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Erlang and OTP in Action Screenshot-sm 63

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
RickJWagner writes "Manning has just released a new Erlang title, called Erlang and OTP in Action. For quite some time now, there's been a definitive guide to Erlang-- Joe Armstrong's excellent book Programming Erlang. Well, it's time to make a little extra room on the bookshelf, because the Erlang book-o-sphere has just shifted. There are now two must-have resources for an Erlang programmer." Keep reading for the rest of Rick's review.
Space

Signs of Water Found On Saturnian Moon Enceladus 79

Posted by Soulskill from the moon-names-that-make-me-hungry dept.
Matt_dk writes "Scientists working on the Cassini space mission have found negatively charged water ions in the ice plume of Enceladus. Their findings, based on analysis from data taken in plume fly-throughs in 2008 and reported in the journal Icarus, provide evidence for the presence of liquid water, which suggests the ingredients for life inside the icy moon. The Cassini plasma spectrometer, used to gather this data, also found other species of negatively charged ions including hydrocarbons."

Comment Re:Birth Control (Score 1) 477

by cwiegmann24 (#30956040) Attached to: Gates Foundation Plans To Invest $10B Into Vaccines
Well, this has the potential to help that. The places with the most human suffering have a high rate of infant mortality. In order to combat this, people have lots of children. By helping more of their children survive, they may decide to have less. Of course, the healthcare will need to be available to give them condoms or perform vasectomies.
The Courts

US FTC Sues Intel For Anti-Competitive Practices 230

Posted by timothy from the in-the-interim-please-use-the-ftc-compiler dept.
Vigile writes "And here Intel was about to get out of 2009 with only a modestly embarrassing year. While Intel and AMD settled their own antitrust and patent lawsuits in November, the FTC didn't think that was good enough and has decided to sue Intel for anti-competitive practices. While the suits in Europe and in the US civil courts have hurt Intel's pocketbook and its reputation, the FTC lawsuit could very likely be the most damaging towards the company's ability to practice business as they see fit. The official hearing is set for September of 2010 but we will likely hear news filtering out about the evidence and charges well before that. One interesting charge that has already arisen: that Intel systematically changed its widely-used compiler to stunt the performance of competing processors."
Earth

Yellowstone Supervolcano Larger Than First Thought 451

Posted by timothy from the even-superer dept.
drewtheman writes "New studies of the plumbing that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park shows the plume and the magma chamber under the volcano are larger than first thought and contradicts claims that only shallow hot rock exists. University of Utah research professor of geophysics Robert Smith led four separate studies that verify a plume of hot and molten rock at least 410 miles deep that rises at an angle from the northwest."
Programming

Building a 32-Bit, One-Instruction Computer 269

Posted by timothy from the some-things-weren't-meant-for-post-its dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The advantages of RISC are well known — simplifying the CPU core by reducing the complexity of the instruction set allows faster speeds, more registers, and pipelining to provide the appearance of single-cycle execution. Al Williams writes in Dr Dobbs about taking RISC to its logical conclusion by designing a functional computer called One-Der with only a single simple instruction — a 32-bit Transfer Triggered Architecture (TTA) CPU that operates at roughly 10 MIPS. 'When I tell this story in person, people are usually squirming with the inevitable question: What's the one instruction?' writes Williams. 'It turns out there's several ways to construct a single instruction CPU, but the method I had stumbled on does everything via a move instruction (hence the name, "Transfer Triggered Architecture").' The CPU is implemented on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device and the prototype works on a 'Spartan 3 Starter Board' with an XS3C1000 device available from Digilent that has the equivalent of about 1,000,000 logic gates, costing between $100 and $200. 'Applications that can benefit from custom instruction in hardware — things like digital signal processing, for example — are ideal for One-Der since you can implement parts of your algorithm in hardware and then easily integrate those parts with the CPU.'"

Comment Re:Wow. (Score 1) 174

by cwiegmann24 (#30000918) Attached to: Going Head To Head With Genius On Playlists
If there's a reason to the music I like, I would like the computers to tell me. I like all sorts of music, from acoustic folk to pop to alternative rock to christian rock to screamo. I'll even listen to some country now and again. If a music recommender can understand that by my admission to enjoying 38th Parallel and Blindside, that I'd also enjoy something by Jack Johnson, I'd be amazed.
Science

Submission + - Electron microscope that won't kill living cells (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Electrical engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a quantum mechanical measurement technique that allows electrons to sense objects remotely without ever hitting the imaged objects, thus avoiding damage.
Games

Submission + - Should computer games adapt to the way you play? (newscientist.com) 1

Submitted by
jtogel
jtogel writes: "Many games use "rubberbanding" to adapt to your skill level, making the game harder if you're a better player and vice versa. Just think of Mario Kart and the blatantly obvious ways it punishes you if you drive too well by giving the people who are hopelessly behind super-weapons to smack you with. It's also very common to just increase the skill of the NPCs as you get better — see e.g. Oblivion. In my research group, we are working on slightly more sophisticated ways to adapt the game to you, including generating new level elements based on your playing style.

Now, the question is: is this a good thing at all? Some people would claim that adapting the game to you just rewards mediocrity (you don't get rewarded for playing well). Others would say that it restricts the freedom of expression of the game designer. But still, game players have very different skill levels and skill sets when they come to a game, and we would like to cater to them all. And if you don't see playing skill as one-dimensional, maybe it's possible to do meaningful adaptation? What sort of game adaptation would you like to see? I'm very interested in your feedback here..."
Space

New "Drake Equation" Selects Between Alien Worlds 220

Posted by CmdrTaco from the fan-of-his-equation-and-breading dept.
An anonymous reader writes 'A mathematical equation that counts habitats suitable for alien life could complement the Drake equation, which estimates the probability of finding intelligent alien beings elsewhere in the galaxy. That equation, developed in 1960 by US astronomer Frank Drake, estimates the probability of intelligent life existing elsewhere in our galaxy by considering the number of stars with planets that could support life. The new equation, under development by planetary scientists at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England, aims to develop a single index for habitability based on the presence of energy, solvents such as water, raw materials like carbon, and whether or not there are benign environmental conditions.'

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