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Comment Re:From the license... (Score 1) 419

by gyepi (#29123539) Attached to: Behind Menuet, an OS Written Entirely In Assembly
From TFA:

The 32-bit version of Menuet was released under the GPL, but the 64-bit version uses a non-open-source licence that is free for "personal and educational use". Why did you decide to licence the 64-bit version differently? Has this had any impact on encouraging people to join the effort?

Ville: With a completely new type of open source project, people seem to have strong opinions about what direction to take. Even up to a point when time is actually spent more with disputes than doing the actual coding. And when that happened, I decided to concentrate more on the original path of Menuet with the 64-bit version and with a new type of license. However, I don't have anything against open source or possibly opening up the Menuet64 source later. But with the current licence, I'd say the people are a bit more committed and willing to put more effort in to a new feature.
Security

Secret US List of Civil Nuclear Sites Released 167

Posted by Soulskill from the no-harm-no-foul-right dept.
eldavojohn writes "Someone accidentally released a 266-page report on hundreds of sites in the US for stockpiling and storing hazardous nuclear materials for civilian use. While some ex-officials and experts don't find it to be a serious breach, the Federation of American Scientists are calling it a 'a one-stop shop for information on US nuclear programs.' The document contains information about Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia, and opinions seem to be split on whether it's a harmless list or terrorist risk. One thing is for sure: it was taken down after the New York Times inquired to the Government Accountability Office about it."
Earth

Bacteria Could Help Stop Desertification 218

Posted by samzenpus from the bactine-bulldozers dept.
Bridgette Steffen writes "In attempt to slow down desertification, a student at London's Architectural Association has proposed a 6000 km sandstone wall that will not only act as a break across the Sahara Desert, but also serve as refugee shelter. Last fall it won first prize in the Holcim Foundation's Awards for Sustainable Construction, and will use bacteria to solidify the sandstone."
News

Obama Calls For Nuke-Free World 705

Posted by Soulskill from the i'll-give-up-mine-if-you-give-up-yours dept.
jamie points out news that President Obama has put out a call for a world free of nuclear weapons at a speech in Prague today. He acknowledged that it was a long-term goal, perhaps not something that can be accomplished in his lifetime, but promised to encourage the US Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty. According to the BBC, he also stated his desire to "negotiate a new treaty to end the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons," and to hold a global summit within the next year to work out agreements for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Obama said, "As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it." His speech came less than a day after North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket.

Comment Re:Or they're terrified (Score 1) 921

by gyepi (#27250213) Attached to: Study Finds the Pious Fight Death Hardest
Too bad that the fine tuning argument doesn't make sense. In order to run the argument you need to assume the existence of a (probability) measure over the possible values of fundamental physical constants (to make sense of ideas such as "this interval must be extremely SMALL" / "the SMALLER the interval the less probable that it was produced by chance" etc.). But we only observe our own universe where these constants have a given value, and there is no natural measure whatsoever on the space of possible physical constants, neither probabilistic nor a priori. Since we have no empirical basis for making any claims about how this measure looks like (why not a Dirac-measure?), claims about "smallness" of intervals make no sense and the fine-tuning argument falls apart.
It always amazes me how easily people commit the fallacy of thinking that the Lebesgue measure is/should be special.
Windows

British Royal Navy Submarines Now Run Windows 725

Posted by samzenpus from the deep-blue-screen dept.
meist3r writes "On his Government blog, Microsoft's Ian McKenzie announced today that the Royal Navy was ahead of schedule for switching their nuclear submarines to a customized Microsoft Windows solution dubbed 'Submarine Command System Next Generation (SMCS NG)' which apparently consists of Windows 2000 network servers and XP workstations. In the article, it is claimed that this decision will save UK taxpayers £22m over the next ten years. The installation of the new system apparently took just 18 days on the HMS Vigilant. According to the BAE Systems press release from 2005, the overall cost of the rollout was £24.5m for all eleven nuclear submarines of the Vanguard, Trafalgar and Swiftsure classes. Talk about staying with the sinking ship."
Image

Christmas Tree Made From 70 SCSI Hard Drives Screenshot-sm 248

Posted by samzenpus from the free-time dept.
Trigger writes "At our work we were decomissioning six old HP/Compaq servers to clear up space for new servers and, naturally, each server had a fairly large raid array. Instead of formatting every hard drive (would have taken weeks performing a DoD level wipe) and disposing them all together with the servers, I decided to disassemble the hard drives and recycle them into something neat. With a lot (a lot) of patience, I made this shiny Xmas tree. In total there are around 70 old SCSI hard drives, between 9gb and 18gb in size each. They were nice and chunky, oldschool style. There were quite a few different hard drive models, which is good because they each had different bits which I could use. The Xmas tree is made with parts from hard drives only except for one nut which I had to purchase for $0.39." It's good to see that this guy has plenty to do at work.
Programming

What Happens To Code From Failed Projects? 225

Posted by Soulskill from the great-compiler-in-the-sky dept.
Idzuna writes "With the somewhat recent announcement of Tabula Rasa shutting down, I have been thinking about what will happen to the Server/Client code. Does it get used as a guide for other projects? Does it get destroyed? Or does it just sit there on a hard drive somewhere in storage? The same question applies to many other failed creations. I know the likelihood of the code being distributed freely is next to nil, as most companies probably recycle code. If a vulnerability was found in old code, it could be applied to other products that the company has released. But wouldn't it help development of different projects if such a resource was available?"
Networking

Copper Thieves Jeopardize US Infrastructure 578

Posted by timothy from the reloaders-all-well-aware dept.
coondoggie supplies an excerpt from Network World that might make you consider a lock for your pipes: "The FBI today ratcheted up the clamor to do something more substantive about the monumental growth of copper theft in the US. In a report issued today the FBI said the rising theft of the metal is threatening the critical infrastructure by targeting electrical substations, cellular towers, telephone land lines, railroads, water wells, construction sites, and vacant homes for lucrative profits. Copper thefts from these targets have increased since 2006; and they are currently disrupting the flow of electricity, telecommunications, transportation, water supply, heating, and security and emergency services, and present a risk to both public safety and national security." (A July, 2006 post on Ethan Zuckerman's blog gives an idea of how widespread cable theft has affected internet infrastructure, and basketmaking, in Africa.)
Image

Guitarist Hopes To Play Again With The Help of Bionic Hand Screenshot-sm 72

Posted by samzenpus from the we'll-rebuild-him dept.
Dorian Cox, the 27-year-old guitarist of the indie band The Long Blondes, thought his guitar playing days were over after he suffered a stroke. He now has a glimmer of hope thanks to some neurological physiotherapy which includes a cutting-edge piece of medical technology. The SaeboFlex helps patients by supporting their wrists and helping them grasp and release objects. "It's a fantastic service, it's helping tremendously and I think it can work wonders for me and others — it's almost like a gym for my hand. I know things might never be the same again and nobody can give me a definite answer about whether I'll play guitar again but I'm getting back on track with their help," Mr. Cox said. This thing looks really cool, and I'm sure many people will benefit from it, though I can't help but wonder if they make a model that lets you shoot your fist at an enemy.
The Courts

Ted "A Series of Tubes" Stevens Found Guilty 565

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the now-a-series-of-cells dept.
techmuse writes "According to a series of tubes sites, Senator Ted Stevens has been found guilty of lying about free home renovations that he received from an oil contractor. He faces up to 5 years in jail, and the outcome of his current reelection bid is now in doubt. 'The conviction came after a tumultuous week in the jury room. First there were complaints about an unruly juror, then another had to be replaced when she left Washington following the death of her father. Finally, jurors on Monday discovered a discrepancy in the indictment that had been overlooked by prosecutors. Jury deliberations in this historic trial have at times been as contentious as some of the proceedings The Justice Department indicted Stevens on July 29, and the Alaska Republican took a huge legal gamble and asked for a speedy trial in order to resolve the charges before Election Day. Judge Emmet Sullivan complied with Stevens' request, and in less than three months from the time of his indictment, Stevens was found guilty.'"
Privacy

Verizon Exposes the Wrong 1,200 Email Addresses 94

Posted by timothy from the but-this-was-the-before-picture dept.
netbuzz writes "If you're going to market your expertise by inviting 1,200 IT professionals to a seminar about securing data and protecting personal information, it's probably a good idea to protect the personal information of those you invite. On Tuesday, Verizon forgot that advice and blasted each of the 1,200 email addresses to everyone on the list ... and they did it 17 times."
First Person Shooters (Games)

The Duke Is Finally Back, For Real 309

Posted by kdawson from the better-be-good dept.
After the first announcement on 1997-04-27 and over eleven years of fresh start after fresh start, Duke Nukem Forever finally comes to your system. At least if your system is an Xbox 360. Jon Siegler, the webmaster of 3D Realms, confirms this on their site: "As has been reported around the net today, we can confirm that the game has indeed passed final certification with Microsoft on Friday the 15th of August (on our first try, no less). That means the game is done — it is now in the hands of Microsoft." Update: 08/19 10:47 GMT by T : Several readers have written with a correction: this announcement is actually about Duke Nukem 3D, rather than Duke Nukem Forever.

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