software patent, many in the tech industry hoped it would be the beginning of sweeping changes to how the patent system handles software. Just a few months later, lower courts are making it happen. Quoting Vox: "By my count there have been 10 court rulings on the patentability of software since the Supreme Court's decision — including six that were decided this month. Every single one of them has led to the patent being invalidated. This doesn't necessarily mean that all software patents are in danger — these are mostly patents that are particularly vulnerable to challenge under the new Alice precedent. But it does mean that the pendulum of patent law is now clearly swinging in an anti-patent direction. Every time a patent gets invalidated, it strengthens the bargaining position of every defendant facing a lawsuit from a patent troll."
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports on alleged corruption in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Dell Starts Accepting Bitcoin 152
An anonymous reader writes: Mainstream retail companies have been slow to adopt Bitcoin, perhaps skeptical of its long-term value or unwilling to expend the effort required to put a payment system into place. Today, Bitcoin adoption got a momentum boost with Dell's announcement that it will accept Bitcoin as a payment method. Dell is by far the biggest company to start accepting Bitcoin. It's interesting to note that Dell, like many of the larger companies interacting with Bitcoin right now, is doing so through a third-party payment processor. On one hand, it's good — we don't necessarily want each company building their own implementation and possibly screwing it up. On the other hand, it scales back slightly the decentralized and fee-less nature of Bitcoin, which are important features to many of its supporters.
GOG.com Not Really Gone 276
gspr writes "On Sunday, Slashdot and many others reported that DRM-free games site GOG.com was shutting down. Now the site is back, revealing that it was all a hoax. According to the site: 'Now it's time we put an end to all the speculations once and for all. It's true that we decided that we couldn't keep GOG.com the way it was so we won't. As you probably know by now, GOG.com is entering its new era with an end of the two-years beta stage and we're launching a brand new GOG.com with new, huge releases.' So it was all an advertising stunt."
The 1-Second Linux Boot 156
An anonymous reader writes "Less than one second Linux boot! This video shows an OMAP3530 capturing video data from a camera and rendering it to an LCD display — the video appears on the LCD display in less than a second from reset."
Safari and Chrome: Tied For the Worst Password Manager 218
Startled Hippo writes "Safari and Chrome are tied for the worst password manager built into a major Web browser, according to a new study on the issue produced by Chapin Information Services. One problem is that some password managers can be tricked into submitting different password credentials to different parts of the same Web site. The bug has been fixed in Firefox, but Chrome and Safari are still vulnerable to this kind of attack."
Loebner Talks AI 107
Mighty Squirrel writes "This is a fascinating interivew with Hugh Loebner, the academic who has arguably done more to promote the development of artifical intelligence than anyone else. He founded the Loebner prize in 1990 to promote the development of artificial intelligence by asking developers to create a machine which passes the Turing Test — meaning it responds in a way indistinguishable from a human. The latest running of the contest is this weekend and this article shows what an interesting and colourful character Loebner is."
How To Manage a Security Breach? 183
Salvance writes, "A friend of mine has recently been stressed over a security breach at the company he consults for. The company maintains dozens of Windows 98 desktops to support legacy software that cannot be easily replaced. Due to the inherent lack of security in Win98, a worm was able to infiltrate almost every computer and send gigabytes of data (possibly including sensitive company data) to a 'redirector' in Eastern Europe. My friend was working on other security projects at this company and stumbled across this massive hole. He quickly convinced company executives to remove Internet access from all Win98 machines, purchase better firewalls, and implement other data protection strategies. However, the sticking point was client notification. Due to the nature of the legacy systems, there was no way to know what data was transferred. For this reason the company wanted to play it safe and disclose nothing. Of course, my friend is all for disclosure and preventing harmful use of the potentially leaked data. My friend doesn't know what to do, so I'd like to know what others here think."
Comment Re:The irony (Score 1) 526
Nothing can come good from offering an ultra thin laptop.
The thinner it is, the more suspectible it is to braking.
What do you consider ultra thin?
I have a Panasonic Toughbook W2, and weighing in at 2.84lb (with 12.1" display and a DVD player) is one of the smallest laptops around in the "actually useful" class. I've never had any troubles with it 'breaking'.
If someone ran over this laptop with a car, I'd buy another one (or rather, the new W4) in a minute. It's survived 2.5 years of the constant travel I do for business.
Long live the Panny W2.
-jd
The thinner it is, the more suspectible it is to braking.
What do you consider ultra thin?
I have a Panasonic Toughbook W2, and weighing in at 2.84lb (with 12.1" display and a DVD player) is one of the smallest laptops around in the "actually useful" class. I've never had any troubles with it 'breaking'.
If someone ran over this laptop with a car, I'd buy another one (or rather, the new W4) in a minute. It's survived 2.5 years of the constant travel I do for business.
Long live the Panny W2.
-jd
Slashdot Top Deals
There is hardly a thing in the world that some man can not make a little worse and sell a little cheaper.
