Comment Re:3rd in the series (Score 1) 325
That looks like it's some of the lectures. but not all of them. Sorry if the Silverlight is a problem but since the hardbound versions are about $130.00 new.
DS
Comment 3rd in the series (Score 1) 325
Apparently, by visiting the website http://www.superprincipia.com/index.htm this would be the 3rd in his series. But I do find it hard to locate any independent review of his work.
I honestly would love to find a good source for information and illumination like this. But so far the best I've seen are the Feynman Lectures put on line by Microsoft.
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.html
I do think I'll look into it further though.
DS
Submission + - Supercomputing: There's an App for That (utexas.edu)
aarondubrow writes: Researchers at MIT have created an experimental system for smart phones that allows engineers to leverage the power of supercomputers for instant computation and anaylsis. The team performed a series of expensive high-fidelity simulations on the Ranger supercomputer to generate a small “reduced model” which was transferred to a Google Android smart phone. They were then able to solve engineering and fluid flow problems on the phone and visualize the results interactively. The project proved the potential for reduced order methods to perform real-time and reliable simulations for complicated problems on handheld devices. [Watch the awesome demo to see the full potential of the system.]
Submission + - Owning Virtual Worlds For Fun and Profit (threatpost.com)
Trailrunner7 writes: Threatpost has a guest column by security researcher Charlie Miller on the ways in which attackers can easily take advantage of vulnerabilities in virtual worlds and perhaps online games to get control of other players' characters and avatars and even cash out their real-world bank accounts. "I’m a security researcher. I find bugs in software, they get fixed. I write exploits, they give me a shell. It's more or less always the same and it gets kind of boring. But there was one exploit I helped write back in 2007 that was a little different. This is the story of that exploit. It turns out that Second Life uses QuickTime Player to process its multimedia. When I started looking into virtual world exploits, with the help of Dino Dai Zovi, there was a stack buffer overflow in QuickTime Player that had been discovered by Krystian Kloskowski but had not yet been patched. In Second Life it is possible to embed images and video onto objects.
We embedded a vulnerable file onto a small pink cube and placed it onto a track of land we owned. No matter where the cube was, if a victim walked onto the land and had multimedia enabled (recommended but not required), they would be exploited. The cube could be inside a building, hovering in the air, or even under the ground, and the result was the same."
We embedded a vulnerable file onto a small pink cube and placed it onto a track of land we owned. No matter where the cube was, if a victim walked onto the land and had multimedia enabled (recommended but not required), they would be exploited. The cube could be inside a building, hovering in the air, or even under the ground, and the result was the same."
Comment Software Patents Are in trouble (Score 1) 510
Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but this could be the very best thing to happen for programmers and computer science, since the switch statement.
Software patents have hindered developers and companies for decades now. When SCO sued IBM it brought into public view the horrendous state of our patent system. But SCO is just a piddling little company that destroyed itself financially in one of the greatest self delusions of the last decade.
But now we have 2 industry titans going at it, that will I'm fairly sure bring to light, how asinine IP and it's patentability can be. The down side will be, if software patents and such are finally set free. It will burst the bubble with such force it will unsettle a great number of industries.
Just a thought.
DS
Submission + - Apple monitors fixed with strip of paper
tgibbs writes: Many owners of the Apple 23" Cinema HD monitor (aluminum) are experiencing a failure in which the monitor refuses come up again after being turned off, instead remaining dark with its power light flashing the "short-long-short" code for "bad power supply." Owners found that replacing the 90W power supply did not help, but that the problem could be fixed by replacing the stock 90W power brick with the larger 150W power brick from Apple's 30" monitor, available online for about $140--pricey, but cheaper than a monitor repair. The real breakthrough came when jakobeon discovered that the problem could be fixed by simply using a little strip of paper to block one pin of the cable from the monitor that plugs into the power brick, presumably disabling the monitor's startup check of the power supply. Numerous users on are now reporting success with the "little strip of paper" cure.
Submission + - MIT Uses Biological LEGOS to Build New Organs (inhabitat.com)
greenrainbow writes: Researchers at the MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology have created a new type of "biological LEGO" building blocks that can be used to form new organs. By binding cells together into tiny block-like structures researchers have found that they can precisely recreate human tissues. Best of all, the technique doesn't require expensive specialized machinery. MIT researchers believe that their biological building block technology could be replicated in any lab in the world.
Submission + - HTML: Still not all it's cracked up to be (infoworld.com) 1
GMGruman writes: Neil McAllister was helping out a friend whose Web developer disappeared. Neil's journey into his friend's Web site ended up being an archaeological dig through unstable remains, as layers of code in different languages easily broke when touched. Neil realized in that experience that the ever-growing jumble of standards, frameworks, and tools does little to ease the pain of Web application development — and in fact makes it harder. Although the Web is all about open standards where anyone can create varuations for their specific needs and wants, Neil's experience reminded him that a tightly controlled ecosystem backed by a major vendor does make it easier to define best practices, set development targets, and deliver results with a minimum of chaos. There's something to be said for that.
Submission + - A volcano of oil erupting ~million bpd (examiner.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Here's a listing of several scientific and economic guides for estimating the volume of flow of the leak in the Gulf erupting at a rate of somewhere around 1 million barrels per day. A new video released shows the largest hole spewing oil and natural gas from an aperture 5 feet in diameter at a rate of approximately 4 barrels per second. The oil coming up through 5,000 feet of pressurized salt water acts like a fractioning column. What you see on the surface is just around 20% of what is actually underneath the approximate 9,000 square miles of slick on the surface. The Natural Gas doesn't bubble to the top but gets suspended in the water depleting the oxygen from the water. BP would not have been celebrating with execs on the rig just prior to the explosion if it had not been capable producing at least 500,000 barrels per day — under control. If the rock gave way due to the out of control gushing (or due to a nuke being detonated to contain the leak), it could become a Yellowstone Caldera type event, except from below a mile of sea, with a 1/4-mile opening, with up to 150,000 psi of oil and natural gas behind it, from a reserve nearly as large as the Gulf of Mexico containing trillions of barrels of oil. That would be an Earth extinction event.
Submission + - Rockstar Ships Max Payne 2 Cracked By Pirates (steampowered.com)
CmdrTaco writes: "Jamie noticed a fairly amazing little story about Rockstar shipping a version of Max Payne 2 via steam that was actually http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1263556>cracked by pirates to remove the DRM. The going theory was that it was easier for them to simply use the pirate group's crack then to actually remove their DRM themselves."
Comment You know Vegetarians will have their Day. (Score 1) 87
This is really a great idea, bravo to the students. Though they use
to make hand crank centrifuges I'm pretty certain. This wouldn't
require being clamped to the lab bench or screwed down.
On the other hoof, were it not for salads and Vegetarians we
wouldn't have such a cool something to hack.
(subnote: could be other reasons a salad spinner was created.)
Davonshire.
Submission + - OpenSolaris 2009.06 Review (desktoplinuxreviews.com)
JimLynch writes: Occasionally I get an interesting, off-the-beaten-path suggestion on the Request A Review page. This time around somebody suggested doing a review of OpenSolaris. Why do a review of OpenSolaris? Well why the heck not? It's always fun to check out a different kind of desktop operating system. Sometimes you can find an unexpected jewel when you least expect it. Is OpenSolaris a jewel? I'll try to answer that in this review.
Submission + - Microsoft repeals worthless update
An anonymous reader writes: Quoting a Microsoft security bulletin email I received today, " MS10-025 — Critical
— http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms10-025.mspx
Reason for Revision: V2.0 (April 21, 2010): Revised bulletin to inform customers that the original security update did not protect systems from the vulnerability described in this bulletin. Microsoft recommends that customers apply one of the workarounds described in this bulletin to help mitigate the impact to affected systems until a revised security update is made available."
Well played, MS. Well played.
— http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms10-025.mspx
Reason for Revision: V2.0 (April 21, 2010): Revised bulletin to inform customers that the original security update did not protect systems from the vulnerability described in this bulletin. Microsoft recommends that customers apply one of the workarounds described in this bulletin to help mitigate the impact to affected systems until a revised security update is made available."
Well played, MS. Well played.
Submission + - Internet Cafe Could Cost Way More Than Cup of Joe (computerworld.com)
CWmike writes: Security experts say that employees are increasingly exposing personal and company information unknowingly as they log in at Wi-Fi hotspots. Although these breaches haven't yet made big headlines, given corporate America's increasing reliance on smartphones, laptops and other portable devices, it's only a matter of time, experts say. Ryan Crumb, director of information security for PWC's Advisory Services, has seen all sorts of information gleaned from hot spots — including Social Security numbers, corporate financial data and information about M&A deals — that was never meant for him to see. Sometimes Crumb deliberately looks to see what unprotected data is traveling over the network in public spaces. 'It's an inherent problem with being on a public space,' he says. Marc Noble, director of government affairs at (ISC)2, a nonprofit organization that educates and certifies information security professionals, says, 'Hotspots are great for the coffee shops, but people conducting business have to understand it's their responsibility to protect themselves. They might as well be putting it on a billboard and run down the street.' There are simple steps IT can take to protect data from hotspot dangers.
Comment Is it Vaporware already? (Score 2, Interesting) 347
I can't help but notice all the comments about Gates and the cuts over shadowed the main focus of the article being this Traveling Wave Reactor.
A run over to Wikipedia gave me some reason to doubt this amazing power system. Mostly being that it was theorized in 1958, but to date unlike many other reactor types, no one has built a prototype even.
So the question then comes, does anyone know of newer information or why a prototype hasn't been built for testing? It may not put out as much power as a LWR, but it seems it would have exceptional commercial value considering the kind of fuel it uses.
Just curious.
D.S.
