CmdrTaco - Slashdot User

Submission + - Building A Better 'Anonymous?' (darkreading.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08, 2011 @10:23AM

An anonymous reader writes: A hacktivism panel at the DefCon hacker convention conspicuously missing its star member Aaron Barr, who dropped out under legal pressure from his former company HBGary Federal, debated how Anonymous could channel its efforts for the greater good. Members of Anon attending the discussion chimed in, too.

Submission + - Are Google's Best Days Behind It? (infoworld.com)

Submitted by

snydeq

on Monday August 08, 2011 @09:48AM

snydeq writes: "InfoWorld's Neil McAllister questions whether slowing product development, legal woes, and rising bureaucracy will signal trying times ahead for Google. 'With Google's rapid growth have come new challenges. It faces intense competition in all of its major markets, even as it enters new ones. Its newer initiatives have often struggled to reach profitability. It must answer multiple ongoing legal challenges, to say nothing of antitrust probes in the United States and Europe. Privacy advocates accuse it of running roughshod over individual rights. As a result, it's becoming more cautious and risk-averse. But worst of all, as it grows ever larger and more cumbersome, it may be losing its appeal to the highly educated, impassioned workers that power its internal knowledge economy.'"

Submission + - Just the Facts: S&P's $2 Trillion Mistake (treasury.gov)

Submitted by suraj.sun on Monday August 08, 2011 @07:40AM

suraj.sun writes: In a document provided to Treasury on Friday afternoon, Standard and Poor's (S&P) presented a judgment about the credit rating of the U.S. that was based on a $2 trillion mistake. After Treasury pointed out this error — a basic math error of significant consequence — S&P still chose to proceed with their flawed judgment by simply changing their principal rationale for their credit rating decision from an economic one to a political one.

S&P incorrectly added that same $2.1 trillion in deficit reduction to an entirely different oebaseline where discretionary funding levels grow with nominal GDP over the next 10 years. Relative to this alternative baseline, the Budget Control Act will save more than $4 trillion over ten years — or over $2 trillion more than S&P calculated.

S&P acknowledged this error ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903366504576491421339802788.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories ) — in private conversations with Treasury on Friday afternoon and then publicly early Saturday morning. In the interim, they chose to issue a downgrade of the US credit rating.

U.S. Dept of the Treasury: http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Just-the-Facts-SPs-2-Trillion-Mistake.aspx

Submission + - Make It Happen: Boba Fett Carbonite Crunch Ice Cre (geeksofdoom.com)

Submitted by

CmdrTaco

on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @12:22PM

CmdrTaco writes: "Check out this clever faux product someone created that will make every Star Wars fan scream WANT! It's Ben & Jerry’s Boba Fett Carbonite Crunch Ice Cream, a vanilla ice cream with salted caramel swirl and chocolate Han Solo miniatures frozen in carbonite — you can see the frozen chocolate Hans in the background! Would this not be the fastest-selling ice cream in history? I can see the supermarket display now: a big cardboard Slave I replica that lights up and says,Eat up! You're no good to me dead. Oh, imagine the possibilities!"

Submission + - PadPivotpractical iPad stand ever â" Apple Ne (gigaom.com)

Submitted by

CmdrTaco

on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @10:57AM

CmdrTaco writes: "Steve Jobs first showed off the iPad on stage using a chair and crossing one leg across the other to provide a decent platform from which to use it. Surely we can do better. So says the PadPivot, a new stand with all the right moves."

Submission + - Spiderman's Politically Correct Replacement (dailymail.co.uk)

Submitted by

jbarr

on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @10:44AM

jbarr writes: "The Daily Mail in the UK reports that in the latest Marvel Comic series "Ultimate Fallout", Miles Morales replaces Peter Parker of Spideman fame has been killed off, and will soon be replaced by a half-black, half-Latino teen. And the creators haven't ruled out that he might be gay. Toby McGuire's gonna be pissed."

Submission + - Browser IQ Study was a Hoax (bbc.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @08:23AM

An anonymous reader writes: A couple days ago Slashdot ran a story where the IQ of internet users was measured and then correlated with the browser used by each user. To everyone's great surprise, IE users came out as being the bottom of the barrel.

In the comments many Slashdot readers raised concerns with the validity of the study, and the BBC now reports it was a hoax all together! apTiquant, the company releasing the study, was founded a month ago and can no longer be reached.

Submission + - Google+ Registers 25 Million Visitors (itproportal.com)

Submitted by hypnosec on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @05:34AM

hypnosec writes: Google Inc.’s new social networking platform Google+ is one of the first to boast of more than 25 million users in less than one month of the launch.

Market research firm comScore in its latest report has revealed that Google+, which was launched to masses in late June, has managed more than 25 million visitors in a month and is recording around a million unique visits every day.

Submission + - Facebook: "Anonymity Has To Go Away" 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02, 2011 @01:48PM

An anonymous reader writes: Facebook’s marketing director Randi Zuckerberg, who also happens to be Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, wants to put an end to online anonymity. She believes that Internet users would act much more responsibly on the Internet if they were forced to use their real names at all times.

Related: Poole To Zuckerberg: You’re Doing It Wrong

Submission + - Skype for iPad Avaialble in the App Store (ihelplounge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02, 2011 @08:48AM

An anonymous reader writes: The developers of the application Skype app offer a version dedicated to the Apple iPad. Already available on Windows, Mac, iPhone

Submission + - NASA to Launch $96mill Cleanup of Shuttle Program (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Elliot Chang on Monday August 01, 2011 @12:11PM

Elliot Chang writes: NASA reports that the pollution caused by Space Shuttle launches at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will cost the government $96 million and will take 30 years to properly clean up. NASA officially ended the Space Shuttle Program on July 21st as the Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down for the final time at the Kennedy Space Center. It seems that the plumes of smoke resulting from the 135 shuttle launches caused toxic chemicals to seep into the sandy soil around the space center.

Submission + - Crunch can and should be avoided (shotgundentist.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01, 2011 @11:03AM

An anonymous reader writes: An article about why crunch and unpaid overtime in the games industry isn't acceptable (and definitely not a necessary characteristic of the field).

Submission + - Samsung wont sell Android tablet in Australia (edibleapple.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01, 2011 @10:01AM

An anonymous reader writes: In yet another blow to Android, Samsung has agreed not to sell the latest version of its tablet device in Australia until patent litigation in the country is completed.

Submission + - Report: Google Running 900,000 Servers (datacenterknowledge.com)

Submitted by 1sockchuck on Monday August 01, 2011 @09:31AM

1sockchuck writes: How many servers is Google using? The company won't say, but a new report places the number at about 900,000. The estimate is based on data Google shared with researcher Jonathan Koomey, for a new report on data center power use. The data updates a 2007 report to Congress, and includes a surprise: data centers are using less energy that projected, largely due to the impact of the recession (buying fewer servers) and virtualization.

Submission + - Blizzard Reveal the Diablo 3 Auction House (ausgamers.com)

Submitted by

trawg

on Monday August 01, 2011 @03:31AM

trawg writes: "At a special event at Blizzard HQ in California, gaming press were treated to the first look at the Diablo 3 auction house — featuring real-world money transactions across different regions allowing you to buy and sell items with real money. There'll be a listing fee and a sales fee for auctions, and while they're not talking dollar numbers just yet, Blizzard assure gamers that they're not looking to pinch pennies."

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