mofomojo - Slashdot User

Nuclear Officers Napped With Blast Door Left Open 238

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @02:57PM from the what's-the-worst-that-could-happen dept.

Lasrick writes "AP's Robert Burns reports that 'Air Force officers entrusted with the launch keys to long-range nuclear missiles have been caught twice this year leaving open a blast door that is intended to help prevent a terrorist or other intruder from entering their underground command post.' Why is that signifcant? At least one of the officers was napping at the time. Airforce officials said other violations like this have undoubtedly occurred and gone undetected. Yeesh. 'The blast door violations are another sign of trouble in the handling of the nation's nuclear arsenal. The AP has discovered a series of problems within the ICBM force, including a failed safety inspection, the temporary sidelining of launch officers deemed unfit for duty and the abrupt firing last week of the two-star general in charge. The problems, including low morale, underscore the challenges of keeping safe such a deadly force that is constantly on alert but is unlikely ever to be used.'"

Linux 3.11 Released 98

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Monday September 02, 2013 @07:35PM from the includes-trumpet-winsock-trial dept.

hypnosec writes "Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 3.11 as anticipated. Torvalds notes that the final version doesn't bring in a lot more than what is already present in the rc7, but it does include fixes — most of them in networking, file systems, and audio."

Comment No. (Score 5, Interesting) 127

by mofomojo on Saturday June 01, 2013 @07:44PM (#43886057) Attached to: Will Your Video Game Collection Appreciate Over Time?

Honestly, $25,000 for a complete collection of SNES games isn't that much considering how many SNES games were made. There were aprox 784 Super Nintendo games, which, if you do the math, is only $31 per game. This is considerably less than what many of those games retailed for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_games

It's going to take some time, and will certainly depend on the tastes of the collector. This being said, there is a growing second hand market, which I don't think will really overtake any modern game industry, but will certainly persist for a long time. Classics will remain classics, and there will be a few rare picks, but more than anything, I think the prices are pretty much going to stay level for a long time, at least until they become antiques because these things are still pretty easy to get your hands on and until they become super rare, nobody is really going to take an interest, and even by that time the games will be so dated that only the truly esoteric collectors will care so even so, with such a small after market, the prices will still remain low.

So no, most vintage or old video games aren't going to become more valuable over time and they certainly won't remain super-rare for a long while. They'll just remain just a little farther than arms reach at most, but not much farther than that, just gathering dust on the shelf because you have more important things to do.

Comment Hey Tim (Score -1, Flamebait) 295

by Zonk on Thursday May 03, 2012 @04:05PM (#39881897) Attached to: Bethesda Announces <em>Elder Scrolls</em> MMO

n/t

North Korea's Own OS, Red Star 316

Posted by timothy on Wednesday March 03, 2010 @06:00PM from the linux-is-sometimes-for-communists dept.

klaasb writes "North Korea's self-developed computer operating system, named 'Red Star,' was brought to light for the first time by a Russian satellite broadcaster yesterday. North Korea's top IT experts began developing the Red Star in 2006, but its composition and operation mechanisms were unknown until the internet version of the Russia Today TV program featured the system, citing the blog of a Russian student who goes to the Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang."

Comment Re:Zonk at Massively? (Score 5, Informative) 96

by Zonk on Monday June 09, 2008 @03:01PM (#23713481) Attached to: Warhammer Online Information by the Truckload

Aprils 17th was actually my last day with the site.

I'm just another Slashdot user now. :)

My primary gig is over at Massively, but I'm also writing at places like Wired, Gamasutra, and 1up.

As for stability, unfortunately I can't really speak to that. They're still very much in a Beta phase. It was a lot less glitchy than I've seen some games at that stage, but it was (of course) a setup specifically designed to give me the best impression of the game possible.

D&D 4th Edition Game System License Announced 131

Posted by Zonk on Thursday April 17, 2008 @07:36PM from the listen-to-foreplay/long-time-for-me dept.

Wizards of the Coast has announced plans for a brand-new system license for the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons . As with the d20 STL for Third Edition, this is a royalty-free license that will allow third parties to publish products using the rules developed by WotC. The new system reference document will be made available early in June (just after the release of the new edition). That license only covers fantasy gaming, but a second license (the d20 GSL) will be released allowing for any type of gaming product to be developed. For analysis and follow-up on the announcement, the ENWorld boards have full details.

Storm Dismantled at USENIX LEET Workshop 58

Posted by Zonk on Thursday April 17, 2008 @06:36PM from the is-that-like-1337-leet dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The USENIX LEET workshop held earlier this week in San Francisco offered neat insights into the Storm botnet, including two papers showing the difficulty of accurately measuring the botnet's size, and one on the way it conducts its spamming campaigns (down to the template language used). There was a bunch of other cool work too, so check out the papers."

AU Government Demands Universal Wiretapping 236

Posted by Zonk on Thursday April 17, 2008 @05:55PM from the that-means-all-over-the-place dept.

StonyandCher writes "The Australian government is pushing a bill to force all telecommunications providers to facilitate lawful data interception across fixed and mobile telephone systems, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Instant Messaging (IM) and chat room discussions. Sweeping reforms will make it easier than ever for law enforcement to intercept communications if amendments to the Telecommunications (Interceptions) Act are agreed upon by a Senate standing committee. This follows from a story earlier this week where the Australian government is legislating to allow employers to snoop on employees' email and IM conversations."

Thinkpad X300 With SSD Performance Evaluation 133

Posted by Zonk on Thursday April 17, 2008 @05:11PM from the solid-gone-man dept.

Ninjakicks writes "Hard drives are typically one of the more significant performance bottlenecks in any system today. An evaluation of Lenovo's new ultra portable Thinkpad X300 notebook shows a fast solid state hard drive can substantially improve the performance of a system. This is especially true of a low-end, low power processor and integrated graphics, in addition to reducing overall power consumption. Despite its 1.2GHz CPU the Thinkpad X300 is actually able to outperform some desktop replacement notebooks equipped with dual 7200RPM hard drives in RAID 0 in productivity benchmarks, and in data transfers. Interesting results, especially considering the X300's ultra portable form factor."

Google Earth 4.3 Offers a Number of New Features 133

Posted by Zonk on Thursday April 17, 2008 @04:34PM from the it's-the-only-globe-we've-got-why-not-check-it-out dept.

GoogleWatch writes "Google's all excited for Earth day, and just in time there's a new version of Google Earth available. 4.3 offers up revamped navigation controls, 3-D photo-realistic buildings in major cities, and time-lapse views of sunsets and sunrises. Also new in Google Earth 4.3 is access to the street view movies found in Google Maps. Just click any of the camera icons and the familiar street view window will pop up. The sunrise and sunset movies are also quite impressive. Fly to a location you'd like to see and click the "sun" button in the toolbar. That will bring up a small timeline graphic and you can either hit play or drag the timeline slider to watch the day unfold."

Do the Blind Deserve More Effort on the Web? 663

Posted by Zonk on Thursday April 17, 2008 @03:47PM from the some-effort-would-be-a-good-start dept.

dratcw writes "An article was posted this week to ComputerWorld, detailing the frustrations faced by blind people struggling to use the Web. The piece shows how little progress has been made and the inadequacy of solutions such as Microsoft's Narrator screen reader. While the article generated many positive comments, one reader said the disabled should 'get a grip' and maintained they 'have no more right to demand that others provide for their needs than I, as a diabetic, have a right to demand that sugar no longer be used.' Should Web sites and software makers do more, or does the reality of today's economics dictate that the blind/disabled will continue to struggle and learn to live with it?"

Japan's Cyborg Research Enters the Skull 120

Posted by Zonk on Thursday April 17, 2008 @03:06PM from the datajack-is-just-around-the-corner dept.

RemyBR writes "Researchers at Osaka University are stepping up efforts to develop robotic body parts controlled by thought, by placing electrode sheets directly on the surface of the brain. The research marks Japan's first foray into invasive (i.e. requiring open-skull surgery) brain-machine interface research on human test subjects. The aim of the research is to develop real-time mind-controlled robotic limbs for the disabled. 'To date, the researchers have worked with four test subjects to record brain wave activity generated as they move their arms, elbows and fingers. Working with Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), the researchers have developed a method for analyzing the brain waves to determine the subject's intended activity to an accuracy of greater than 80%.'"

Darwin's Private Papers Get Released To The Internet 237

Posted by Zonk on Thursday April 17, 2008 @02:24PM from the uncle-charles-is-one-of-my-heroes dept.

bibekpaudel writes "ScienceDaily reports that a wealth of papers belonging to Charles Darwin have been published on the internet, some for the first time. Some 20,000 items and 90,000 images were posted today to http://darwin-online.org.uk/. The new site is the largest collection of Darwin's work in history, according to organizers from Cambridge University Library 'This release makes his private papers, mountains of notes, experiments, and research behind his world-changing publications available to the world for free,' said John van Wyhe, director of the project. The collection includes thousands of notes and drafts of his scientific writings, notes from the voyage of the Beagle when he began to formulate his controversial theory of evolution, and his first recorded doubts about the permanence of species."

Why AMD Could Win The Coming Visual Computing Battle 161

Posted by Zonk on Thursday April 17, 2008 @01:56PM from the all-about-the-eyeballs dept.

Vigile writes "The past week has been rampant with discussion on the new war that is brewing between NVIDIA and Intel, but there was one big player left out of the story: AMD. It would seem that both sides have written this competitor off, but PC Perspective thinks quite the opposite. The company is having financial difficulties, but AMD already has the technologies that both NVIDIA and Intel are striving to build or acquire: mainstream CPU, competitive GPU, high quality IGP solutions and technology for hybrid processing. This article postulates that both Intel and NVIDIA are overlooking a still-competitive opponent, which could turn out to be a drastic mistake."

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