Comment hamsexy! (Score 2, Interesting) 215
Lots of that kind of amusement at http://www.hamsexy.com/
Comment the old common sense routine (Score 4, Insightful) 808
When a smart person does something stupid, it's because he lacks common sense. When a stupid person does something stupid, it's because he's stupid.
Why Netbooks Will Soon Cost $99 221
CWmike sends along a ComputerWorld piece which predicts that
"netbooks like the Asus Eee PC, the Dell Mini 9 and the HP 2133 Mini-Note will soon cost as little as $99. The catch? You'll need to commit to a two-year mobile broadband contract. The low cost will come courtesy of a subsidy identical to the one you already get with your cell phone. It's likely that HP is working with AT&T (they're reported to be talking), which announced a major strategic shift a couple of weeks ago that should result in AT&T stores selling nonphone gadgets that can take advantage of mobile broadband, including netbooks. What's more interesting is that low income and cheapskate buyers are starting to use iPhones as replacements or substitutes for netbook, notebook and even desktop PCs. The author's take: A very large number of people are increasingly looking to buy a single device — or, at least, subscribe to a single wireless account — for all their computing and communications needs, and at the lowest possible price."
Submission + - H-1B visa cap -- proposed increases
poshdev writes: There is a growing amount of discussion in the IT world on the topic of H-1B and L-1 visas. How are they being used, and what is the effect of the visa programs on the job market in the USA? On the economy in the USA? Will the visas enable the USA to remain on top technically, or will they merely fuel the increasing tendency for USA and other 1st world -based business interests to offshore their jobs to 3rd world countries such as India and China?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/04/02/AR2007040201538.html
Feed Using the Web to navigate S.F. freeway collapse (com.com)
Blog: In the wake of a tanker truck crash that caused a freeway collapse in the San Francisco Bay Area, Web sites are offering photographs of the damage, as well as alternate routes for commuters.
Submission + - what sci magazines do you read?
BlackShirt writes: What science magazines do you read? I evaluated these and plan to subscribe The Scientific American. They had good stories about plasmonics and new look at human retina last month. Do you know any good european sci magazines? The internet is full of sci articles but I would prefer to read long text on the paper. What do you think? Do sci magazines have a future?
Submission + - Prehistoric man had sex for fun!
ectotherm writes: It turns out that sex has been for recreation as well as procreation for longer than we thought! A study shows that our prehistoric relatives were having sex purely for enjoyment, in addition to reproductive purposes. Details can be found at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269115,00.html So easy even a caveman can do it...
UK Voters Want To Vote Online 288
InternetVoting writes "A recent UK research survey by NTL:Telewest Business found that nearly half of the younger respondents would be more likely to vote online. This year the UK government has authorized 13 local election pilots including Internet voting. ntl:Telewest Business estimates 10 million UK households have broadband and 4,789 local libraries offer public access. In the US political parties are beginning to test the Internet voting waters with the Michigan Democratic Party to offer Internet voting in their 2008 Presidential Caucus. There were some notable differences in generational interest: 'The YouGov poll of almost 2,300 people, carried out on behalf of NTL:Telewest's business unit, found that younger voters were even more positive about the idea of alternatives to the trusty ballot box. 57 per cent of 18-34 year olds liked the idea of evoting, but only a third of the over 55s were as keen.' Given security and privacy concerns in the states, how likely is this to appeal to US voters? "
Google's Stomach Pangs - Adjusting to DoubleClick 98
An anonymous reader writes "C|Net is reporting on some trouble Google is having integrating DoubleClick into their family of products. External problems, like antitrust allegations and privacy concerns, are bad enough. The worst problems might come from within, though, as a division within DoubleClick was essentially created to game the very systems the Google search engine is founded on. '"Google is treading in dangerous waters right now," writes Ross Dunn of WebProNews.com. Google's search results "are supposed to be unbiased and highly relevant," but with Performics, "Google is put into the conflicted position of trying to generate profits by providing result-oriented organic ranking services for its own unbiased organic search results." The worry, in other words, is that Google's search results could be compromised by operating a division with an interest in skewing those results in favor of clients.' The article goes on to say how this Performics division is likely to be sold off to make sure everything stays above board."
Submission + - Chinese Industry Produces Contaminated Food
reporter writes: "Investigative reporters at the "International Herald Tribune" have just discovered that China has an entire industry devoted to directly or indirectly adding contaminants to food destined for human consumption. According to their report, "In recent years, for instance, China's food safety scandals have involved everything from fake baby milk formulas and soy sauce made from human hair, to instances where cuttlefish were soaked in calligraphy ink to improve their color and eels were fed contraceptive pills to make them grow long and slim . [...] for years melamine has been quietly mixed into Chinese animal feed and then sold to unsuspecting farmers as protein-rich pig, poultry and fish feed.""
Submission + - Book Review: Linux Appliance Design
s1axter writes: "A week and a half ago I received Linux Appliance Design by Bob Smith, John Hardin, Graham Phillips and Bill Pierce, published by No Starch Press. This is one of No Starch's latest titles and was released in the beginning of April. As a hardware/embedded systems guy I was really eager to get my hands on the book. For those who don't know what the book is about, it's about making an application specific utility, an electronic tool or "appliance" that can be used for a specific task. The book defines an appliance as "A device designed to primarily perform a single function" and that's exactly what they do.
The book revolves around Laddie, an example alarm system for a building. The book includes a complete explanation of the system, what design features it uses, and a LiveCD with the final application for your hacking pleasure.
I have to say, Linux Appliance Design is well written and very, very thorough. This is not a beginner text, the authors focus on Linux programmers who understand C and Linux systems and want to take it a step further than conventional software. If you think this is a book for you, you ought to better be a C/Linux guru, or dust off those old textbooks and brush up on your stuff before you pick it up.
When a friend asked me what was in the book I gave him the response, "Everything you need to make a sweet daemon with any interface you want". This is exactly what Linux Appliance Design is, a library in a book. Nostarch.com has a chapter list for the text (http://nostarch.com/appliance_toc.htm) so you can see what I mean.
The layout for the text is well organized and starts where every project should, architecture and design. Personally I felt the authors were beating the dead horse after a couple of pages when everything kept coming back to separating interface from implementation, but hey, it's an important point that a lot of people seem to miss.
An interesting chapter is the explanation of the Run-time-access library the authors developed. Modeled from PostgreSQL, the RTA lib is an impressive solution that allows for daemon communication and configuration from any language that can talk to a database. This library is released under the GPL and can be downloaded from the companion site of the book http://linuxappliancedesign.com./ The RTA is also used for the rest of the book, so don't skip it or you'll have no idea what they are talking about.
The text is not only an explanation of the Laddie system using the RTA, it is an all encompassing design text, which I really like. There are chapters dedicated to building different frontend UIs for the system and communication protocol discussion. This is what transforms the text from book into library. Each chapter can almost stand on its own as an application of that language or program. I was quite impressed with the web interface chapter and how the authors compared web servers and designed a system, and also with the framebuffer chapter on how to make a cool graphical interface.
A common theme for all the chapters is the structure. The authors discuss and design each element they use in the system before looking at one program or daemon. For anyone who has written or read development reports the format is very similar; explain what you designed, why you chose those components, why you passed on others, how the systems works and finally what you would do different next time. This format kind of reminded me lab reports in school, cover all question you think your professor audience might ask.
Overall Linux Appliance Design is a well written, detailed and through book with a lot of information. I would recommend this title mainly to someone who is interested in daemon development or server design however it can be read by anyone who wants to see a full project develop cycle.
s1axter is the main poster for Geeksinside.com
Geeksinside.com is a DIY, hardware hacking, technology blog that showcases links, reviews and project"
The book revolves around Laddie, an example alarm system for a building. The book includes a complete explanation of the system, what design features it uses, and a LiveCD with the final application for your hacking pleasure.
I have to say, Linux Appliance Design is well written and very, very thorough. This is not a beginner text, the authors focus on Linux programmers who understand C and Linux systems and want to take it a step further than conventional software. If you think this is a book for you, you ought to better be a C/Linux guru, or dust off those old textbooks and brush up on your stuff before you pick it up.
When a friend asked me what was in the book I gave him the response, "Everything you need to make a sweet daemon with any interface you want". This is exactly what Linux Appliance Design is, a library in a book. Nostarch.com has a chapter list for the text (http://nostarch.com/appliance_toc.htm) so you can see what I mean.
The layout for the text is well organized and starts where every project should, architecture and design. Personally I felt the authors were beating the dead horse after a couple of pages when everything kept coming back to separating interface from implementation, but hey, it's an important point that a lot of people seem to miss.
An interesting chapter is the explanation of the Run-time-access library the authors developed. Modeled from PostgreSQL, the RTA lib is an impressive solution that allows for daemon communication and configuration from any language that can talk to a database. This library is released under the GPL and can be downloaded from the companion site of the book http://linuxappliancedesign.com./ The RTA is also used for the rest of the book, so don't skip it or you'll have no idea what they are talking about.
The text is not only an explanation of the Laddie system using the RTA, it is an all encompassing design text, which I really like. There are chapters dedicated to building different frontend UIs for the system and communication protocol discussion. This is what transforms the text from book into library. Each chapter can almost stand on its own as an application of that language or program. I was quite impressed with the web interface chapter and how the authors compared web servers and designed a system, and also with the framebuffer chapter on how to make a cool graphical interface.
A common theme for all the chapters is the structure. The authors discuss and design each element they use in the system before looking at one program or daemon. For anyone who has written or read development reports the format is very similar; explain what you designed, why you chose those components, why you passed on others, how the systems works and finally what you would do different next time. This format kind of reminded me lab reports in school, cover all question you think your professor audience might ask.
Overall Linux Appliance Design is a well written, detailed and through book with a lot of information. I would recommend this title mainly to someone who is interested in daemon development or server design however it can be read by anyone who wants to see a full project develop cycle.
s1axter is the main poster for Geeksinside.com
Geeksinside.com is a DIY, hardware hacking, technology blog that showcases links, reviews and project"
Feed IBM's BlueGene L supercomputer simulates half a mouse brain (engadget.com)
Filed under: Desktops
Efforts to model the human brain (on IBM's Blue Gene, ironically) haven't reached the point of finality just yet, but it looks like the supercomputer has already tackled a smaller, albeit similar task at the University of Nevada. The research team, which collaborated with gurus from the IBM Almaden Research Lab, have ran a "cortical simulator that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse's brain on the BlueGene L," and considering that it took about eight million neurons into consideration without totally crashing, it remains a fairly impressive achievement. Notably, the process was so intensive that it was only ran for ten seconds at a speed "ten times slower than real-time," and while the team is already looking forward to speeding things up and taking the whole mind into account, it was noted that the simulation (expectedly) "lacked some structures seen in an actual brain." Now, if only these guys could figure out how to mimic the brain and offer up external storage to aid our failing memories.[Thanks, Richard L.]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Feed Informed Consent: 'No' Doesn't Always Mean 'No' For Research Study Participants (sciencedaily.com)
Just because someone decides not to participate in a research project doesn't necessarily mean that they fundamentally object to taking part, a study published online in BMC Health Services Research suggests. Misunderstandings about the nature and process of a study often contribute to expressions of nonconsent, a factor that should be incorporated in the design of future studies.
Cryptome to be Terminated by Verio/NTT 171
George Maschke writes "Cryptome, a website concerned with encryption, privacy, and government secrecy, has received two weeks' notice from Verio that its service will be terminated for unspecified "violation of [its] Acceptable Use Policy." Cryptome has a history of making publicly available documents and information that governments would rather keep secret. For the notice, and a public response by Cryptome webmaster John Young, see Cryptome Shutdown by Verio/NTT."
Is It Time For an Open Source Certificate Authority? 219
cagnol writes "So far there are three free ways to get a free certificate to sign your email and receive encrypted communications: Thawte, Comodo and CAcert.
Thawte's root certificate is in mainstream browsers. Thawte's interface is good and the web of trust allows for increased security by verifying people's identity. However Thawte is not open-source; worse: it is owned by VeriSign. Comodo's root certificate is in mainstream browsers too but there is no web of trust and their forms are not always working.
CAcert is the closest to an open-source certificate authority but is not open-source and it seems that parts of the system are shaky. CAcert provides a web of trust. Unfortunately, CAcert's root certificate is not in mainstream browsers.
Don't you think it is time for a true open-source certificate authority? Should this community be related to the Mozilla Foundation and comply, since day one, with the requirements to get a root certificate in Firefox?"
