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Earth

$1 Billion Mission To Reach the Earth's Mantle 267

Posted by timothy from the because-it's-the-closest-one dept.
black6host writes "Humans have reached the moon and are planning to return samples from Mars, but when it comes to exploring the land deep beneath our feet, we have only scratched the surface of our planet. This may be about to change with a $1 billion mission to drill 6 km (3.7 miles) beneath the seafloor to reach the Earth's mantle — a 3000 km-thick layer of slowly deforming rock between the crust and the core which makes up the majority of our planet — and bring back the first ever fresh samples."
Businesses

Ask Slashdot: How Best To Teach Programming To Salespeople? 211

Posted by samzenpus from the know-your-product dept.
First time accepted submitter greglaw writes "Our company makes development tools, meaning that all our customers are programmers. If you'll forgive the sweeping generalization, on the whole good programmers don't make good salespeople and vice versa. However, it's important that our salespeople understand at some level the customers' problems and how exactly we can help. The goal is not to turn the salespeople into engineers, but just to have them properly understand e.g. what the customer means when he uses the term 'function call.' Most of our customers use C/C++. Does anyone have any recommendations for how best to go about this? Online courses or text books that give an introduction to programming in C/C++ would be great, but also any more general advice on this would be much appreciated."
Open Source

Richard Stallman Falls Ill At Conference 460

Posted by samzenpus from the outcome-uncertain dept.
itwbennett writes "Stallman, 59, was speaking at the North Campus of the Polytechnic University of Cataluna when he started to feel ill and called for a doctor. It was originally reported in the Spanish press that Stallman was hypertensive, but it is not yet known what his eventual health status was, just that he left the building later under his own power." He is apparently okay and any significant confirmed updates will be posted here.
Bug

Ask Slashdot: How To Get Non-Developers To Send Meaningful Bug Reports? 360

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-broken-just-fix-it dept.
DemonGenius writes "I'm in the midst of a major rollout of one of our primary internal applications at work and we have a beta version available for all the staff to use. The problem here is most of the staff don't know how to send reports meaningful enough to get us devs started on solving their problems without constant back and forth correspondence that wastes both developer time and theirs. Some common examples are: screenshots of the YSOD that don't include the page URL, scaled screenshots that are unreadable, the complaint that wants to be a bug report but is still just a complaint, etc. From the user's perspective, they just send an email, but that email registers in our tracking system. Any thoughts on how to get the non-devs sending us descriptive and/or meaningful reports? Does anyone here have an efficient and user-friendly bug tracking system/policy/standard at their workplace? How does it work?"
China

China Telecom Companies Pledge To Stop Monopolistic Practices 68

Posted by timothy from the take-it-with-a-mine-of-salt dept.
hackingbear writes "China's two telecommunications giants, China Telecom and China Unicom, announced Friday they will substantially raise their broadband speeds while further lowering broadband costs by 35% over the next five years. They also acknowledge the existence of monopolistic practices in reply to a recently launched investigation, which is the first of its kind against major Chinese state-owned enterprises. Being state-owned companies, their profits supposedly belong to the nation, but they have also become 'golden rice bowls' for their management and employees, and their supervising departments and officials." If the Chinese government would like to investigate these companies' monopolistic behavior, I have a suggestion on where to start looking.

Comment OSX Lion (Score 1) 1040

My experiences with Snow Leopard vs Lion

Dropped:

  • 2D array of spaces, replaced with 1D. Like remembering exactly how many screens away your work is when using multiple screens?
  • Tiling all windows in one screen so you can easily pick out the app window you want to access, replaced with ability to see all windows of one app at a time. Like working with only one app?
  • Ability to easily reorganise windows with one guesture, then a single click per window, replaced with a three step process per window. Say I have 10 windows I want to move, first move to the screen with the app window I want to move, then open mission control, then drag the app window to the screen you want it in.

Seriously, why Apple?

Submission + - Steve Jobs dead at 56 (theage.com.au)

Submitted by skirmish666
skirmish666 writes: Apple's board of directors today released a statement confirming Mr Jobs's death:
"We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today. Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve. His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/steve-jobs-dead-apple-confirms-former-ceo-loses-fight-20111006-1lag8.html#ixzz1ZxGguPVt

Submission + - Court rules Against Studios in Piracy Case (theage.com.au) 1

Submitted by skirmish666
skirmish666 writes: The giants of the film industry have lost their appeal in a lawsuit against ISP iiNet in a landmark judgment handed down in the Federal Court today.
The appeal dismissed today had the potential to impact internet users and the internet industry profoundly as it sets a legal precedent surrounding how much ISPs are required to do to prevent customers from downloading movies and other content illegally.
Medicine

Self-Control In Kids Predicts Future Success 245

Posted by samzenpus from the stop-figiting dept.
SpuriousLogic writes "A new study suggests that a child's future success depends on the amount of self-control they exhibit. From the article: 'The international team of researchers looked at 1,037 children in New Zealand born in the early 1970s, observing their levels of self-control at ages 3 and 5. At ages 5, 7, 9 and 11, the team used parent, teacher and the children's own feedback to measure such factors as impulsive aggression, hyperactivity, lack of persistence and inattention. At age 32, they used physical exams, blood tests, records searches and personal interviews of 96% of the original participants to determine how healthy, wealthy and law-abiding the subjects had turned out to be. The results were startling. In the fifth of children with the least self-control, 27% had multiple health problems. Compare that with the fifth of kids with the most self-control — at just 11%. Among the bottom fifth, 32% had an annual income below approximately $15,000, while only 10% of the top fifth fell into that low-income bracket. Just 26% of the top-fifth's offspring were raised in single-parent homes, compared with 58% of those in the bottom fifth. And 43% of the bottom fifth had been convicted of a crime, far outstripping the top fifth's 13% rate.'"

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