Comment Re:Jeez Late news, TES:EMPIRE trailer is available (Score 2, Informative) 130
That's the intro cinematic for Warhammer Mark of Chaos, and apparently there are also a lot of rickrolls out there entitled Elder Scroll V trailer.
Submission + - University holds jazz funeral for its mainframe
BDPrime writes: "Server Specs has a story about The University of Manitoba holding a New Orleans-style jazz funeral for its mainframe. The funeral included a full procession route on campus, "Amazing Grace" being played on the trumpet, and employees smashing a pinata made to look like a cartoon-y mainframe. Is the mainframe dead? Maybe not everywhere, but at The University of Manitoba it certainly is."
Submission + - Data Center Power Use to Grow by 10,000 Megawatts (datacenterknowledge.com)
1sockchuck writes: "A new study predicts that global electricity use by data centers will grow by 10,000 megawatts between 2005 and 2010. Power use by servers is growing 16 percent per year, according to the analysis by Jonathan Koomey of Lawrence Berkeley Labs, whose previous research on the topic was featured in the recent EPA report to Congress on data center energy issues. The data highlights one of the major challenges in energy trends: the growing demand for power from emerging economies in the Asia-Pacific. The study, which uses IDC server data and was backed by AMD, projects that data center power usage in the Asia-Pacific region will grow at a 23 percent clip through 2010."
Submission + - Wikinews interviews editors of 'The Onion'
DragonFire1024 writes: "The Onion: An interview with 'America's Finest News Source' — Wikinews interviews Chet Clem and Sean Mills about the news empire that has become The Onion."
Submission + - The Campaign to End Internet Explorer 6 (end6.org)
zip6 writes: Ever work on a site and wonder, "Why am I doing horrible things to the code to make this work in IE6 when IE7 has been out for a year and yet 43% of the net public still use it?" Yeah, me too. Thus the reason for End6! A simple JavaScript function from a simple site to try and get rid of this thing once and for all.
Submission + - Sex or technology?
An anonymous reader writes: Recently CNET covered the iPhone launch in London where someone actually said, "it's better than sex". After asking a few of my colleagues at the office whether they'd choose a life filled with sex over technology and vice-versa, I was surprised to see how many people, mostly men, responded by saying they'd give up sex if it meant they could keep on using things such as the Internet and mobile phones. Is it just me or is that absolutely crazy?
Submission + - Experts Say Artificial Life Likely
pilsner.urquell writes: Breitbart.com reports:
In a little known field of "wet artificial life" scientists believe they will be able to create live in a test tube in as little as 3 years.
"Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."
Submission + - Major computer problem looms over space station (reuters.com)
EC writes: Reuters reports major problems with the International Space Station. After connecting a new solar-power unit, all three Russian computer systems crashed to the point where they wouldn't reboot.
"The failure occurred in computers on the Russian segment of the 16-nation space station, computers that control navigation and key life-support systems on the huge orbital base. Without them, the station cannot maintain proper orbit and the crew cannot stay on board."
The article adds that the US portion relies on the Russian systems to function.
A remark made by the author: 'Engineers were studying whether the new solar power unit is the cause of the problem and whether disconnecting it to reboot the computers would resolve it.'
Well, let's see — you install a new component, and all of the sudden a number of units are malfunctioning. Now, I work in IT as a programmer, and although I do not have tons of networking/hardware experience it doesn't take much to realize the risks in installing new hardware and its effects on other parts of a system. But, come on — isn't it obvious?
Submission + - I wnat to relearn programming
Imsdal writes: "I used to be a reasonably good programmer, but life has taken me in a different direction, and my skills are now quite out of date. I want to learn a good, modern language with a good modern IDE. I only have the time and inclination to learn one. Which should I choose?
Here is more background:
I learnt programming 25+ years ago. I started with BASIC and moved to Z80 assembler, Pascal and FORTRAN. In 89-94 I got a M.Sc. in Computer Science with a heavily theoretical focus, so at that time I knew about a dozen languages reasonably well (LISP in several flavors, ML, SQL, PROLOG, C, ADA and a bunch of others. Note the absence of Java and C++, though). I then started working, and spent most of my time working with SQL. I have since moved to "general management", so apart from the occasional spell of SQL and VBA, I haven't really been programming much for almost ten years (and most of you will of course say that VBA isn't programming at all).
Now I want to "get back into the game", but I have found that programming today isn't so much learning syntax and general ideas (which I can still do quickly), but learning and IDE and/or a fairly huge library of supporting functions. Thus, it seems like a bigger project to learn a new environment these days, and I want to make sure I go down the right path.
So, what do I actually want to do with my newly acquired skill set? Let's start with what I don't want to do:
* I don't want to be a programmer as a job, so there doesn't have to be a market for whatever language/environment you recommend.
* I wont write applications that anyone else will use, so robustness/error handling etc is nice but not a critical factor.
* The stuff I write doesn't have to be web applications. It might be, but stand alone stuff that just runs on my computer is fine.
And here are a few examples of stuff I want to actually achieve:
* An application that reads stuff from web pages, analyzes them and stores the result in a DB, for instance:
— Sales data from amazon.com
— Play by play data from Major League Baseball games
* Simulations of games, for example
— Algorithms that play Othello or Mastermind
— Simulations of poker hands
* Solutions to projecteuler.net problems.
The first example requires the easy ability to get a web page and do some pretty basic string manipulation to it (but easy hookups to lex and yacc or variants is a huge advantage), and easy writing to a DB. (I'll do the actual processing of the data from the DB in SQL and won't need support there.)
The second example shouldn't exclude any particular modern language, I would guess.
The third example requires a very good and fast bignum implementation. This is mandatory, not optional.
I have computers running Ubuntu and XP (sorry, no Mac), so whatever you suggest should run on either of those. It's not important (and not even an advantage, really) that it runs on both. Since this is for my own enjoyment and non-professional, the environment should be free or very cheap. It strictly doesn't have to be open source, but maybe that's an advantage.
So, in conclusion, I'm looking for a computer language with a good environment that allows me to get started quickly, is versatile in what I can do in it, has a good bignum implementation and, hopefully, is fun. What would you recommend and why?"
Here is more background:
I learnt programming 25+ years ago. I started with BASIC and moved to Z80 assembler, Pascal and FORTRAN. In 89-94 I got a M.Sc. in Computer Science with a heavily theoretical focus, so at that time I knew about a dozen languages reasonably well (LISP in several flavors, ML, SQL, PROLOG, C, ADA and a bunch of others. Note the absence of Java and C++, though). I then started working, and spent most of my time working with SQL. I have since moved to "general management", so apart from the occasional spell of SQL and VBA, I haven't really been programming much for almost ten years (and most of you will of course say that VBA isn't programming at all).
Now I want to "get back into the game", but I have found that programming today isn't so much learning syntax and general ideas (which I can still do quickly), but learning and IDE and/or a fairly huge library of supporting functions. Thus, it seems like a bigger project to learn a new environment these days, and I want to make sure I go down the right path.
So, what do I actually want to do with my newly acquired skill set? Let's start with what I don't want to do:
* I don't want to be a programmer as a job, so there doesn't have to be a market for whatever language/environment you recommend.
* I wont write applications that anyone else will use, so robustness/error handling etc is nice but not a critical factor.
* The stuff I write doesn't have to be web applications. It might be, but stand alone stuff that just runs on my computer is fine.
And here are a few examples of stuff I want to actually achieve:
* An application that reads stuff from web pages, analyzes them and stores the result in a DB, for instance:
— Sales data from amazon.com
— Play by play data from Major League Baseball games
* Simulations of games, for example
— Algorithms that play Othello or Mastermind
— Simulations of poker hands
* Solutions to projecteuler.net problems.
The first example requires the easy ability to get a web page and do some pretty basic string manipulation to it (but easy hookups to lex and yacc or variants is a huge advantage), and easy writing to a DB. (I'll do the actual processing of the data from the DB in SQL and won't need support there.)
The second example shouldn't exclude any particular modern language, I would guess.
The third example requires a very good and fast bignum implementation. This is mandatory, not optional.
I have computers running Ubuntu and XP (sorry, no Mac), so whatever you suggest should run on either of those. It's not important (and not even an advantage, really) that it runs on both. Since this is for my own enjoyment and non-professional, the environment should be free or very cheap. It strictly doesn't have to be open source, but maybe that's an advantage.
So, in conclusion, I'm looking for a computer language with a good environment that allows me to get started quickly, is versatile in what I can do in it, has a good bignum implementation and, hopefully, is fun. What would you recommend and why?"
Submission + - Popular sites not taking w3 standards seriously
gregarei writes: "I went to make a Google image search yesterday, only to realize there was no image search link, as well as any of the usual navigation. After browsing around, I noticed my browser warning me of 12 HTML errors on the google.com homepage. When I went searching for other search engines which comply to w3c standards I was shocked to find that I could not locate A single one. Why is it that just about every high-traffic web site chooses not to comply to w3c standards? Are there any interesting validation results you would like to share?"
Submission + - Will Finding Mars Life Threaten the Space Program?
Daniel Markham writes: "Everybody assumes that when life is finally found in outer space, say on Mars, that this will be a good thing for the Space Program. But looking at our history with funding battles for space exploration, there's a compelling case to be made that finding life on Mars would be the worst thing possible for manned space exploration. The case is made here, and includes some twists and turns you might not expect, such as LBJ's decision to slowly strip space funding to pay for Vietnam and domestic programs."
Space Shuttle Atlantis Delayed Again 174
eldavojohn writes "An electrical short cause the space shuttle Atlantis to be delayed since a lightning strike to the pad and Tropical Storm Ernesto caused delays. From the article:
'Liftoff was only hours away Wednesday morning when engineers reported a short in one of three fuel cells that supplies electricity for all the on-board systems, including the crew compartment.' It also points out that 'The faulty cell is currently operational even with the short. But after the 2003 Columbia disaster, which killed all seven astronauts, NASA says it has adopted an aggressive, safety-conscious approach to launching.' It causes one to wonder whether pre-Columbia-disaster NASA would have just replaced the fuel cell on the fly without telling anyone — and whether or not that is an ethically sound choice."
Mysterious 'Forcefield' Tested on US Tanks 603
An anonymous reader writes "Not too long ago General Dynamics announced a successful test of their new Trophy Active Defense System (ADS). The Trophy ADS generates something similar to a force field around one half of a vehicle as a direct reaction to incoming fire. From the article: 'The Threat Detection and Warning subsystem consists of several sensors, including flat-panel radars, placed at strategic locations around the protected vehicle, to provide full hemispherical coverage. Once an incoming threat is detected identified and verified, the Countermeasure Assembly is opened, the countermeasure device is positioned in the direction where it can effectively intercept the threat. Then, it is launched automatically into a ballistic trajectory to intercept the incoming threat at a relatively long distance.'"
