In honor of legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen, who tragically passed away today from throat cancer at the age of 65, we wanted to resurface an article Eddie wrote in 2015 for Popular Mechanics. While many know him as the guitar god, Eddie Van Halen was also an inventor and patent holder who has spent the better part of 35 years in his shop, rebuilding guitars and amps, searching for his signature sound. Here's an excerpt from the article: I've always been a tinkerer. It comes from my dad. Growing up, we lived in a house in Pasadena that had no driveway. You used an alley that ran through the middle of the block, behind all the houses, to get to your backyard or the garage. Well, the neighbor behind us had a U-Haul trailer up on car jacks and loaded with cinder block. One night my dad came home from a gig at three in the morning. He had a little heat going, he'd had a few drinks, so he says, "This thing is blocking me from getting in again." So he got out of the car and tried to move it. As soon as he lifted the trailer, the jack fell over, and it chopped his finger off. This was a problem. Besides the obvious reasons, he played clarinet and saxophone. On a sax, you don't need to seal the hole with your finger. A valve closes over it. But with a clarinet, you have to seal the hole, so he took a saxophone valve cover and adapted it to work on his clarinet.

Another funny thing was later in his life, when he started losing his teeth. You need your bottom teeth to play a reed instrument. Instead of going to the dentist, he made himself a perfectly shaped prosthesis out of white Teflon that filled the gap where his teeth were missing. He slipped that in when he had to play. Watching him do that kind of stuff instilled a curiosity in me. If something doesn't do what you want it to, there's always a way to fix it... Van Halen was an inventor on three patents related to guitars: A folding prop to support a guitar in a flat position, a tension-adjusting tailpiece, and an ornamental design for a headstock. Two of the three remain today.

Slashdot reader nicolaiplum shares the following news about his passing: Rock legend Eddie van Halen has died, aged 65, after a long battle with cancer. "In a band known for its instability -- due in part to a rotating cast of lead singers that most notably includes David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar -- Eddie Van Halen and his brother Alex remained constants, appearing on 12 studio albums that reached across five decades and sold tens of millions of copies," reports NPR.

The New York Times adds: "His outpouring of riffs, runs and solos was hyperactive and athletic, making deeper or darker emotions feel irrelevant. The band he led was one of the most popular of all time." This story is part of a new occasional article series we're calling Slashback. We'll be covering a topic that may not be breaking news, but is interesting to us.

This is the first story in a new occasional article series we're calling Slashback. We'll be covering a topic that may not be breaking news, but is interesting to us. Today's Slashback story features an article from Scientific American highlighting the profound effect of severe social isolation on the brain. From the report: The feeling of "wanting" something has repeatedly been shown to increase dopamine transmission in the brain reward circuit (see here and here). This circuit consists of the dopamingeric midbrain and the striatum. These areas are particularly active in response to images of food when hungry, to drug-related images for those who are addicted, and people with Internet Gaming Disorder who are deprived of gaming (see here, here, and here). What about social interactions? For social animals, it would make sense that social interactions would be a primary reward. However, so far such research has primarily been conducted on mice. In 2016, Gillian Matthews and colleagues published a paper showing that after 24 hours of social isolation, dopamine neurons in the midbrain were activated when mice sought social interaction. These dopamine neurons showed similar activation patterns to other cravings. It appears that the acute social isolation in these mice led to an aversive "loneliness-like" state that increased motivation for social engagement. Nevertheless, researchers have questioned whether these findings would apply to humans, especially since it's not possible to assess whether a mouse subjectively feels lonely.

Livia Tomova, a postdoctoral fellow in the Saxelab at MIT, was inspired by this earlier research on mice and pitched to Rebecca Saxe the idea of trying to replicate the findings in humans. [...] What did the researchers find? After only ten hours of social isolation-- and even despite people knowing exactly when their deprivation would end-- people reported substantially more social craving, loneliness, discomfort, dislike of isolation, and decreased happiness than they did at baseline. Similarly, the same findings were seen after ten hours of food fasting. Critically, the researchers found similar midbrain activity in response to food cues after fasting and social cues after isolation. The response was variable across participants, and those who reported more social craving after the social isolation period showed a larger brain response to the social stimuli. Interestingly, the variability across participants was also partially explained by the variability in pre-existing chronic levels of loneliness. Participants with higher levels of chronic loneliness at baseline reported less craving for social contact after 10 hours of isolation in response to the social stimuli, and showed a muted response in their midbrain in response to the social cues after social isolation (they also showed reduced midbrain responses to food cues after fasting). This finding is consistent with prior research showing that chronic loneliness is associated with reduced motivation to engage socially with others.

These results are exciting because they are consistent with the results from earlier research on mice and the "social homeostasis" hypothesis developed based on animal models. According to this hypothesis, since social connection is an innate need, animals evolved neural system to regulate "social homeostasis." The current findings suggest that there is a similar mechanism underlying social craving in humans, and that people who are forced to be isolated crave social interactions in a similar way as a hungry person craves food. As the researchers note, these findings are also encouraging for translating mouse models of mental health disorders that affect social motivation, such as autism spectrum disorder, social anxiety disorder, or depression. While the article makes little to no mention of the coronavirus, it does make one ponder how the mandated period of isolation associated with it will affect us, especially as local governments around the country begin to lift restrictions and reopen.

What happens when a person starved of food is suddenly presented with the ability to eat? They gorge themselves. What about when a person who has been socially isolated for weeks suddenly gets to socialize? Perhaps they'll jump on the chance to surround themselves with others. We're already starting to see more people booking local holidays...

Not many days ago, we mentioned ZDNet's interview with Nicholas Negroponte, in which Negroponte had some harsh things to say about Sugar and its connection to the slower-than-hoped uptake of the XO. Ivan Krstic (formerly head of the OLPC's security innovative subsystem) responded to Negroponte's claims, which he says are "nonsense." Among other things, he mentions that Sugar "was the name for the new learning-oriented graphical interface that OLPC was building, but it was also the name for the entire XO operating system, one tiny part of which was Sugar the GUI, and the rest of which was mostly Fedora Linux."

tonsofpcs writes "On Monday, September 8, Wilmington, NC will be the first television market (#135) to make the switch to DTV by shutting off their analog transmitters. This forum will be posting updates throughout the coming months to keep everyone updated on how the transition works so that we are all prepared come February 17, 2009. So far, it seems Wilmington will still be going ahead as planned, despite Tropical Storm Hanna's proximity."

We're catching up on two stories of municipal engagement with open source software: Munich (which decided to go OS in 2003) and Vienna (2005). E5Rebel brings us news that Munich has stayed the course. But bkingaut informs that Vienna has decided to migrate back to Windows (Google translation) — to Vista no less. The migration of 720 computers used in kindergartens will cost the city about €8M. The given reason for all this is a language test application for the kids that only works with MS IE and won't be made compatible (by the producer) with Firefox until 2009.

waderoush writes "The majority of the comments on last week's Slashdot post It's Not a Flying Car — It's A Drivable Airplane were critical, even dismissive, of Terrafugia's work to build a two-passenger airplane with folding wings that's also certified for highway driving. We boiled down these criticisms to the dozen most commonly expressed points, and today we've published responses from Terrafugia CEO Carl Dietrich. While hybrid airplane-automobiles are an old (some would say laughable) idea, Dietrich argues that current materials and avionics technologies finally make the concept feasible."

Zack Grossbart writes "About 18 months ago I posted the following question to Ask Slashdot: 'How do you organize a home library with 3,500 books?' I have read all the responses, reviewed most of the available software, and come up with a good solution described in the article The Library Problem. This article discusses various cataloging schemes, reviews cheap barcode scanners, and outlines a complete solution for organizing your home library. Now you can see an Ask Slashdot question with a definitive answer."

Today we have Part 2 in our exciting 2 part series about the infrastructure that powers Slashdot. Last week Uriah told us all about the hardware powering the system. This week, Jamie McCarthy picks up the story and tells us about the software... from pound to memcached to mysql and more. Hit that link and read on.

Erris writes "PC Superstore says their store manager was wrong to turn away a client with a broken hinge whose machine should have been repaired. 'El Reg put a call in to the DSGi-owned retail giant to get some clarification on PC World's Linux support policy. A spokesman told us that there had simply been a misunderstanding at the store and that, in fact, the normal procedure would be for the Tech Guys to provide a fix. [PC World] will provide a full repair once the firm has made contact with Tikka.'

TopSpin writes "Early this year the meme circulated that Blu-ray might be going the way of Betamax, and for the exact same reason: Sony's unfriendliness to the porn industry. But at Japan's recent euphemistically named Adult Treasure Expo 2007, adult filmmakers said Sony has begun offering technical support, and this was later confirmed by Sony PR. The company stated that Sony would offer support to any filmmaker working on the format, no matter their industry. Apparently, Blu-ray is now the preferred medium for Japanese adult films."

A while back we discussed the corruption investigation aimed at Alaska Sen. Ted "series of tubes" Stevens. A number of readers sent us word that the home of Sen. Stevens was raided earlier today by agents of the FBI and the IRS. The focus of the raid was a remodeling project at Stevens's home and the involvement of VECO, an oil company.

DrNibbler writes "August 3, 2007 is the deadline for submitting comments on the proposed permit requirements for photographers in New York. Here is a sample submission."

Naycon writes "In the end it looks like the Swedish police dropped the Pirate Bay from the list of sites filtered for containing child porn. The update of the filter, which is scheduled for later this week, won't contain the Swedish file-sharing giant. The police say that the reason for this change is that the torrent containing the porn has been removed. But the Pirate Bay states that no files have been removed. Was this just a cheap trick by the Swedish police to battle file-sharing? The link contains a statement from the Pirate Bay; several Swedish newspaper are also running the story." In a related story, reader paulraps writes "Sweden's Justice Department is backing a new proposal that would enable copyright holders to find out the identities of people illegally sharing their material on the Internet."

An anonymous reader writes "Finally, some good news on electronic voting. The New York state legislature rejected an amendment proposed by Microsoft's lobbyists which would have gutted New York's requirements for voting machine vendors to turn over their source code to the state Board of Elections. Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton commented: 'The voting machine vendors have known for two years what our laws said. Now they're saying that those parts of their systems using Microsoft software have to be proprietary? It's just wrong.'"

TropicalCoder is the reader who submitted the story about the possible demise of LiftPort a couple of weeks back. The resulting discussion was mostly negative about the feasibility of building a space elevator. TropicalCoder writes: "At one point during the discussion, LiftPort founder Michael J. Laine personally entered the discussion, but for the most part remained invisible since he hadn't logged in. I responded to his comment that if he would like a chance to rebut the criticisms, he should contact me and I would undertake to interview him and post the resulting story on Slashdot." Read below for the story of how Mr. Laine's detailed reply and rebuttal to that Slashdot discussion came about. TropicalCoder asks, "After reading LiftPort's rebuttal to Slashdot critics, do any of you now feel your pessimism somewhat dispelled?"

Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed has reversed himself completely over the charges against Brian Kelly, arrested for wiretapping after videotaping a police stop. Now let's see if they are good enough to compensate Kelly for the 26 hours he spent in jail and the anguish of the cloud over his future caused by a felony arrest. From the article: "... [DA] Freed said his decision will affect not only Brian Kelly, 18, but also will establish a policy for police departments countywide. 'When police are audio- and video-recording traffic stops with notice to the subjects, similar actions by citizens, even if done in secret, will not result in criminal charges,' Freed said yesterday. 'The law itself might need to be revised.'"

chessweb writes "Here is a rather enlightening article by Richard Stallman on the reasons for moving to GPLv3 that puts the previous TiVo post into the right context." From the article: "One major danger that GPLv3 will block is tivoization. Tivoization means computers (called 'appliances') contain GPL-covered software that you can't change, because the appliance shuts down if it detects modified software... The manufacturers of these computers take advantage of the freedom that free software provides, but they don't let you do likewise... GPLv3 ensures you are free to remove the handcuffs. It doesn't forbid DRM, or any kind of feature. It places no limits on the substantive functionality you can add to a program, or remove from it. Rather, it makes sure that you are just as free to remove nasty features as the distributor of your copy was to add them."

While many people jumped all over presidential hopeful John McCain's wrong-headed view on network neutrality, few noticed his infuriating love for Microsoft. "[T]he 70 year old presidential hopeful also said that he would ask Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to serve on his cabinet to deal with technology issues if elected. He did not however say what position Ballmer might be hired in, but did joke that he might consider him for a diplomatic position, such as ambassador to China."

Remember the offer Greg Kroah-Hartman made earlier this year, to get Linux drivers written for free for any company that wanted them? Now an anonymous reader points us to an article up on linuxworld with an update to this program. Greg K-H, who leads the development of several kernel subsystems including USB and PCI, admits that the January offer was a bit of "marketing hype" — but says it has brought companies and developers together anyway. Twelve companies have said "yes please," one driver is already in the kernel, and five more are in the pipeline.

Crimson Fire writes "F-Secure recently offered a solution to the problem of bank-account phishing, and the discussion here of a .bank TLD generated some criticism. In their latest blog entry F-Secure has responded point-by-point."