Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Open Source

Submission + - Call For OSS Projects Who Want New Developers (grad-dc.co.uk)

Submitted by kittylyst
kittylyst writes: Open Source Jumpstart 2010 is a 1-day event being run by the London Graduate Development Community on April 17th at IBM South Bank in central London to provide an introduction to Open Source development for students and recent graduates. We're getting together a group of 60 students and helping them get started in contributing to Open Source — fixing bugs, writing code, improving docs and adding test cases. We're completely full (and wait-listed) for student places, but we have space for 1 or 2 more projects who would like to come and present, have the students work on project tasks for them, and hopefully get some enthusiastic new developers into their community. Our current roster of projects includes Apache Harmony, Tuscany and Aries, PHP, JRuby and several others. If you know of a project that would like to participate, and can send an experienced dev to London for the day, please get in touch. Full Disclosure: I'm one of the organizers of the event.

Submission + - Pre-erase SD Cards for Better Performance 1

Submitted by Nom du Keyboard
Nom du Keyboard writes: I'm wondering if it is possible to pre-erase my SDHC card for my camera for better performance? At the moment in continuous shooting mode I can shoot 3 fps for the first 3 seconds in raw mode (9 images total) after which the rate drops to 1/fps until the SanDisk Extreme III goes full, or my battery goes empty. Can I improve my write speed by pre-erasing the card so that the flash memory doesn't need to perform a block erase before writing, and if so, then how? I don't believe that the Format command in the camera does this because it competes very quickly each time I use it. I'm surprised that more isn't said about erasing flash memory on file deletions for better write performance later.
Image

Broke Counties Turn Failing Roads To Gravel Screenshot-sm 717

Posted by samzenpus from the let-civilization-collapse-initiative dept.
To save money, more than 20 Michigan counties have decided to turn deteriorating paved roads back to gravel. Montcalm County estimates that repaving a road costs more than $100,000 a mile. Grinding the same mile of road up and turning it into gravel costs $10,000. At least 50 miles of road have been reverted to gravel in Michigan the past three years. I can't wait until we revert back to whale oil lighting and can finally be rid of this electricity fad.

Comment Re:It's Time, not Money (Score 1) 1137

by fiddlesticks (#27870055) Attached to: Your Commuting Costs By Car Vs. Train?

"I've made it a point the last couple times I've moved to make sure I have good access to transit options."

I take your points (time behind a wheel wasted, etc) - but is what I quoted you on such a revelation?

I like in the UK ("London, England") and don't drive. I have never moved somewhere without looking at 'good access to (public transport) options"

Is it really so rare in the US for people to consider how they'd get to work, or play, or their friends, by public transport that you consider it noting that recently you have been doing so?

When I've been to LA or NYC there have always been good, all night, cheap public transport options available. Is this not the case outside the E/W coasts?

Confused of London
Image

The Ouroborus Screenshot-sm 67

Posted by samzenpus from the stop-eating dept.
If I could do this I'd never leave the house.
Linux Business

Pushing Linux Adoption Through Gaming 269

Posted by Soulskill from the year-of-games-on-the-linuxtop dept.
An article on CNet questions the viability of using games as part of a strategy to increase Linux adoption. It points out a blog post by Andrew Min which suggests: "... Linux companies also need to start paying attention to the open source gaming community. Why? It's lacking. However, gamers can get excited about free games. They just have to be up to par with commercial games. The problem is, commercial companies pay hundreds of employees to build a game for several years, while many competing gaming projects only last several years before the developer moves on. It's time for open source developers to start getting paid for their jobs. Who better to pay them than the companies that benefit most?"
Math

Wolfram Research Releases Mathematica 7 234

Posted by CmdrTaco from the just-installing-it-would-make-me-feel-dumber dept.
mblase writes "Wolfram Research has released the seventh version of Mathematica, and it does a lot more than symbolic algebra. New features range from things as simple as cut-and-paste integration with Microsoft Word's Equation Editor to instant 3D models of mathematical objects to the most expensive clone of Photoshop ever. Full suites of genome, chemical, weather, astronomical, financial, and geodesic data (or support for same) is designed to make Mathematica as invaluable for scientific research as it is for mathematics."
Games

The State of Piracy and DRM In PC Gaming 387

Posted by Soulskill from the some-of-the-people-some-of-the-time dept.
VideoGamer sat down with Randy Stude, president of the PC Gaming Alliance, to talk about the state of piracy and DRM in today's gaming industry. He suggests that many game studios have themselves to blame for leaks and pre-launch piracy by not integrating their protection measures earlier in the development process. He mentions that some companies, such as Blizzard and Valve, have worked out anti-piracy schemes that generate much less of a backlash than occurred for Spore . Stude also has harsh words for companies who decline to create PC versions of their games, LucasArts in particular, saying, "LucasArts hasn't made a good PC game in a long time. That's my opinion. ... It's ridiculous to say that there's not enough audience for that game ... and that it falls into this enthusiast extreme category when ported over to the PC. That's an uneducated response." Finally, Stude discusses what the PCGA would like to see out of Vista and the next version of Windows.
Patents

New Patent Suit Threatens Bluetooth Standard 61

Posted by Zonk from the we-need-those-teeth-for-talking dept.
Aditi.Tuteja writes "A U.S. research institute has sued Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Matsushita-owned Panasonic for violating a patent on Bluetooth technology, potentially putting the free wireless standard at risk. The Washington Research Foundation, which markets technology from the University of Washington, is seeking damages from the three mobile-phone makers for using a radio frequency receiver technology without paying royalties. From the article: 'According to the lawsuit, Bluetooth-based computers, cell phones and headsets made by the companies have violated four patents for research done in the mid-1990s by Edwin Suominen when he was a student at the University of Washington. All four patents are now licensed by the Washington Research Foundation. The foundation's lead counsel on the case, Steven Lisa, said the court filing followed two years of informal attempts to resolve the issue with the major players in the industry.'"

Slashdot Top Deals

"May your future be limited only by your dreams." -- Christa McAuliffe

Close