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Graphics

Submission + - Picture scaling error in graphical softwares (4p8.com)

Submitted by
Eric Brasseur
Eric Brasseur writes: "Every picture scaling software I could test makes a gross error: the gamma of the picture being scaled is not taken into account. This makes that for example a pixel that should be at 50% brightness can get only 22% brightness. Depending on the kind of picture, the damage can be quite important. I wrote a page to explain the whole: www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma.html"
The Internet

Submission + - Pssst...Wanna buy a data center? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "So what do you do with 250 servers and thousands of terabytes of data storage when nobody else wants it? Auction it online what else? High-tech online asset liquidator Rasmus Auctioneers is prepping $15 million worth brand new — still in the box data center gear that was dumped in its lap from a Department of the Interior lease cancellation. The entire lot, which includes Egenera blade servers, EMC Centera Servers and ADIC Digital Tape Libraries is online today to be sold to the highest bidder regardless of price. The inventory will be sold by internet-only auction at 2 pm eastern time on Wednesday, September 12, 2007. "The liquidation will be like an e-bay sale on steroids," Rasmus said on a statement. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18901"
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Maybe Bioshock's Activation is a Good Thing

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: While the rest of the internet is decrying the past week of installation woes for 2K's Bioshock as the worst fumble in PC game launch history, Shawn Andrich at Gamers With Jobs thinks 2K has won a battle against pirates here, and we should be happy about it. In his piece provocatively titled "How 2k Games and Bioshock Took Back the West" he suggests:

This may be the first real strike against pirates in some time that actually slows them down without completely alienating paying customers. Even if they were to crack the game today, the damage has already been done. The lure of getting the game first has come and gone, leaving casual pirates who enjoy downloading games from their favorite sites left choosing between patience and spending their money. Even the most hardcore, savvy game pirates have little recourse short of buying the game or, oddly enough, modifying their Xbox 360. In an interesting switch, the Xbox 360 version of Bioshock was hacked and made available for download on major torrent sites on release day.
It's such a thin line between complete victory and utter ruin.
Data Storage

Submission + - WD Scorpio Drive, 250 Gigs For Notebooks (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "2.5" mobile hard drives don't get nearly as much coverage as their more common 3.5" counterparts, but there have been significant advances made in this space that warrant some attention. Western Digital, for example, has released a high-capacity 250GB 2.5" SATA hard drive, the Scorpio WD2500BEVS, that sports a few proprietary technologies dubbed WhisperDrive, ShockGuard, and SecurePark, that improve the drive's acoustic profile, power consumption, and durability. And despite being a 5400RPM drive, its performance characteristics put it well ahead of most other 2.5" drives with similar spindle speeds and just behind a full-sized desktop hard drive running at 7200RPM. With hard drive speeds being the limiting performance factor in many instances, a drive like this could make for a worthwhile notebook upgrade."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - New Haven: Flour is a felony (www.ctv.ca) 1

Submitted by
seebs
seebs writes: "According to the city of New Haven, Connecticut, the best response to people marking a running trail with flour is felony charges. Apparently, someone decided it was possible that the substance was in some way bad, and that made it a bioterrorism scare. According to email I got from the city, they react "aggressively and without hesitation to any act or behavior that is determined to be dangerous, unusual, or a threat to the public's safety". My advice would be not to go there; if you do something unusual, they could charge you with a breach of the peace."
Media

Submission + - "Viacom hit me for infringing my own copyright (blogspot.com) 2

Submitted by
Chris Knight
Chris Knight writes: "Long story short: I ran for school board where I live this past fall and created some TV commercials including this one with a "Star Wars" theme. A few months ago VH1 grabbed the commercial from YouTube and featured it in a segment of its show "Web Junk 2.0". Neither VH1 or its parent company Viacom told me they were doing this or asked my permission to use it, but I didn't mind it if they did. It was great to see the commercial was being enjoyed by a far wider audience than I'd expected. I was honored that they chose to use it and thought that Aries Spears's commentary about it was pretty hilarious, so I posted a clip of VH1's segment on YouTube so that I could put it on my blog. This morning I got an e-mail from YouTube saying that the video has been pulled because Viacom is claiming that I'm violating its copyright. Viacom used my video without permission on their commercial television show, and now says that I am infringing on THEIR copyright for showing the clip of the work that Viacom made in violation of my own copyright! Talk about chutzpah! Needless to say, I would like to fight this: not for any kind of monetary compensation, but just for the right to employ my own self-created material per Fair Use."
NASA

Submission + - Sea level rise (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by
mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "NASA's James Hansen has been getting attention recently on blogs. There was an uproar over which year was the hottest in the US and now a newspaper article from the Globe and Mail is stiring the pot some more. But, all the ad hominem may be misplaced. While the newspaper article attributes the view that sea level rise could be 25 meters by the end of this century to a new paper by Hansen and co-workers, the paper itself only suggests the possibility of a few meters of sea level rise by the end of the century. So, the headline that is getting abuse does not reflect the facts. There is big news in the paper though. Because there is little evidence for ice sheets lingering after the global temperature has risen, as is usually assumed in models, it is appropriate to include albedo changes sooner in climate models. This appears to reduce the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration at which dangerous climate change occurs to below 450 ppm, the usually adopted value. Because of this, the paper suggests that sequestering carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere may be needed to avoid dangerous climate change. This is a shift from saying that emissions reductions alone could do the job. How to do it is the $25 million question."
Privacy

Submission + - Rep. Berman Doing Mafiaa Bidding (As Usual) (variety.com)

Submitted by
Panaqqa
Panaqqa writes: "Howard Berman, the Representative from Disney, is once again trying to turn ISPs into part of the RIAA/MPAA's extortion and shakedown juggernaut by requiring them to pass along threatening letters to subscribers that use P2P. This is quite alarming, coming as it does from the head of the house Intellectual Property Committee. Many P2P lawsuits are based on very flimsy evidence, such as an IP address alone. One can only hope that more defendants have positive outcomes such as winning back their attorney's fees."
Microsoft

Submission + - Irregularities reported in OOXML ISO process (europa.eu)

Submitted by Basile Schaeli
Basile Schaeli writes: Irregularities are being reported in national standardisation bodies of several EU member states that are deciding how to vote on OOXML. Participants found issues in the voting process in Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands.
Music

Submission + - HMV Canada Cut's music CD prices because of piracy 1

Submitted by umStefa
umStefa writes: For the last few years the music industry has claimed that reduced CD sales are the result of piracy, while slashdotters have constantly defended piracy on the grounds that main stream music was overpriced. Well know the largest music retailer in Canada has gone and cut their prices on CD's to try and increase sales (CBC article). If successful could this spur music stores in other countries to reduce their prices? and could it have an effect on piracy rates? or is this simply a move destined to fail (by not increasing CD sales), thereby giving the music industry ammunition to get governments to pass legislation that will support their outdated business model. Only time will tell.
Editorial

Submission + - 2 Years Later, Engineers Ready for Katrina 2.0? (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by mattnyc99
mattnyc99 writes: Wednesday marks two years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans. It also marks two years (and $7.1 billion) that the Army Corps of Engineers has had to fail at rebuilding the Bayou. Now that they're asking for another four years (and $7.6 billion more), a leading engineer, who wrote the definitive investigation for the National Science Foundation on why the levees failed in the first place, has an op-ed for Popular Mechanics proposing three big steps to re-engineer the Gulf Coast and prevent "Katrina 2.0." This all begs the question: Can we still trust the Army Corps of Engineers?
Java

Submission + - Java SOA picking up, .NET slowing down (itjungle.com)

Submitted by dwarfking
dwarfking writes: There have been some pretty lively debates recently on Slashdot about whether Java is dying or not. This article discusses a survey that shows Java use for SOA going up while .NET use is dropping.

What was interesting though is the comment

"There's currently a lot of activity in the open source world, and particularly in the Eclipse communities, around SOA" says John Andrews, chief executive officer at Evans Data. "Most of the major players in that space are introducing new solutions aimed at SOA, and they are almost invariably Java-based. Open source SOA looks poised to become a real force in the industry and consequently a serious contender to .NET."


So is it the Eclipse tool which is able to compete with Visual Studio, or simply because Java is not vendor locked that is driving this?
Education

Submission + - Banning internet programming in schools 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Clark County School District in southern Nevada is proud to be the fifth largest school district in the U.S. In the past 5 years they have spent dozens of millions of dollars to build out a state of the art fiber network to deliver cutting edge media delivery to most schools in the district. They are trying to move every school onto their district-wide VoIP telephone system. They are aggressively pursuing grants and other sources of funding to keep their extensive computer labs stocked with modern hardware. In the district's Technology Plan, the introductory Vision Statement states, " Through the effective integration of technology, our schools will provide learning experiences which are active, personalized, involve teamwork, and focus on solving real-world problems." In enumerating the district's goals, the Technology Plan further states, "Goal 1: All students and teachers will have access to information technology in their classrooms, schools, and communities."

Over the last two years the principal at the local high school banned all computer programming classes. The school's technical computer efforts have been decimated. Now that the principal has been promoted to another school, some in the community are trying to rebuild. However, word comes that the school district has banned all "web programming" education. Any programming classes related to the internet are forbidden. This doesn't seem to line up with Goal 3: "All students will have technology and information literacy skills as aligned with national/state standards and district goals."

The Clark County High School Curriculum Guide certainly neglects technology and information literacy completely. What national standards are there for "technology and information literacy skills"? What standards should there be?
Windows

Submission + - Microsoft buys the Swedish vote on OOXML (os2world.com)

Submitted by CoolCat
CoolCat writes: From the site: "As bad as it sound it currently looks like that the vote that took place at the SIS, Swedish Standards Institute, was a total joke due to the facts that 23 new companies applied to take part of today's voting and most of them in favour of Microsoft agenda. One would think that SIS would not accept new companies to participate in the vote since they haven't been part of the earlier discussions and meetings. But according to SIS they didn't see any problem that new companies wanted to take part in this vote without prior notice. So what happened here is that Microsoft gather together a bunch of loyal partners that would vote yes to their standard without any questions."
Censorship

Submission + - School board unanimouly votes for censorship (wausaudailyherald.com)

Submitted by flathom
flathom writes: Students and teachers in the Merrill Area School District this year could face discipline at school for on-line communications that came from the privacy of their homes. Disciplinary action for students ranges from a warning to expulsion until the age of 21. Employees can be fired for violating district policy.

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