Tom DBA - Slashdot User

Comment Why not get to the point? Why make it a saga (Score 1) 525

by Tom DBA on Friday January 07, 2011 @09:28AM (#34789944) Attached to: Bufferbloat — the Submarine That's Sinking the Net

I thought the times of people being paid by the word were over. There's so much to read these days. Couldn't Getty state the situation in a few sentences before taking us on a journey through lightening, ICU and tracings?

Comment It's photomicroscopy, not tiny, tiny pictures (Score 1) 80

by Tom DBA on Sunday February 07, 2010 @05:39PM (#31055062) Attached to: 19th-Century Photographer Captured 5,000 Snowflakes

A microphotograph is a very small photo. Like the micro dots spys used to send under postage stamps or the flaps of envelopes. A photomicrograph is a photo taken through a microscope. I think he took photomicrographs or micrographs.

British Men Jailed For Online Hate Crimes 778

Posted by timothy on Saturday July 11, 2009 @02:33PM from the don'tcha-just-hate-online-crime dept.

chrb writes "Two British men have become the first to be jailed for inciting racial hatred online. The men believed that material they published on web servers based in the United States did not fall under the jurisdiction of UK law and was protected under the First Amendment. This argument was rejected by the British trial judge. After being found guilty, the men fled to Los Angeles, where they attempted to claim political asylum, again arguing that they were being persecuted by the British government for speech that was protected under the First Amendment. The asylum bid was rejected and the two were deported back to the UK after spending over a year in a US jail."

Submission + - Court IP addresses not "personally identifiabl (mediapost.com)

Submitted by yuna49 on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @10:32AM

yuna49 writes: Online Media Daily reports that a federal judge in Seattle has held that IP addresses are not personal information. "In order for 'personally identifiable information' to be personally identifiable, it must identify a person. But an IP address identifies a computer," U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones said in a written decision. Jones issued the ruling in the context of a class-action lawsuit brought by consumers against Microsoft stemming from an update that automatically installed new anti-piracy software. In that case, which dates back to 2006, consumers alleged that Microsoft violated its user agreement by collecting IP addresses in the course of the updates.

This ruling flatly contradicts a recent EU decision to the contrary, as well as other cases in the US. Its potential relevance to the RIAA suits should be obvious to anyone who reads Slashdot.

Submission + - FireFox To Get Multi-Process Separation

Submitted by on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @10:22AM

An anonymous reader writes: FireFox 3.5 is a very strong contender in the browser market but one feature it lacks that Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 has is multi-process browsing. Multi-process browsing gives the browser ultimate stability and performance for computers with multiple processors or CPU cores by having each page or tab, run in a separate process. This means each tab could theoretically could be on separate processors or cores giving you a performance boost over having just one process (the browser) running on just one CPU or core. We gain not only performance from this type of process separation, we also gain security because if one page ends up being malicious its process can be closed and is segregated from the remaining browser processes.

Submission + - BT drops Phorm -- More Pressing Priorities? 1

Submitted by Tom DBA on Monday July 06, 2009 @07:54PM

Tom DBA writes: The Register reports in http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/06/bt_phorm/ that "BT has abandoned plans to roll out Phorm's controversial web monitoring and profiling system across its broadband network, claiming it needs to concentrate resources on network upgrades...BT's announcement comes a day before MPs and peers of the All Party Parliamentary Communications Group are due to begin an investigation of internet privacy. Their intervention follows the EU's move to sue the UK government over its alleged failure to properly implement European privacy laws with respect to the trials, drawing further bad publicity to the venture."

Shouldn't the story read BT "have"?

Comment The more things change (Score 2, Interesting) 224

by Tom DBA on Saturday July 04, 2009 @02:15PM (#28581627) Attached to: AOL Shuts Down CompuServe

Before all the tubes got connected business cards were full of email addresses. One had at least a Compuserve address, a Prodigy address, an AOL address, a company VAXMail address, a company VM/VMS address and perhaps a DARPA/ARPA address.

All that is changed now.

Now we list Company main telephone number, Company direct dial number, Company fax number, Home number, Company cell number and perhaps a Skype id.

Copyright Should Encourage Derivative Works 136

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday July 03, 2009 @03:47PM from the greed-is-a-powerful-drug dept.

Techdirt has an interesting look at copyright and the idea that an author is the originator of a new work. Instead, the piece suggests that all works are in some way based on the works of others (even our own copyright law), and the system should be much more encouraging of "remixing" work into new, unique experiences. "Friedman also points back to another recent post where he discusses the nature of content creation, based on a blog post by Rene Kita. In it, she points out that remixing and creating through collaboration and building on the works of others has always been the norm. It's what we do naturally. It's only in the last century or so, when we reached a means of recording, manufacturing and selling music — which was limited to just those with the machinery and capital to do it, that copyright was suddenly brought out to 'protect' such things."

Comment Re:Test: How? (Score 3, Insightful) 329

by Tom DBA on Thursday July 02, 2009 @08:19PM (#28566595) Attached to: HIV/AIDS Vaccine To Begin Phase I Human Trials

Actually, there are tons of people available for the Phase II and III trials. There's a whole generation of young gays who are catching HIV left and right because they don't use protection.

Comment Is this it? Small chance (Score 1) 329

by Tom DBA on Thursday July 02, 2009 @07:56PM (#28566359) Attached to: HIV/AIDS Vaccine To Begin Phase I Human Trials

http://www.hvtn.org/science/trials.html Many trials have come, gone, failed, are in the works. HIV is very complicated. Is THIS IT? Likely this is a low news day or a University of Western Ontario alum day. Phase I is just to prove people don't die from taking the vaccine. A far cry from a real, successful vaccine.

Submission + - Swine Flu May Be Human Error.

Submitted by Tom DBA on Tuesday May 12, 2009 @07:04PM

Tom DBA writes: The swine flu could have been accidentally made in a lab, says the World Health Organization in Bloomberg.com News. Swine Flu May Be Human Error, Scientist Says; WHO Probes Claim. "The World Health Organization is investigating an Australian researcher's claim that the swine flu virus circling the globe may have been created as a result of human error. Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu drug, said in an interview today that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said that he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus's origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint."

Time to drag out the conspiracy theories about how HIV/AIDS came into the world?

Adobe Confirms PDF Zero-Day, Says Kill JavaScript 211

Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @03:18PM from the kpdf-has-better-panning-anyhow dept.

CWmike writes "Adobe Systems has acknowledged that all versions of its Adobe Reader, including editions for Windows, the Mac and Linux, contain at least one, and possibly two, critical vulnerabilities. 'All currently supported shipping versions of Adobe Reader and Acrobat, [Versions] 9.1, 8.1.4 and 7.1.1 and earlier, are vulnerable to this issue,' said Adobe's David Lenoe said in a blog entry yesterday. He was referring to a bug in Adobe's implementation of JavaScript that went public early Tuesday. A "Bugtraq ID," or BID number has been assigned to a second JavaScript vulnerability in Adobe's Reader. Proof-of-concept attack code for both bugs has already been published on the Web. Adobe said it will patch Reader and Acrobat, but Lenoe offered no timetable for the fixes. In lieu of a patch, Lenoe recommended that users disable JavaScript in the apps. Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, said of the suggestion in lieu of patches, 'Unfortunately, for Adobe, disabling JavaScript is a broken record, [and] similar to what we've seen in the past with Microsoft on ActiveX bugs.'"

Time Warner Shutting Off Austin Accounts For Heavy Usage 591

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 25, 2009 @10:21AM from the somebody-threw-them-a-shovel dept.

mariushm writes "After deciding to shelve metered broadband plans, it looks like Time Warner is cutting off, with no warning, the accounts of customers whom they deem to have used too much bandwidth. 'Austin Stop The Cap reader Ryan Howard reports that his Road Runner service was cut off yesterday without warning. According to Ryan, it took four calls to technical support, two visits to the cable store to try two new cable modems (all to no avail), before someone at Time Warner finally told him to call the company's "Security and Abuse" center. "I called the number and had to leave a voice mail, and about an hour later a Time Warner technician called me back and lectured me for using 44 gigabytes in one week," Howard wrote. Howard was then "educated" about his usage. "According to her, that is more than most people use in a year," Howard said.'"

The Road To Terabit Ethernet 210

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday April 22, 2009 @08:43AM from the more-is-better dept.

stinkymountain writes "Pre-standard 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet products — server network interface cards, switch uplinks and switches — are expected to hit the market later this year. Standards-compliant products are expected to ship in the second half of next year, not long after the expected June 2010 ratification of the 802.3ba standard. Despite the global economic slowdown, global revenue for 10G fixed Ethernet switches doubled in 2008, according to Infonetics. There is pent-up demand for 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet, says John D'Ambrosia, chair of the 802.3ba task force in the IEEE and a senior research scientist at Force10 Networks. 'There are a number of people already who are using link aggregation to try and create pipes of that capacity,' he says. 'It's not the cleanest way to do things...(but) people already need that capacity.' D'Ambrosia says even though 40/100G Ethernet products haven't arrived yet, he's already thinking ahead to terabit Ethernet standards and products by 2015. 'We are going to see a call for a higher speed much sooner than we saw the call for this generation' of 10/40/100G Ethernet, he says."

Oracle Buys Sun 906

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday April 20, 2009 @08:11AM from the there-can-be-only-one dept.

bruunb writes "Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt. 'We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle's earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle's non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,' said Oracle President Safra Catz."

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