Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Earth

Arthropod Chain Gangs 43

monk writes "Science News references a story in the October 10 Science about Cambrian invertebrates which formed weird permanent chains up to twenty individuals long. 'The discovery of 525-million-year-old fossils belonging to a new species of arthropod shows that these animals formed communal chains never before seen in fossilized invertebrates.' It should be obvious to any Slashdotter of a certain age that this is the true origin of the so called 'centipede' in the eponymous game."
The Courts

Palin E-mail Hacker Indicted 846

doomsdaywire writes "A University of Tennessee student who is the son of a Memphis legislator has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of hacking Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail. [...] If convicted, [David C.] Kernell faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release. A trial date has not been set."
Programming

New Contestants On the Turing Test 630

vitamine73 writes "At 9 a.m. next Sunday, six computer programs — 'artificial conversational entities' — will answer questions posed by human volunteers at the University of Reading in a bid to become the first recognized 'thinking' machine. If any program succeeds, it is likely to be hailed as the most significant breakthrough in artificial intelligence since the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. It could also raise profound questions about whether a computer has the potential to be 'conscious' — and if humans should have the 'right' to switch it off."
Hardware Hacking

Do-It-Yourself Steampunk Keyboard 159

An anonymous reader writes "Who said there's no use for your old IBM "M Series" keyboards anymore? This creative fellow shows us step by step how to convert the keyboards of yesteryear into keyboards of an even further distant, fictional time. H. G. Wells would be proud."

Comment Re:Passion of Traffic (Score 1) 477

Oh gawd... I drive on I-4 from Altamonte Springs down to Orange Blossom Trail past downtown everyday on my way to work. I cannot begin to tell you how much of a pain in the ass it is. It's also where my car got totaled on the 5th of this month, thanks to some jackass who decided to park his car in the fast lane just around a curve when everybody was going 50mph. Normally I would have been "at fault" but considering the situation I could not have avoided that accident.

I think a LOT of the problem has to do with the fact that there are exits on the left side as well as the right, so we get lots of people trying to cut through four lanes of highway traffic to get to the exit on the opposite side. Also, I would blame the kids in rice rockets who get in front of you even if there's just barely a car length of space in front of you. That would cause some panic braking which would cascade throughout the traffic, reaching as far back as Sanford.

Butterfly effect, anyone?
User Journal

Journal Journal: Dum de dum...

I didn't get the job with BCC. They passed it over to some girl who claims to "really need the money." I don't know her story, but oh well, such is life...
User Journal

Journal Journal: Ahh... ^_^

I feel much better now. The flu I had last weekend took me down for the count... I was really wiped out. -_-;;

User Journal

Journal Journal: Oh dear God...

I feel like total shit. It's this damn cold.

User Journal

Journal Journal: I've made a decision

Like the subjct implies, I've reached a critical decision in my life.

Due to tensions among my parents and myself, I have decided to move out as soon as I get a decent job. I still do love my mom and dad but 20 years is a pretty damn long time to live with them... I believe it is time for me to move on, start a life of my own without my parents watching over me like a hawk over everything I do.

User Journal

Journal Journal: Been a while, hasn't it?

Well, I've been busy the last couple of months, that and I forgot all about this journal. So much has happened that I'll skip over most of the details, if that's alright with you guys. ^_^
User Journal

Journal Journal: Basu Gasu Bakuhatsu

I finally sold that Famicom Game Axe Color that had been lying around for months. ^_^ (It's a portable Nintendo, runs on 6 AA batteries.) Got $88 for it + $9.99 shipping on eBay. So proud of myself. ^^

Slashdot Top Deals

Love may laugh at locksmiths, but he has a profound respect for money bags. -- Sidney Paternoster, "The Folly of the Wise"

Working...