chennes - Slashdot User

Submission + - Follow up to InvSqrt() story

Submitted by on Thursday December 21, 2006 @02:29AM

An anonymous reader writes: Beyond 3d has posted a follow up to the InvSqrt() story here:
http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/fastinvsqrt2

Slashdot ran a link to the original story December 1:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/0 1/184205&from=rss

Submission + - Shuttle possibly to land in New Mexico.

Submitted by

2443W

on Thursday December 21, 2006 @01:08AM

2443W writes: "Newscientists reports that due to a forecast of bad weather in both California and Florida NASA is readying the landing site at White Sands New Mexico for a possible landing there. A landing has only been done at White Sands once before, with STS-3 in 1982. In addition to the problems presented in transferring the orbiter back to Florida landing at White Sands also presents the problem of gypsum dust which can contaminate thermal tiles and foul equipment."

Submission + - Should changing grades ruin your future?

Submitted by

Neutari

on Thursday December 21, 2006 @12:41AM

Neutari writes: "From the Miami herald

The president of the senior class at Cooper City High School was arrested Tuesday on charges that he used passwords he found to break into the school district computer system and change grades. Ryan Shrouder, 18, faces two counts of a computer crime with intent to defraud, a second-degree felony after his arrest at school. He was released from the Broward County Jail after posting $5,000 bond. Each count is punishable by five years in prison.

"Investigators said he made the changes with his laptop, which was issued to him by the school district for his role as an alternate student advisor to the Broward School Board. Shrouder found a list of district log-ons, user names and passwords on the desk of a school computer technology specialist in October, according to the BSO report."

Recently, he was voted "most likely to become president" of the United States. And even more recently, he was arrested and charged with breaking into the school district's computer system and changing the grades of 19 students.

Yup, his classmates were right. This kid looks as if he's ready for a career in politics after all."

Submission + - EBay's Bid to Go Beyond Auctions Disappoints

Submitted by

Carl Bialik from WSJ

on Wednesday December 20, 2006 @08:01PM

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes: "eBay is having trouble attracting online shoppers with its new fixed-price sales site, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Jonathan Garriss, executive director of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, an independent group of eBay sellers, estimates eBay Express accounts for less than 1% of sales for the group's more than 1,000 members, who together sell more than $1 billion a year in merchandise. And while eBay's main auction site attracted more consumer visits than any other online retailer in November, eBay Express was at No. 87 on the list of top shopping and classified sites, according to research firm Hitwise Pty. Ltd.'"

Submission + - Cooling 35 servers... In your bedroom?

Submitted by

Nullpoint

on Wednesday December 20, 2006 @06:23PM

Nullpoint writes: "I have recently acquired a VERY old IBM 42u rack mount. A good friend of mine is the head of Infosec for a very large corporation in the area who cycle their servers every two years to maintain their budget, because of this I have come into the possession of 36 IBM xSeries 335 DUAL P4 XEON 2.4Ghz 1U Blade Servers to fit into this rack. All of this is currently sitting in my bedroom in my apartment. Chances are I am going to sell all of these off on eBay, but first I want to get them all running. This is every geek's wet dream, so I want to play with them for a while. Everything runs great until the apartment starts to heat up to the point the servers shut off. My AC is running on max. The rack is completely enclosed except for the front, and has a small vent on the back. This, obviously, causes issues with heat. I cant afford a new rack, and I am looking for cost effective (And preferably) creative solutions. Any ideas?"

Submission + - [Announcement]: GNU Herds - Free Software Associat

Submitted by

GNU Herds work team

on Wednesday December 20, 2006 @05:25PM

GNU Herds work team writes: "http://www.gnuherds.org/

GNU Herds is a not-for-profit and true-democratic association which aims to encourage the professional development of Free Software contributors.

Job Site modules have been developed to take in contact professionals and companies interested in doing business.

The management of the Job Site is controlled by its own users using the democratic policy.

Other modules can be developed under the association management.

Regards,
The work team"

Journal Journal: Reccomend a Free/Cheap CAD program for home design

Journal by FatSean on Wednesday December 20, 2006 @04:29PM

I recently purchased a home, and have no blueprints for it. I would like to be able to create a model of the house and systems on my computer so that I can easily reference it. I'd like to map out electrical circuits and fixtures, plumbing, doors, walls, etc. Being able to associate appropriate specs to a fixture (e.g. watts consumed, flow rate, etc) would be great.

Submission + - XFPS 360 Released

Submitted by Croakyvoice on Wednesday December 20, 2006 @02:04PM

Croakyvoice writes: Fans of Xbox 360 First Person Shooters can now play FPS Games the way god intended with the release of the XFPS 360, "The XFPS 360 is here to present Xbox 360 gamers with the ultimate way to play FPS titles — with a Mouse & Keyboard! That's right one technologically advanced converting device which intelligently re-maps controls onto either a standard PS/2 or USB keyboard and mouse. Its pure plug and play heaven from the word 'go', the transition from PC FPS guru to Xbox 360 FPS champ is virtually seamless. The XFPS 360 is suitable for gamers of any skill level, 'newbie's' can at last score their first frag and 'pro's' can fire out those virtual bullets in a style Rambo himself would admire."

Submission + - University Professor Defends Division By Zero

Submitted by on Tuesday December 12, 2006 @11:46AM

An anonymous reader writes: Dr James Anderson of The University of Reading has defended his claims about division by zero and his new number "nullity". He answers criticism about comparisons with NaN as well as proofs that other people have offered in an effort to counter his claims among other things.

Submission + - Wikipedia attempts to delete Slashdot

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12, 2006 @11:25AM

An anonymous reader writes: The wikipedia article about Slashdot has been nominated for deletion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_fo r_deletion/Slashdot However most of the contributers to the debate want to keep the article. It has been nominated for deletion as part of Wikipedia's attempts to make sure all articles have proper sources.

Submission + - Cool Holiday Gadgets for Your Home

Submitted by autobotguy123 on Tuesday December 12, 2006 @10:08AM

autobotguy123 writes: Check out this page where you can build your own holiday gadgets, very useful for any do-it yourself enthusiasts out there! Build an automatic tree watering system, create an exciting light display, build a Christmas tree light tester and much more! All the gadgets include part lists and instructions on how to build them. http://www.designnews.com/article/CA6397268.html

Submission + - Help find the dead on music industry petition

Submitted by

rimberg

on Tuesday December 12, 2006 @08:53AM

rimberg writes: "The Open Rights Group (Think EFF in the UK) are asking for help finding dead people who have miraculously managed to sign a music industry petition calling for extending the length of copyright term on sound recordings. As pointed out by Larry Lessig, at least two of the people listed Freddie Garrity and Lonnie Donegan are dead. They have a scan of the ad currently chopped into four bits, that they would like people to look over and report any names from beyond the grave."

Submission + - Why is so much radiation being found in London?

Submitted by

MattSparkes

on Tuesday December 12, 2006 @08:39AM

MattSparkes writes: "The police have found lots of Polonium 210 contaminated areas in London, in the wake of the poisoning of a former Russian spy. Why is so much being found? "Who is this clumsy guy who appears to have been freely shaking the expensive radioactive material around?" It seems that there is a scientific reason, in the nature of the material, that explains why so many areas have become contaminated."

Submission + - PSP astroturfing

Submitted by mike260 on Tuesday December 12, 2006 @01:29AM

mike260 writes: Joystiq calls shenannigans on a PSP 'fansite' purporting to be written by a pair of kids (the site's domain is actually owned by a marketting company named Zipatoni). What makes this noteworthy is the hilariously poor quality of their work. Sony ads are presented as homemade 'Christmas cards', the txt-speak is badly misjudged, and the video of 'cousin Pete' laying down some PSP-related 'crazy beatz and rhymes' is beyond belief. The 'kids' blog is already flooded with outraged comments, despite half-baked attempts to filter posts containing words like 'Zipatoni' and 'marketting'.

Journal Journal: The Math behind PageRank 131

Journal by anaesthetica on Wednesday December 06, 2006 @03:55PM

The American Mathematical Society is featuring an article with an in-depth explanation of the type of mathematical operations that power PageRank. Because about 95% of the text on the 25 billion pages indexed by Google consist of the same 10,000 words, determining relevance requires an extremely sophisticated set of methods. And because the links constituting the web are constantly changing a

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