Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Bug

Problems With Truncation On the Common Application 135

Posted by timothy from the when-idiots-set-limits dept.
jaroslav writes "A combination of rigid caps on space and poor documentation of the space limits is adding stress on students applying for college using the Common Application, the New York Times reports. The story explains that the application lists word limits for questions, but actually enforces space limits. As a result, an answer with wide characters, such as 'w' or 'm,' may run over space even without reaching the stated word limit. It is not explained why an electronic submission must have such strictly enforced limits."
Software

How Can I Make Testing Software More Stimulating? 396

Posted by Soulskill from the flamethrowers-spice-up-any-chore dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I like writing software. In fact, I revel in it. However, one thing has always kept me back from being able to write the best software I possibly can: testing. I consider testing to be the absolute bane of my existence. It is so boring and un-stimulating that I usually skip it entirely, pass the testing off to someone else, or even worse, if I absolutely have to test, I do a very poor job at it. I know I'm not that lazy, as I can spend hours on end writing software, but there's something about testing that makes my mind constantly want to wander off and think about something else. Does anyone have any tips on how I can make non-automated testing a little bit more stimulating so I can at least begin to form a habit of doing so?"
Transportation

Google Android Interface For the Chevy Volt 132

Posted by Soulskill from the search-engine-for-the-quarters-under-my-floot-mat dept.
jerryjamesstone writes "Earlier this month, General Motors hinted at a partnership with a major tech company to fully overhaul its telematics system, OnStar. While OnStar CEO Chris Preuss was tight-lipped about who that partner was, Motor Trend recently reported that it's Google. If the rumor's true, GM will make the Chevy Volt the first Android-based vehicle to hit the road. The Motor Trend article suggests 'Google would sell its Android operating system for in-car use,' while the Wall Street Journal has a slightly different take: 'The pairing would likely involve a way for users of Android-based smartphones to use OnStar features from their phone while not in their car. ... For instance, a person could find out information about their vehicle's maintenance needs through the Android phone. In the case of the Volt, GM's coming electric car, an owner may be able to keep track of the car's battery charge without being in the car.'"

Submission + - A New Documentary on Remix Culture & Fair Use (youtube.com)

Submitted by somanyrobots
somanyrobots writes: "Walking on Eggshells" is a 24-minute documentary about appropriation, creative influence, re-use and intellectual property in the remix age. It is a conversation among various musicians, visual artists, writers and lawyers, all sharing their views on why and how we use and create culture, and how intellectual property law, originally designed to provide people with incentives to create, sometimes hinders creative production far more than it enhances it.

This film is a final project for three students taking a seminar "Intellectual Property in the Digital Age" at Yale University.
Hardware Hacking

How Neuros Built Their Nearly Silent HTPC 199

Posted by timothy from the more-power-than-my-best-machine dept.
JoeBorn writes "Neuros has a blog posting discussing how they created their latest 'thin' HTPC to be nearly silent. Instead of using a net-top architecture (Atom or the like) they used a full 2.7GHz CPU and put their effort into making that nearly silent. The article talks about their efforts on fan selection, placement, control, and vibration dampening. This route was chosen to 'give more headroom' for CPU-hungry apps (web and otherwise) including Adobe Flash. Their solution costs $279; is this an appropriate trade-off for a device powering your TV?"
Privacy

Submission + - Cold War Warrantless Wiretapping (politicsdaily.com)

Submitted by somanyrobots
somanyrobots writes: President Gerald Ford secretly authorized the use of warrantless domestic wiretaps for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes soon after coming into office, according to a declassified document. The Dec. 19, 1974 White House memorandum, marked Top Secret/Exclusively Eyes Only and signed by Ford, gave then-Attorney General William B. Saxbe and his successors in office authorization "to approve, without prior judicial warrants, specific electronic surveillance within the United States which may be requested by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Medicine

High Fructose Corn Syrup Causes Bigger Weight Gain In Rats 542

Posted by timothy from the subsidies-cause-fatter-corn-farmers dept.
krou writes "In an experiment conducted by a Princeton University team, 'Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.' Long-term consumption also 'led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides.' Psychology professor Bart Hoebel commented that 'When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese — every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight.'"

Comment Re:Starsiege: Tribes and Possibly Achron (Score 1) 325

by somanyrobots (#31601180) Attached to: The Unsung Heroes of PC Gaming History

Pretty sure the size was 64. And my favorite trivia about tribes was that skiing was entirely unintended by the devs; it's made possible by a bug in the physics engine. But people had so much fun with it, and it became such a core part of gameplay, that when the (disastrous) sequels were written (Tribes 2 and Tribes: Vengeance) it was preserved intentionally.
Botnet

Zeus Botnet Dealt a Blow As ISPs Troyak, Group 3 Knocked Out 156

Posted by timothy from the brief-respite-while-sauron-regroups dept.
itwbennett writes "Ninety of the 249 Zeus command-and-control servers were knocked offline overnight when two ISPs, named Troyak and Group 3, were taken offline. Whoever was behind the takedown 'just decided to knock out a large area of cyber-crime, and this was probably one of the easiest ways to do it,' said Kevin Stevens, a researcher with SecureWorks. As with the McColo takedown of just over a year ago, Troyak's upstream providers seem to have knocked it off the Internet, Cisco said in a statement. 'The ISP was "De-peered,"' Cisco said. 'Troyak's upstream network providers effectively pulled the plug on Troyak's router, refusing to transmit its traffic.'"

Comment Re:Freedom of speech .. (Score 2, Interesting) 187

by somanyrobots (#31340044) Attached to: A Second Lessig Fair-Use Video Is Suppressed By WMG

It's ContentID. They do have humans who go through and review (they absolutely refuse to say how many), but ContentID does 90% of it these days. I spoke with one of the developers working on the system last fall, and they essentially consider it to be the Holy Grail of not having to waste time on DMCA notices. What's most likely is that in your case, the owner of the content hasn't asked YouTube to do anything about it, so they're merely flagging it, informing you, and not taking anything down. Compare to the big labels, which have YouTube take down flagged videos or, in some cases, give the labels a cut of the advertising revenue alongside them.
Space

Submission + - Famed Space Artist Robert McCall Passes Away (space.com)

Submitted by FleaPlus
FleaPlus writes: The artist Robert McCall, who Isaac Asimov described as our 'nearest thing to an artist in residence from outer space,' has passed away at age 90. He began painting conceptual art and acting as a visual historian for NASA early in its history, envisioning the past and future of spaceflight long before the current age of 3D renderings and CGI animations. McCall eventually painted more than 400 pieces of space art (including movie posters for 2001 and the original Star Trek film), many of which can be seen in an online gallery (coral cache).
Apple

Submission + - Apple Threatens Man Over Selling Broken Stairstep (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by somanyrobots
somanyrobots writes: A former employee at Apple's Fifth Avenue Store in New York City came into possession of a cracked glass step, after a contractor performed the replacement. At the time, the contractor was preparing to dispose of the replaced step, and he simply asked if he could take one home. The contractors didn't have a problem with it, and even helped him load it into his car. Fast forward a few years later: the man recently put it up on eBay, and is now being threatened with litigation over the "stolen" step. Apple's contractor, Seele, has (ostensibly at Apple's behest) repeatedly threatened to sue over his possession of the glass stairstep. It's back up on eBay with a three-day auction. Any takers?
Games

Submission + - "Fat" PS3s can't play games (neogaf.com)

Submitted by _xeno_
_xeno_ writes: People owning the older "fat" PS3 models are being greeted with "error 8001050F" when trying to access the PlayStation Network. Unfortunately, thanks to trophies being a part of PSN, what should prevent online gaming prevents any game with trophies from being played at all — even those with no online portion. Attempts to play a trophy-based game, and certain downloaded games, cause the game to quit with an error. The problem appears to be clock related — the issues started on March 1st GMT, with the time on the console being reset to 0. Resetting the clock manually doesn't fix the issue — games still cannot be played. The best explanation of the problem can be found on the NeoGAF forums. Although the image posted there is incorrect: the older PS3s aren't limited to nothing, they'll still browse the web and play music and show pictures. They just won't play games.

Submission + - Cute Baby Video Wins Battle Against Music Label (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
Nrbelex
Nrbelex writes: "Reuters is reporting that a California district court judge has rejected Universal Music Group's 2007 claim that a YouTube video of her toddler dancing to the Prince song "Let's Go Crazy" violated their intellectual property rights. With Lenz using fair use as her argument, the judge granted a partial summary judgment in her favor, paving the way for Lenz to collect attorneys fees."

Slashdot Top Deals

God help those who do not help themselves. -- Wilson Mizner

Close