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Books

Amazon is Burying Sexy Books, Sending Erotic Novel Authors to the 'No-Rank Dungeon' (vice.com) 163

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Samantha Cole, reporting for Motherboard: In the last few days, word has spread among independent erotica authors on social media that Amazon was quietly changing its policies for erotic novels. Five authors I spoke to, and several more on social media, have reported that their books were stripped of their best seller rankings -- essentially hiding them from casual browsing on the site, and separating them from more mainstream, safe-for-work titles.

[...] Most people browsing Amazon books might not notice or care about the best seller rank -- a number that's based on how well the title is selling on Amazon.com -- but it's part of an algorithm that influences how the book appears in search, and whether it shows up in advertisements, including suggestions from one product to the next ("If you like this book, you might like this book"). For independent authors and booksellers, this ranking is hugely important for visibility.
Classic Games (Games)

Full Screen Mario: Making the Case For Shorter Copyrights 361

Posted by Soulskill from the clouds-and-bushes-are-the-same dept.
barlevg writes "A college student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute spent nine months meticulously remaking Super Mario Bros. based on the latest web standards. His project is open source and the code freely available through Github. The site recently gained widespread media attention, which unfortunately brought it to the attention of Nintendo, which has requested that the site be taken down. In a column on the Washington Post website, tech blogger Timothy Lee makes the case for how this is a prime example of copyrights hindering innovation and why copyright lengths should be shortened. Among his arguments: copyrights hinder innovation by game designers seeking to build upon such games, and shortening copyright would breathe new life into games who have long since passed into obsolescence."

Submission + - Supercomputer smashes simulation speed record 1

Submitted by Lank
Lank writes: A team of computer scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have managed to coordinate nearly 2 million cores to achieve a blistering 504 billion events per second, over 40 times faster than the previous record. This result was achieved on Sequoia, a 120-rack IBM Blue Gene/Q normally used to run classified nuclear simulations. Note: I am a co-author of the coming paper to appear in PADS 2013.
Cloud

Feds: We Need Priority Access To Cloud Resources 183

Posted by samzenpus from the get-to-the-back-of-the-line dept.
New submitter BButlerNWW writes "Federal agencies must be assured priority and uninterrupted access to public cloud resources before fully embracing the technology for national security and emergency response IT functions, a recent report finds. It recommends creating a program to develop a system to ensure federal organizations receive 'first-in-line' access to cloud-based resources during emergency situations."
Data Storage

Hard Drive Shortage Relief Coming In Q1 2012 205

Posted by timothy from the better-than-alka-seltzer dept.
MojoKid writes "According to new reports [note: source article at DigiTimes], global HDD production capacity is getting ready to increase to 140-145 million units in the first quarter of 2012, or about 80 percent of where it was prior to when the floods hit Thailand manufacturing plants. HDD production was sitting around 175 million units in the third quarter of 2011 before the floods, after which time it quickly dropped to 120-125 million units. Since then, there's been a concerted effort to restore operations to pre-flood levels."
Security

The Hi-Tech Security at the Super Bowl 265

Posted by samzenpus from the bubble-ball dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "As millions of fans sit glued to their sets next Sunday, one part of the game they will not see is the massive deployment of federal and local law enforcement resources to achieve what is being called the most technologically secure Super Bowl in history, an event that has been officially designated as a National Security Special Event (PDF). At the top of the list are gamma-ray cargo and vehicles scanners that can reportedly see through six inches of steel to reveal the contents of large vehicles. 'We can detect people, handguns and rifles,' says Customs and Border Protection Officer Brian Bell. 'You'd be a fool to bring something into that stadium that you shouldn't. We're going to catch it. Our goal is to look at every vehicle that makes a delivery inside the stadium and inside the secure perimeter.' Next is the 51-foot Featherlite mobile command center for disaster response that will support the newly constructed $18 million Regional Operations Center (ROC) for the Marion County Department of Homeland Security that will serve as a fusion center for coordinating the various federal agencies involved in providing security for the Super Bowl. One interesting security measure are the 'Swiveloc' explosion-proof manhole covers (video) that Indianapolis has spent $150,000 installing that are locked down during the Super Bowl. In case of an underground explosion, the covers lift a couple of inches off the ground — enough to vent gas out without feeding in oxygen to make an explosion bigger — before falling back into place. Finally the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI has installed a network of cameras that will be just a click away for government officials. 'If you had the right (Internet) address, you could set up a laptop anywhere and you could watch the camera from there,' says Brigadier General Stewart Goodwin."
Portables

Ask Slashdot: How Do You Choose a Windows Laptop? 898

Posted by samzenpus from the throw-a-dart dept.
jfruhlinger writes "I'm a Mac guy. When our 2004-era Windows XP laptop, which was used primarily by my wife, died last summer, I got myself a new MacBook Pro and she inherited my still serviceable 2008 MacBook. But after about six months, she hasn't gotten used to it, and wants a Windows machine. I don't have an ideological problem with this — it'd be her computer, and we've got a bit of money stashed away to pay for it. But trying to pick one out is my job, and I find the the whole process bewildering. Apple's product differentiation is great at defeating the paradox of choice — you have a few base models, the difference between which is quite obvious, and you can customize each. The Windows world seems totally different. Even once I've settled on a vendor for a Windows laptop (something I haven't done yet), each seems to have a bewildering array of product lines with similar specs. Often models that you find in electronics or office supply stores that seem promising in terms of form factor are exclusive to those stores and can't be found online. Obviously people do navigate this process, but I'm just feeling out of my depth. How would Slashdotters go about picking a solid, basic laptop for Web surfing and document editing that won't be obsolete in two years?"

Comment Re:I didn't buy one for the payback (Score 1) 762

by Lank (#33195760) Attached to: Just One Out of 16 Hybrids Pays Back In Gas Savings

When I bought the car in 2005 there weren't a hell of a lot of used hybrids. The Toyota dealer had a waiting list for a Prius and I needed a car ASAP so I went to the Honda dealer. My father sells cars and he always says to buy "used" car because the resale value of the vehicle drops significantly by basically driving it off the lot. Either way, in CA you pretty much need a car, though I did manage to bike to work a few times, it's not something I'd like to do every day - I'm not Lance Armstrong.

Comment I didn't buy one for the payback (Score 5, Interesting) 762

by Lank (#33194996) Attached to: Just One Out of 16 Hybrids Pays Back In Gas Savings
Look, is it so hard to believe that someone would buy a hybrid to make a statement not to others, but to the car manufacturers making these products? I own a Honda Civic hybrid. It's not much to look at and it certainly doesn't turn heads. On the other hand, I bought it new from a Honda dealer in California when they were trying to push a lot more expensive cars on me. Why? Because I want Honda to know that I'd rather be green than cool or hip or whatever. I want Honda to know that it's important to ME so in the future they'll make cars better-suited to ME.

From one of the linked articles, "Translation: The kinds of people who buy Toyota Prius hybrids in the U.S. may indulge themselves in private, where no one else will see them, but want to be seen in public with less luxurious, greener products to bolster their reputation."

I call bullshit. I didn't do it to bolster my reputation. I put my money where my mouth is and instead of getting on a soapbox and telling everyone to go out and buy a hybrid, I actually bought one.

I don't care that I probably spent more than I'll recoup from the fuel-efficiency. For me, it wasn't about that.

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