Slashdot | Slashdot’s Setup, Part 1- Hardware
Slashdot’s Setup

Have you ever wondered how a site the size of Slashdot handles the traffic and massive amounts of data.

Here’s part 2, covering the software

Unphotographable: a text account of pictures missed

In many ways these bare descriptions are better than a photograph.

Why Males Die Before Females | LiveScience
In humans and many other animals, males age faster and die earlier than females.
New research suggests this might happen because of intense competition over sex.

After investigating about 20 different vertebrate species, researchers Tim Clutton-Brock and Kavita Isvaran at the University of Cambridge in England found the more polygynous a species was, the more likely their males were to age faster and die earlier than females.
The researchers explained that as competition among males for sex grows more intense, each male on average has less time to breed. As such, there is no strong incentive to evolve longevity among males in such species.

See ladies, we can’t help ourselves. —-It’s genetic.

PC World - Business Center: Penalty for Security Breach? No Vacation
The data breach is expected to cost the state upwards of US$3 million.

This guy essentially gave away $3 million dollars and they took 1 week of vacation time.
Just how much does this guy make an hour?

PC World - Student Who Uncovers Breach Escapes Expulsion
A student at Western Oregon University discovered a file that contained between 50 and 100 student names and social security numbers sitting on a public server at the university.
He then turned it over to the school newspaper and then reported it to the appropriate people at the university.

Two months into the investigation, Loving — who is now a staffer with the newspaper — was found to have broken a university computer use policy that prohibits unauthorized people from accessing confidential files that may have been inadvertently placed in a publicly accessible location.

Since you can’t know whether or not the data is confidential until after you open the file, this is just another case of an institution saying that someone else is to be blamed and punished for the institutions incompetence.

Why was somebody punished for reporting the incident, while nobody was punished for putting the file where it would be exposed to the world at large?
I will assume that either it was done by somebody who has major juice with the university, or there’s no rule against exposing this sort of data, only a rule against accessing it.

Al Jazeera English - News - Iraqi Fighters Form Political Group
There are evidently six groups involved in this alliance.

This is a good thing.
Whether they are friends or enemies, if they can hold together, which I sincerely doubt, we have only one set of leaders to deal with.

Washington
Ex-Commander Says Iraq Effort Is ‘a Nightmare’
By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: October 13, 2007
Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez is the most senior war commander of a string of retired officers who have harshly criticized the conduct of the Iraq war.

“After more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism,” General Sanchez said at a gathering of military reporters and editors in Arlington, Va.

Scientists explain chocolate cravings - Yahoo News
My favorite line:
In fact, the study was delayed because it took a year for the researchers to find 11 men who don’t eat chocolate.

New scanner may replace metal detectors - Yahoo News

They now use backscatter radar or electromagnetic waves.
These will show you as you are under all those clothes. The proponents of these devices say that they show only a fuzzy negative, while the opponents who have seen the results say that if they appeared in Playboy they would be decried as obscene.
On the other hand. Are these devices any more invasive or embarrassing than a thorough pat down?

All the arguments in the world are just white noise.
These devices will be in use soon and will stay there until they can find a way to read our minds.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | US tightens law on security firms
The body count appears to be 17 dead not 11.