Comment And where I can I place an order? (Score 1) 258
It's not going to be long before this is THE thing to have on a desk or shelf.
I want to be the first in line to purchase one.
Send a Name to Mars for Christmas 87
space_elf writes "The Planetary Society has an interesting program just in time for Christmas, and just perfect for the persnickity someone in your life who seems to have everything. You can submit a name that will be written on a mini-disk and flown aboard the upcoming Phoenix mission to Mars. Included in the free (as in beer) service is a certificate to present to them as proof of their name going into space. " I know some of you haven't finished your shopping... last chance!
Submission + - Lazy programming from the obvious to the obscure
An anonymous reader writes: Though valuable, lazy programming techniques are not widely implemented or even known about. Lazy programming is a general concept of delaying the processing of a function or request until the results are needed. This concept has numerous applications, from the obvious to the obscure. Thinking in terms of lazy programming can help you rid your code of unneeded computation and restructure programs to be more problem-oriented.
Submission + - Second Life Meets Wang Chung
nacturation writes: Second Life millionaire and property tycoon Anshe Chung has found that fame brings with it not only glorious riches but also gets you targeted by phallus-obsessed malcontents. In a live interview with CNET, Chung — who claims to own virtual assets worth $1M — was suddenly interrupted by a stream of what can only be described as "large pink gentleman's protuberances" which eventually crashed the Second Life server. There's a video of the hilarious interview and the complete transcript of the interview, once it resumed.
Submission + - FSF launch BadVista Blog
ispmarin writes: The FSF launched a campaign against Microsoft Vista. It seems that they are not very happy with it. From the article:
Vista is an upsell masquerading as an upgrade. It is an overall regression when you look at the most important aspect of owning and using a computer: your control over what it does. Obviously MS Windows is already proprietary and very restrictive, and well worth rejecting. But the new 'features' in Vista are a Trojan Horse to smuggle in even more restrictions. We'll be focusing attention on detailing how they work, how to resist them, and why people should care, said FSF program administrator John Sullivan.
Vista is an upsell masquerading as an upgrade. It is an overall regression when you look at the most important aspect of owning and using a computer: your control over what it does. Obviously MS Windows is already proprietary and very restrictive, and well worth rejecting. But the new 'features' in Vista are a Trojan Horse to smuggle in even more restrictions. We'll be focusing attention on detailing how they work, how to resist them, and why people should care, said FSF program administrator John Sullivan.
Submission + - Sarbanes-Oxley relief for small companies
Anonymous Coward writes: "Most public companies will not have to comply with financial reporting requirements set by Sarbanes-Oxley for at least one more year, because of a deadline extension granted Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/121506-sarba nes-deadline-extension.html"
Submission + - Microsoft open source game reaches milestone
Avalanche writes: "Allegiance, released 2000, was a grand experiment created by Microsoft research in a try to get into the pay-per-month online market. After a long and rough road the project was abandoned 2002 and ended up open source in 2004. A group of developers has been working on the project ever since and a few days back the development team released the latest version, R3, including a new network code allowing play from behind NAT. The game and source code are freely available to those interested in playing or tinkering. Sadly the game uses DirectX and .net (for cheat prevention in online games), so it's not developed under Linux. (FYI: I am a developer of FAZ)"
Journal Journal: gtk+ for mac osx
The Gtk+ environment is being ported over to mac os x so it can be run natively instead of having to run in x11 or xdarwin or what ever x11 environment a mac user might be using.
From the post
Submission + - Do you tell a job candidate how they flubbed it?
skelter writes: I have been lamenting with friends in the industry about interviewing woes and the candidates that we find. Consider a hypothetical job candidate comes in after some how making it through screening. In the team technical interview they prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only is he (or she) not as adequate as he thinks he is, but has demonstrated that he is a danger to any code base. Do you tell them? Quietly step away, usher them out and say nothing? Play with them on the whiteboard the way your cat plays with injured mice? Should you leave them as their own warning to others? Is there any obligation to guide them to gaining real experience? Can you give them any advice or is it all liability?
Submission + - US CPSC Issues Recall for Wii Wrist Straps
OnePocket writes: CPSC News — Nintendo of America Initiates Replacement Program for Wrist Straps Used with Controllers for the Wii Video Game System
Issue: If consumers swing the hand-held "Wii Remote" game controllers using excessive force and accidentally let go, the cord connecting the controller to the wrist strap can break, potentially causing the controller to strike bystanders or objects.
Incidents/Injuries: Nintendo has received reports of cords on wrist straps breaking, including three reports of minor injuries not requiring medical attention. All of these incidents occurred when consumers were playing the game, "Wii Sports."
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07061. html
Submission + - link sharing functionality
Jonathan writes: What do you think about adding a feature to slashdot that would allow us to link a story to a friend on the main page directly instead of getting to the page and scrolling down to the actual story?
Submission + - Where Should I Get My Job Interview Code Samples?
crlove writes: "I'm preparing for an upcoming job interview and my interviewer will want to see some code samples. Unfortunately, all of the coding I've done work-wise since college is not only proprietary, but often classified. And to be honest, with long days at work and a busy life outside of it, I haven't had much time to code on my own.
So, what should I show my interviewer? Should I start working up some code samples? And if so, what would be considered sufficiently complex to take to an interview?"
So, what should I show my interviewer? Should I start working up some code samples? And if so, what would be considered sufficiently complex to take to an interview?"
Submission + - Scanned Mozart scores now available for free
An anonymous reader writes: As reported by elmundo newspaper (Spanish), all Mozart compositions are digitized for first time and made available online for free. The Mozarteum foundation, in cooperation with The Packard Humanities Institute are behind this project. Currently there are 25,734 pages of scores, extracted from modern printed books, that can be searched by tonality, name, title, character's name (for operas), length... and there will be more (from the article):
Ulrich Leisinger, foundation's science director, explains that starting by summer of 2007 it will be possible to access all works in their original version. That is, the scores that Mozart himself wrote with his hands. They expect to get international support and colaboration with museums of Paris and Cracovia to offer 90% of original scores by Internet. He also says that in two or three years, the complete set of handwritten works of Mozart will be available to view on Internet, including letters, schemes, annotations, and other documents.
Ulrich Leisinger, foundation's science director, explains that starting by summer of 2007 it will be possible to access all works in their original version. That is, the scores that Mozart himself wrote with his hands. They expect to get international support and colaboration with museums of Paris and Cracovia to offer 90% of original scores by Internet. He also says that in two or three years, the complete set of handwritten works of Mozart will be available to view on Internet, including letters, schemes, annotations, and other documents.
Submission + - Life without a pulse: Quebec man receives mechanic
mikegross9 writes: Surgeons in Montreal have implanted a long-term mechanical heart in a 65-year-old man , the first Canadian to receive the HeartMate II device. The turbine heart provides a constant blood flow, making Gérard Langevin of Coteau-du-Lac, Que., the only living Canadian with no pulse. On Wednesday, doctors announced he is going home from hospital.
Submission + - Microsoft Confirms Second Zero-Day Word Flaw
Overly Critical Guy writes: Microsoft's security response center has announced a second Microsoft Word vulnerability caused by malformed data structures that lead to memory corruption. The flaws were discovered in actual attacks out in the wild and cover versions of Word from 2000 to 2003.
