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Government

Submission + - Ecuador Decrees Government Must Use Free Software (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
Glyn Moody
Glyn Moody writes: "Ecuador has made free software the default option for government systems: "The President of the Republic, Rafael Correa, by decree [Spanish PDF] no. 1014 of April 10, 2008, establishes as public policy for institutions of the central administration the use of free software in their computer systems and equipment." There are only three circumstances in which proprietary programs can be used: when there is no suitable open source solution, when national security is "at risk", or when a computer project is at a "point of no return"."
The Internet

Submission + - Internet Sites Biased Towards Supporting Suicide (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by
Believe It Or Not, I Care About You
Believe It Or Not, I Care About You writes: "According to a new study in the British Medical Journal which examined the search results for various suicide-related search terms, the most common results supported or encouraged suicide. Perhaps not surprisingly, Wikipedia was one of the most prevalent sources of information, particularly on suicide methods, although the Wikimedia Foundation itself does not encourage suicide. This might be just another study if not for the mention that other studies have proven that media coverage has an effect on suicide, particularly with respect to influencing the methods chosen. That notion, in turn, has lead some countries to use or consider censorship as part of their approach, even though it has not been proven to be effective. Interestingly, this study notes that suicide rates actually decreased with increased web usage in England, perhaps because support is readily available to anyone who wants it."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Shrine to the Laser Gods (wired.com)

Submitted by ArgyleSocks
ArgyleSocks writes: In the laboratory of Zhan Chen, a professor at the University of Michigan, some students built a shrine to the lasers they depend upon — hoping that some benevolent deity would grant them enough data to eventually graduate. According to Andy Boughton, a sign under the St. Jude Figurine says, "Danger! Bright ray in use." In Klingon.
The Internet

Submission + - Large Hadron Collider gears up for Huge Data Flows 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Live Science has an interesting story on the flood of information that will pour from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's next-generation particle accelerator, an underground ring 27 kilometers around located at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, starting in mid-2008. Detectors stationed around the LHC ring will produce 15 trillion gigabytes of data every year, data that will be farmed out to computing centers worldwide. In the LHC computing model, data from the experiments will flow through tiers. The Tier 0 center at CERN takes the data directly from the experiments, stores a copy and sends it to Tier 1 sites. The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment has seven Tier 1 sites in seven nations, and each site partitions its portion of the data based on the types of particles detected and sends these sub-samples off to one of the 30 CMS Tier 2 sites where researchers and students finally get their hands on the data. "We are really good at moving data from Fermilab to our Tier 2 center," says physicist Ken Bloom at the University of Nebaska where scientists have achieved the fastest rates for any Tier 1-to-Tier 2 connection worldwide. "We can manage a terabyte an hour easily, and a terabyte in half an hour is possible.""
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go? (eweek.com)

Submitted by
eweekhickins
eweekhickins writes: "Fewer women are working in IT in 2008 than in 2000. Why is that? Does it have to do with the bug juice they're doling out in elementary school cafeterias? How will the U.S. IT industry keep pace with the rest of the world if it's half the employment pool is out doing something else?"
Biotech

Submission + - Do Fruit Flies have Free Will? (brembs.net)

Submitted by matt4077
matt4077 writes: Researchers at the Free University of Berlin are modeling the behaviour of fruit flies. As it turns out, their flying patterns are not completely random, nor deterministic. Quote: "I would have never guessed that simple flies who keep bouncing off the same window otherwise have the capacity for nonrandom spontaneity if given the chance." There's also a video of Drosophila in the flight simulator.
Networking

Submission + - Iceland woos data centres as power costs soar

Submitted by call-me-kenneth
call-me-kenneth writes: Business Week covers the soaring demand for power and cooling capacity in data centres — electricty consumption for US data centres more than doubled between 2000 and 2006. Among the other stats: for every $1 spent on computing equipment in data centers, an additional 50 cents is spent each year to power and cool them; and half the electricity used goes on cooling. Iceland, with it's cool climate and cheap power galore, is courting big users like Google and Microsoft as a future DC location. (Can't help thinking they're gonna need a bigger cable first, though...)
Cellphones

Submission + - Cell Phones to be Allowed on Planes 1

Submitted by
Matty the Monkey
Matty the Monkey writes: "The use of mobiles on planes flying in European airspace has been given approval by UK regulator Ofcom. It has issued plans that will allow airlines to offer mobile services on UK-registered aircraft. The decision means that mobiles could be used once a plane has reached an altitude of 3,000m or more. But airlines keen to offer the services must still satisfy other regulators about how the hardware will be used. From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7314362.stm"
Security

Submission + - Linux v. Windows Security, Part Deux

Submitted by
Richard Ford
Richard Ford writes: "A few years ago, Herbert Thompson (see: http://www.peoplesecurity.com/) and I gave a presentation at RSA in San Francisco regarding a study of the relative security of Windows and Linux (see http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/17/1616232&from=rss for the last discussion here). I'm giving a similar talk this year with Jeff Jones (Wednesday April 9th, session HT2-202), of Microsoft (see: http://blogs.technet.com/security/). Once again, I'm trying to represent the Linux side of things. As a few Slashdotters wanted to tar and feather me last time, I thought it might be interesting to try and gather the very best comments here *before* the talk and I'll do my best to represent them on a slide or two at RSA. I'll be around all this week and next, and will try to respond to every single point made. Once we're done, I'll put the best arguments I can together on a "Slashdot" slide :) So, here's my question to the community: what are the best arguments regarding the relative security of Windows in comparison to Linux? Is the question even meaningful? If you were going to speak on the difference between Windows and Linux from a security perspective, what would you say?"
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Virtualization makes Apple's Xserve a liability (networkperformancedaily.com)

Submitted by
boyko.at.netqos
boyko.at.netqos writes: "Network application developers can can code apps on either the Unix or Windows Server platforms and because of virtualization, be assured that almost any enterprise will have a way to run the app. But since Leopard Server can only run on an Xserve or be virtualized on an Xserve (while Unix and Windows can also be virtualized on an Xserve) there's no incentive for enterprise application developers to code for the Leopard Server platform. Is Apple making a tactical mistake by taking technical measures to prevent virtualization of MacOSX? From the article:

Enterprise application developers know today that they can pretty much choose their choice of platform. Have a Linux app but want to sell it to a Windows shop? Virtualization comes to the rescue. Windows applications on a Unix flavor? Again, same deal... But this incentive does not exist for the Macintosh platform. Who would develop a networked server application for the Macintosh platform knowing that you can only sell it to a company that made a big investment in Xserves? Especially since you can just code it for Linux or Windows and let Apple-only shops run it in virtualization.
"

Feed Science Daily: Threatened Atlantic Leatherback Turtles Split Into Two Groups To Forage, Isotope (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
The beaches of French Guiana constitute a major reproduction site for leatherback turtles. This sea turtle, although a protected species, is threatened by human activity. Female turtles return to the same beach every two to three years to lay their eggs; what happens in the interval remains a mystery. In a new study a group of French and Belgian scientists found that the turtles segregate into two distinct feeding units.


Java

Submission + - GPL Violations

Submitted by joed1971
joed1971 writes: OpenNMS has retained Moglen Ravicher, LLC (a for-profit law firm organized by the Software Freedom Law Center and run to support their non-profit operations) to represent us with respect to issues relating to GPL license violations of OpenNMS code by the Cittio Watchtower product.

http://blogs.opennms.org/?p=181
http://www.opennms.org/

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