Submission + - Jack Valenti has a stroke
An anonymous reader writes: According to CNN , Jack Valenti, the former head of the MPAA and the driving force behind most of the MPAA's current lawsuit friendly policy has suffered a stroke.
Submission + - Pizza now a health food
An anonymous reader writes: University of Maryland food chemists find ways to improve the health-promoting properties of wheat-based food products. They found ways to enhance the antioxidant content of whole-grain pizza dough by baking it longer at higher temperatures and giving the dough lots of time to rise.
"The reason that we chose pizza is just because it is a very popular food product, " researcher Jeffrey Moore added. "So we thought if we could find ways to improve [its antioxidant] properties, doing this for such a product could have a larger impact on public health." Researchers found antioxidant levels rose by up to 60 per cent with longer baking times and up to 82 per cent with higher baking temperatures. The precise mechanisms involved were unclear, they said. They looked at fermentation times up to two days, and found that longer periods could double antioxidant levels. A common fermentation time is about 18 hours.
Submission + - Tips for avoiding RIAA detection
JeremyDuffy writes: "The RIAA has proven to be merciless and prosecute old people, young children, dead people, and even people without computers. They're full of dirty tricks and aren't afraid to use them. Fight back with some good tips to avoid being detected by the RIAA and their cronies."
Submission + - Delphi for PHP released
Gramie2 writes: Codegear (now a subsidiary of Borland) has just released version 1.0 of Delphi for PHP, a RAD development environment (running on Windows) that produces standard PHP code. It features a large set of built-in components, including ones that use AJAX for database access, and Codegear is encouraging users to develop their own components. The framework, VCL for PHP, is open source, and documentation follows the PHP model.
Initial database connectivity is for MySQL and Interbase (Codegear's commercial database that spawned the open-source Firebird), but more are promised.
Initial database connectivity is for MySQL and Interbase (Codegear's commercial database that spawned the open-source Firebird), but more are promised.
Submission + - The Coming Uranium Crisis
tcd004 writes: "MIT reports that the world is running out of fuel for our nuclear reactors due to production limitations and an aging infrastructure. Nuclear power has gained popularity as a carbon-free energy source in recent years, but Dr. Thomas Neff, a research affiliate at MIT's Center for International Studies, warned that fuel scarcity could drive up prices and kill the industry before it gets back on its feet. Passport has pulled together some interesting numbers: there are 440 reactors currently in operation and 82 new plants under construction. The demand for fuel has driven the price of uranium up more than 40% in the last few months — 900% over the last decade. You can follow the spot price for a pound of uranium here."
Semi-Identical Twins Discovered 224
daftna writes in with a story from Nature about a pair of twins who are neither identical nor fraternal: they are semi-identical. Researchers discovered twins who share all of their mother's DNA but only half of their father's. Both children are chimeras — their cells are not genetically uniform, but include a mix of genes from two separate sperm cells that fertilized a single egg. This is, apparently, not as rare as one might think; but the resulting fetus is rarely viable. This report marks the first known incidence of two half-identical twins resulting from a double fertilization.
Submission + - The best indie games of the year - so far.
Independent Gamer writes: Game Almighty.com has posted a cool story about the latest and greatest independent games.
It's a pretty sweet look at some of the games that won awards at the IGF this year. Nowhere near a comprehensive list, but seems like they're going to be posting more stuff like this in the future. Thank god there's finally a big site that pays attention to the under-the-radar indie games.
Game Almighty's Indie Games Roundup: Issue One
Submission + - Council of the EU now supports Linux
Daveski_2 writes: An update to the previous story http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/31/ 1950225 titled ' Council of the EU Says "We Cannot Support Linux"'
Previously the Council stated on its FAQ that
'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. We cannot support Linux in a legal way. So the answer is: No support for Linux.'
Which has now been changed to
'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. The open source community can follow the public events in the Council, broadcasted through video streaming on the Internet, via means of an open source player like VLC which is available at no cost on the Internet and which is running on several platforms as e.g. MS WINDOWS as well as several LINUX distributions.'
Previously the Council stated on its FAQ that
'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. We cannot support Linux in a legal way. So the answer is: No support for Linux.'
Which has now been changed to
'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. The open source community can follow the public events in the Council, broadcasted through video streaming on the Internet, via means of an open source player like VLC which is available at no cost on the Internet and which is running on several platforms as e.g. MS WINDOWS as well as several LINUX distributions.'
Submission + - HP Exits Media Center Business, Drops DEC Line
MCE writes: The dominant player in the Media Center business is dropping out. Quietly, HP is ceasing production of its Digital Entertainment Center (DEC), the only real success story for Media Center PCs in a living-room form factor. As the first company to embrace Microsoft's Media Center Edition (MCE), at a time when the platform was still half-baked, HP was simply spent by the time Vista rolled around. Now the company will pour its resources into MediaSmart, a new line of TVs with a digital media adapter (not a Microsoft Media Center Extender) built in. HP insists that its departure is not a statement about the viability of the Media Center platform.
