kangasloth - Slashdot User

Antarctic's First Plane, Found In Ice 110

Posted by timothy on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @10:11AM from the ice-tractor-cometh dept.

Arvisp writes "In 1912 Australian explorer Douglas Mawson planned to fly over the southern pole. His lost plane has now been found. The plane – the first off the Vickers production line in Britain – was built in 1911, only eight years after the Wright brothers executed the first powered flight. For the past three years, a team of Australian explorers has been engaged in a fruitless search for the aircraft, last seen in 1975. Then on Friday, a carpenter with the team, Mark Farrell, struck gold: wandering along the icy shore near the team's camp, he noticed large fragments of metal sitting among the rocks, just a few inches beneath the water."

The State of Ruby VMs — Ruby Renaissance 89

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday November 22, 2009 @11:59AM from the take-your-pick dept.

igrigorik writes "In the short span of just a couple of years, the Ruby VM space has evolved to more than just a handful of choices: MRI, JRuby, IronRuby, MacRuby, Rubinius, MagLev, REE and BlueRuby. Four of these VMs will hit 1.0 status in the upcoming year and will open up entirely new possibilities for the language — Mac apps via MacRuby, Ruby in the browser via Silverlight, object persistence via Smalltalk VM, and so forth. This article takes a detailed look at the past year, the progress of each project, and where the community is heading. It's an exciting time to be a Rubyist."

Comment Re:a better idea.. (Score 1) 549

by kangasloth on Thursday November 05, 2009 @04:10PM (#29998858) Attached to: Ryan Gordon Ends FatELF Universal Binary Effort

I'm a little more familiar with the C# .NET environment, but I don't see any reason you couldn't apply the idea to C code as well. LLVM bitcode already exists with both a container and a intermediate format corresponding to .NET's IL or Java's bytecode. LLVM is designed to be suitable for direct compilation down to machine code without the companion virtual machines that .NET and Java expect. If all you want to do is delay the platform-dependent compilation phase, LLVM looks perfect to me.

Transformers Special Edition Chevy Camaro Unveiled 299

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 23, 2009 @03:28AM from the nerds-roll-out dept.

roelbj writes "Automotive stories are few and far between on Slashdot, but today's news from Chevrolet might just make a few readers' mouths water at the chance to own their own Bumblebee. Today at Comic-Con, General Motors officially announced the 2010 Chevy Camaro Transformers Special Edition. The $995 appearance package can be applied to LT (V6) and SS-trim Camaros in Rally Yellow with or without the optional RS package."

Game Retailers Hurting Themselves With Digital Distribution 167

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday April 21, 2009 @02:29AM from the can't-download-a-guitar dept.

GameBiz recently had the chance to speak with Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, about pricing and distribution within the games industry. Wardell follows up a bit on the Demigod piracy fiasco from a few days ago, and mentions that retail outlets may be on their way out. "Retailers need to be careful about this stuff. They're kind of signing their own death warrants once they push digital distribution at the store. Once you have the thing set up — once you've experienced how to purchase the game or deal with it online — why would I go back to the store for the next purchase? Especially if the store isn't providing added value. If you're a retailer, you're killing yourself. If I can't get a game off Impulse, I'm going to Steam. I like stores, but I'm really lazy."

Comment Katrina (Score 0, Offtopic) 769

by kangasloth on Friday March 06, 2009 @03:04PM (#27094905) Attached to: GM Cornered Into Defending the Volt

Weather kills people all the time. The forensics is a little trickier though: fewer fingerprints and more computer simulations, fewer explosives and more droughts. On the flip side, there's still plenty of expert testimony.

People Prefer Angry-Faced Cars 473

Posted by timothy on Monday October 13, 2008 @04:58AM from the researchers-like-to-anthropomorphize dept.

fatalfury writes "Researchers from the University of Vienna asked 20 males and 20 females to rank vehicles based on their appearance. The list of traits included arrogant, afraid, agreeable, disgusted, extroverted, sad, and others. Cars with 'meaner' traits (such as BMW) ranked higher, whereas cars with 'nicer' traits (such as Toyota's Prius) ranked lower. With billions spent on developing new products in the automobile industry, this could spur a trend in meaner-looking cars and perhaps explain why sales of the Prius and other green cars are slow to take off with average consumers."

C# In-Depth 499

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @09:25AM from the does-he-mention-that-it's-evil dept.

Bergkamp10 from ComputerWorld writes "Microsoft's leader of C# development, writer of the Turbo Pascal system, and lead architect on the Delphi language, Anders Hejlsberg, reveals all there is to know on the history, inspiration, uses and future direction of one of computer programming's most widely used languages — C#. Hejlsberg also offers some insight into the upcoming version of C# (C#4) and the new language F#, as well as what lies ahead in the world of functional programming."

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