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The Courts

Slot Machine with Bad Software Sends Players To Jail 647

Posted by Zonk from the can't-you-see-the-code dept.
dcollins writes "Previous discussions here have turned into debates over who is liable for faulty software: the programmers, the publisher, etc. Yahoo has a new option: perhaps the users are criminally liable for using the software. From the AP: 'Prosecutors are considering criminal charges against casino gamblers who won big on a slot machine that had been installed with faulty software ... A decision on whether to bring criminal charges could come in a couple of weeks, said John Colin, chief deputy prosecutor for Harrison County. He said 'criminal intent' may be involved when people play a machine they know is faulty.' Would your average user be able to distinguish 'faulty software' from 'lucky'?"
AMD

Submission + - Study: AMD beats Intel in power-efficiency study (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
Ted Samson
Ted Samson writes: "AMD Opteron servers proved up to 15.2 percent more energy-efficient than those running Intel Xeon in server-power-efficiency test performed by Neal Nelson and Associates, InfoWorld reports. The translates to annual electricity savings between $20.29 per server and $36.04 per server, depending on the workload, the study concluded. The benchmark tests were conducted on similarly configured 3GHz systems running Novell SUSE Linux, Apache2, and MySQL."
Books

Open Library Goes Online With Public Domain Books 103

Posted by Zonk from the shakespeare-and-company dept.
mrcgran writes "A competitor to Google Book Search emerges as the Yahoo-backed Open Content Alliance launches an 'open library' of its own. After several years of scanning and archiving, the Internet Archive and the Open Content Alliance this week unveiled the Open Library, their attempt at bringing public domain books to the masses. The Internet Archive has hosted texts for quite some time, but the Open Library makes fully-searchable, high-quality scans of books available, along with downloadable PDFs. It offers an experience designed to match paper: there's even a page-flipping animation as readers move forward and backward through the book. Ben Vershbow of the Institute for the Future of the Book says that when it comes to presentation, 'they already have Google beat, even with recent upgrades to the [Google Book Search] system including a plain text viewing option.'" We have previously discussed this project, though this is a bit more complete rundown on the initiative.
Education

Submission + - University of Kansas strict copyright infringement 1

Submitted by
NewmanKU
NewmanKU writes: "Eric Bangeman at Ars Technica writes that the University of Kansas has adopted a new strict copyright infringement policy for the students on the residential network that are sharing copyrighted files. The university's ResNet website states that, "Violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is against the law. If you are caught downloading copyrighted material, you will lose your ResNet privileges forever. No second notices, no excuses, no refunds. One violation and your ResNet internet access is gone for as long as you reside on campus." According to a KU spokesperson, KU has recieved 345 notices in the past year from organizations and businesses regarding complaints about copyrighted material downloading."
Education

Journal Journal: Everyone has Something to Teach on WiZiQ

Journal by JPannu
WiZiQ is a new age online education platform, which empowers teachers to break the barrier of distance. Tutors can globally connect to students who want to learn online, from the comfort of their homes; students can learn and tutors can teach online from anywhere.
Music

Submission + - Heavy metal 'a comfort for the bright child'

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Daily Telegraph is reporting that intelligent teenagers often listen to heavy metal music to cope with the pressures associated with being talented, according to research. Researchers found that, far from being a sign of delinquency and poor academic ability, many adolescent "metalheads" are extremely bright and often use the music to help them deal with the stresses and strains of being gifted social outsiders.
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Dungons & Dragons & IT - Why we crave boun

Submitted by
boyko.at.netqos
boyko.at.netqos writes: "An editorial in Network Performance Daily tries to take a (1d6) stab at explaining why geeky engineering types are also typically the types that enjoy a rousing game of D&D. "The greatest barrier to creativity is a lack of boundaries. Counter-intuitive — almost zen-like — but we've found it to be true. And this is why people play Dungeons & Dragons (and similar games), and why network engineers often spend time putting out fires when they could be improving the network... Have you ever noticed that, in your job as a network engineer, you spend quite a lot of it putting out fires, as opposed to starting new initiatives? Those network emergencies are obstacles. You have defined parameters and you must overcome the obstacle. Engineers trained to find the best solutions to problems usually feel most in their element when solving a problem!"

Comment Re: GBit Ethernet (Score 1) 201

by stekylsha (#15776511) Attached to: Intel Launching 'Merom' Notebook Processor

I've got a friend who's run Gb ethernet in his house - CAT 5e or 6 (I don't remember) and the Gb switch to match. True, he's not the norm but he does have it. He was running wireless and didn't think it was fast enough. The main reason he sited was because of the file server he has; he's using the network drive mounted locally for development.

Oh, and he has Verizon's fiber to the house so his downstream speed is about 15Mb/sec. Not gigabit, but still fast.

There's your Gb ethernet home user. :)

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