Down_in_the_Park - Slashdot User

Submission + - University education without spending a dime ? Thi (simbadirectory.com)

Submitted by simbadirectory on Wednesday April 21, 2010 @10:10AM

simbadirectory writes: If you are an entrepreneur like me this page is really not for you, but for most of young people out there, education is the only way out of poverty or a bridge to their long term goals. Young people these days have been under a lot of pressure to meet academic goals, due to high demand in most jobs on university graduates. From this perspective, getting your masters or phd degrees will definitely increase your chances of landing that dream job of yours !!

Submission + - Steve Jobs recommends Android for fans of porn (wired.com)

Submitted by

hansamurai

on Wednesday April 21, 2010 @09:24AM

hansamurai writes: "After being asked about the App Store's recent ban on "sexy apps," Steve Jobs responded, "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone. You know, there's a porn store for Android, you can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That's a place we don't want to go, so we're not going to go there." Apps such as Playboy's and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition are still available on the App Store, however, as they come from "more reputable companies.""

Submission + - UK Decides It Needs More Cameras (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by idealsam on Wednesday April 21, 2010 @08:17AM

idealsam writes: The increasing surveillance of UK citizens seems to know no bounds as the British government begins testing of new satellite-based speed cameras. "The cameras, which combine number plate reading technology with a global positioning satellite receiver, are similar to those used in roadworks."

Comment Re:Correction (Score 1) 135

by Down_in_the_Park on Saturday April 10, 2010 @10:48AM (#31799722) Attached to: Intel To Ship 48-Core Test Systems To Researchers

Wouldn't they get even shorter interconnects between the cores, if the finally go into the third dimension? "Cube" would have a totally new meaning. they just have to solve these heat problems...

Comment Re:But... (Score 1) 207

by Down_in_the_Park on Sunday November 15, 2009 @09:00AM (#30105076) Attached to: openSUSE 11.2 Released

Come on, look at the numbers (uid) he's still learning...humor, irony, all that B.S.

Successful Launch of ESA's Herschel and Planck 121

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday May 14, 2009 @11:43AM from the round-and-round-they-go dept.

rgarbacz writes "Today at 13:12 GMT, the ESA launched successfully new and long-awaiting spacecraft: Herschel, the infrared telescope with a 3.5m mirror, and Planck, the CMB mapper. The spacecraft were carried by the Ariane-5, which lifted off from Kourou in French Guiana. They will stay in L2 to perform the research. This launch is one of the most expensive and important missions of the European Space Agency. Planck will measure the CMB with an accuracy more than 10 times better than the previous mission, WMAP. Because of this high sensitivity, both spacecraft are cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero by on-board liquid helium; staying in L2 is very helpful to maintain this state. Both spacecraft are designed to observe the Universe at its infancy: Herschel by observing the first stars and galaxies (whichever came first), and Planck by scrutinizing the first photons that were set free, making up the cosmic microwave background radiation."

Comment Re:What the heck passes for editing these days??? (Score 1) 355

by Down_in_the_Park on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @06:26AM (#27935219) Attached to: Ultra-Dense Deuterium Produced

Yes, very radioactive, but as said before it's a beta emitter and a low energy beta emitter. So to make it clear to all those who believe "radioactive = mean, dangerous, deadly", it doesn't have the energy to ionize anything further than a micrometer away (in water) and could therefore considered harmless to human.

Submission + - Gmails HTTPS Support Ends for iGoogle (google.com)

Submitted by

sschvytrk

on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @09:17AM

sschvytrk writes: "Google seems to have has taken a step backward in their support for web security today. Without warning or explanation, the highly popular Google-created Gmail gadget for the iGoogle home page now displays a warning for users who have =selected the "always use https" option in their Gmail settings: "The Gmail gadget does not support the 'Always use https' setting that you chose in full Gmail". Angry iGoogle users have already begun complaining on the Google help forum."

US ISPs Using Push Polling To Stop Cheap Internet 417

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @08:15AM from the we-don't-want-your-kind-here dept.

An anonymous reader writes "What happens when a new ISP is started somewhere in the United States that completely blows out of the water all the other ISPs in the area, in terms of price and performance? Apparently, that question is being answered in North Carolina, where Greenlight Inc., a company started by a city government, is trying to offer faster, more reliable, and cheaper Internet service to the local residents. Time Warner and Embarq can't compete. So they are not only lobbying the state government to destroy the upstart competition, but are now using push polling methods to gain support, across the two cities that could benefit from the new ISP, for the 'Level the playing field' legislation they got introduced in the legislature." A local news outlet provides coverage more friendly to the incumbents' point of view.

Submission + - Fedora 11 (Leonidas) preview released (ostatic.com)

Submitted by ruphus13 on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @04:25AM

ruphus13 writes: The Fedora Project announced the Preview Release of Fedora 11 (codenamed Leonidas). This preview will be followed by a release candidate (scheduled for a May 12 appearance), with the final version hitting the streets on May 26. From the article, "So what new features can we expect to see in Fedora 11? The Fedora Project is rolling out some impressive new features and functions with Leonidas. One of the most notable is the use of ext4 as the default file system (while many distributions are planning on making ext4 the default in the near future, some recent releases have chosen to keep it optional this time around). The Fedora team says that aside from ext4 performance enhancements, Leonidas users will be treated to faster boot and shutdown procedures, an automatic font, codec and clipart installer, and the DeviceKit device management tool designed to work with (and sometimes stand in for) hal."

Look Out, Firefox 3 — IE8 Is Back On Top For Now 662

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday March 19, 2009 @11:44AM from the because-it-can dept.

CWmike writes "Internet Explorer 8 has shipped in its final version and is ready to take on its rivals. Preston Gralla reviewed it and says the latest version of Microsoft's browser leapfrogs its closest competition, Firefox 3, for basic browsing and productivity features — it has better tab handling, a niftier search bar, a more useful address bar, and new tools that deliver information directly from other Web pages and services. IE8 has also been tweaked for security and includes a so-called 'porn mode,' new anti-malware protection, and better ways to protect your privacy. The most noticeable new features? Accelerators and Web Slices. Think of an Accelerator as a mini-mashup that delivers information from another Web site directly to your current browser page. Web Slices deliver changing information from a Web page you're not actively visiting directly to IE8. There's one big problem for many, though. No add-ins, and there doesn't appear to be such an ecosystem on the horizon. So if you're a fan of add-ins and customizing the browser itself, writes Gralla, Firefox is superior. But for the actual browsing experience, IE8 has the upper hand — for now."

It's Not the 15th Birthday of Linux 261

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday March 19, 2009 @08:45AM from the burn-the-cake dept.

Glyn Moody writes "There's been a spate of celebrations of Linux's 15th birthday recently. What they're really marking is the 15th anniversary of version 1.0. But do version numbers matter for free software? The 'release early, release often' approach means there's generally little difference between version 0.99.14z, say, and version 1.0. In fact, drawing attention to such anniversaries is misguided, because it gives the impression that free software is created in the same way as traditional proprietary code, working towards a predetermined end-point according to a top-down plan. So how should we be choosing and celebrating free software's past achievements?"

Google's Information On DMCA Takedown Abuse 217

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 18, 2009 @07:59PM from the hassle-your-way-to-the-top dept.

Binestar writes "According to a PC World article, Google has submitted a brief to New Zealand about its proposed copyright law (section 92A). "In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims.""

Diebold Admits Flaw In Voting Software 281

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 18, 2009 @06:44PM from the is-anyone-shocked dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "At a public hearing in California, Diebold's western region manager has admitted that the audit log system on current versions of Premier Election Solutions' (formerly Diebold's) electronic voting and tabulating systems — used in some 34 states across the nation — fails to record the wholesale deletion of ballots, even when ballots are deleted on the same day as an election. An election system's audit logs are meant to record all activity during the system's actual counting of ballots, so that later examiners may determine, with certainty, whether any fraudulent or mistaken activity had occurred during the count. Diebold's software fails to do that, as has recently been discovered by Election Integrity advocates in Humboldt County, CA, and then confirmed by the CA Secretary of State. The flaws, built into the system for more than a decade, are in serious violation of federal voting system certification standards."

Massive Open Collaboration In Math Declared a Success 60

Posted by timothy on Wednesday March 18, 2009 @03:39PM from the you-count-the-feet-we'll-count-the-toes dept.

nanopolitan writes "In late January, Tim Gowers, a Fields Medal winner at Cambridge University, used his blog for an experiment in massive online collaboration for solving a significant problem in math — combinatorial proof of the density Hales-Jewett theorem. Some six weeks (and nearly 1000 comments) later, Gowers has declared the project a success, and some of the ideas have already been written up as a preprint."

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