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Microsoft

Linux Receives 20th Birthday Video From Microsoft 368

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-want-cake-too dept.
moonbender writes "The Linux kernel has received birthday wishes from an unexpected direction — a video animation from Microsoft. Quoting The H: 'The video picks up on the strained relationship between Microsoft and Linux by displaying the phrase "Microsoft Vs. Linux" and then showing Tux, the Linux mascot, turning his back on the offer of a birthday cake from Microsoft. After a brief outline of the history between Microsoft and Linux, the video ends with a conciliatory gesture: Tux accepts the birthday cake in his igloo and the video ends with "Happy Birthday" and the editing of the initial phrase to "Microsoft and Linux?' The Linux Foundation has more stuff celebrating the kernel's 20th birthday."
The Military

Boeing's Enormous Navy Laser Cannon 291

Posted by CmdrTaco from the pew-pew-pew dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Boeing is working to build a huge, incredibly powerful, soon-to-be-seafaring laser for the US Navy. This free electron laser can produce light of any wavelength (ie, color) directly from an electron beam, and gets an energy boost from a superconducting particle accelerator. Once it's onboard ships, the laser could be used to shoot down cruise missiles and artillery shells."
Earth

No, We're Not Headed For a New Ice Age 473

Posted by Soulskill from the snowboard-stocks-plummet dept.
purkinje writes "Unusual calm in the solar cycle — called a solar activity minimum — has sparked claims that the Sun will cool the Earth, leading us into a new ice age. While Europe did experience a Little Ice Age during a solar activity minimum three centuries ago, the connection between sunspots and climate is a lot more complicated, and it's unlikely this change in the Sun's activity will cool Earth down — or even affect the climate at all. Plus, any cooling that might come from this would be less than the global warming that's been going on. So don't pull out that parka yet; a new ice age seems more than unlikely."
Google

Google Should Be Logging In To Facebook 95

Posted by Soulskill from the playing-nice-with-the-other-loudmouth dept.
Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes "Facebook indirectly accused Google of creating dummy accounts to log in and spider information from their site, and Google denied the charge. But if Google wants to help users discover what strangers can find out about them, then spidering Facebook with dummy accounts is exactly what they should be doing." Read on for the rest of his thoughts.
Space

Massive Explosion On the Sun 202

Posted by Soulskill from the reminds-me-that-our-sun-is-a-molten-deathsplosion-factory dept.
Endoflow2010 sends word of an enormous eruption that occurred on the Sun this morning. Phil Plait describes it thus: "What you’re seeing here is a solar flare (an enormous explosion of pent-up magnetic energy) coupled with a prominence (a physical eruption of gas from the surface). This event blasted something like a billion tons of material away from the Sun. Note the size of it, too: while it started from a small region on the Sun’s surface, it quickly expanded into a plume easily as big as the Sun itself! I’d estimate its size at well over a million kilometers across." The attached video is well worth watching.
Wikipedia

Palin Fans Deface Paul Revere Wikipedia Page 767

Posted by CmdrTaco from the you-can't-make-this-up dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Fans of Sarah Palin were found to be changing the article on Paul Revere to make it fit their idol's view that Paul Revere was not warning the American colonists that the British were coming, but rather warning the British were not 'going to taking away our [guns]'."
Image

Book Review -- JavaScript: the Definitive Guide, 6th Edition Screenshot-sm 109

Posted by Roblimo from the knowledge-tools-for-everyday-life dept.
Michael J. Ross writes "Released during the early days of the Web, in 1995, JavaScript has come a long way: Initially a client-side scripting language typically (mis)used for decorative effects, it is now an essential part of countless major websites. Its increasing capabilities and popularity are due to several factors, including the development of libraries that resolve earlier stumbling blocks that held the language back (such as inconsistencies among the implementations in different vendors' browsers). JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, authored by David Flanagan, was first published just one year later, in 1996, with several significant updates made since then." Read below for the rest of Michael's review
Media

Comcast Helps Fix Pirate Bay Connection Problems 237

Posted by timothy from the ok-that's-your-story dept.
MagusSlurpy writes "Far from blocking The Pirate Bay, Comcast was just one of several ISPs on which TPB was unreachable today. Comcast reached out to the torrent site, and its engineers provided technical support, eventually determining that the connectivity issues stemmed from a reverse path filtering issue at an intermediate ISP, Serious Tubes Networks."
Novell

Attachmate Fires Mono Developers 362

Posted by timothy from the and-there-there-were-none dept.
darthcamaro writes "Love it or hate it, Novell's open source Mono project has inspired a lot of debate over the last 7 years. Mono brings .NET to Linux, with some interesting patent connections. The project is now at a crossroads, with news today that Attachmate had laid off the US based development team for Mono."
Cloud

VMware Causes Second Outage While Recovering From First 215

Posted by Soulskill from the third-time's-a-charm dept.
jbrodkin writes "VMware's new Cloud Foundry service was online for just two weeks when it suffered its first outage, caused by a power failure. Things got really interesting the next day, when a VMware employee accidentally caused a second, more serious outage while a VMware team was writing up a plan of action to recover from future power loss incidents. An inadvertent press of a key on a keyboard led to 'a full outage of the network infrastructure [that] took out all load balancers, routers, and firewalls... and resulted in a complete external loss of connectivity to Cloud Foundry.' Clearly, human error is still a major factor in cloud networks."

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