vivin - Slashdot User

Submission + - CherryBlossom (vivin.net)

Submitted by

vivin

on Friday March 05, 2010 @07:45PM

vivin writes: "What happens when haiku meets programming? CherryBlossom is a programming language based on haikus. That is, you use haikus to write program code! CherryBlossom combines the poet and programmer into a single entity that results in balance in the universe. With CherryBlossom you can write code that is not only functional, but aesthetically pleasing."

Submission + - Best filesystem for an SSD

Submitted by

vivin

on Wednesday December 16, 2009 @07:51PM

vivin writes: "I just got a new development machine at work that sports a 160Gb SSD. I'm running Ubuntu 9.10 on it with ext4fs. I'm curious as to whether the choice of a filesystem (on an SSD) has any bearing on performance. I know that certain file systems perform better with smaller file-sizes and certain others with larger file-sizes, but I haven't seen anything that compares performance of SSD's that under different filesystems. Perhaps this may be a moot point, but I'm just curious."

Submission + - Internet "overhaul" wins approval (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

vivin

on Thursday June 26, 2008 @11:58AM

vivin writes: "This story was previously covered on Slashdot. BBC says that ICANN has voted unanimously to "relax" the rules on TLD's, and the "overhaul" has been given the go-ahead in Paris. Individuals can register domains in their own name as long as they show a "business plan and technical capacity". One of the members of ICANN, Peter Dengate Thrush, said the decision to relax the rules was of "historic importance". The article also notes that "While companies will be able to secure domain names easily based on their intellectual property, some domain names could become subject to contention and a bidding war." O RLY? Welcome to a new age of domain squatters and phishing sites. Oh, and then there's rewriting all those URL validation scripts. Why do I get the feeling that this is the dumbest idea ever? At the very least I hope they have some strict rules regarding the obtaining and registering of these new TLD's."

Submission + - Jon Johansen launches iTunes copying software (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

vivin

on Tuesday February 19, 2008 @03:47PM

vivin writes: "BBC reports "The release of software from a firm run by a notorious Norwegian hacker is likely to cause waves in the music and film download world. Jon Lech Johansen became the 'enfant terrible' of the DRM industry when he released software which cracked the encryption codes on DVDs, aged just 15.His firm, DoubleTwist, has now released software allowing users to share digital media files across devices. It would allow songs bought on Apple's iTunes to be shared on other devices."

Johansen previously released software in 2003 that circumvented Apple's "Fairplay" system. The article is a bit sparse on details, but basically the software aims to share media of different formats between any kind of media playback device. It would be interesting to see Apple's response to this. The company says it's "confident there will not be any legal challenges from Apple". Other supported devices include Sony's PSP games console, Nokia's N-series mobile, Sony Ericsson's Walkman and Cybershot handsets and Microsoft's Windows Mobile smartphones. The software is available as a free download from the company's website."

Submission + - India's TATA backs air-powered car. (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

vivin

on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:43AM

vivin writes: "BBC reports "An engineer has promised that within a year he will start selling a car in India that runs on compressed air, producing no emissions at all in towns. The OneCAT will be a five-seater with a glass fibre body, weighing just 350kg and could cost just over £2,500. The project is being backed by the Indian conglomerate, Tata for an undisclosed sum. It says the technology may also be used for power generation." TATA is the maker of the Nano (Slashdot covered the unveiling of the car, last month). According to the article, TATA is just putting the finishing touches on the engine, and also thinks that the engine could be used for power generation. The makers say that on long journeys, the car will do the equivalent of 120mpg."

Submission + - First order for pet dog cloning (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

vivin

on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:38AM

vivin writes: "BBC reports "A South Korean company says it has taken its first order for the cloning of a pet dog. A woman from the United States wants her dead pitbull terrier — called Booger — re-created. RNL Bio is charging the woman, from California, $150,000 (£76,000) to clone the pitbull using tissue extracted from its ear before it died. The work will be carried out by a team from Seoul National University, where the first dog was cloned in 2005." The university's team is led by Professor Lee Byeong-chun, who was previously in a team headed by the disgraced stem cell scientist, Hwang Woo-suk."

Submission + - HIV vaccine research hits impasse (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

vivin

on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:31AM

vivin writes: "BBC reports "Scientists are no further forward in developing a vaccine against HIV after more than 20 years of research, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist has said. Professor David Baltimore, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), said there was little hope among scientists." He said that "HIV has evolved a way to protect itself from the immune system". Current methods involve the use of antibodies or boosting the body's immune system. Scientists are trying to use novel methods through gene and stem-cell therapy. I wonder if nanotechnology can be eventually used to kill the AIDS virus or any pathogen. Hunter-killer nanorobots?"

Submission + - Microsoft extends shelf-life of XP by five months (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

vivin

on Friday September 28, 2007 @01:28PM

vivin writes: "The BBC is reporting that customer demand has forced Microsoft to extend XP's shelf-life by five months. Microsoft initially planned to stop selling the six-year old operating system on January 30th, 2008. But customer demand has forced Microsoft to push that date forward to June 30th, 2008. Mike Nash, Microsoft Window's Product Manager said, "...maybe we were a little ambitious to think that we would need to make Windows XP available for only a year after the release of Windows Vista.". Microsoft denied that the policy change was due to slow demand for Vista. Mr Nash said that up to the summer of 2007 Microsoft had sold more than 60 million licenses for Vista and that this put it on track to be the fastest selling operating system in Microsoft's history."

Submission + - Intel joins OLPC (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

vivin

on Friday July 13, 2007 @01:10PM

vivin writes: "BBC news is reporting that Intel has joined the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) initiative. "The agreement marks a huge turnaround for both the not-for profit One laptop per Child (OLPC) foundation and Intel.", the article says. Earlier, Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of OLPC said Intel "should be ashamed of itself" for efforts to undermine the $100 laptop initiative. The agreement means that Intel will be working alongside Google, Redhat and rival chip-maker AMD. There are no plans to replace the processor (AMD's) powering the laptop to one made by Intel. But apparently, the server used to backup the laptops will have Intel technology at their core."

Submission + - Beyond the Red line (game-warden.com)

Submitted by

vivin

on Friday July 06, 2007 @12:16PM

vivin writes: "Remember the award-winning Freespace 2? It was a game released by Violition and Interplay for the PC back in 1998. Beyond the Red line is a standalone total conversion for the game, based on the popular Battlestar Galactica (the new one) series. A demo is available here, and an animation test video is available here. Since it is a standalone total conversion, Freespace 2 is not required to play the game, and as a result it is free. The game also supports multiplayer modes like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill, Gauntlet missions and possibly some coop missions."

Submission + - Triumph of the Wii: How Fun Won Out (wired.com)

Submitted by

vivin

on Monday June 11, 2007 @07:24PM

vivin writes: "Wired is running an article on how the Wii has triumphed over the PS3 and Xbox 360. When Nintendo President Satoru Iwata's said that what consumers really wanted out of video games was simpler, more accessible entertainment (in 2003), Time Magazine called it "Thumb candy for dummies". But four years later, the results are out for all to see.

The article says: "In the United States, Nintendo's $250 Wii sold 360,000 units in April, while Sony's $600, graphically intense, Blu-ray-powered PlayStation 3 props up the bottom of the sales chart like a doorstop, with 82,000 units sold."

The main point of the article is that Nintendo managed to triumph because it made its platform a) more fun and b) targeted the casual gamers. The Wii's success is evident from the fact that game developers have been scrambling to release titles for the console. Against all expectations and derisions, the Wii won out."

Submission + - Intel and nVidia partnership? (tgdaily.com)

Submitted by

vivin

on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @01:05PM

vivin writes: "TGDaily reported three days ago that Intel may be announcing a close relationship with nVidia in connection with the Larrabee project. Larrabee is expected to roll out in 2009 and debut as a floating point accelerator product with a performance of more than 1 TFlops as well as a high-end graphics card with dual-graphics capabilities. The article says "Industry sources told TG Daily that Intel is preparing a "big" announcement involving technologies that will be key to develop Larrabee. And at least some of those technologies may actually be coming from Nvidia, we hear: Our sources described Larrabee as a "joint effort" between the two companies, which may expand over time. A scenario in which Intel may work with Nvidia to develop Intel-tailored discrete graphics solutions is speculation but is considered to be a likely relationship between the two companies down the road."

Right now, neither company is issuing statements regarding the possibliity of a "closer relationship". nVidia spokesperson Ken Brown said "We enjoy a good working relationship with Intel and have agreements and ongoing engineering activities as a result. This said, we cannot comment further about items that are covered by confidentiality agreements between Intel and Nvidia.", while Intel responded by saying that the company "does not comment on rumors and speculation."

This may not seem so far-fetched, if you consider AMD's merger with ATI. It would make sense for Intel and nVidia to pursue a much closer relationship with each other to take on AMD and ATI."

Submission + - Intel opens up FSB to the world

Submitted by

vivin

on Monday April 23, 2007 @12:08PM

vivin writes: "The Inquirer has reported that Intel has opened up it's FSB. Intel did this during IDF 07. What this means is that you can plug in non-Intel things into the Intel CPU socket. The article says 'This shows that Intel is willing to take AMD seriously as a competitive threat, and is prepared to act upon it. In addition to this breaking one of the most sacred taboos at Intel, it also hints that engineering now has the upper hand over beuraucracy.'"

Submission + - Don't Let Congress Hurt Satellite Radio!

Submitted by

vivin

on Tuesday September 12, 2006 @12:04AM

vivin writes: "I recently received an email from XM radio, with whom I have a subscription. Their service has been pretty good, and I have been able to enjoy commercial-free music (well, although not now, as I am in Iraq) for about a year. The gist of the email is that powerful special interests are pressuring Congress (and suing XM) to pass legislation that will prevent XM radio subscribers from using XM's new radios that will allow them to record music to listen later (similar to TiVo's service). In their words, "The big record labels want more". I think they have a point. If I'm already paying them for subscription, and that money is already being used to pay royalties to the labels and artists, then I should be allowed to download the music I have already paid for. Here is the full text of the email:

"Powerful special interests are pressuring Congress to prevent XM subscribers like you from having access to more music choices and new technologies. If they get their way, it will be much tougher for satellite radio to keep bringing you the unique and innovative artists you find on XM. We are asking you to help us by calling 800-303-3263 to tell your Representative you support XM Radio and oppose legislation that would hurt satellite radio.

Let me explain: With 69 commercial-free digital music channels, XM provides an outlet for recording artists of virtually every musical style and genre.

XM has been a good friend to the music industry and, more importantly, to artists and songwriters. XM helps listeners discover new artists and rediscover forgotten favorites, stimulating CD and concert ticket sales.

We make sure artists and songwriters are fairly compensated for their music: XM pays a portion of your subscription fees to them and their record labels for the music you hear. Satellite radio has already paid tens of millions of dollars in royalties — and over the coming years it could pay hundreds of millions more. By contrast, conventional AM and FM radio stations pay nothing to recording artists or their record labels.

The Section 115 Reform Act legislation before the House Judiciary Committee would stop us from offering radios that allow you to record XM channels for your later listening — in the same way that TiVo allows you to record TV for later viewing.

If the special interests and their allies in Congress get their way, you'll get fewer music choices and less new technology for years to come.

I hope you will call 800-303-3263 between the hours of 9 am & 6 pm to ask your Representative to oppose H.R. 5553.

Please visit us at www.xmradio.com/grassroots if you want to learn more about this issue.

Thank you for being a part of the XM Nation. With your support, XM Satellite Radio will continue to bring you the highest quality music, talk, sports, news and innovation.

Best Wishes,

Hugh Panero
CEO of XM Satellite Radio""

Submission + - More Indian languages on Wikipedia

Submitted by

vivin

on Friday September 01, 2006 @08:49AM

vivin writes: "The Times of India reports that there are more Indian languges on Wikipedia. During a visit to India, Jimmy 'Jimbo' Wales noted that volunteer contributions to the Kannada and Bengali Wikipedias had been growing at 22 percent, and 35 percent a month, respectively. He said that although they are growing from a small base, these growth rates are pretty high. Compared to a year ago, when there was almost nothing, languages like Bengali and Kannada are in the 3,000-5,000 range. He also notes that there is a lot of work to do — there are 23 official languages in India. Japanese is the only non-European language currently among the "big 10" of Wikipedia. "The focus of my effort is to see how to get the initial communities going," he said, explaining that he planned to test-hire his fifth employee in India to encourage content to be built up.

Surprisingly, Malayalam, the official language of the Indian state of Kerala, where recently the government opted to choose Linux over Microsoft Windows, and where one would expect there would be a significant interest in an "open" encyclopedia like Wikipedia, has only 694 articles as of July 2006."

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