Archive for the 'Infrastructure' Category
Flawed AVG Antivirus Update Cripples Windows XP PCs
November 12th, 2008Via: Tech World: A flawed signature update to AVG Technologies’ antivirus software over the weekend crippled some Windows XP PCs by mistakenly deleting a critical system file, the company has confirmed. According to messages on AVG’s support forums and its own support site, an update released late Saturday for the company’s security software fingered the […]
California Voters Approve $10 Billion Bond for Bullet Trains
November 6th, 2008This seems like a pretty good project… Better a few decades late than never, eh? But if the state is hardly able to obtain financing for its current debt, how will it pull this thing off? Via: AP: California voters are green-lighting the nation’s most ambitious high-speed rail system, approving a nearly $10 billion bond […]
California to Cut Water Deliveries to Cities, Farms
October 31st, 2008Death trap. Via: AP: California said Thursday that it plans to cut water deliveries to their second-lowest level ever next year, raising the prospect of rationing for cities and less planting by farmers. The Department of Water Resources projects that it will deliver just 15 percent of the amount that local water agencies throughout California […]
NSA and Army Seeking Quantum Computing Algorithms to Solve “Hard Computational Problems”
October 29th, 2008The word encryption doesn’t appear anywhere below, but that could just be hind titty. How about teleportation? They tell researchers to, “Presuppose the existence of a fully functional quantum computer and consider what algorithmic tasks are particularly well suited to such a machine.” Obviously, people have been thinking about quantum computing issues for years. Wouldn’t […]
Google’s Offshore Data Barges
September 15th, 2008HAR! Via: Times: Google may take its battle for global domination to the high seas with the launch of its own “computer navy”. The company is considering deploying the supercomputers necessary to operate its internet search engines on barges anchored up to seven miles (11km) offshore. The “water-based data centres” would use wave energy to […]
U.N. Agency Eyes Curbs on Internet Anonymity
September 14th, 2008The NSA and the Chinese government are working together, through the U.N., to draft plans for systems that would enable all Internet sessions to be authoritatively traced back to their origins. Man, if this one doesn’t get your tinfoil in a knot, nothing will. If you want to know what anonymous on the Internet actually […]
Hackers Infiltrate Large Hadron Collider Systems and Mock IT Security
September 13th, 2008Not physically isolating the systems responsible for running the Large Hadron Collider from a network that’s connected to the Internet??? Priceless. It sounds like the attackers ran into an internal firewall/gateway that exists around the network used to control the LHC. Via: Telegraph: Hackers have mounted an attack on the Large Hadron Collider, raising concerns […]
London Stock Exchange Trading Derailed by Computer Crash
September 8th, 2008This is… very interesting. Not in a good way. Via: Telegraph: Trading on the London Stock Exchange has been halted after a computer system failed on one of the most frantic days of trading so far this year. In an embarrassment for the LSE, the exchange said that no orders can be entered or executions […]
The T. Boone Pickens Water Swindle
August 27th, 2008I meant to post this a couple of months ago, but it got lost in the shuffle. Now that it’s on Reddit again, in a different story, here’s the original. Via: Business Week: Roberts County is a neat square in a remote corner of the Texas Panhandle, a land of rolling hills, tall grass, oak […]
Oil Rises as Gustav Approaches Gulf Infrastructure
August 27th, 2008Via: Reuters: Oil rose for a third day on Wednesday, lifted by the possibility that Tropical Storm Gustav could become the first major storm since 2005 to threaten U.S. Gulf oil and gas installations. U.S. crude for October delivery was up $2.98 at $119.25 a barrel after adding $1.16 on Tuesday. London Brent crude gained […]
