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Linux

Submission + - The end is nigh for The Linux Game Tome (happypenguin.org)

Submitted by Sodki
Sodki writes: The Linux Game Tome, one of the most important websites related to video gaming in GNU/Linux, will shut down on the 13th of April, according to a news post published on the website. The decision was made due to the "lack both the time and the ambition to do what is necessary to keep the site afloat", which has resulted in "spam clogging the forums, lack of updates and increasing brokenness of the site". This might not be the end, though. The maintainers of The Linux Game Tome will make available a dump of the games database, so that anyone interested can cook up a new and updated version of the website, and a worthwhile effort will be considered for a transfer of ownership of the domain. The current source code of the website, which is from 1999, will not be available because "it is not fit for human consumption".

Comment This exact same thing... (Score 0) 154

by bhxob (#31913834) Attached to: The Nuts and Bolts of PlayStation 3D
...happened 10-15 years ago with CRT monitors, and Nvidia pushing shutter lenses and 3d capable technology, and then fell off the face of the planet from lack of genuine consumer interest.

What is different this time? Has the head gear changed? Not the home use version. Still the same stupid shutter lense technology that halves frame-rate and increases GPU workload.

For home use, the only thing that has changed is the display medium, from CRT to LCD. There really is nothing new to see here.

Comment made obsolete by cloud computing? (Score 0) 135

by bhxob (#29311307) Attached to: Hosting Data-Transfer Quotas Are Fading Out
Having never used 1&1, i can't speak to their service or resource levels, or more applicably to their resource usage levels.

However I can't say that I think that cloud computing will significantly displace shared hosting.

This says it better than I could I think.
http://www.internetblog.org.uk/post/404/will-cloud-computing-replace-shared-hosting

Cloud computing is great in that it only charges users for the server power they use. That's why rapidly expanding companies with unpredictable IT needs love it. But the truth is, the average hosting customer's needs are very predictable.

A typical shared hosting user probably only utilizes 500 MB of space at most and under 3 GB of bandwidth a month. Hosting companies know what to expect from their users and most website traffic rarely fluctuates enough to take advantage of cloud computing features.

Sayegh is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. I think introducing the cloud to a shared hosting environment would simply add too much complexity and I don't see it being adopted en masse by hosts any time soon.

Mozilla

Submission + - Porn collection put people off upgrading Firefox (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "Mozilla's Security team has disclosed a very interesting piece of research which suggests people refused to upgrade to Firefox 3 because they were afraid the browser would expose their porn collection. Mozilla's research found that the number one reason for not upgrading was the new location bar, and the fact that it delved into people's bookmark collections to suggest sites as they typed. "When we expanded the capabilities of the location bar to search against all history and bookmarks in Firefox 3, a lot of people contacted us to say that they had certain bookmarks they didn't really want to have displayed," Firefox's principal designer, Alex Faaborg, tactfully explains. "In some cases users had intentionally hidden these bookmarks in deep hierarchies of folders, somewhat similar to how one might hide a physical object.""

Comment Irrelevant? (Score 0) 1

by bhxob (#29202451) Attached to: Is it Unlawful to Execute an Innocent Person?
"Does the Constitution forbid the execution of an innocent person who was convicted and sentenced to death after a trial that was free of constitutional error but that nonetheless led to an erroneous verdict?"

To my knowledge, Constitution of the Unites States does not even touch on the subject of executions of prisoners, only the rights to the due process of law (rights with aren't even fully incorporated against the states in many cases!). This proved more by the differing stance of various states in their own Constitutions and precedents allowing or disallowing executions. I think this is probably the wrong question.
The Matrix

Submission + - Entanglement Could Be A Deterministic Phenomenon (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by
KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: "Nobel prize-winning physicist Gerard 't Hooft has joined the likes of computer scientists Stephen Wolfram and Ed Fredkin in claiming that the universe can be accurately modelled by cellular automata. The novel aspect of 't Hooft's model is that it allows quantum mechanics and, in particular, the spooky action at a distance known as entanglement to be deterministic. The idea that quantum mechanics is fundamentally deterministic is known as hidden variable theory but has been widely discounted by physicists because numerous experiments have shown its predictions to be wrong. But 't Hooft says his cellular automaton model is a new class of hidden variable theory that falls outside the remit of previous tests. However, he readily admits that the new model has serious shortcomings saying it lacks some of the basic symmetries that our universe enjoys, such as rotational symmetry. However, 't Hooft adds that he is working on modifications that will make the model more realistic (abstract)."
Security

Submission + - A swiss coder of a governmental trojan speaks out! (gulli.com) 2

Submitted by
Lars Sobiraj
Lars Sobiraj writes: "Ruben Unteregger has worked quite a long time as a software-engineer for the Swiss company ERA IT Solutions. His job there was to code malware that would allow to invade PCs of private users. In the german spoken areas those governmental trojans are called "Bundestrojaner". ERA IT Solutions is involved in constructing malware which allow the wiretapping of VoIP calls, in particular by using Skype. The programmer sadly has to remain silent about the customers of the company. Last night, he already published the source code of his Skype-trojan under GPL. You can read the full interview here."
Robotics

Submission + - SPAM: Robot soldiers are being deployed

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: "As a Rutgers philosopher discusses robot war scenarios, one science magazine counts the ways robots are already being used in warfare, including YouTube videos of six military robots in action. There are up to 12,000 "robotic units" on the ground in Iraq, some dismantling landmines and roadside bombs, but "a new generation of bots are designed to be fighting machines." One bot can operate an M-16 rifle, a machine gun, and a rocket launcher — and 250 people have already been killed by unmanned drones in Pakistan. He also tells the story of a berserk robot explosives gun that killed nine people in South Africa due to a 'software glitch.'"
Link to Original Source
Security

Submission + - Schneier: We don't need a cybersecurity czar (threatpost.com) 3

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Threatpost.com reports that security guru Bruce Schneier says not only should the NSA not run cybersecurity for the federal government, no one should. "Really what I think is it shouldn't be anybody. We do better without a top-down hierarchy. Our economic and political systems work best when there isn't a dictator in charge, when there isn't one organization in charge. My feeling is there shouldn't be one organization in charge. Not only shouldn't it be the NSA, it shouldn't be anybody," Schneier said.
Security

Submission + - Hackers Breach 160k Med Records at UC Berkeley

Submitted by nandemoari
nandemoari writes: Hackers have reportedly infiltrated restricted computer databases at the University of California Berkeley, putting the private data of 160,000 students, alumni, and others at risk. According to UC Berkeley, computer administrators determined that electronic databases in University Health Services had been breached by overseas criminals on April 21, 2009. Information contained on the breached databases included Social Security numbers, health insurance information and non-treatment medical information such as records of immunization and names of treating physicians.

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