Mard - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Hmmm..... (Score 1) 339

by Mard on Friday February 29, 2008 @03:25PM (#22603606) Attached to: More Spacecraft Velocity Anomalies

Random out-the-ass idea, but being that most of these flight paths use the gravity of planets (ours and others) to sling them for fuel-free acceleration, is it possible that we've incorrectly measured the mass of a planet (or planets), or perhaps they have changed since the time they were measured for use in their calculations? A more massive planet would give a bigger gravity assist, would it not?

Did We Really Need Seven New Wonders? 324

Posted by Zonk on Sunday July 08, 2007 @03:11AM from the i-miss-the-hanging-gardens dept.

freakxx writes "Seven new 'wonders of the world' have been announced today in a ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal. People throughout the world have voted actively to elect the new 7 out of 21 finalists. The final lineup is: Chichen Itza, Mexico; Christ Redeemer, Brazil; The Great Wall, China; Machu Picchu, Peru; Petra, Jordan; The Roman Colosseum, Italy; and The Taj Mahal, India. The Pyramids of Giza was the only candidate that used to be among the original seven wonders. Did we really need seven new wonders of the world? Why was this decided via a website poll (pdf) and SMS messages?"

Windows Vista - Still Fresh After 19 Months? 334

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 23, 2007 @06:16PM from the long-term-houseguest dept.

MyStuff writes "ZDNet blog Hardware 2.0 looks at the effect of having used Windows Vista for over 18 months. It Windows Vista the indispensable upgrade that Microsoft wants you to think it is? Writer Kingsley-Hughes says 'Having been using Vista for over 18 months I believe that it's a huge improvement over XP and even though I still use XP I find that I miss many of the features that Vista offers.' Just the same, he goes on, 'I wouldn't call any of the changes earth-shattering. When I'm using XP systems I miss some of the features but not so much that they push me to upgrade any faster.' He then goes on to give a feature-by-feature breakdown of all of the improvements Vista has over XP, and what long-term use of these features can net." A possibly useful guide for gamers or administrators thinking about upgrading sometime soon.

Feed Numbers Are Out on How Rich the YouTube Deal Was (nytimes.com)

From feed by nytfeed on Thursday February 08, 2007 @12:12AM

The biggest windfalls went to YouTube’s three founders and its main financial backer, Sequoia Capital.

Journal Journal: Interviews + unqualified applicants = AAAAAAAARGH!!!! 1

Journal by djh101010 on Thursday February 08, 2007 @12:03AM

OK so we're trying to staff up. This is good. Looking for strong Unix guys with a very well defined job description handed out to headhunters. The market is apparently tight. That, is _not_ good, at least from our perspective. Yesterday, I lost an hour or so of my life that I'll never get back. Let's see.

Microsoft Slugs Mac Users With Vista Tax 661

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @11:14PM from the pay-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mac users wanting to run Vista on their Macintosh, alongside Mac OS X programs, will have to buy an expensive version of Vista if they want to legally install it on their systems. The end-user license agreement for the cheaper versions of Vista (Home Basic and Home Premium) explicitly forbids the use of those versions on virtual machines (i.e., Macs pretending to be PCs)." Update: 02/08 17:50 GMT by KD : A number of readers have pointed out that the Vista EULA does not forbid installing it via Apple's Bootcamp; that is, the "tax" only applies to running Vista under virtualization.

Study Show Link Between IT Sabotage, Work Behavior 325

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @10:00PM from the money-well-spent dept.

narramissic writes "According to recent research by the U.S. military and CERT, workers who sabotage corporate systems are almost always IT workers who are disgruntled, paranoid, generally show up late, argue with colleagues, and generally perform poorly."

RIAA Victim Wins Attorney's Fees 171

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @08:51PM from the fight-the-power dept.

VE3OGG writes "Debbie Foster, one of the many caught-up in the RIAA's drift-net attacks who was sued back in 2004 has recently seen yet another victory. After having the suit dropped against her "with prejudice" several months back, Foster filed a counter-claim, and has just been awarded "reasonable" attorney's fees. Could this, in conjunction with cases such as Santangelo, show a turning of the tide against the RIAA?"

Google Apps to Become Paid Service 273

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @07:43PM from the google-is-coming dept.

FredDC writes "Business Week reports Google Apps is becoming a paid service soon for companies who wish to use it for their domain. Disney and Pixar are reportedly thinking about switching to Google Apps instead of using Microsoft Office. Could this be the end of a monopoly? Or the start of a new one?"

One Laptop Per Child Security Spec Released 253

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @06:41PM from the no-school-like-the-old-school dept.

juwiley writes "The One Laptop Per Child project has released information about its advanced security platform called Bitfrost. Could children with a $100 laptop end up with a better security infrastructure than executives using $5000 laptops powered by Vista? 'What's deeply troubling — almost unbelievable — about [Unix style permissions] is that they've remained virtually the only real control mechanism that a user has over her personal documents today...In 1971, this might have been acceptable...We have set out to create a system that is both drastically more secure and provides drastically more usable security than any mainstream system currently on the market.'"

New York To Ban iPods While Crossing Street? 487

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @05:58PM from the he-wants-us-to-think-for-ourselves dept.

An anonymous reader writes to mention Reuters is reporting that New York State Senator Carl Kruger is looking to institute a $100 fine for using electronic gadgets while crossing the street. Citing three pedestrian deaths in his Brooklyn district as the main driving reason he believe Government has an obligation to protect its citizens. "Tech-consuming New Yorkers trudge to work on sidewalks and subways like an army of drones, appearing to talk to themselves on wireless devices or swaying to seemingly silent tunes. 'I'm not trying to intrude on that,' Kruger said. 'But what's happening is when they're tuning into their iPod or Blackberry or cell phone or video game, they're walking into speeding buses and moving automobiles. It's becoming a nationwide problem.'"

Netscape Dumps Critical File, Breaks RSS 0.9 Feeds 137

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday January 14, 2007 @11:28AM from the hate-when-that-happens dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In the standard definition of RSS 0.91, there are a couple of lines referring to 'DOCTYPE' and referencing a 'dtd' spec hosted on Netscape's website. According to an article on DeviceForge.com quite a few RSS feeds around the web probably stopped working properly over the past few weeks because Netscape recently stopped hosting the critical rss-0.91.dtd file. Probably someone over at netscape.com simply thought he was cleaning up some insignificant cruft." Some explanation has been offered by a Netscape employee.

Formula For Procrastination Found 191

Posted by kdawson on Saturday January 13, 2007 @03:19PM from the putting-it-off dept.

kandela writes "Science Daily reports that a University of Calgary academic has published a paper titled The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure in the Psychological Bulletin. The research reveals that most people's New Year's resolutions are doomed to failure, most self-help books have it completely wrong when they say perfectionism is at the root of procrastination, and procrastination can be explained by a single mathematical equation. The research is apparently the culmination of 10 years work. However, no indication was given of how much time was spent putting it off before it was begun." From the article: "Essentially, procrastinators have less confidence in themselves, less expectancy that they can actually complete a task... Perfectionism is not the culprit. In fact, perfectionists actually procrastinate less, but they worry about it more."

How Do You Know Your Code is Secure? 349

Posted by Zonk on Monday January 08, 2007 @06:19AM from the batten-down-the-hatches-mates dept.

bvc writes "Marucs Ranum notes that 'It's really hard to tell the difference between a program that works and one that just appears to work.' He explains that he just recently found a buffer overflow in Firewall Toolkit (FWTK), code that he wrote back in 1994. How do you go about making sure your code is secure? Especially if you have to write in a language like C or C++?"

'Plentiful' Non-Embryonic Stem Cells Found 489

Posted by Zonk on Monday January 08, 2007 @05:27AM from the bumper-crop dept.

An anonymous reader writes "CNN reports that scientists at Harvard and Wake Forest have discovered a 'plentiful' non-embryonic source for stem cells, as well brain, liver, and bone cell types as well. The cells, found in amniotic fluid, can be harvested without harm to the donor or the donor's unborn child. While there's no proof that amniotic stem cells are as potent as embryonic stem cells, scientists are hopeful that this will be a huge step forward for the field of stem-cell research."

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