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Submission + - George R R Martin Reveals His Secret Weapon for Writing GOT- Wordstar

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Ryan Reed writes that when most Game of Thrones fans imagine George R.R. Martin writing his epic fantasy novels, they probably picture the author working on a futuristic desktop (or possibly carving his words onto massive stones like the Ten Commandments). But the truth is that Martin works on an outdated DOS machine using Eighties word processor WordStar 4.0, as he revealed during an interview on Conan. "I actually like it," says Martin. "It does everything I want a word processing program to do, and it doesn't do anything else. I don't want any help. I hate some of these modern systems where you type a lower case letter and it becomes a capital letter. I don't want a capital. If I wanted a capital, I would have typed a capital. I know how to work the shift key." “I actually have two computers," Martin continued. “I have a computer I browse the Internet with and I get my email on, and I do my taxes on. And then I have my writing computer, which is a DOS machine, not connected to the Internet."

Submission + - U.S. Military Drones Migrating to Linux (linuxgizmos.com)

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: Raytheon is switching its UAV control system from Solaris to Linux for U.S. military drones, starting with a Northrop Grumman MQ-8C Fire Scout helicopter. Earlier this month Raytheon entered into a $15.8 million contract with the U.S. Navy to upgrade Raytheon’s control systems for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), according to a May 2 Avionics Intelligence report. The overhaul is designed to implement more modern controls to help ground-based personnel control UAVs. Raytheon’s tuxified version of its Vertical Takeoff and Landing Unmanned Air Vehicle (VTUAV) Tactical Control System (TCS) will also implement universal UAV control qualities. As a result the TCS can be used in in all U.S. Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps UAVs that weigh at least 20 pounds. By providing an open standard, the common Linux-based platform is expected to reduce costs by limiting the types of UAV control systems that need to be built and maintained for each craft.

Submission + - Lucasfilm announced break with Star Wars Expanded Universe (starwars.com)

Submitted by RogueyWon
RogueyWon writes: A recent blog post from Lucasarts had confirmed that the new Star Wars movies planned for release by Disney will formally break continuity with the Expanded Universe novels, comics and video games.

In order to give maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience, Star Wars Episodes VII-IX will not tell the same story told in the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe.

The news is unlikely to be a surprise, given George Lucas's previous pronouncements on the issue.

Submission + - "Tree Huggers Don't Buy Luxury Cars," Says Auto Exec On Electric Cars 2

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: When you think of hybrid and electric car buyers, do you think of the term "tree hugger?" According to a Cadillac executive, you shouldn't. He said a "tree hugger" is someone who never buys luxury cars during a discussion about the luxury brand, and its plans for future plug-in cars. He argued those vehicles have to provide "added value for the price" while also maintaining the performance and luxury expected of the brand. "These are not cars for tree-huggers, as tree-huggers do not buy new luxury cars." Yeah? What about the 25,000 people that have bought a Tesla Model S in the last two years? They might beg to differ.

Submission + - The Eloi Are Evolving (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by TchrBabe
TchrBabe writes: In a new twist reminiscent of HG Wells "The Time Machine", current children are growing up without the requisite physical skills that you would expect. Instead of playing with toys, the use of tablets, smart phones, and other electronic devices as "teaching aids" and babysitters is limiting their physical dexterity. So by extrapolation, the digital divide could lead to the stratification of society on another level — those who can compute, and those who can "do". Sounds like the Eloi and the Morlocks aren't that far behind.

Submission + - Microsoft Ending Live.com Custom Domain Services (live.com)

Submitted by Crolis
Crolis writes: On April 11, 2014, Microsoft announced the end of their Live.com custom domain services. Their Windows Live Admin Center website was changed to read: "Outlook.com no longer offers support for new custom domain sign ups. New customers looking to manage custom domains are encouraged to use Office 365, Microsoft's premium online service, which also includes enterprise-class mail, collaboration and communication tools." Existing users will get a free trial on the Office 365 service, but the ultimate costs will be much higher once the trial ends.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Which NoSQL Database for New Project? 1

Submitted by DorianGre
DorianGre writes: New independent project. Iphones and droids talking to PHP(Symfony) or Ruby/Rails. Each incoming call will be a data element post and I would like to simply write that into the DB for later use. Will need to be able to pull by date or a one of a number of key fields, as well as do trend reporting over time on the totals of a few fields. I would like to start with a NoSQL solution for scaling, but would like something dead simple if possible. Looking at MongoDB, Couchbase, Cassandra/Hadoop and others.

Submission + - You Can't Kid a Kidder: Comcast's Cohen May Have Met His Match in FCC's Wheeler

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Comcast Corp's top lobbyist David Cohen is known to be a savvy political operator, having pushed through the No. 1 U.S. cable operator's landmark acquisition of media giant NBC Universal in 2011. But Alina Selyukh And Liana B. Baker write at Reuters that although Comcast ranks among the top-ten corporate influencers in Washington, having spent $18.8 million on lobbying last year, Cohen may have met his match in Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler. Wheeler headed the cable trade group from 1979 to 1984 and ran the wireless industry association from 1992 to 2004. Since taking over the FCC last November, however, Wheeler has not shied away from stances that have roiled past allies. Wheeler publicly expressed skepticism about a potential merger between wireless carriers Sprint and T-Mobile in one of his most attention-grabbing moves last February. "You can't kid a kidder. Having been a lobbyist, he knows all their tricks," says Blair Levin. Comcast will formally request an FCC review of the $45.2 billion Time Warner Cable deal later in March. Opponents say the combined company will have too much power over what Americans can watch on television and do online. As FCC chairman, Wheeler has publicly and repeatedly stated his "unabashed" support for competition. Wheeler has also hired a heavyweight consumer advocate, Gigi Sohn, as a senior adviser. Colleagues of Wheeler, a published historian, also highlight his subject expertise. "He knows these issues like the back of his hand," says one FCC official who works with Wheeler. "He knows how the business runs. He knows these people, he knows what they think and what policies they want."

Comment Re:Dealership model is so broken. (Score 1) 229

by damacus (#46490169) Attached to: Elon Musk Addresses New Jersey's Tesla Store Ban

Incorrect. Original Design Manufacturers *design* and *patent* what they've designed. Apple designs and patents their own equipment.

They do outsource the manufacturing to companies like Quanta, Keytronic, and Foxconn, but that doesn't mean they wear the pants in the relationship, and they would be beholden to Apple to determine who they could or could not ship or sell units to. Purchasing from Apple is essentially a direct purchase without a third party.

Comment Dealership model is so broken. (Score 4, Informative) 229

by damacus (#46487253) Attached to: Elon Musk Addresses New Jersey's Tesla Store Ban

Imagine if you wanted an Apple computer you had to buy it through Best Buy or Radio Shack, and dealing with their personnel. The companies that do business this way are maddening. Elsewhere, companies like Cisco choose not to sell directly to buyers, making them go through a partner or reseller. This may have been an acceptable model years ago, but these days it's tedious and I think people expect more; they don't want to deal with a third party whose interests are not wholly aligned with their own. At least when you're talking about tech vendors, you can opt to deal with someone else who does business differently. Government enforcement of a given model is quite wrong-headed and needs to be stopped. It smacks of protectionism to me.

Submission + - Gladiator Training Prison Discovered (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Gladiators had it rough. In addition to living a life of combat and bloodshed, archaeologists are finding that they were imprisoned in training schools, too. A study published online yesterday in Antiquity describes the discovery of a fortress near Vienna, with a practice arena, small cells to sleep in, and an infirmary. The facility was mapped with noninvasive earth-sensing technologies and had only one exit. There’s also a video overview of the facility.

Submission + - Texas Appeals Court Rules Phone Search After Arrest Violates 4th Amendment (state.tx.us)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: "... we reject the State Prosecuting Attorney’s argument that a modern-day cell phone is like a pair of pants or a bag of groceries, for which a person loses all privacy protection once it is checked into a jail property room."

The Fourth Amendment states that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.” The term “papers and effects” obviously carried a different connotation in the late eighteenth century than it does today. No longer are they stored only in desks, cabinets, satchels, and folders. Our most private information is now frequently stored in electronic devices such as computers, laptops, iPads, and cell phones, or in “the cloud” and accessible by those electronic devices. But the “central concern underlying the Fourth Amendment” has remained the same throughout the centuries; it is “the concern about giving police officers unbridled discretion to rummage at will among a person’s private effects. ” This is a case about rummaging through a citizen’s electronic private effects–a cell phone–without warrant.

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