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Debian

Debian Lenny Installer RC1 Arrives 81

Posted by timothy from the not-lenny-from-of-mice-and-men dept.
nerdyH writes "It appears that Debian 5.0 (aka "Lenny") will soon take its big binocular eyes out into the wider world. Only two months later than expected, the Debian project has completed the first release candidate of Lenny's installer. Featuring much faster installation from "live" CDs, and expanded support for ARM-based devices such as NAS servers, Lenny has gestated for 19 months, compared to 21 months for the previous "Etch" release. Lookout, world, Debian releases are picking up speed! The download is here."

Comment Why is this on Idle? (Score 1) 128

by The Gaytriot (#25750205) Attached to: Oklahoma Ambulances Debut Sirens That You Can Feel

This is a lot more interesting than most of the stuff that gets posted to Idle.

Anyways, from TFA:

 

"The ambulance without the Howler sounded its siren and produced its familiar wail. Then, the Howler, which produced booms that sounded like a 1980s video game played at an earsplitting level. The liquids in the three glasses rippled."

I really hope that the howler is used sparingly, especially since I live right off a busy street and get some type of emergency vehicle coming by with sirens and lights at least once a day. I especially hope that the howler siren doesn't need to be played at an "earsplitting" level in order to be effective.

They had to park two ambulances next to each other with the glasses of water in between, and turning on the howler's to the loud-as-fuck volume just made the water ripple? Why don't they just have the T-rex from Jurassic Park follow the ambulance around? Dumbasses...
Image

Oklahoma Ambulances Debut Sirens That You Can Feel Screenshot-sm 128

Posted by samzenpus from the do-you-hear-something dept.
djupedal writes "Booming like a 1980s video game, the Howler can even make liquids ripple — Oklahoma's largest ambulance company will become the first ambulance service in the nation to outfit its entire fleet with new Howler sirens, designed to emit low-frequency tones that penetrate objects within 200 feet — such as cars — to alert drivers." This is all well and fine, but I wonder what they plan to do when their sirens call up one of the big worms from deep below?

Comment Re:mystery. (Score 1) 785

by The Gaytriot (#25716307) Attached to: Of childhood "building" toys, my favorite is ...

Damn I wish Lego Technic was still around. I got so many of those, and the advanced sets were awesome. The set I wanted most of all was the 4x4 Off-roaded:
http://www.1000steine.com/brickset/images/8466-1.jpg
Independent suspension all around, 4 wheel drive-train hooked to a working V8 engine, gull-wing doors, working steering, and the thing weighs like 6 lbs. when it's all put together.

Heck, I'm well outside of the intended age range and I still check them out on Ebay occasionally (except this set goes for $200+ now).

Good times though...

Comment Re:A one speed mountain bike? (Score 1) 2

by The Gaytriot (#25711875) Attached to: we're taking him to his spaceship

It's sitting on the middle gears on the front and rear, I just shortened the chain to fit snugly around those and took off the derailers and chain tensioner.

It works well enough, though I won't even lock it up at the store because anyone stupid enough to steal it deserves to get stranded with a broken bike (it's almost 15 years old and in terrible shape).

Comment Bad news never stops coming... (Score 1) 7

by The Gaytriot (#25711535) Attached to: Unhealthy Pursuits

but damn! I'm sorry to hear about Linda again.

Concerning AIDS, from my understanding they've found some people are immune, but they're still not completely sure why. The best guess is the presence of several proteins which protect T-cells from the virus. I suppose you could always get tested for the presence of these?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2283351.stm
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/120766.php

I'm not sure what I would do if I met a great girl who turned out to have a serious disease. I could live with something minor, but AIDS would probably be a deal breaker.
She definitely could make a good friend though, since AIDS sufferers typically live a normal lifespan anymore. I dated a girl with cystic fibrosis a while back and the thing that really killed me was knowing in the back of my mind that she would probably not live past 30. But at least I didn't have to fear for my own health, so I honestly don't know what to say.
User Journal

Journal Journal: we're taking him to his spaceship 2

Journal by The Gaytriot

Since signing up for an online dating site, I've found a couple of girls that I recognized from school on there. The thing that really surprised me was that they are both around my age, and neither of them have kids! That's pretty rare for the school that I go to, at night it seems like all of the women, even ones younger than me, have kids.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Dates 3

Journal by The Gaytriot

After about a year with nothing, I went on a few dates last week. One with a girl from the internets called slashgirl, and another with a teacher I met called teacher.
Portables (Apple)

Users Rage Over Missing FireWire On New MacBooks 820

Posted by kdawson from the liar-liar-pants-not-wired dept.
CWmike writes "Apple customers, unhappy that the company dropped FireWire from its new MacBook (not the Pro), are venting their frustrations on the company's support forum in hundreds of messages. Within minutes of Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrapping up a launch event in Cupertino, Calif., users started several threads to vent over the omission. 'Apple really screwed up with no FireWire port,' said Russ Tolman, who inaugurated a thread that by Thursday has collected more than 300 messages and been viewed over 8,000 times. 'No MacBook with [FireWire] — no new MacBook for me,' added Simon Meyer in a message posted yesterday. Several mentioned that FireWire's disappearance means that the new MacBooks could not be connected to other Macs using Target Disk Mode, and one noted that iMovie will have no way to connect to new MacBooks. Others pointed out that the previous-generation MacBook, which Apple is still selling at a reduced price of $999, includes a FireWire port. Apple introduced FireWire into its product lines in 1999 and championed the standard."
Science

Fungus Fire Spores With 180,000 G Acceleration 69

Posted by timothy from the easy-at-that-size dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Although a variety of spore discharge processes have evolved among the fungi, those with the longest ranges are powered by hydrostatic pressure and include 'squirt guns' that are most common in the Ascomycota and Zygomycota. In these fungi, fluid-filled stalks that support single spores or spore-filled sporangia, or cells called asci that contain multiple spores, are pressurized by osmosis. Because spores are discharged at such high speeds, most of the information on launch processes from previous studies has been inferred from mathematical models and is subject to a number of errors, but now Nicholas Money, an expert on fungi at Miami University, has recorded the discharges with high-speed cameras at 250,000 frames-a-second and discovered that fungi fire their spores with accelerations up to 180,000 g, calling it 'the fastest flight in nature.' Money and his students, in a justified fit of ecstasy, have created a video of the first fungus opera."
Games

Ask Blizzard Employees About Things That Matter 504

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the opportune-moment dept.
In just a few days, some of us will be making the trek to this year's Blizzcon event in Anaheim, CA. In addition to the interesting announcements, sneak peeks, and other distractions, we will be sitting down with several Blizzard employees to answer any questions you might have. So far we have scheduled some time with Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II; Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft; Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer on Diablo III; and Paul Sams, Blizzard COO. Please address your questions to one (or several) of these candidates and try to keep them civil and on topic. Questions about Diablo III's art style will most likely be omitted since we have limited time and that dead horse has already been beaten into submission. The usual Slashdot interview rules apply, but beyond that, the sky is the limit.
The Military

Researchers To Build Underwater Airplane 263

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the journey-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea dept.
coondoggie writes to tell us that DARPA seems to still be having fun with their funding and continues to aim for the "far out." The latest program, a submersible airplane, seems to have been pulled directly from science fiction. Hopefully this voyage to the bottom of the sea is of the non-permanent variety. "According to DARPA: 'The difficulty with developing such a craft come from the diametrically opposed requirements that exist for an airplane and a submarine. While the primary goal for airplane designers is to try and minimize weight, a submarine must be extremely heavy in order to submerge underwater. In addition, the flow conditions and the systems designed to control a submarine and an airplane are radically different, due to the order of magnitude difference in the densities of air and water.'"
Image

OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide Screenshot-sm 48

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
Martin Ecker writes "Mobile phones and other embedded devices are getting more and more powerful each year. The availability of dedicated hardware for 3D rendering is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, and the latest mobile phones come with 3D hardware acceleration that rivals the power of desktop graphics hardware. OpenGL ES 2.0 is the latest version of a cross-platform, low-level graphics API to utilize these new resources available in embedded devices. The OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide published by Addison-Wesley Publishing aims to help the reader make use of the full power of OpenGL ES 2.0 to create interesting 3D applications." Keep reading for the rest of Martin's review.
OS X

Run Mac OS X On Non-Apple Hardware, With a Dongle 536

Posted by timothy from the not-actually-an-imperative-statement dept.
An anonymous reader points out Gizmodo's review of a USB dongle, made by a company called Efix, which allows for an effort-free transformation of a non-Apple computer into one that runs Mac OS X. According to the reviewer, the transformation is perfect (aside from a few quirks he describes as "trivial"); the included screenshots sure make it seem that way, too. The dongle costs $155, and works only on a subset of PC hardware. Non-Apple machines running OS X will no doubt make Apple unhappy, though, so, the reviewer concludes, "it's understandable if you wanna approach this with caution."

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