31203165
submission
Roblimo writes:
This isn't about your place in society, but about user privileges on your computers and computer networks. The more privileges, the more risk of getting hacked and having Bad People do Bad Things to your company's computers, right? So Shtilman's company, Viewfinity, offers SaaS that helps you grant system privileges in a more granular manner than just allowing "root" and "user" accounts with nothing in between.
31077975
submission
Roblimo writes:
Assistant Professor Kurt DeMaagd, of Michigan State's Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media, runs a program that brings broadband Internet to villages in Tanzania that have never known connectivity better than what they get with non-smart cell phones. Lots of students are involved, and Kurt (who was one of Slashdot's co-founders many years ago) believes the students get as much out of the project as the people in Tanzania who are its primary beneficiaries. Setting up not only computer networks but also satellite communications and solar arrays in areas where you can't zip on down to the local computer or hardware store for parts you forgot teaches how to work under adverse conditions, and how to plan in advance instead of winging everything at the last minute. But we'll let Kurt DeMaagd, who is an engaging speaker, tell the story himself in this long (8:12) video.
28125580
submission
Roblimo writes:
The MakerBot Replicator is bigger, better, and easier to set up than earlier MakerBots. In this video from CES, Company CEO Bre Pettis shows Timothy Lord how wonderful a device it is, and tells us why every child (and most adults) should have a MakerBot.
28092110
submission
Roblimo writes:
Slashdot's Timothy Lord is at the International Consumer Electronics Expo (CES) in Las Vegas. There is no way any one person can take in the whole show. It's just too big for that. But on Timothy's first day, he spotted an overlay keyboard for the iPad that's been mentioned on Slashdot before, an invisible keyboard for your smartphone or tablet, and a crazy-interesting all-in-one computing device with a built-in projector and built-in virtual keyboard. Watch the video and join Timothy as he learns about these three devices. (Before you ask: Yes, we'll have more videos from CES over the next few days.)
21147642
submission
Roblimo writes:
Ladies and gentlemen, Bennet Haselton:
20180276
submission
Roblimo writes:
If you were hoping for a government shutdown, it looks like you are going to be disappointed. In a last-hour cliffhanger, Democrats and Republicans managed to agree with each other enough to keep the government funded for the rest of the current fiscal year. Since the budget bill that finally passed was a compromise, no one is happy with it. So it goes. That's how things work in a representative government.
19858552
submission
Roblimo writes:
Yes, we know tablets like the iPad are the wave of the future and that PCs and laptops are dead. But some of us see tablets as laptops with their keyboards missing and a few hundred bucks tacked onto the price.
16688850
submission
Roblimo writes:
Wow. They sent press releases out about this, and we're happy for them. But isn't Git easy to install and use — for free, even if your project is proprietary and secret, not Open Source and public? Whatever. Some people seem to feel better about proprietary software than about FOSS, so I suppose this business story is news. Sort of. At least the featured company, Atlassian, has free versions of its repository for FOSS and small-scale proprietary developers. Which is sort of nice.
15661826
submission
Roblimo writes:
Bing and Mapquest both use output from OpenStreetMap.org (OSM). Mapquest supports the project with money for equipment and access to the code they've written to integrate OSM's work with their display. Bing? They just take from the project and do nothing for it in return. This may be okay in a legal sense, but it is a seriously nekulturny way to behave. Even so, having Microsoft's Bing as a reference might help the project's founder make money. They've put a lot of work into this project, and it's doing a lot of people a lot of good, so they certainly deserve some sort of payback, either direct or indirect. They have a few ideas about how they might legitimately earn a few bucks from their project while remaining free software purists. Do you have any ideas, yourself, about how they might turn a few bucks from OSM?
15357936
submission
Roblimo writes:
I had a dream. In it, I was CEO of a large telecommunications company that was also a major broadband Internet provider and all five members of the FCC were stabbing me with pitchforks and yelling in my ear that my company would be treated as a common carrier, not as a special entity they couldn't regulate. That's when I woke up...
13002798
submission
Roblimo writes:
Zappa's Dinah-Moe Hummm is totally about Linux, at least in spirit, while the song Montana, with its talk of zirconium-encrusted tweezers and dental floss, "is obviously about Mac users." Not only that: In the early 70s Zappa wrote a song called Penguin in Bondage, an obvious foretelling of the anti-Linux lawsuits and threats from SCO, Microsoft, and other evildoers. Zappa was also a heavy user of the Synclavier, an electronic music-machine that was a precursor to today's "studio on a computer" recording and sound editing software. According to the article on DevX, today Zappa would no doubt be using Linux and Ardour for most of his recording and composition.
