Comment Charts (Score 1) 292
If you're going to use the free Personal Ancestral File, don't forget PAF Companion for neat charts & reports.
Swiss Bank Has 43-Page Dress Code 212
Tasha26 writes "The HR of Swiss bank UBS AG came up with an innovative 43-page document (French) to establish fashion 'dos' and 'don'ts' in their retail branches. Among the rules are such things as: 'neither sex should allow their underwear to appear,' perhaps Dilbert was a bit ahead of them on that. The document also mentions smells and 'avoid garlic and onion-based dishes.'"
Best Open Source Genealogy Software? 292
An anonymous reader writes "I'm looking to build a family tree for a holiday gift. Do the Slashdotters of the world have any recommendations on open source genealogy software? I did try a 14-day free trial of Ancestry.com. What a scam! I submitted the personal information for my parents, grandparents, and me. Then, I received a pop-up telling me that if I would like to get information on my family, I would have to upgrade my subscription for $29.95 US. So, I took the chance. Turns out that the only information they had was my previous addresses for the past 20 years." The venerable GRAMPS is still actively developed, and its site lists several other possibilities, too. Any favorites, or anti-favorites, out there?
Pumpkin Pie increases Male Sex Drive 173
Dr. Alan Hirsch, Director of Chicago's Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Center, says the key to a man's heart, and other parts, is pumpkin pie. Out of the 40 odors tested in Hirsch's study, a mixture of lavender and pumpkin pie got the biggest rise out of men ages 18 to 64. That particular fragrance was found to increase penile blood flow by an average of 40%. "Maybe the odors acted to reduce anxiety. By reducing anxiety, it acted to remove inhibitions," said Hirsch.
Underwear Invention Protects Privacy At Airport 325
Thanks to Jeff Buske you don't have to be embarrassed while going through the full body scanners at the airport. Buske has invented radiation shielding underwear for the shy traveler. From the article: "Jeff Buske says his invention uses a powdered metal that protects people's privacy when undergoing medical or security screenings. Buske of Las Vegas, Nev.-Rocky Flats Gear says the underwear's inserts are thin and conform to the body's contours, making it difficult to hide anything beneath them. The mix of tungsten and other metals do not set off metal detectors."
Firefox May Soon Overtake IE In Europe 290
peterkern writes "The July browser market share reports are somewhat inconsistent, but if we believe StatCounter, then it looks like Firefox will be overtaking Microsoft IE's market share next month. The two browsers are both within 1 point of 40% market share, IE above and Firefox below. Europeans are more crazy about Firefox than Americans: In Germany, Firefox has a 61% market share, while IE has only 25%. Google Chrome is, according to StatCounter, now above 10%. ConceivablyTech has more details, including market share data from both StatCounter and Net Applications (which as of this month is limiting its free data)."
Comment SVG? (Score 1) 347
Is SVG a practical option yet, or is it still not supported by enough browsers? Without a special plug-in, I mean.
Comment ThinkPads suck (Score 1) 164
I wouldn't trust the Face Recognition technology. The fingerprint scanner on my ThinkPad T500 ceased to work after three months. No, my fingerprints didn't change, get burned, etc. It just stopped recognizing any of my digits. The twerp in tech support suggested I re-flash the BIOS. Yeah, right.
Oh, and the hard drive failed after six months. That was fun.
I thought I was paying for the best in order not to have any of these problems.
Never again a Lenovo.
Oh, and the hard drive failed after six months. That was fun.
I thought I was paying for the best in order not to have any of these problems.
Never again a Lenovo.
Comment Crappy disk drive (Score 1) 806
"fastidious scientists"
Really? I wish they would invest some of that fastidiousness in choosing better disk drives. The drive on my ThinkPad T500 crapped out after a mere six months. This after I paid for what I thought was top-of-the-line hardware.
I was backed up, but it took me several days to reload all the software and get running again. Very unpleasant experience.
Now I can't get Acronis True Image to mirror my whole drive. The last time I tried, my system seized up, I had to lean on the power button for ten seconds to shut it down, and when I rebooted I got a nice message saying "Your system may not restart". Wonderful.
Oh - and the fingerprint scanner stops working after three months. The twerp in tech support casually suggested I would have to "reflash my BIOS". Really? I see you don't user your PC to earn a living.
I never had such grief with generic black boxes.
Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242
likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."
Comment Quantum zapping (Score 1) 321
Great! Now we're going to infect another dimension with our viruses... Just what they need...
Comment 'One return' (Score 1) 683
The most common use of "goto" in that circumstance is to enforce "only one return".
Which is every bit the pedantic lunacy that goto-hate is.
Not necessarily: sometimes you need to free memory, resources, etc.
I don't use goto anymore, but back in the days of 16-bit and 12K stack, where we had to malloc() local variables, a 'one return' goto proved useful to branch to free() without excessively nested 'if's.
Comment Volunteer Fire Brigade (Score 1) 881
The volunteer fire brigade is no longer necessary?
Not so. In rural communities, the tax burden of a paid fire department would be unaffordable. The volunteer fire brigade is a vital and respected part of the community.
Comment Re:Torn cards (Score 1) 634
That's "card reader", not "car".
Comment Torn cards (Score 1) 634
Sorry, that hasn't been my experience. In the 70's I had a job writing Assembler for a Univac 9200 (32K memory, yes that's 'K'). The Master File Update program was 4,000 cards of source code. I would compile it a few times a day, and I rarely got a jam.
We ran the update once a day on the 40,000-card master file, using the 1,000 card/minute reader. There were a couple of jams each day. Once a wad of cards got caught in the pinch rollers: smoke started billowing out of the car reader. Good times.
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