Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission + - Modern 2024 PC with a vintage DOS twist (yeokhengmeng.com)

Submitted by yeokm1
yeokm1 writes: If I were to tell you a PC has a floppy drive, optical drive, Sound Blaster card, serial, parallel and PS/2 ports running DOS, you would think I’m referring to a machine from the 1990s. But my very modern PC built in 2024 possess these characteristics!

Here I share my journey on how I managed to get DOS installed and working reasonably well on such a modern system with Ryzen 5 7600 and Geforce 4060 Ti.

The fact that a 30-year-old MS-DOS 6.22 can still work well enough on such a modern hardware is testament to the efforts made by the industry to ensure good x86 PC backward compatibility. AMD, Nvidia and Asus deserve to be commended on their efforts here.

Submission + - Senator calls out John Deere for frustrating repair, violating federal law (substack.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: The Fight to Repair Newsletter is reporting that U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is calling out agricultural equipment giant John Deere for possible violations of the federal Clean Air Act and a years-long pattern of thwarting owners’ ability to repair their farm equipment.

Deere “appears to be evading its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act to grant customers the right to repair their own agricultural equipment.” That is costing farmers an estimated $4.2 billion annually “causing them to miss key crop windows on which their businesses and livelihoods rely,” Warren wrote in a letter (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/3/24260513/john-deere-right-to-repair-elizabeth-warren-clean-air-act) dated October 2nd.

The letter from Warren, a Senator from Massachusetts and strong repair advocate, is just the latest volley lobbed at Illinois-based Deere, an iconic American brand and the largest supplier of agricultural equipment to farms in the U.S. Deere controls an estimated 53 percent of the U.S. market for large tractors and 60 percent of the U.S. market for farm combines.
In recent weeks, Deere faced criticism, including from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, after laying off close to 2,000 U.S. based employees at facilities in Iowa and Illinois, moving many of those jobs to facilities in Mexico. (https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/equipment/article/2024/07/24/deere-lays-undisclosed-number) The company has also been repeatedly called out for complicating repair and service of its farm equipment — often relying on software locks and digital rights management to force farmers to use Deere dealers and authorized service providers for even the simplest repairs. (https://pirg.org/arizona/resources/deere-in-the-headlights-ii-2/)

Submission + - American Factories Are Making Stuff Again as CEOs Take Production Out of China (bloomberg.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: There has been a sense in financial circles that the fever among American executives to shorten supply lines and bring production back home would prove short-lived. As soon as the pandemic started to fade, so too would the fad, the thinking went.

And yet, two years in, not only is the trend still alive, it appears to be rapidly accelerating.

“This is just economics,” says one executive who made the move

Submission + - Coronal Mass Ejection Reaches Earth on Sunday Night (spaceweatherlive.com)

Submitted by PuddleBoy
PuddleBoy writes: "A very long duration C3.1 solar flare peaked yesterday [03.10.2022] at 20:55 UTC. ... A coronal mass ejection was launched into space and is highly likely to arrive at Earth.

"... The solar flare lasted for hours and launched an asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection into space. Most of the ejecta is heading north-west but a significant part of the plasma cloud is expected to arrive at our planet. The coronal mass ejection was launched at a speed of about 600km/s which is a fairly average speed. This puts the likely arrival time at Earth late on Sunday, 13 March."

Submission + - SPAM: India accidentally fires missile into Pakistan

Submitted by ami.one
ami.one writes: India says it accidentally fired a missile into Pakistan on Wednesday, blaming the incident on a "technical malfunction" during routine maintenance.

Delhi said it was "deeply regrettable" and expressed relief no one was killed.

Pakistan's military said a "high-speed flying object" had crashed near the eastern city of Mian Channu and its flight path had endangered passenger flights.

Both countries have nuclear weapons.

In a statement, India's defence ministry said: "On 9 March 2022, in the course of routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile. The Government of India has taken a serious view and ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry."

Islamabad warned Delhi to "be mindful of the unpleasant consequences of such negligence" and to avoid a repeat. The object had been launched from Sirsa in Haryana state, it said.

Pakistan's air force said the missile travelled at Mach 3 — three times the speed of sound — at an altitude of 12,000m (40,000ft) and flew 124km (77 miles) in Pakistani airspace before crashing.

"The flight path of this object endangered many national and international passenger flights both in Indian and Pakistani airspace, as well as human life and property of ground," said Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Babar Iftikharon Thursday.

On Friday, Pakistan's foreign ministry said it had summoned India's chargé d'affaires to complain about the incident.

Pakistan also urged India to share the findings of its investigation into what happened.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Chinese Smartphone Manufacturer OnePlus Annouces Credit Card Breach (theverge.com)

Submitted by sqorbit
sqorbit writes: OnePlus, a manufacturer of an inexpensive smartphone meant to compete with the iPhone, states that data from 40,000 customers credit card information was stolen while purchasing phones. Although only recently announcing the breach OnePlus states the the script stealing information had been running since November. It is not clear whether this was a remote attack or the attack happened from within the company. Credit purchases on the OnePlus site have been suspended and will remain that way while an investigation takes place.

Submission + - You could soon be manufacturing your own drugs—thanks to 3D printing (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Forget those long lines at the pharmacy: Someday soon, you might be making your own medicines at home. That’s because researchers have tailored a 3D printer to synthesize pharmaceuticals and other chemicals from simple, widely available starting compounds fed into a series of water bottle–size reactors. The work, they say, could digitize chemistry, allowing users to synthesize almost any compound anywhere in the world.

“It could become a milestone paper, a really seminal paper,” says Fraser Stoddart, a chemist and chemistry Nobel laureate at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who was not involved with the work. “This is one of those articles that has to make [people] sit up and take notice.”

Submission + - How would you explain Einstein's theories to a nine-year-old? 2

Submitted by SiggyRadiation
SiggyRadiation writes: A few days ago my 9 year old son asked me why Albert Einstein was so famous. I decided not just to start with the famous formula E=MC2, because that just seemed to be the easy way out.

So I tried to explain what mass is and energy. Then I asked him to try to explain gravity to me. The earth pulls at you because it has a lot of mass. But how come that the earth can influence your body, pull your feet to the ground, without actually toughing you? Why is it that one thing (the earth) can influence something else (you) without actually being connected? Isn’t that weird? Now Einstein figured out how energy, mass and gravity work and are related to each other. This is where our conversation ended.

Afterwards I thought: this might be a nice question to ask on Slashdot; how would I continue this discussion to explain it to him further? Of course, with the goal of further feeding his interest in physics.

Submission + - Here's Where Google Hid the SSL Certificate Information That You May Need (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: Up to now for the stable version of Chrome, you simply clicked the little green padlock icon on an https: connection, clicked on the “Details” link that appeared, and a panel then opened that gave you that status, along with an obvious button to click for viewing the actual certificate data such as Organization, issuance and expiration dates, etc.

Suddenly, that “Details” link no longer is present. Seemingly, Google just doesn’t feel that “ordinary” users need to look at that data these days.

Submission + - Actor John Hurt dies at age 77

Submitted by necro81
necro81 writes: A fantastic chameleon of the stage and screen has died. Sir John Hurt passed away at age 77 today. Slashdot readers should recognize him as the first person to have a xenomorph burst from his chest in the original Alien (a scene he later parodied in Spaceballs . Others may recall he played the downtrodden protagonist Winston Smith in the film adaption of 1984 , then later played the tyrannical High Chancellor in V for Vendetta . Also: the titular character in The Elephant Man, Caligula in I, Claudius, Ollivander in the Harry Potter films and, more recently, Gilliam in Snowpiercer. But his career spanned decades and genres, and our world is a bit meeker and colorless without him.

Submission + - Tostitos Breathalyzer Bags Can Detect if You're Drunk—and They'll Even Cal (mashable.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Now that we know who will be playing in the Super Bowl this year, everyone is gearing up for their parties. Without a doubt, 7-layer dips, pizza delivery, and beer will make appearances in homes across the country. But where the beer floweth and the excitement runs high, there is bound to be intoxication. That's where Tostitos comes in. At least this year.

The corn chip giant has developed a special bag, available for a limited time, that can detect if you've had too much to drink. Super Bowl Sunday usually sees a high rate of alcohol-related accidents and deaths. With the goal of preventing intoxicated football fans from driving after the big game, the all-black packaging changes if it detects trace levels of alcohol on your breath. If it does, a red steering wheel and the words "Don't Drink and Drive" appear on the bag. If no alcohol is detected, a green circle appears instead.

Mashable reports:

If it decides you've been drinking — regardless of how much — an image of a red steering wheel appears on the otherwise stark black bag along with a reminder not to drive and a code for a $10 Uber discount (valid only on Super Bowl Sunday). And if you've had so much to drink that the mere act of hailing an Uber becomes a difficult chore, the bag will even do that for you. The package is equipped with near-field communication technology that will automatically order a ride when tapped with a smartphone.

Submission + - Trump's Executive Order Eliminates Privacy Act Protections for Foreigners

Submitted by Kernel Kurtz
Kernel Kurtz writes: January 28 is supposed to be Data Privacy Day, so it seems fitting in an alternative sort of way that US President Trump just signed an executive order that eliminates Privacy Act protections for foreigners. As a non-American, I find it curious that the person who says he wants to bring jobs to America is simply confirming the post-Snowden belief that America is not a safe place to do business. Does anyone else see a conflict here?

Submission + - Twitter Releases National Security Letters (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Today, Twitter joined the ranks of Yahoo, Cloudflare and Google by announcing it had received two national security letters, one in 2015 and one in 2016. The NSLs came with gag orders that prevented Twitter from telling the public or the targeted users about the government’s demands. The FBI recently lifted these gag orders, allowing Twitter to acknowledge the NSLs for the first time. In the newly-published NSLs, the FBI asked Twitter to turn over “the name, address, length of service, and electronic communications transactional records” of two users. Twitter associate general counsel Elizabeth Banker said that the company provided a “very limited set of data” in response to the requests, but did not make clear exactly what kind of data Twitter provided. “Twitter remains unsatisfied with restrictions on our right to speak more freely about national security requests we may receive,” Banker wrote in a blog post. “We would like a meaningful opportunity to challenge government restrictions when ‘classification’ prevents speech on issues of public importance.”

Submission + - Ron Glass, Firefly's Shepherd Book, has died

Submitted by tiqui
tiqui writes: The actor was 71 and the family has not released more details of his death, but the Firefly/Serenity fans can follow this link to the Hollywood Reporter for more information.

Submission + - Microsoft enables Linux desktop users to send SMS txt messages with latest Skype (betanews.com)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Microsoft has delivered an incredible feature to Linux-based desktop operating systems by way of the latest Alpha version of its Skype client. What is this exciting feature of which I speak? Well, the newly-released Skype for Linux 1.13 allows users to send SMS test messages from the operating system!

True, web-based solutions such as Google Voice have long allowed the sending of text messages, but needing to use a web browser can be a chore. There is convenience and elegance in using the Skype for Linux client.

Slashdot Top Deals

"My sense of purpose is gone! I have no idea who I AM!" "Oh, my God... You've.. You've turned him into a DEMOCRAT!" -- Doonesbury

Close