treebeard77 - Slashdot User

Comment Re:This kind of hype was exactly the problem (Score 2, Informative) 257

by treebeard77 on Friday January 01, 2010 @10:41AM (#30613992) Attached to: The Long Shadow of Y2K

I agree completely. I did the Y2K change testing and many of the changes for accounting/trading software for a large multinational bank. I ran parallel old software/new software comparison testing using production data on a dedicated Y2K system. I can say, unequivocally, that failure to do the changes would have been a disaster.

And guess what, not everything was caught. We had some failures after 2000 rolled in. We missed "some stuff". They were ALL attributed to other causes. No one could afford to admit to management that a single Y2K bug was missed. I should imagine this was not uncommon in most industries.

The commentators were mostly assholes with no real understanding, but it wasn't really hype. It would have been a disaster. We just fixed ( most of ) it.

Engineered Bacteria Glows To Reveal Land Mines 248

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 17, 2009 @03:14PM from the lamp-unto-your-feet dept.

MikeChino writes "Sifting through minefields to remove hidden threats is a dangerous, tedious, and expensive process. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh recently announced that they have engineered a strain of bacteria that glows green in the presence of explosives, making mine detection a snap. The new strain of bacteria can be sprayed onto local affected areas or air-dropped over entire fields of mines. Within a few hours the bacteria strain begins to glow wherever traces of explosive chemicals are present."

NASA Attempts To Assuage 2012 Fears 881

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 17, 2009 @01:43PM from the nostalgia-for-y2k dept.

eldavojohn writes "The apocalyptic film 2012 has dominated the box office, taking in $65 million on opening weekend. But with all those uninformed eyeballs watching the film, NASA has found itself answering so many common questions that their Ask an Astrobiologist blog offers calming, professional reassurance that there is no planet Nibiru, nor will it collide with Earth (although I do recall a massive solar storm forecast). NASA's main site even offers a FAQ answering similar questions. NPR has more on NASA scientist David Morrison and his efforts to calm the ensuing public hysteria, but survivalists are already planning for the big one. Pretty funny, right? Not according to Morrison: 'I've had three from young people saying they were contemplating committing suicide. I've had two from women contemplating killing their children and themselves. I had one last week from a person who said, "I'm so scared, my only friend is my little dog. When should I put it to sleep so it won't suffer?" And I don't know how to answer those questions.'"

iPhone Jailbreaking Still Going Strong 166

Posted by samzenpus on Monday April 13, 2009 @03:17PM from the don't-touch-the-apples dept.

snydeq writes "Despite the productivity promises of Apple's forthcoming 3.0 firmware update, jailbreaking should continue to push the iPhone's productivity envelope, as users increasingly demand the Holy Grail of smartphone power use: applications that run in the background, InfoWorld reports. Copy and paste, video recording and streaming, Internet tethering, and content search are just a few of the features over which iPhone users have sought to jailbreak their devices — a practice Apple itself has done little to crack down on. Jailbreak apps circumvent hardware and software restrictions that Apple says ensure a consistent, responsive user interface and optimal battery endurance. In particular, jailbroken phones can run apps in the background, a capability Apple reserves for its own apps but prohibits in third-party programs. Jay Freeman, creator of the Cydia iPhone installer and Cydia Store, however, believes a free-market approach is the best way to satisfy power users' demands for features without compromising the performance of their iPhones. And given Apple's App Store overcrowding, it seems likely that jailbroken phones and app venues like Cydia Store will continue to be popular with iPhone customers and developers, even after the 3.0 firmware ships."

Tesla CEO Says Gov't Loan Is 99% Sure and Deserved 652

Posted by samzenpus on Monday April 13, 2009 @12:06PM from the get-your-piece-of-the-pie dept.

N!NJA writes "Two major themes of our time — the desire to achieve energy independence and the furor over public bailouts — have collided in the drama surrounding swanky electric carmaker Tesla. Late last year, a New York Times column whipped Silicon Valley innovators and bailout-weary taxpayers into a frenzy. Valley professor and writer Randall Stross wrote that Tesla was hoping for government money to produce its cars, which only the very wealthy could afford. It wasn't exactly true, since the loan was intended to produce the $50,000 Model S sedan, not the $109,000 Roadster. Still, Stross called it a risky, waste of taxpayer money that would only benefit the wealthy and bailout VCs who'd sunk money into the money-losing company. Never mind, Tesla has developed two cars on less than $200 million — compared to the $1 billion General Motors spent developing the now-deceased EV1."

NASA To Announce Module Name On Colbert Show 201

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday April 13, 2009 @11:14AM from the what's-in-a-name dept.

olddotter noted that NASA's Facebook page says "NASA's newest module for the International Space Station will get a new name on April 14. The agency plans to make the announcement with the help of Expedition 14 and 15 astronaut Sunita 'Suni' Williams on Comedy Central's 'The Colbert Report.' The program will air at 11:30 p.m. EDT."

Amazon Culls "Offensive" Books From Search System 470

Posted by timothy on Sunday April 12, 2009 @07:53PM from the streisand-effect dept.

Miracle Jones writes "Amazon has instituted an overnight policy that removes books that may be deemed offensive from their search system, despite the sales rank of the book and also irrespective of any complaints. Bloggers such as Ed Champion are calling for a 'link and book boycott,' asking people to remove links to Amazon from their web pages and stop buying books from them until the policy is reversed. Will this be bad business for Amazon, or will their new policies keep them out of trouble as they continue to grow and replace bookstores?"

Moonlight 1.0 Brings Silverlight Content To Linux 346

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 12, 2009 @11:08PM from the cue-the-brouhaha dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Novell has unveiled some of the fruits of its technical collaboration with Microsoft in the form of Moonlight 1.0, a Firefox plug-in which will allow Linux users to access Microsoft Silverlight content. Officially created by the Mono project, it is available for all Linux distributions, including openSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Fedora, Red Hat and Ubuntu. Also included in Moonlight is the Windows Media pack, with support for Windows Media Video, Windows Media Audio and MP3 files."

Comment Re:Flatland (Score 1) 630

by treebeard77 on Monday February 09, 2009 @12:21PM (#26784735) Attached to: Mathematics Reading List For High School Students?

a good suggestion and also available FREE from google books.

Comment I highly reccomend (Score 1) 630

by treebeard77 on Monday February 09, 2009 @11:59AM (#26784299) Attached to: Mathematics Reading List For High School Students?

A Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel by Gaurav Suri (Author), Hartosh Singh Bal (Author)

This is a wonderful book I enjoyed reading myself ( 60 years old ). The main characters are college students - I think high schoolers can identify. The math in the story is presented in a very understandable way. woven in is a discussion of the different infinities and the basics of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries.

amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Certain-Ambiguity-Mathematical-Novel/dp/0691127093/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234194672&sr=8-1

An Early Look At New Features In OpenOffice.org 3.1 260

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday January 21, 2009 @02:46AM from the hot-bits dept.

ahziem writes "With the final release two months away and an alpha version available, it's time to look at OpenOffice.org 3.1's new features: eye candy, better charts, replying to notes in the margin, overlining, macros in Base, RTL improvements for Arabic and Hebrew, and (believe it or not) better sorting. Download and report any bugs you find."

Theora 1.0 Released, Supported By Firefox 310

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 04, 2008 @10:00AM from the funny-name-and-all dept.

YA_Python_dev writes "The Xiph.Org Foundation announced Monday the release of Theora 1.0. Theora is a free/open source video codec with a small CPU footprint that offers easy portability and requires no patent royalties. Upcoming versions of Firefox and Opera will play natively Ogg/Theora videos with the new HTML5 element <video src="file.ogv"></video>, and ffmpeg2theora offers an easy way to create content. Theora developers are already working on a 1.1 encoder that offers better quality/bitrate ratio, while producing streams backward-compatible with the current decoder." Adds reader logfish: "Since its bit-stream freeze in June of 2004 there have been numerous speed-ups and bug-fixes. Although Nokia claimed it to be proprietary almost a year ago, nothing has been proven. So now it's time to help it take over the internet, and finally push for video sites filled with Theora encoded vlogs, blurts and idle nonsense."

AT&T Begins a Trial To Cap, Meter Internet Usage 421

Posted by kdawson on Monday November 03, 2008 @11:15PM from the unlimited-is-just-a-word dept.

An anonymous reader writes "On the heels of Comcast's decision to implement a 250-GB monthly cap, and Time Warner Cable's exploration of caps and overage fees, DSL Reports notes that AT&T is launching a metered billing trial of their own in Reno, Nevada. According to a filing with the FCC (PDF), AT&T's existing tiers, which range from 768 kbps to 6 Mbps, would see caps ranging from 20 GB to 150 GB per month. Users who exceed those caps would pay an additional $1 per gigabyte, per month."

Amazon Launches "Frustration-Free Packaging" 353

Posted by kdawson on Monday November 03, 2008 @09:11PM from the save-the-earth-and-keep-more-of-your-fingers dept.

mallumax notes Amazon's new Frustration-Free Packaging initiative. Over several years the retailer hopes to convince many of its suppliers to offer consumer-friendlier packaging. It's starting with just 19 products from Mattel, Fisher-Price, Microsoft, and Transcend. Until this program spreads to more products, better get one of these (ThinkGeek and Slashdot share a corporate overlord). From Amazon's announcement: "The Frustration-Free Package is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It's designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging. Products with Frustration-Free Packaging can frequently be shipped in their own boxes, without an additional shipping box. Amazon works directly with manufacturers to box products in Frustration-Free Packages right off the assembly lines, which reduces the overall amount of packing materials used."

How To Supplement Election Coverage? 241

Posted by kdawson on Saturday November 01, 2008 @07:40PM from the news-junkie-overload dept.

An anonymous reader asks "What information sources and social networking sites will you be using to supplement the election coverage on TV next Tuesday? I am ready with a big HDTV with Comcast, a Mac mini, and and an Xbox 360. I also have two laptops (one good for websites and one for streaming video), an old-school Blackberry, a 'regular' cell phone, a Nokia N810, a Squeezebox, and finally Sirius Satellite Radio. Which websites should I watch for live county results? I already know about the Twitter Vote Report for tracking and reporting voting issues and I already watch 'CNN Reporters' on Friendfeed for the national flair. What other Twitter accounts should I follow? Which urgent ones should I send to my phones? Which YouTube accounts or keywords I should subscribe to in Miro? What are the most popular sites for posting 'on-scene' videos — iReport, Flickr, something else? I know most local Fox affiliates are great about streaming, but is there a page that lists all of the streams, in case I need to quickly focus on one city or area? Basically, how would you configure all those gadgets?" This reader might find some guidance in what to focus on from a video produced by reader (and data modeler) Bruce Nash that lays out a predicted timeline for when the media will call each state, depending on when the polls close and how tight each race is expected to be.

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