solareagle - Slashdot User

Submission + - Venezuela: Cheap Television Sets for All! (usatoday.com)

Submitted by solareagle on Tuesday November 12, 2013 @01:15PM

solareagle writes: Venezuelan President Maduro has declared war on "bourgeois parasites" by taking over Daka, an electronics retailer similar to Best Buy. USA Today reports "National guardsmen, some of whom had assault rifles, were positioned around outlets of [Daka] Maduro has ordered to lower prices or face prosecution. Thousands of people lined up at the Daka stores hoping for a bargain after the government forced the companies to charge "fair" prices. "I want a Sony plasma television for the house," said Amanda Lisboa, 34, a business administrator who waited seven hours outside a Caracas store .... "It's going to be so cheap!" "This is for the good of the nation," Maduro said, referring to the military's occupation of Daka. "Leave nothing on the shelves, nothing in the warehouses Let nothing remain in stock!"
Maduro said his seizures are the "tip of the iceberg" and that other stores would be next if they did not comply with his orders."

Submission + - Apple Maps Flaw Sends Drivers Across Airport Runway (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by solareagle on Wednesday September 25, 2013 @09:43AM

solareagle writes: The BBC reports that an Alaskan airport says it has had to place barricades across one of its taxiways after an Apple Maps flaw resulted in iPhone users driving across a runway.The airport said it had complained to the phone-maker through the local attorney general's office. "We asked them to disable the map for Fairbanks until they could correct it, thinking it would be better to have nothing show up than to take the chance that one more person would do this," Melissa Osborn, chief of operations at the airport, told the Alaska Dispatch newspaper. The airport said it had been told the problem would be fixed by Wednesday. However the BBC still experienced the issue when it tested the app, asking for directions to the site from a property to the east of the airport. By contrast the Google Maps app provided a different, longer route which takes drivers to the property's car park.

Submission + - PayPal Credits Man with $92 Quadrillion (philly.com)

Submitted by solareagle on Thursday July 18, 2013 @09:36AM

solareagle writes: Pennsylvania resident Chris Reynolds got quite a shock when he opened his most recent PayPal statement — it said he had a $92,233,720,368,547,800 balance in his account. "I'm just feeling like a million bucks," Reynolds told the [Philadelphia] Daily News yesterday. "At first I thought that I owed quadrillions. It was quite a big surprise." When asked what he would do with the money, he said, "I would pay the national debt down first. Then I would buy the Phillies, if I could get a great price." The Daily News speculates that the astronomical balance may be related to PayPal's new Galactic initiative, announced last month, to expand its business beyond Earth.

Submission + - Jimmy Carter Calls Snowden Leak Ultimately "Beneficial" (rt.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn on Thursday July 18, 2013 @08:11AM

eldavojohn writes: According to RT, the 39th president of the United States made several statements worth noting. Carter said that 'America has no functioning democracy at this moment' and 'the invasion of human rights and American privacy has gone too far.' The second comment sounded like the Carter predicted the future would look favorably upon Snowden's leads — at least those concerning domestic spying in the United States — as he said: 'I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial.' It may be worth noting that, stemming from Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, Jimmy Carter signed the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 into law and that Snowden has received at least one nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Submission + - West Virginia Refuses to Release Broadband Report Because it is "Embarrassing" (wvgazette.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 19, 2013 @02:14PM

An anonymous reader writes: The Charleston Gazette is reporting that the state of West Virginia hired a consulting firm for over $100,000 to investigate the state's use of Federal stimulus money to purchase $22,000 routers for tiny buildings, but is refusing a FOIA request to release the firm's report. The reason: the findings "might be embarrassing to some people", according to Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette.

Comment Ungrateful (Score 1) 260

by solareagle on Wednesday October 12, 2011 @10:04PM (#37697938) Attached to: NATO Exercise Banned From Jamming GPS

The US military developed, launched, and maintains GPS for military purposes. They allow everyone else to use it for FREE. Now those same users are screaming because the people who PAID FOR GPS want to turn it off for a few days in a limited area. "How dare they stop providing us free service! We demand they continue providing us free, uninterrupted service!"

Bitcoin Price Crashes 642

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday June 19, 2011 @05:41PM from the black-bit-sunday dept.

Beardydog writes "Bitcoin trading site MtGox.com has suspended operations for the rest of the day after illicit access to at least one account resulted in a steep drop in the price of Bitcoins on the site. Commenters to the support page for the event are reporting that a list of usernames and associated email addresses and password hashes have been posted online. MtGox are currently planning to roll back all of the day's trading, email notices to all affected users, and require replacement passwords for affected accounts."

Submission + - Japan Criminalizes Virus Creation (mainichi.jp)

Submitted by camperslo on Thursday June 16, 2011 @11:40PM

camperslo writes: This legislation is a major move for Japan since the constitution there provides for privacy of communications, in sharp contrast with some other countries.

"Japan's parliament enacted legislation Friday criminalizing the creation or distribution of computer viruses to crack down on the growing problem of cybercrimes, but critics say the move could infringe on the constitutionally guaranteed privacy of communications.

With the bill to revise the Penal Code passing the House of Councillors by an overwhelming majority, the government intends to conclude the Convention on Cybercrime, a treaty that stipulates international cooperation in investigating crimes in cyberspace."

Submission + - New Species Named for SpongeBob (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16, 2011 @11:34PM

An anonymous reader writes: Sing it with us: What lives in the rainforest, under a tree? Spongiforma squarepantsii, a new species of mushroom almost as strange as its cartoon namesake. Scientists from the San Francisco State University have discovered a new species of mushroom in Borneo with sponge-like properties. Its strange behavior convinced them to name it after the famous Bob. There is no word on whether or not their chances of getting future grant money will be improved by this choice.

Submission + - US Senate Votes for Repeal of Ethanol Subsidies (chicagotribune.com) 1

Submitted by T Murphy on Thursday June 16, 2011 @11:10PM

T Murphy writes: Although the measure is not expected to become law, a senate vote 73-27 in favor of repealing ethanol subsidies and tariffs means a lot for future legislation. The White House stands opposed to changes in the subsidies or tariffs, so they will likely go untouched before they expire at the end of the year. Even so, this is a strong indication that such government support for ethanol will be reduced if not eliminated. The response to the senate vote has been mixed, from corn prices falling, to the World Bank encouraging lower food prices, to concerns over reduced funding for alternative energy, to supporters of such budget cuts.

Submission + - AMD Fusion System Architecture Detailed (pcper.com)

Submitted by

Vigile

on Thursday June 16, 2011 @09:45PM

Vigile writes: "At the first AMD Fusion Developer Summit near Seattle this week, AMD revealed quite a bit of information about its next-generation GPU architecture and the eventual goals it has for the CPU/GPU combinations known as APUs. The company is finally moving away from a VLIW architecture and instead is integrating a vector+scalar design that allows for higher utilization of compute units and easier hardware scheduling. AMD laid out a 3-year plan to offer features like unified address space and fully coherent memory for the CPU and GPU that have the potential to dramatically alter current programming models. We will start seeing these features in GPUs released later in 2011."

Submission + - FBI Overwhelmed with "solutions" to Encrypted Note (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01, 2011 @02:04PM

An anonymous reader writes: Recently the FBI asked for the public's help in solving the encryption in a note linked to a man's murder. Well, they got so much "help", it has overwhelmed the agency's phone and email systems . Dan Olson, chief of the FBI's Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU), urged potential code-breakers to send their tips via mail rather than sending emails or flooding phone lines. "We don't have the bandwidth to handle the emails we're getting," Olson told FoxNews.com on Thursday. "We're getting a bunch [of responses]." Suggested solutions range from a list of the dead man's medication schedule to instructions from a computer repair technician: "He is speaking to a computer tech on how to fix his computer," one message read.

Comment 16 Mexicans (Score 5, Funny) 310

by solareagle on Wednesday January 10, 2007 @09:55AM (#17539262) Attached to: What Does Your Dead Man's Switch Do?

"Every Setpember, 16 Mexicans have a great party celebrating the revolution of Mexico but the fact is, that the revolution was not complete. " Is it the same 16 Mexicans every year? If you are one of only 16 Mexicans to attend this great party, you really need a Dead Man's Switch giving some one else your party spot!

Slashdot Top Deals