Submission + - Oracle acquires SUN (oracle.com)
tsailaja writes: Oracle and Sun have enteres a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun fo $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 Billion
Submission + - Europe on the brink of ending Net neutrality (rudd-o.com)
Rudd-O writes: "According to the Telekompaketet Web site, a new EU directive is about to be voted on that would allow ISPs to tier the Internet (both across types of services and across specific sites) just as it was proposed one year ago. We need to act, and we need to act fast."
Submission + - Stephen Hawking Is Hospitalized
McGruber writes: The Wall Street Journal is reporting (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124024051155535173.html) that Stephen Hawking, age 67, has been rushed to a hospital and is seriously ill.
Submission + - Bohemian Rhapsody on Old Hardware (adafruit.com)
eldavojohn writes: The sweet sweet melodies of Queen and the late Freddie Mercury are reproduced by hardware possibly as older than the song is. From the link: 'There are millions of computers sitting idle at home consuming fantom electricity. Let's see where all that power is going. This is dedicated to all fans of Queen and hey let's not forget about Mike Myers and Dana Carvey of Wayne's World. Please note no effects or sampling was used. What you see is what you hear (does that even make sense?) Atari 800XL was used for the lead piano/organ sound, Texas Instruments TI-99/4a as lead guitar, 8 Inch Floppy Disk as Bass, 3.5 inch Harddrive as the gong, HP ScanJet 3C was used for all vocals. Please note I had to record the HP scanner 4 seperate times for each voice. I tried to buy 4 HP scanners but for some reason sellers on E-Bay expect you to pay $80-$100, I got mine for $30.'
Submission + - Congressman Cites Scripture in Hearing on Climate
neanderslob writes: An Illinois congressman,John Shimkus's, cited the Bible as evidence that man-made climate change is not a threat to our planet at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment last week. Stating that "Only God decides when the Earth will end," Shimkus's remarks demonstrate the nonsense that the rational among us must penetrate in order to have an honest and productive discussion about climate change. http://forcechange.com/2009/04/04/congressman-god-decides-when-the-earth-will-end/
Submission + - Amazon disables your hardware.
armada writes: Amazon disables a customer's Kindle account for an unrelated issue involving "too many returns" rendering his ebook reader borderline useless. DRM strikes again.
http://consumerist.com/5213774/amazon-can-ban-you-from-your-kindle-account-whenever-it-likes
Submission + - Obama unveils high-speed passenger rail plan (washingtonpost.com) 1
ozgood writes: President Obama unveiled his administration's blueprint for a new national network of high-speed passenger rail lines Thursday, saying such an investment is necessary to reduce traffic congestion, cut dependence on foreign oil and improve the environment.
His plan would be funded in part through the recently passed $787 billion stimulus plan, which includes a total of $8 billion for improvements in rail service. Obama has also proposed a separate five-year, $5 billion investment in high-speed rail as part of the administration's suggested fiscal year 2010 budget.
The city of Chicago, Illinois, would be the hub of the proposed Midwest Regional Rail System, which would stretch to Madison, Wisconsin, in the Northwest; St. Louis, Missouri, in the South; and Detroit, Michigan, in the East.
His plan would be funded in part through the recently passed $787 billion stimulus plan, which includes a total of $8 billion for improvements in rail service. Obama has also proposed a separate five-year, $5 billion investment in high-speed rail as part of the administration's suggested fiscal year 2010 budget.
The city of Chicago, Illinois, would be the hub of the proposed Midwest Regional Rail System, which would stretch to Madison, Wisconsin, in the Northwest; St. Louis, Missouri, in the South; and Detroit, Michigan, in the East.
His plan would be funded in part through the recently passed $787 billion stimulus plan, which includes a total of $8 billion for improvements in rail service. Obama has also proposed a separate five-year, $5 billion investment in high-speed rail as part of the administration's suggested fiscal year 2010 budget.
Submission + - Why IT Won't Power Down PCs (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: "Internal politics and poor leadership on sustainable IT strategies are among the top reasons preventing organizations from practicing proper PC power management — to the tune of $2.8 billion wasted per year powering unused PCs. According to a recent survey, 42 percent of IT shops do not manage PC energy consumption simply because no one in the organization has been made responsible for doing so — this despite greater awareness of IT power-saving myths, and PC power myths in particular. Worse, 22 percent of IT admins surveyed said that savings from PC power management 'flow to another department's budget.' In other words, resources spent by IT vs. the permanent energy crisis appear to result in little payback for IT."
Submission + - Jagex's new sci-fi MMORPG to abandon 'grinding' (mechscapeworld.com)
OtakuPersona writes: Jagex, creators of the browser-based MMORPG RuneScape, have claimed that their upcoming sci-fi MMORPG MechScape will be different to all other MMOGs on the market. They investigated other sci-fi MMOs to identify why they were often so unsuccessful and "discovered that these games were nothing more than fantasy mechanics dressed in a sci-fi wrapper. Having a set of skills that you level up through grinding is basically a fantasy mechanic. So from here they identified what game mechanics make a good sci-fi game, and they have developed most of these as completely unique features that have never been seen in any MMO before".
While Jagex have been reluctant to say much about the project code named MechScape, fans have done a good job of bringing together all of the official and unofficial statements on the game. So read Ren's MechScape Research Summary to find out everything there is to know about what Jagex expect to release later this year.
While Jagex have been reluctant to say much about the project code named MechScape, fans have done a good job of bringing together all of the official and unofficial statements on the game. So read Ren's MechScape Research Summary to find out everything there is to know about what Jagex expect to release later this year.
Submission + - Lose Your Amazon Account And Your Kindle Dies (mobileread.com)
Mike writes: "If you buy a Kindle and some Kindle ebooks from Amazon, be careful of returning items. Amazon decided that one person had returned too many things, so they suspended his Amazon account, which meant that he could no longer buy any Kindle books, and any Kindle subscriptions he's paid for stop working. After some phone calls, Amazon granted him a one-time exception and reactivated his account again. How many people know that when you buy a Kindle, you are really buying a service, and that service can be turned off at a whim? Is it reasonable that the Kindle is so closely tethered to Amazon this way, and that they can invalidate purchases made after the fact?"
Submission + - Duke Nukem Forever Reaches Development Milestone 1
mlauzon writes: "If you told your spouse that the two of you would be together until Duke Nukem Forever hit shelves in an attempt to be absolutely precious, it might be time to start sweating. According to a tweet by 3D Realms man George Broussard, Duke Nukem Forever's unending development cycle may soon be leaving the death-and-taxes consistency club.
"Closing out a milestone this week. 71 more tasks to do and we started with probably 800-900. Been a good push. Next one starts Monday," he tweeted.
After some rudimentary math, we've determined that — assuming development continues at a nice clip — Duke will be back in business sometime next year. Guess the Mayans were a little off with their apocalypse calculations.
Maximum PC"
"Closing out a milestone this week. 71 more tasks to do and we started with probably 800-900. Been a good push. Next one starts Monday," he tweeted.
After some rudimentary math, we've determined that — assuming development continues at a nice clip — Duke will be back in business sometime next year. Guess the Mayans were a little off with their apocalypse calculations.
Maximum PC"
Submission + - Coders: Your Days Are Numbered (infoworld.com) 2
snydeq writes: "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister argues that communication skills, not coding skills, are a developer's greatest asset in a bear economy. 'Too many software development teams are still staffed like secretarial pools. Ideas are generated at the top and then passed downward through general managers, product managers, technical leads, and team leads. Objectives are carved up into deliverables, which are parceled off to coders, often overseas,' McAllister writes. 'The idea that this structure can be sustainable, when the U.S. private sector shed three-quarters of a million jobs in March 2009 alone, is simple foolishness.' Instead, companies should emulate the open source model of development, shifting decision-making power to the few developers with the deepest architectural understanding of, and closest interaction with, the code. And this shift will require managers to look beyond résumés 'choked with acronyms and lists of technologies' to find those who 'can understand, influence, and guide development efforts, rather than simply taking dictation.'"
Comment Re:Confounding Variable (Score 1) 381
The average age for women to have children is 25. I would assume the average age for men to become fathers is higher?
This would definitely factor in. The lack of sleep alone is a major factor..
Bookworm ePub Reader Gets Boost From O'Reilly 59
stoolpigeon writes in with news that ought to kindle Amazon's attention: "O'Reilly announced recently that they are now hosting Bookworm, an online ePub reader. ePub is composed of three open standards (OPS, OPF, and OCF) that allow users a great amount of flexibility without any lock-in. Bookworm lets users upload ePub files, read them online from a PC or mobile device, and also export them to mobile devices that support ePub. Bookworm can also export directly to Stanza. Once a user has uploaded their ePub books to Bookworm, they can track progress through them even across multiple devices."
Ontario Court Wrong About IP Addresses, Too 258
Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton comments on a breaking news story out of the Canadian courts:
"An Ontario Superior Court Justice has ruled that Canadian police can obtain the identities of Internet users without a warrant, writing that there is 'no reasonable expectation of privacy' for a user's online identity, and drawing the analogy that 'One's name and address or the name and address of your spouse are not biographical information one expects would be kept private from the state.' But why in the world is it valid to compare an IP address with a street address in the phone book?"
Read on for Bennett's analysis.
