Comment Re:What are the plans after the tree is dismantele (Score 4, Funny) 248
but he's dreaming of a wiped Christmas!
Comment Re:This just in... (Score 1) 534
Yeah, don't F**k it up, either
(with further apologies to Tycho and Gabe)
(with further apologies to Tycho and Gabe)
Submission + - BBC creates 'Perl on Rails' 2
Bogtha writes: Long-time users of Perl for their public websites, and having successfully used Ruby on Rails for internal websites, the BBC have fused the two by creating a 'Perl on Rails' that has the advantages of rapid development that Rails brings, while performing well enough to be used for the Beeb's high-traffic public websites. This is already powering one of their websites, and is set to be used in the controversial iPlayer project as well.
Submission + - Mozilla to give away own security testing tools (computerworld.com)
srikas writes: "Mozilla Corp. will release some of its homegrown security tools to the open-source community, the company's head of security said Wednesday, starting with a "fuzzer" it uses to pin down JavaScript bugs in Firefox.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9028720&intsrc=new s_ts_head"
Submission + - Senate Committee Votes to Expand TV Ratings Techno (wired.com)
UltraAyla writes: "WIRED is reporting that the Senate Commerce Committee voted on Thursday to advance the Child Safe Viewing Act to the Senate floor. From the article:
The article points out that "it's not clear how any filtering technology could work with the explosion of video-sharing sites like YouTube, the amount of content that isn't created by American companies.""
The Federal Communications Commission shall consider advanced blocking technologies that — 1. may be appropriate across a wide variety of distribution platforms, including wired, wireless, and Internet platforms; 2. may be appropriate across a wide variety of devices capable of transmitting or receiving video or audio programming
The article points out that "it's not clear how any filtering technology could work with the explosion of video-sharing sites like YouTube, the amount of content that isn't created by American companies.""
Submission + - NASA to build largest Supercomputer ever (linuxworld.com.au) 1
Onlyodin writes: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has given the green light to a project that will build the largest ever supercomputer based on Silicon Graphics' (SGI) 512-processor Altix computers.
Called Project Columbia and costing around $160-million, the 10,240-processor system will be used by researchers at the Advanced Supercomputing Facility at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
What makes Project Columbia unique is the size of the multiprocessor Linux systems, or nodes, that it clusters together. It is common for supercomputers to be built of thousands of two-processor nodes, but the Ames system uses SGI's NUMAlink switching technology and ProPack Linux operating system enhancements to connect 512-processor nodes, each of which will have more than 1,000G bytes of memory.
Full Story at Linuxworld
Called Project Columbia and costing around $160-million, the 10,240-processor system will be used by researchers at the Advanced Supercomputing Facility at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
What makes Project Columbia unique is the size of the multiprocessor Linux systems, or nodes, that it clusters together. It is common for supercomputers to be built of thousands of two-processor nodes, but the Ames system uses SGI's NUMAlink switching technology and ProPack Linux operating system enhancements to connect 512-processor nodes, each of which will have more than 1,000G bytes of memory.
Full Story at Linuxworld
Submission + - New bill would reverse bans on municipal broadband (arstechnica.com)
Yuppie writes: A bill introduced to the House this week would overturn bans that currently exist in several states on cities and towns building and deploying their own broadband networks. The big telecoms may not be be too happy about the bill, however. 'The telecoms have historically argued that municipalities that own and operate — or even build and lease — broadband networks could give themselves preferential treatment. The Act anticipates that argument with a section on "competition neutrality." Public providers would be banned from giving themselves any "regulatory preference," which should create a level playing field for all broadband providers. Municipalities interested in getting into the broadband business would also have to solicit feedback from the private sector on planned deployments.' The full text of the bill is available from Rep. Boucher's website (PDF).
Submission + - Colossal 3D Model of Roman Architecture (bbc.co.uk)
vigmeister writes: "10 years of work have culminated in the largest 3D model ever built which details Ancient Rome."
Submission + - Douglas Tompkins buys slices of South America (yahoo.com)
ted.GT writes: "North Face and Esprit clothing brand founder Douglas Tompkins has purchased land in Chile and Argentina totaling more than 1 million acres. He wants to keep this land away from agribusiness and land development and hopes one day to turn it over to the government as a natural reserve. His aim is to save the planet buy buying parts of it and protect it from agricultural development and soil abuse."
Submission + - Hackers Selling IDs Online for $14
narramissic writes: "According to the Internet Security Threat Report (PDF download), released Monday by Symantec, identity thieves are offering a person's credit-card number, date of birth and other sensitive information on the cheap. 'U.S.-based credit cards with a card verification number were available for between $1 to $6, while an identity — including a U.S. bank account, credit card, date of birth and government-issued identification number — was available for between $14 to $18,' the report said."
Submission + - SpaceX to attempt launch of Falcon 1 today
fatron writes: After yesterday's flight readiness review, SpaceX announced they will be attempting the second launch of their Falcon 1 Spacecraft today. The launch is scheduled for 4:00PM Pacific time, and the webcast can be viewed here.
Submission + - Mars Rover Churns Up Yellow Soil
SeaDour writes: "Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are taking a closer look at images sent back by the Mars rover Spirit nearly a year ago, showing bright yellow soil that had been churned up by the rover's wheels. The soil appears to contain high concentrations of sulfur as well as traces of water. "This material could have been left behind by water that dissolved these minerals underground, then came to the surface and evaporated, or it could be a volcanic deposit formed around ancient gas vents," said Dr. Ray Arvidson. Researchers are planning to see if the soil turns up anywhere else in the area, potentially giving more clues as to its origin."
Submission + - Linked List Patented in 2006
An anonymous reader writes: Congratulations are in order to Ming-Jen Wang of LSI Logic Corporation who, in patent #10260471 managed to invent the linked list. From the abstract, "A computerized list is provided with auxiliary pointers for traversing the list in different sequences. One or more auxiliary pointers enable a fast, sequential traversal of the list with a minimum of computational time. Such lists may be used in any application where lists may be reordered for various purposes." Good-bye doubly linked list. We should also give praise to the extensive patent review performed by Cochran Freund & Young LLP.
Submission + - New York bans use of the word "Nigger"
LordLucless writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that New York City is banning the use of the word "nigger". There is no penalty for using the word, but the city hopes that the moratorium will discourage its use nonetheless. Is this a futile PC gesture, or does it present the specter of more draconian measures in the future?"
Submission + - Adobe To Take Photoshop Online
Mr. Linton writes: "In this CNET article Adobe is apparently planning to take Photoshop to the web. From the article: "the hosted Photoshop service is set to be free and marketed as an entry-level version of Adobe's more sophisticated image-editing tools, including Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Chizen envisions revenue from the Photoshop service coming from online advertising.""
