The SANS Institute today took the highly unusual step of issuing a yellow alert over a vulnerability in the cryptographic functions of Debian, the Linux distro that underpins Ubuntu.…
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AMD vs Intel It's document season in the ongoing anti-trust lawsuit between AMD and Intel. Last week, the companies fought over witness testimony and earlier this week a judge told Intel to fork over some documents related to interviews done as the company tried to deal with its deletion of e-mails possibly related to the case at hand. Now, we've received AMD's response to Intel's filing around the witness testimony, and a couple of tidbits fell out of the heavily censored document.…
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The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) sounded an alarm bell yesterday over the rapid depletion of IPv4 internet addresses and gave the IPv6 protocol another push.…
In a strange twist of fate it has emerged that gutter hacks, writing for a well known publication offering tasty mechanically recovered news-like media product, have handed a stunning propaganda coup to jihadi terrorism. We're obviously very sorry*.…
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Freeloading music is more habit-forming than paying for legal downloads, according to polling in the UK.…
The unavailability of the US National Security Agency website on Thursday has been linked to misconfigured DNS (Domain Name System) servers.…
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Je zou toch bijna medelijden krijgen met de topmannen met hun topsalarissen: ze staan niet eens in de Quote 500. Verbijstering alom over zoveel onrecht. Het is al zo zwaar aan de top, met al die bonussen, opties, gouden handdrukken en aandelen. Om dat op je schouders mee te torsen, het is een mensonwaardig bestaan. Ik zou bijna zover durven gaan dat het een schending is van de mensenrechten. Bevrijd deze mensen van zoveel onrecht. Bij deze open ik mijn girorekening voor stortingen: Zo draag ook ik graag een steentje bij. Topmannen van Nederland, maak er gebruik van en verlos u van uw schuldgevoel!
Bericht van: Arnoud Boer
The former security director of the One Laptop Per Child non-profit has blasted the project for losing sight of its goals, accusing chairman Nicholas Negroponte of deceiving the public. It's all about shipping kit, says Ivan Krstić in an incendiary essay.…
US technology company Qualcomm has scooped all 17 chunks of UK-L-Band spectrum, auctioned over the last week, for a total of £8,334,000 - so you can expect MediaFLO announcements from UK operators any day now.…
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People have covered themselves and their possessions in animal skins since the dawn of time, but one gamer has taken things to another level by crafting an alligator-themed Xbox 360.…
The Information Commissioner has welcomed the High Court's decision to force MPs to publish their full expenses.…
France Telecom's Orange offshoot has formally joined the roster of cellcos that will offer Apple's iPhone in multiple territories.…
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Yesterday my esteemed colleague kindly offered the Reg readership a place to pour out your hearts, and so you copiously did, proving once and for all what a deeply sad distressed bunch you are.…
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As you probably have guessed, I spend a whole lot of time running The Daily WTF when going through submissions, writing articles, and sending out free stickers. While I do this primarily for fun and hobby, it does tend to interfere with my day job at Inedo and, as a result, I tend to earn much less than I could otherwise. But I don’t mind. All I have to do is sacrifice a few, small things. Things like a decent lunch.
Normally for me, lunch is all about getting as much nutritional value for the least amount of money possible. This means my lunch-time staples include things like sticks of butter ($0.23/ea), discarded military MREs (free… if you know where to look), and grocery store free-sample binges (free… if you have no dignity). Today, however, I decided to treat myself, so I scrounged up a dollar and headed on over to the Dollar Tree. After an exhaustive search through bins of expired food items, I stumbled across a wonderful treasure: the Chow Mein “Quick Meal”.
Nothing screams “appetizing!” like artificial beef, and this sure screams ARTIFICIAL BEEF. Even more loudly than “Authentic Chinese Vegetables & Seasonings” – a feature that you’d think would help sell the Quick Meal better. But you’d think wrong: I didn’t even catch that bit until salivating over it on the way back to the office.
The one important thing I did notice, however, was the Nutrition Facts on the back. Keep in mind that, for the frugal lunch connoisseur, nutritional value is key, and this Quick Meal sure knows how to pack that in.
With two servings in this little, 100g box, the Quick Meal manages to pack in 1,200 calories. Considering that 100g of the most caloric food – pure fat – is only 900 calories, that’s a rather impressive feat. Even more impressive is how the Quick Meal delivers 206 grams of carbohydrates from a 100g package. And to think, this amazing treasure was only a single dollar!
When I arrived back at the office, I tore open the Quick Meal and was delighted by the completeness of its contents.
There’s the spoon-shaped fork, the eerily uncongealed sauce packet, the beef “flavour”, and a packet of dried noodles that somewhat resembled a ramen noodle block. But since the packaging clearly stated that the Quick Meal is chow mein, I figured the noodles would somehow morph into something resembling chow mein. There was also the unmistakable pack of Authentic Chinese Vegetables, which are certainly worth a zoom in:
Note that there are exactly three freeze-dried peas – the exact same number as seen on the Quick Meal package. I can only imagine how much trouble some unfortunate factory worker would have gotten in if four peas were accidently included in the packet. But no matter, it was time to prepare my feast. And to that, I needed the all-telling instructions:
First and foremost, I truly appreciated the CAUTION. Who among us hasn’t forgotten how Extremely Hot boiling water can get? But I will say, I was a little put off by the “350ml” thing. Really… what am I, a scientist? Does the Quick Meal think I have beakers lying around to measure things in milliliters!? Just tell me how many cups or half-cups I need, Quick Meal.
Well, as it turned out, I did happen to have beakers lying around, and measured out 350 milliliters as the Quick Meal instructed. After following the rest of the instructions, this is what I ended up with.
I suppose it was just a bit different than advertized. As for the tasting… the Quick Meal delivered a somewhat unpolished, slightly immature nose with hints of broiled sirloin, poached egg, and cellar-dried carrots, though somewhat overpowered by brine. Its palate offered a lively medley of complex flavors from roasted sesame to buttered shallot, all influneced by a hint of smokeyness. The finish was warming, with a touch of bitternes that was quickly replaced by a subtle yet influential balance of spices.
All told, the Quick Meal was a fine meal, and a great deal at a single dollar. Sure, some might point out that a block of ramen noodles (with an obligitory flavor packet) can be had at six for a dollar, but the Quick Meal is no ramen noodle. The Quick Meal comes with a fork and authentic Chinese vegetables. And besides, I’m a bit above eating just ramen noodles for lunch.
Review Chances are that many pics in your photo album are of family and friends. Little wonder then, that camera manufacturers are devoting a lot of time and energy in providing features designed to help us take even better people shots.…
A former contractor allegedly knocked out government systems and deleted thousands of records in Australia's Northern Territories earlier this month.…
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The commenters among you who've been foolish enough to cross swords with the Moderatrix know that she doesn't suffer fools gladly - and quite right too.…
Updated Coding activists have developed an application designed to confound Phorm's controversial behaviour-tracking software by simulating random web-browsing.…
Hewlett-Packard has told customers not to install Windows XP service pack three (SP3) on AMD-based desktops until Microsoft and HP cough fixes to the endless reboot snafu that has wreaked havoc on PCs.…
Fibra from Belgrade has created an interesting drum system. It uses old hard drive read/write arms as drum hammers. The original hard drive voice coils are used to move the arms. The picture above is the new system which doesn’t seem to be documented yet, have a look at the video for a demonstration of the first version. If you need a larger hard drive project fix have a look at these hard drive projects.
Via: Make
Reg Tech Panel Now that Windows Vista SP1 is here, you’ve got no more excuses to put off that upgrade, right? And if you have strayed in the past onto one of those ‘alternative’ (shiver) platforms such as Linux or OS X, you’ll of course be coming home to grab yourself a slice of that Wow!…
Nintendo has vowed to fight a court order demanding it pay $21m (£10.7m/€13.5m) to a US gaming company for patent infringements associated with controllers for the Wii and GameCube.…
This afternoon (Friday 16 May}, Margaret Moran, MP for Luton South, will introduce the second reading of a Bill to make age and identity verification compulsory for all online retailers.…
Roy Bostock, chairman of Yahoo!, has wasted no time in responding to Carl Icahn's attempt to seize control of the company's board.…
Sharp has claimed the crown for the highest power density mobile fuel cell. It delivers enough power per cubic centimetre, it's said, to one day replace standard lithium-ion packs. This time it really will...…
Texans in the Houston area are battling rampaging hordes of "voracious swarming ants" which have inexplicably developed a taste for electronic equipment, Chicago Tribune reports.…
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US telco Verizon yesterday announced it had won a $678.5m, ten-year deal to tie together the many disparate networks within the vast US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).…
Google has announced the addition of ten new languages to its Google Translate feature, bringing the total of available tongues to 23.…
It's come to our attention that the media's favourite cybernetically-enhanced human - Kev "Captain Cyborg" Warwick of Reading Uni - earlier this week demonstrated an echolocation hat for blind people on the Beeb's The One Show.…
The NHS IT project, one of the world's largest public sector IT programmes, is already four years late.…
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The thumbs of most GTA IV-owning PS3 gamers are probably red-raw by now, their only respite being the game’s inexplicable freezes. So you’d expect the latest firmware update for the console to fix the problem..?…
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Scientists have launched a new game site designed to make computers smarter by harnessing the cognition of the humans playing the games. Gwap.com, short for games with a purpose, takes a Tom Sawyer approach to solving age-old computer problems by repackaging normally mundane tasks as online fun.…
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Exclusive Apple will indeed support PA Semi's line of PowerPC-based processors, The Register has learned.…
Data warehouse appliance maker Netezza is buying an enigmatic analytics firm based in North Carolina, NuTech Solutions.…
A 49-year-old Missouri mother has been indicted for fraudulently using MySpace to "cyber-bully" a teenage girl who committed suicide after she was tricked into believing she was being dumped by her online boyfriend.…
Charter Communications, the eighth largest ISP in the States, has jumped into bed with NebuAd, a behavioral ad targeting firm along the lines of Phorm and Front Porch.…
Bericht van: Arnoud Boer
(Topmannen met topsalarissen gedragen zich als kinderen ten top.)
Bericht van: Arnoud Boer
Unwilling to collect the Empire State's new "Amazon Tax," Patrick Byrne and Overstock.com have jettisoned their New York-based affiliate marketers.…
Filed under: misc hacks, daily
How many work hours does it take to fight off a false accusation of copyright infringement from the Recording Ass. of America?…
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Sun Microsystems' desktop division CTO has defected to Adobe Systems. It's the latest installment of musical chairs between vendors jockeying for developers building rich internet applications, and highlights Sun's weaknesses in this already competitive field.…
Filed under: news
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by Jeremiah Cornelius (posted by timothy) at May 15, 2008 05:40 PM
Copyright is over, and musicians should make themselves as pretty as they can for big brand advertisers, says top music manager and label boss Terry McBride.…
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
LG and Samsung have teamed up to have their respective technologies accepted as the American standard for mobile TV, just as Dish starts casting around for someone to help them build such a network.…
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Yahoo! might not have escaped the clutches of Microsoft after all.…
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Everything was lined up for some seasonal specials at Chotchkie's (as we'll call it), a mid-size chain of family restaurants. Starting just in time for the weekend on Friday, there would be specials on Pizza Shooters, Shrimp Poppers, and Extreme Fajitas.
The special had been promoted, ads circulated, table cards and menus updated — everything was ready to go. That is, aside from setting up the discount in the PoS system on their antiquated Panasonic 7000-series cash registers. Because of the old architecture and a confusing interface, what should be a simple change for restaurant staff to update item pricing actually required the involvement of a developer; in this case, Mike L.
The circumstances had worked well for Mike. Chotchkie's had been running their PoS system for a long time — well past the point that support had ended. Chotchkie's Corporate had to figure something out, and came up with two options:
They chose #2 and hired Mike, and things had been going smoothly for months.
Two days before the special started, Mike received a panicked call from the client, begging him to rush a change. "We've already begun advertising this," the client pleaded. "I know today's Wednesday and usually we have more time, but we really need this in by Friday morning!" Since they were in such a bind and Mike didn't have much of a choice, he ignored his conscience and agreed to a "rush job." This was his first mistake.
While preparing the changes, Mike realized that he had a narrow window to roll the change out to the 120 restaurants. In order to get the change in before Friday morning, he would have to bypass the usual client testing phase. Mike worked late on Thursday and dispatched the change to 120 Chotchkie's restaurants. This was his second mistake.
After a good night's sleep he returned to work on Friday. At 10:05 that morning, his phone started ringing. Constantly. The restaurants had been open for five minutes.
Everything at every Chotchkie's was ringing up for ten cents. Super Fries, Belly Busters, Onion Hoppers, Marshmallow Hoorays, even $50 gift cards were $.10 each.
Mike realized he had to do something drastic; something he hoped he'd never have to do. He shut down every register in all 120 Chotchkie's locations, leaving hundreds of employees with nothing to do, and turning away thousands of hungry customers.
This was not a popular decision, and only increased the number of calls he was receiving. Worse, clients had begun asking to remain on hold until the issue was fixed.
It didn't take him too long to find the source of the problem. Price changes were done with updates to four dBase III tables on each register, and five tables on one central computer for each restaurant. In an attempt to make his life easier, Mike wrote an app to streamline the process. It'd build these nine tables into a common table, then send the updates down to each register.
To deal with the quirkiness of the old Panasonic registers' database structures, Mike's app had to massage the data going to and from his own tables using some fairly painful string parsing and manipulation code. Though the price changes he needed to make were fairly straightforward, a missing leading zero on one of the items (.10 instead of 0.10) lead towards disasterous consequences: the register update loop got "stuck" on the ".10", causing all prices to be updated to $0.10.
Mike hacked like he'd never hacked before and had a fix ready before too long. Because the registers had already been opened for the day and the systems were designed to only accept automatic updates when the registers were closed, he couldn't do one big push. Four tedious hours of updating restaurants one-by-one and a $7,000 discount on the invoice later, he was out of the woods. It may sound bad, but he got off easy considering all the free food that was given to people that showed up right when the restaurants opened, the cost to have the staff sitting around doing nothing all morning, missing the lunch rush...
Needless to say, he's learned not to ignore his conscience anymore.
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The UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has said it is making progress in the fight against high-impact crime. The agency published its second annual report on Thursday highlighting increased seizures of Class A drugs and the confiscation of criminals' wealth.…
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
It's come to our attention that some of you have lost your way a little on this journey we call life, and are wandering aimlessly while attempting to answer the fundamentals of existence. How do I install a printer driver on Umbongo Linux? I'm hungry - should I order pizza or a bucket-'o-plumped-chicken-gizzards? If I have a shower, will women want to have sex with me?…
Chinese nanojewellery experts have managed to fashion an exceptionally tiny ring out of just 36 atoms of gold. Incredibly minuscule as the golden nano-ring is, however, it is in fact the world's largest of its type.…
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Sometime next year, Verizon will roll out a Linux OS as the "preferred operating system" for phones on its US wireless network. And that Linux OS is not Google Android.…
"I wonder if it's possible to change the text of the sensibility of the message," pondered Adam, "if the message having sensibility cannot have text... or something like that."
Glenn Dejaeger snapped another crash on Piccadilly Circus. This one was apparently up for a full day...
Sergey notes, "opening TextPad has never been so informative!"
Actually Tim, this is isn't really an error. Everyone knows that the German über is so much more über than the English version.
asdf zxcvzxcv, asdf Duff qwer asdfasdf zxcvpoiu.
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Those among you who believe the use of instant messaging slang and shorthand among teens has doomed the English language to inevitable destruction should take heart from this report in New Scientist, which claims that au contraire, IM represents an "an expansive new linguistic renaissance".…