Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission + - YouTube issuing "report cards" on carriers' streaming speeds

Submitted by OakDragon
OakDragon writes: In the shadow of the "Net Neutrality" debate, Google's YouTube has created a service to report on your carrier's usage and speed, summarizing the data in a "Lower/Standard/High Definition" graph. You may see the service offered when a video buffers or stutters. A message could display under the video asking "Experiencing interruptions? Find out why." Find your own provider's grade here.
Transportation

Submission + - Wisconsin Begins Using Cheese to De-Ice Their Roads 1

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: The NYT reports that Milwaukee has begun a pilot program to use cheese brine to keep city roads from freezing, mixing the dairy waste with traditional rock salt as a way to trim costs and ease pollution. “You want to use provolone or mozzarella,” says Jeffrey A. Tews, the fleet operations manager for the public works department, which has spread the cheesy substance in Bay View, a neighborhood on Milwaukee’s south side. “Those have the best salt content. You have to do practically nothing to it.” Local governments across the country have been experimenting with cheaper and environmentally friendly ways of thawing icy thoroughfares, trying everything from sugar beet juice to discarded brewery grain in an attempt to limit the use of road salt, which can spread too thin, wash away and pollute waterways. “If you put dry salt on a roadway, you typically lose 30 percent to bounce and traffic,” says Emil Norby, who works for Polk County and was the first in Wisconsin to come up with the cheese brine idea to help the salt stick. In a state where lawmakers once honored the bacterium in Monterey Jack as the state’s official microbe, residents of Bay View say they have noticed little difference, good or bad, in the smell of their streets, and city officials say they have received no complaints. The mayor of Bay View says it's an experiment, but one that makes sense. The brine will come from the Dresser Farm in Polk County, where it is already being used on the roads. The only cost will be for transportation and distribution. "We thought, 'Well, let's give it a shot.' The investment in this project is $1,474."

Comment Because... (Score 5, Informative) 382

by snaFu07 (#45350701) Attached to: Republican Proposal Puts 'National Interest' Requirement On US Science Agency
"One day sir, you may tax it."
Faraday's reply to William Gladstone, then British Chancellor of the Exchequer (minister of finance), when asked of the practical value of electricity (1850), as quoted in The Harvest of a Quiet Eye : A Selection of Scientific Quotations (1977), p. 56 (wikiquote)

Submission + - Raspberry Pi to Get Camera Module Capable of 1080p Video Recording (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced a new add-on – a camera module that will enable the credit card sized computer to snap pictures as well as record 1080p videos. Showcased by RS Components at the Elecontrica 2012 in Germany [watch video here] the £16 (apprx) module will be equipped with a 5MP sensor and will plug into the otherwise unused CSI pins of the Pi. The camera module’s board is still in prototype stage and is expected to reach production sometime soon. Liz Upton, Executive Director of the Foundation said in a blog post, “We’ve a (very) little way to go before we’re able to send it out to manufacture.” According to Upton, testing slots have been booked in December to check on electromagnetic radiations from the ribbon cable.

Comment We've seen how it's done in Yes, minister. (Score 2) 295

by snaFu07 (#41413411) Attached to: Your Moral Compass Is Reversible
This reminds me of a clip from a British show called Yes, minister. This clip is about how to get two completely opposite answers on same topic, but in much shorter time.
While the series is about political tactics and machinations and it's satire of a political systems, it's spot-on. And if you watch real news after watching it, you'll uncontrollably laugh all the way.

Comment SQL injection (Score 1) 289

by snaFu07 (#41326569) Attached to: QR Codes As Anti-Forgery On Currency Could Infect Banks

Since QR codes can hold arbitrary strings, why not sql injection attacks?

Given that at any time
    1) banks would not be the only party interested in tracking money and/or customers,
    2) codes would be scanned and entered into database,
    3) at some point tracking would become mandatory,
    4) there are still sloppy programmers out there building SQL statements by concatenating
      strings,
I can see, why this could be a not-so-good idea...

Slashdot Top Deals

Digital circuits are made from analog parts. -- Don Vonada

Close