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Submission + - Billionaire Agarwal Gets Inspired By Gates' Philantrophy (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Anil Agarwal, the billionaire founder of Vedanta Resources Plc, said he and his family decided to donate 75 percent of their wealth to charity after meeting Bill Gates. Agarwal said Gates and his wife, Melinda, discussed their philanthropic causes with him in Seattle last summer. "What we earn must be returned for the greater good of society," the 62-year-old said at an event yesterday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Vedanta's (VED) listing on the London Stock Exchange. "Life is not only about wealth." Agarwal has a fortune of $3.3 billion that includes an almost 70 percent stake in his company.

Submission + - Breakthrough in LED Construction Increases Efficiency by 57 Percent (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: With LEDs being the preferred long-lasting, low-energy method for replacing less efficient forms of lighting, their uptake has dramatically increased over the past few years. However, despite their luminous outputs having increased steadily over that time, they still fall behind more conventional forms of lighting in terms of brightness. Researchers at Princeton University claim to have come up with a way to change all that by using nanotechnology to increase the output of organic LEDs by 57 percent.

Submission + - DHL Goes Live With "Parcelcopter" Drone Delivery Service

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: In December, Amazon announced that it intended to deliver packages to customers using drones. But its initiative was widely ridiculed for being an over-hyped announcement with little to show for it. This summer, Google demonstrated its own drone-based delivery service, using a fixed-wing aircraft to deliver little packages to farmers in the Australian outback. But now, German delivery firm DHL has beaten the tech firms to the post, announcing a regular drone delivery service for the first time, nine months after it launched its "parcelcopter" research project in December 2013. The service will use an quadcopter to deliver small parcels to the German island of Juist, a sandbar island 12km into the North Sea from the German coast, inhabited by 2,000 people. Deliveries will include medication and other urgently needed goods. Flying under 50 meters to avoid entering regulated air traffic corridors, the drone takes a fully automated route, carrying a special air-transport container that is extremely lightweight as well as weatherproof.

Comment Re:Amazing... (Score -1, Troll) 236

by jones_supa (#48000611) Attached to: First Shellshock Botnet Attacking Akamai, US DoD Networks

Windows users generally don't have a chip on their shoulder.

Linux users generally hate Windows a lot more than Windows users hate Linux.

I can confirm that. The difference I have noticed is that if I point a flaw in Windows to Windows users, they say "that's true, we need to push Microsoft to do better". If I point a flaw in Linux to Linux users, they act like a kid whose lollipop has been taken away, get all angry and defensive, and try to downplay the issue.

Comment Too much scripting in Linux (Score 2) 236

by jones_supa (#48000333) Attached to: First Shellshock Botnet Attacking Akamai, US DoD Networks
Just the other day I commented in a SystemD discussion how scripts break easily and are slow to execute. One of the replies I got was "Scripts don't break themselves. They do exactly what you tell them to do." Heh, indeed they do. Didn't we just hear about one Shellshock-related attack where a malicious DHCP server can command a dhclient script do nasty things. Scripting is a problem and binary modules would provide more robust interfaces. It is a thing worth giving a thought.

Comment Re:Voxel? We don't no stinking voxel! (Score 2) 134

by jones_supa (#47995461) Attached to: Euclideon Teases Photorealistic Voxel-Based Game Engine

Didn't John Carmack of ID Software vanished voxel-based engines back in the 1990's as being technically inferior -- or maybe impractical -- with the video cards of the day?

Yes. He also tweeted about Euclideon in 2011. Apparently he seems to be somewhat optimistic about the concept but sees hardware requirements and production issues to be possible blockers.

Submission + - Kim Jong-un Missing From Public View (joins.com)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has not made a public appearance for weeks, according to South Korean officials and analysts — a situation that has fueled speculation among outside observers over his whereabouts. The young strongman attended a concert by the Moranbong Band with his wife on Sept. 3, North Korean media reported, though since then, none of his activities have been publicized. North Korea analysts said it is rare for the North to keep silent about his personal affairs for so long. Observers said it is also unusual that Kim seems to have disappeared during the Incheon Asian Games, particularly because he invested so much in sending the country's national team to the event. Analysts believe it's possible that the young leader may have a health issue. Footage from a North Korean television broadcast last month showed that Kim had been walking with a slight limp in July and August. There is also unconfirmed information that he might have been wounded during sports activity.

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