stygian - Slashdot User

Comment Adding Value to My Body Parts (Score 1) 632

by stygian on Monday April 29, 2013 @07:38PM (#43586173) Attached to: New Smart Gun Company Hopes To Begin Production This Summer

Reliability issues aside, I don't want to add value to my body parts. Consider the older gentleman in The Avengers whose retina was the key to unlocking access to that rock they needed to open the portal. Things didn't work out so well for his eye. It's a ridiculous example, of course. Still, I don't want to unnecessarily increase the chances that someone might want to lop off one of my fingers because it's the key to firing a gun. I like my fingers the way they are presently.

Comment Still? (Score 1) 451

by stygian on Thursday November 10, 2011 @04:14PM (#38015864) Attached to: Failures Mark First National Test of Emergency Alert System

People still use broadcast TV? Huh.

Comment Cyber (Score 1) 407

by stygian on Monday February 07, 2011 @12:18AM (#35123248) Attached to: Anonymous Isn't Anonymous Anymore

I stop reading articles when I reach the first use of the word (or prefix) "cyber". I made it five words into the linked article. Federal government related articles are the worst. Or maybe only? Who outside of the Feds and organizations working for the feds, uses "cyber"? I need to figure out what the approximate vernacular lag.

IT Management Always Blames the Worker Bees 266

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @07:03PM from the not-unique-to-IT dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A refreshing dose of sanity, It Management Fail: Always Blame the Worker Bees counters Security fail: When trusted IT people go bad, which advocates the usual reactive and punitive Big Brother measures for keeping those icky, untrustworthy IT staffers in line. Management really needs to look in the mirror when IT screws up."

Graphic Map of Linux-2.6.36 25

Posted by timothy on Sunday January 16, 2011 @09:51PM from the under-the-hood dept.

conan.sh writes "The Interactive map of Linux Kernel was expanded and updated to the recent kernel linux-2.6.36. Now the map contains more than four hundred important source items (functions and structures) with links to source code and documentation."

Apple Releases IOS 4.3 Beta To Developers 101

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 12, 2011 @08:52PM from the taking-it-for-a-test-drive dept.

m2pc writes "Apple has just released iOS 4.3 beta to developers. New features include: Developer access to AirPlay API, Four and Five-finger gestures, and the return of the hardware orientation lock for iPad, a feature that upset many when Apple suddenly removed this feature with no software option to re-enable it. Also interesting to note is the lack of mention of the Mobile Hotspot feature rumored to be included in 4.3 for all iOS devices by the Verizon announcement yesterday."

Jerry Brown Confiscates 48,000 Cell Phones 738

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 12, 2011 @02:37PM from the suede-denim-secret-police dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Sacramento Bee reports that California Governor Jerry Brown, in his first executive order since taking office, has ordered the collection and return of 48,000 state government-paid cell phones — half of those now in use — by June 1. 'It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent of all state employees must be equipped with taxpayer-funded cell phones,' says Brown in a written statement. 'Some state employees, including department and agency executives who are required to be in touch 24 hours a day and seven days a week, may need cell phones, but the current number of phones out there is astounding.' Brown's cell phone order directs state agency and department heads to retrieve the cell phones and the governor says he plans to continue reducing cell phone usage in months ahead. 'In the face of a multi-billion dollar budget deficit, a cell phone may not seem like a big expense,' adds Brown. 'But spending $20 million, and perhaps far more than that, on cell phones can't be justified.'"

CRTC To Allow Usage-Based Billing 282

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 30, 2010 @07:07PM from the silly-canuckleheads dept.

Idiomatick writes "The CRTC ruled in favor this week for usage-based billing. Bell Canada was given a monopoly on lines in Canada, and in exchange they were made to resell to competitors at cost in order to have a functional market. The new CRTC ruling will allow Bell to charge their competitors more money based on individual customer usage. They are now able to implement a 60GB cap on a competitor's highest speed lines (charging $1.12/GB for overages). The effect on the market seems clear."

USB 'Dead Drops' 322

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 30, 2010 @05:56PM from the peer-to-peer-sneakernet dept.

Okian Warrior writes "Aram Bartholl is building a series of USB dead drops in New York City. Billed as 'an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space,' he has embedded USB sticks as file cache devices throughout the city. Bartholl says, 'I am "injecting" USB flash drives into walls, buildings and curbs accessible to anybody in public space. You are invited to go to these places (so far 5 in NYC) to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your files and data.' Current locations (more to come) include: 87 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, NY (Makerbot), Empire Fulton Ferry Park, Brooklyn, NY (Dumbo), 235 Bowery, NY (New Museum), Union Square, NY (Subway Station 14th St), and West 21st Street, NY (Eyebeam)"

Intel, Toshiba, Samsung To Form Chip Alliance 57

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 30, 2010 @04:50PM from the teaming-up-to-fight-doritos dept.

Lucas123 writes "According to a report from a Japanese news agency, semi-conductor leaders Intel, Samsung and Toshiba are forming a development alliance to halve the size of chip circuitry in order to create more dense NAND flash chips and more powerful processors. The vendors would not confirm the news report, but the Nikkei Daily said they hope to reduce lithography technology from the 20 nanometer size used today to something below 10nm. The news agency also said Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry may fund up to half the project's cost, or roughly $61 million."

Inside Google's Anti-Malware Operation 105

Posted by timothy on Friday October 29, 2010 @04:59AM from the please-use-more-stress-positions dept.

Trailrunner7 writes "A Google malware researcher gave a rare peek inside the company's massive anti-malware and anti-phishing efforts at the SecTor conference here, and the data the company has gathered shows that the attackers who make it their business to infect sites and exploit users are adapting their tactics very quickly and creatively to combat the efforts of Google and others. While Google is still a relative newcomer to the public security scene, the company has deployed a number of services and technologies recently that are designed to identify phishing sites, as well as sites serving malware, and prevent users from finding them. The tools include the Google SafeBrowsing API and a handful of services that are available to help site owners and network administrators find and eliminate malware and the attendant bugs from their sites. Fabrice Jaubert, of Google's anti-malware team, said the company has had good luck identifying and weeding out malicious sites of late. Still, as much as 1.5 percent of all search result pages on Google include links to at least one malware-distribution site, he said."

Submission + - Intel To Ship 48-Core Test Sytems To Researchers (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Friday April 09, 2010 @12:25PM

MojoKid writes: "Just when you thought your 6-core chip was the fastest processor on the planet, Intel announces plans to ship systems equipped with an experimental 48-core CPU to a handful of lucky researchers sometime by the end of the second quarter. The 48 cores are arranged with multiple connect points in a serial mesh network to transfer data between cores. Each core also has on-chip buffers to instantly exchange data in parallel across all cores. According to Sean Koehl, technology evangelist with Intel Labs, the chip only draws up between 25 and 125 Watts."

Puzzle In xkcd Book Finally Cracked 90

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday March 10, 2010 @04:49AM from the be-there-or-be-somewhere-else dept.

An anonymous reader writes "After a little over five months of pondering, xkcd fans have cracked a puzzle hidden inside Randall Munroe's recent book xkcd: volume 0. Here is the start of the thread on the xkcd forums; and here is the post revealing the final message (a latitude and longitude plus a date and time)."

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