Comment This can't end well. (Score 3, Funny) 252
A big red balloon with guys waiting around it all day, yeah, that's not going to freak anyone out.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/31/boston.bombscare/index.html
Comment Re:well now (Score 2, Interesting) 219
Dear Sun Legal Department, I submit the following trademark infringements to the SPARC name;
Spark IM Client: http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/spark/index.jsp
Spark People: http://www.sparkpeople.com/
Spark Mobile: http://telecomtalk.info/spark-mobile-launches-sp77dura-sp777duracam/11560/
Spark Notes: http://www.sparknotes.com/
I will soon contact you for a finders fee for the above 4 infringements and am willing to name more names. I look forward to working with you.
Spark IM Client: http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/spark/index.jsp
Spark People: http://www.sparkpeople.com/
Spark Mobile: http://telecomtalk.info/spark-mobile-launches-sp77dura-sp777duracam/11560/
Spark Notes: http://www.sparknotes.com/
I will soon contact you for a finders fee for the above 4 infringements and am willing to name more names. I look forward to working with you.
Comment Re:What would these kids grow up to be? (Score 1) 1345
Hah!
There is no way to justify spending god knows how many classes reading Greek Mythology just to learn Zeus/Pandora's box references. In that case, Star Wars should be mandatory. There are many more Star Wars references you're going to come across than Greek Mythology.
There is no way to justify learning about mistakes of other countries when you don't even have a voice in your own government. Every school children was taught about the fall of the Roman Empire, yet we still elected a retard who declared war on a country who already surrendered at a cost of trillions. Did you have a voice in that decision? Same thing with any other history subject. No justification for spending years, YEARS, learning ancient history that has no relevance to today. You disagree? Then you should be voting for historians for government offices, since they know all the mistakes of the past.
Do you even remember anything your foreign language classes? I don't. Unless you've been speaking with someone foreign.
And let's remember that a high school graduate is graduating with nothing, NOTHING. No discernible job skills, no trade of any kind, he'll be lucky if he can get a McDonald's job, since what skills is he bringing to even that position? Queen Victoria knowledge? High school is a scam. You're better off getting your GED and spending your time studying for the SAT's if want to get into college. Otherwise, you can be proficient in a trade by the time you're 18 by apprenticing with someone.
There is no way to justify spending god knows how many classes reading Greek Mythology just to learn Zeus/Pandora's box references. In that case, Star Wars should be mandatory. There are many more Star Wars references you're going to come across than Greek Mythology.
There is no way to justify learning about mistakes of other countries when you don't even have a voice in your own government. Every school children was taught about the fall of the Roman Empire, yet we still elected a retard who declared war on a country who already surrendered at a cost of trillions. Did you have a voice in that decision? Same thing with any other history subject. No justification for spending years, YEARS, learning ancient history that has no relevance to today. You disagree? Then you should be voting for historians for government offices, since they know all the mistakes of the past.
Do you even remember anything your foreign language classes? I don't. Unless you've been speaking with someone foreign.
And let's remember that a high school graduate is graduating with nothing, NOTHING. No discernible job skills, no trade of any kind, he'll be lucky if he can get a McDonald's job, since what skills is he bringing to even that position? Queen Victoria knowledge? High school is a scam. You're better off getting your GED and spending your time studying for the SAT's if want to get into college. Otherwise, you can be proficient in a trade by the time you're 18 by apprenticing with someone.
Schooling, Homeschooling, and Now, "Unschooling" 1345
ciaohound writes "The Baltimore Sun has a story about 'unschooling,' which is like homeschooling except, well, without the schooling. '...unschooling incorporates every facet of a child's life into the education process, allowing a child to follow his passions and learn at his own pace, year-round. And it assumes that an outing at the park — or even hours spent playing a video game — can be just as valuable a teaching resource as Hooked on Phonics.' If you have ever been forced to sit in a classroom where no learning was taking place, you may understand the appeal. A driving force behind the movement is parents' dissatisfaction with regular schools, and presumably with homeschooling as well. Yet few researchers are even aware of unschooling and little research exists on its effectiveness. Any Slashdotters who have experience with 'unschooling?'"
Comment Hmmm (Score 1) 288
The following comment might be potentially stupid, but why not just move the computer clock forward to April 1st, and see what Conficker does. If it uses a internet time server to verify date, then just have the DNS for internet time server point to an internal time server. No?
Comment You want to be a math major at 35? (Score 1) 918
Make sure you know what you're getting into. A Computer Science degree is a Math degree with a Computer minor. Don't take my word for it, take a look at the degree path & course descriptions.
For example;
http://jobview.monster.com/getjob.aspx?JobID=67547695
How many of your "Computer Science" courses will prepare you for that job? See any courses in there with "JavaScript / .NET / C#"? You're better off taking a couple of programming courses at ITT tech or any other place and you'll be ahead of all the math majors programming wise.
Comment What the hell are you guys talking about? (Score 1) 55
Wasn't the CIP device destroyed? Is there a second CIP device that Starkwood was keeping in reserve? And what the hell does Google have to do with anything?
Submission + - Blockbuster OnDemand Comes to TiVo (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: "Netflix isn't the only company that sees that streaming is the future of movie rental distribution. Blockbuster, which always seems to be playing catch-up with Netflix, will start making its on-demand rental and purchase content available on TiVo DVRs.
BlockBuster OnDemand has only been available as a streaming service on Windows PCs or streaming to TVs via the 2Wire MediaPoint device. Meanwhile, Netflix streaming is available on far more platforms, such as on Windows and Mac computers, TiVo, the Roku Digital Video Player, LG and Samsung Blu-ray players, the Xbox 360, as well as a number of video portal software applications, like Boxee and ZeeVee's Zinc.
Blockbuster's partnership with TiVo is yet another indication of the coming revolution of on-demand media available to TVs--that is, if the revolution hasn't already started."
Amateur Astronomer Grabs Amazing ISS Picture 80
The Bad Astronomer writes "Ralf Vandebergh is an amateur astronomer, and using a simple telescope with a video camera attached to it, he took an incredibly detailed picture of the International Space Station. You can easily see the recently-installed truss and solar panels, as well as the Space Shuttle Discovery docked to the station."
Google Voice Fixes Security Flaw, Almost 55
gardel writes "Google appears to have fixed a significant security hole in its two-week-old Voice calling service though some vulnerabilities remain. Until about 7pm PDT Tuesday, an unauthorized party could use a SIP device to spoof a phone number attached to a Google Voice account to call the Google Voice number, giviing the spoofer access to greetings and voicemail, and the ability to make outbound calls, including expensive international calls. Though spoofing via SIP is no longer possible, continued existence of some vulnerability was still apparent Tuesday night. Voxilla was able to set the caller ID of a PBX extension to a mobile number attached to Google Voice account and call in, using a business VoIP trunk, to gain access."
Internet Archive Gets 4.5PB Data Center Upgrade 235
Lucas123 writes "The Internet Archive, the non-profit organization that scrapes the Web every two months in order to archive web page images, just cut the ribbon on a new 4.5 petabyte data center housed in a metal shipping container that sits outside. The data center supports the Wayback Machine, the Web site that offers the public a view of the 151 billion Web page images collected since 1997. The new data center houses 63 Sun Fire servers, each with 48 1TB hard drives running in parallel to support both the web crawling application and the 200,000 visitors to the site each day."
Submission + - Companies Waste $2.8B Per Year Powering Unused PCs (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: "Unused PCs — computers that are powered on but not in use — are expected to emit approximately 20 million tons of CO2 this year, roughly equivalent to the impact of 4 million cars, according to report by 1E and the Alliance to Save Energy. All told, U.S. organizations will waste $2.8 billion to power 108 million unused machines this year. The notion that power used turning on PCs negates any benefits of turning them off has been discussed recently as one of five PC power myths. By turning off unused machines and practicing proper PC power management, companies stand to save more than $36 per desktop PC per year."
Comment Re:Or maybe you're pulling that from your ass (Score 1) 440
Face it, the real reason that Windows 7 is leaner than Vista is that Vista was a market flop because it tried to do all sorts of things that Windows users were simply not ready for.
When I open a browser in XP vs. Vista, what exactly does Vista do that I'm not ready for? If you mean eating up useless chunks of memory, CPU, hard disk cycles with no real benefit, then yes, Windows users are not ready for that. I don't know what exactly your post title is referring to, but the only thing that has come out of someones behind was Vista, and every consumer and business adoption statistic shows this. And this is why Windows 7 is being rushed to Release Candidate status with features still being introduced.
Submission + - Conficker to Create Dark Google? 1
The Narrative Fallacy writes: "John Markoff has a story on the NY Times speculating on what will happen on April 1 when the conficker worm is scheduled to activate. Already on an estimated 12 million machines, conjectures about Conficker's purpose ranges from the benign — an April Fool's Day prank — to far darker notions. Some say the program will be used in the "rent-a-computer-crook" business, something that has been tried previously by the computer underground. "The most intriguing clue about the purpose of Conficker lies in the intricate design of the peer-to-peer logic of the latest version of the program, which security researchers are still trying to completely decode," writes Markoff. According to a paper by researchers at SRI International, in the Conficker C version of the program, infected computers can act both as clients and servers and share files in both directions. With these capabilities, conficker's authors could be planning to create a scheme like Freenet, the peer-to-peer system that was intended to make Internet censorship of documents impossible. On a darker note, Stefan Savage, a computer scientist at the University of California at San Diego, has suggested the possibility of a "Dark Google." "What if Conficker is intended to give the computer underworld the ability to search for data on all the infected computers around the globe and then sell the answers," writes Markoff. "That would be a dragnet — and a genuine horror story.""
Comment Anyone else intereted in forming a Naval Fleet? (Score 3, Informative) 165
From the webpage: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2006/09/fr091406.html
Other ships that are currently available for donation include:
(1) Patrol Combat ex-CANON (PG 90), Philadelphia, PA.
(2) Guided Missile Destroyer ex-CHARLES F. ADAMS (DDG 2), Philadelphia, PA.
(3) Destroyer ex-CONOLLY (DD 979), Philadelphia, PA.
(4) Destroyer ex-EDSON (DD 946), Philadelphia, PA.
(5) Submarine ex-TROUT (SS 566), Philadelphia, PA.
(6) Guided Missile Cruiser ex-TICONDEROGA (CG 47), Philadelphia, PA.
(7) Aircraft Carrier ex-RANGER (CV 61),Bremerton, WA.
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Time-sharing is the junk-mail part of the computer business. -- H.R.J. Grosch (attributed)
