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Cloud

Inside Amazon's Data Centers 42

Posted by CmdrTaco from the lookit-all-dem-wires dept.
1sockchuck writes "Amazon Web Services usually doesn't say much about the data centers powering its cloud computing platform. But last week the company held a technology open house to discuss the company's infrastructure, sharing cost data and a glimpse of a modular data center design. The key point: AWS is growing like crazy. 'Every day Amazon Web Services adds enough new capacity to support all of Amazon.com's global infrastructure through the company's first 5 years, when it was a $2.76 billion annual revenue enterprise,' said AWS Engineer James Hamilton, whose presentation (PDF) is available online."

Comment Re:Finally... (Score 1) 410

by brendank310 (#36262442) Attached to: Steve Ballmer's Head On the Block?
Interesting? Really? So you'd prefer to have less competition in the operating system market? Granted Microsoft has been the demon around here for as long as I can remember, but with someone new at the helm, maybe Microsoft can contribute useful products to the marketplace. They certainly have a large amount of talent, and I would love to see the company leverage it with a new mission. Someone who could successfully translate things that come out of Microsoft R&D to the marketplace would be great. I am not a big fan of Microsoft, haven't used Windows in the last 5 years really, though I do enjoy the Xbox (despite all the problems that have plagued them).
Medicine

US Preserves Smallpox For Defense 248

Posted by CmdrTaco from the it's-not-mine-i-swear dept.
lee1 writes "The US is preserving the last remaining known strains of smallpox in case they are needed to develop bio-warfare 'countermeasures' and as a hedge against possible outbreaks in a population with no natural immunity. 451 specimens are stored in Atlanta at the Centers for Disease Control, and 120 strains at the Russian Vector laboratory in Siberia. Meanwhile, the government has contracted to pay almost $3 billion to procure 14 million smallpox vaccination doses."
Space

Allen Telescope Array Shut Down 98

Posted by Soulskill from the ears-wide-shut dept.
SETIGuy writes "The Allen Telescope Array has been put into hibernation due to lack of funds to continue operations. Most of the technical staff have been laid off or moved to other projects. It's too early to call it closed, but the hibernation state can only last for 6 months or so before a full shutdown is necessary. Coming back from a full shutdown would be expensive. It's unfortunate that the telescope never received the funding to build the 350 dish antennas that would make it a world class instrument. In its current 42-antenna state, it is not a significant enough improvement over other telescopes to attract enough funding to keep operating."

Comment Re:It depends. (Score 1) 325

by brendank310 (#35871086) Attached to: Used Game Penalty Escalates With <em>SOCOM 4</em>
Yeah the withholding of content which is already produced (or ported from older versions of the game) is ridiculous. In order to get all the courses in Tiger Woods 12, the overall cost becomes ~$110. Most of these DLC courses are ones that were included in previous years games, and you know that EA didn't rework them, maybe slapped on a new texture or something. Of the 34 courses available, 14 are included with your $60 purchase. Most of those were included in TW09. Same thing with one of the Call of Duty games where they released downloadable maps that were part of Call of Duty 1.
Transportation

Obama Calling For $53B For High Speed Rail 1026

Posted by samzenpus from the lyle-lanley-approved dept.
Antisyzygy writes "President Obama is calling for $53B to be appropriated for the construction of high-speed rail in the United States over the next 6 years. Assuming Congress approves this plan, the funding would be spent on developing and/or improving trains that travel at approximately 250 miles/hour, as well as spent on connecting existing rail lines to new developed high speed lines."
Education

Should Colleges Ban Classroom Laptop Use? 804

Posted by samzenpus from the no-farmville-for-you dept.
theodp writes "If you were a college prof, think you could successfully compete for the attention of a lecture hall of Mac-packing students? CS student Carolyn blogs that a debate has sprung up on her campus about whether it is acceptable to use a laptop in class. And her school is hardly alone when it comes to struggling with appropriate in-classroom laptop use (vendor/corporate trainers would no doubt commiserate). The problem, she says, is that the OCD Facebookers aren't just devaluing their own education — there's a certain distraction factor to worry about. 'Students,' she suggests, 'should also communicate with each other more and tell their classmates when their computer use bothers them. I'll admit it, when I'm trying to pay attention to the lecture, even someone's screensaver in the row ahead of me can be a major distraction.'"

Comment Let the movies entertain them... (Score 1) 298

by brendank310 (#34693234) Attached to: Can Movies Inspire Kids To Be Future Scientists?
it's our job to inspire them. I've always been peeved by the assumption that 'oh, they are too young to teach that.' Expose them to the ideas, and let them decide. The other problem I see is we have a lot of educators (in the US anyway) who went to school to learn education. These people have been exposed to very little levels of math and science, and as such dismiss it often as difficult. When you hear something is difficult for the first 16 years of your life, why would you want to go into it?
Bug

Problems With Truncation On the Common Application 135

Posted by timothy from the when-idiots-set-limits dept.
jaroslav writes "A combination of rigid caps on space and poor documentation of the space limits is adding stress on students applying for college using the Common Application, the New York Times reports. The story explains that the application lists word limits for questions, but actually enforces space limits. As a result, an answer with wide characters, such as 'w' or 'm,' may run over space even without reaching the stated word limit. It is not explained why an electronic submission must have such strictly enforced limits."

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