Comment Space 1999? (Score 1) 230
What, did we go through a time warp? Wasn't there a Moonbase Alpha back in 1999?
And, didn't the moon vacate the premises shortly thereafter?
The Genius of the Lego Printer 187
Barence writes "If you've ever struggled to build anything more complex than a cube of Lego, this will blow your mind. It's a fully functioning Lego printer, complete with felt tip print head."
Comment Re:The Fonz may have been the first... (Score 1) 268
D'oh! That should have been "now it's accelerating".
(sigh) I don't know why I bother to preview
Comment The Fonz may have been the first... (Score 1) 268
...but Star Wars will be soon (or is it already?) part of the list of those shows that 'Jumped the Shark'.
With Lucas at the helm, the death spiral has been been underway for a while, and how it's accelerating.
Comment Literate Programming (Score 1) 198
This sounds very much like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming/, as introduced by Knuth.
I looked at using Tangle and Weave for C development a long time ago, but found that it was a pretty difficult paradigm to get used to.
FYI, TeX and Metafont were both written using Tangle and Weave. Pretty impressive to read the source code, which had both code and documentation intermixed. It was a novel way (as in innovative, and as in a book
Net Users In Belarus May Soon Have To Register 89
Cwix writes "A new law proposed in Belarus would require all net users and online publications to register with the state: 'Belarus' authoritarian leader is promising to toughen regulation of the Internet and its users in an apparent effort to exert control over the last fully free medium in the former Soviet state. He told journalists that a new Internet bill, proposed Tuesday, would require the registration and identification of all online publications and of each Web user, including visitors to Internet cafes. Web service providers would have to report this information to police, courts, and special services.'"
Comment How about restricting year-end outages? (Score 1) 284
At my company we have a change freeze from mid-December to mid-January to avoid problems such as this. With a large (40B+) company, you need to have a stable environment to perform year-end financial activities, and an outage like this would be completely unacceptable.
While I don't personally use a Blackberry, I would be asking some serious questions about their change policies before I relied too heavily on a BB for business purposes...
Comment Re:Golf balls? Ropes? Parachutes?! (Score 1) 770
I do not think that word means what you think it does.
Comment Re:Anonymous Coward (Score 3, Informative) 222
This was thought about, and discarded. While on the surface it seems like a good idea, in actuality it's incredibly difficult to implement, since the dust on Mar's is so 'sticky' - from what I've read elsewhere, the electrostatic charge of the dust on Mars is very high, and any attempt to scrape it off the solar panels would just move it around, not really remove it.
Besides, with a two month life expectancy, I think it was determined that they wouldn't need to remove any dust from the solar panels since the rovers would have long since died...
Submission + - Mac Leopard Server preview (computerworld.com)
johannacw writes: "This operating system could open a whole new market for Apple — as a small-business and home-office server that intuitively supports both Mac and Windows clients. But large companies have lots to like, too; our writer believes Leopard Server's directory services pieces could be "revolutionary.""
Submission + - A pollution indicator on our car dashboard?
Roland Piquepaille writes: "This might soon be possible according to researchers at the University of Manchester. They've designed a near-infrared diode laser sensor able to record levels of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane directly from your car's exhaust. Their device could be one day incorporated into onboard diagnostic systems and be permanently in use while you drive. So you could be warned that your pollution levels are too high. The system would include dashboard warnings telling you to modify the way you're driving. But read more for additional details and a picture of the test bed the researchers used to take their measurements."
Feed Techdirt: Segway Enthusiasts Club Disbanding Over Lack Of Enthusiasm (techdirt.com)
Remember back when the Segway was going to change the face of modern transportation? We were told that they were going to re-architect cities for the sake of the Segway. Of course, that never happened. Now, even its biggest fans are losing their enthusiasm for the device. Apparently, the Segway Enthusiasts Club of America is disbanding. Turns out that people really aren't that enthusiastic about Segways any more. The group is disbanding over lack of activity and the fact that no one wanted to be on its board. It's been well documented that the Segway never came anywhere close to living up to the hype, and over the years it's gone through one strategy after another as it seemed to have more executive changes than customer wins. However, having your "enthusiast" user group completely shut down is a pretty damning exclamation point on how low the Segway has sunk.
Submission + - Soviet Video Games from the 70s
vigmeister writes: "Russian kids have uncovered and rebuilt some arcade games from the Soviet era. These games apparently offered free play when someone played well, but no list of hi-scores. Roughly 32 of them have been found and although they are based on other arcade games, I hope these games were unique enough to offer playability for the present day arcade game lovers. Wonder when they'll be available for download on the Wii though...:))"
Submission + - Uncovering the iPhone Mystery
DigitalDame2 writes: The iPhone may well be the most hyped tech launch ever. There, we said it; we said it because it's probably true. And, as always, Apple brass is being cryptic and guarded about details of its new baby — especially about its software and applications. Pulling together clues from countless news reports, executive statements, and comments from the man Jobs himself, we can get a faint picture of what might be ahead. From the phantom twelfth app that may have slipped into a teaser ad, to the big questions of whether or not the phone will be open for third-party software, we're just a bit closer to getting answers.
Submission + - 2012 Olympic Ads cause epileptic siezures
monkeyboythom writes: The BBC reports, "The media regulator, Ofcom, has begun an investigation into claims that TV footage promoting the London 2012 Olympics has triggered epileptic seizures." In what may have been a rush to promote the Olympics, the Epilepsy Action said the potential effects should have been identified earlier. The spokesperson for the nonprofit Epilepsy Action, uhm, goes by the name, Simon Wigglesworth. No, I am not snickering.
