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Operating Systems

PlayStation 4 Will Be Running Modified FreeBSD 457

Posted by samzenpus from the under-the-hood dept.
jones_supa writes "This discovery comes nicely alongside the celebration of FreeBSD's 20th birthday, for all the UNIX nerds. The operating system powering the PlayStation 4 is Orbis OS, which is a Sony spin of FreeBSD 9.0. It's not a huge surprise FreeBSD is being used over Linux, in part due to the more liberal licensing. The PlayStation 4 is x86-64 based now rather than Cell-based, which makes it easier to use FreeBSD. BSDs in general currently lack manufacturer supported full-feature AMD graphics driver, which leads to the conclusion that Sony and AMD have likely co-developed a discrete driver for the PS4. Some pictures of the development kit boot loader (GRUB) have been published too."
Medicine

Protesting Animal Testing, Intruders Vandalize Italian Lab 285

Posted by timothy from the matter-of-priorities dept.
ananyo writes "Activists occupied an animal facility at the University of Milan, Italy, at the weekend, releasing mice and rabbits and mixing up cage labels to confuse experimental protocols. Researchers at the university say that it will take years to recover their work. Many of the animals at the facility are genetic models for psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. Some of the mice removed by activists were delicate mutants and immunosuppressed 'nude' mice, which die very quickly outside controlled environments. No arrests have been made following the 12-hour drama, which took place on Saturday, although the university says that it will press charges against the protesters. The attack was staged by the animal-rights group that calls itself Fermare Green Hill (or Stop Green Hill), in reference to the Green Hill dog-breeding facility near Brescia, Italy, which it targets for closure."
United Kingdom

Margaret Thatcher Dies At 87 539

Posted by samzenpus from the rest-in-peace dept.
syngularyx writes "Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister who became one of the most influential global leaders of the postwar period, died on Monday, three decades after her championing of free-market economics and individual choice transformed Britain's economy and her vigorous foreign policy played a key role in the end of the Cold War."
Music

Can You Really Hear the Difference Between Lossless, Lossy Audio? 749

Posted by Soulskill from the not-on-these-terrible-speakers dept.
CWmike writes "Lossless audio formats that retain the sound quality of original recordings while also offering some compression for data storage are being championed by musicians like Neil Young and Dave Grohl, who say compressed formats like the MP3s being sold on iTunes rob listeners of the artist's intent. By Young's estimation, CDs can only offer about 15% of the data that was in a master sound track, and when you compress that CD into a lossy MP3 or AAC file format, you lose even more of the depth and quality of a recording. Audiophiles, who have long remained loyal to vinyl albums, are also adopting the lossless formats, some of the most popular of which are FLAC and AIFF, and in some cases can build up terabyte-sized album collections as the formats are still about five times the size of compressed audio files. Even so, digital music sites like HDtracks claim about three hundred thousand people visit each month to purchase hi-def music. And for music purists, some of whom are convinced there's a significant difference in sound quality, listening to lossy file formats in place of lossless is like settling for a Volkswagen instead of a Ferrari."
Crime

Facebook Lands Drunk Driving Teen In Jail 443

Posted by timothy from the lesson-keeps-on-getting-learned dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that 18-year-old Jacob Cox-Brown has been arrested after telling his Facebook network that he had hit a car while driving drunk, posting the message: 'Drivin drunk ... classsic ;) but to whoever's vehicle i hit i am sorry. :P' Two of Cox-Brown's friends saw the message and sent it along to two separate local police officers and after receiving the tip, police went to Cox-Brown's house and were able to match a vehicle there to one that had hit two others in the early hours of the morning. Police then charged the teen with two counts of failing to perform the duties of a driver. 'Astoria Police have an active social media presence,' says a press release from Astoria Police. 'It was a private Facebook message to one of our officers that got this case moving, though. When you post ... on Facebook, you have to figure that it is not going to stay private long.'"
Government

Adrian Lamo Explains His Decision To Expose Bradley Manning 341

Posted by Soulskill from the manning-up dept.
ilikenwf writes "Whether you agree with his rationale for doing so or not, Adrian Lamo has come forward to discuss his reasoning for exposing Bradley Manning. Manning, now in federal custody, leaked thousands of U.S. intelligence files and documents. Lamo's side of the story shows that he was concerned for Manning's mental health and stability, and for the lives Manning was risking by releasing classified material — Afghan informants, for instance. Either way, this goes to show that if you're going to release stolen/hacked documents, it's best you do it anonymously and don't brag about it."
The Almighty Buck

The Oatmeal Begins a Fundraiser for a Nikola Tesla Museum 134

Posted by samzenpus from the and-he-knew-that-he-would-never-invent-anything-worthy-of-a-pigeon dept.
Quince alPillan writes "The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman is once again collecting money for a good cause. This time, he's collecting money for the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe to purchase the original location of the Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham, New York so that it can be rebuilt into a Tesla Museum. The fundraiser, titled Let's Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum has already started."
Android

MIPS Technologies Porting Android 4.1 to MIPS Architecture 100

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the architecture-wars-round-five dept.
angry tapir writes with news on Android getting support for a third architecture. From the article: "ARM rival MIPS is continuing its push to make a mark in low-cost tablets and quickly trying to bring Android 4.1 (Jellybean) to its processors. 'We are working aggressively on bringing Jelly Bean to MIPS, and expect that it will be available to our licensees very soon,' said Jen Bernier-Santarini, director of corporation communications at MIPS, in an email. Tablets with MIPS processors are largely low-cost and have found buyers mostly in developing countries. MIPS last week said a new tablet called Miumiu W1 from Chinese company Ramos would become available in a few months in India, Latin America and Europe. The tablet has a 7-inch screen, a MIPS processor running at 1GHz, front camera and a microSD slot for expandable storage."

Comment Re:missing option (Score 1) 321

by antime (#40411051) Attached to: Give me a solder gun, and I can produce ...
Any decent desoldering braid will be pre-fluxed. My preferred brand is Chemtronics Soder-Wick, and I've never had problems with it. When starting out I bought some random cheap braid from the hobby store, and it was completely useless.

The cheap Chinese flux from DX and similar (counterfeit Amtech and the likes) can allegedly leave a conducting residue that the genuine product doesn't. It'll still work for soldering, but cleaning the board afterwards becomes more important.

Comment Re:Metcal (Score 1) 321

by antime (#40404761) Attached to: Give me a solder gun, and I can produce ...
I got myself a second-hand WD1M and it's one of the best investments I've ever made. Soldering directly to a 1m^2 ground plane is a piece of cake, it heats up instantly and is just a great product all around. My only niggle is that the micro-pencil tips are kind of expensive and not as widely carried as Weller's other type tips.

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