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Comment Inappropriate media (Score 1) 191

Isn't there a write up somewhere? Wouldn't it be better to link to a write up? I don't want to spend 4m19s watching some dumb video with sound in space and fancy graphics. Spoken narrative is too slow. A write up and a diagram or 2 is enough to convey principles, which is what interests me.

Comment Re:How did they do it? (Score 1) 426

I am guessing, but I think it was a long time in preparation. With the UK broad gauge, the difference in gauges was large enough that track could be laid in mixed gauge, so the actual changeover could be years of dual gauge operation. For the Southern US, the gauges were too close to permit mixed gauge, I would think. An easy way to do a quick change would be to spike the sleepers [US = ties] on one side only left and right on alternate sleepers when laying track to the broader gauge. Gauge would be held by stretcher bars every few sleepers. On changeover day, the stretcher bars could be taken out and the left and right rails complete with sleepers slewed together and the unspiked sides of the sleepers spiked to the new gauge.
Transportation

Submission + - 125th Anniversary of the Great Gauge Change May 31 (railfan.net)

Arnold Reinhold writes: "This month ends with the 125th anniversary of one of the most remarkable achievements in technology history. Over two days beginning Monday, May 31, 1886, the railroad network in the southern United States was converted from a five foot gauge to one compatible with the slightly narrower gauge used in the U.S. North, now know as standard gauge. The shift was meticulously planned and executed. It required one side of every track to be moved three inches closer to the other. All wheel sets had to be adjusted as well. Some minor track and rolling stock was sensibly deferred until later, but by Wednesday the South's 11,500 mile rail network was back in business and able to exchange rail cars with the North. The Days They Changed the Gauge Other countries are still struggling with incompatible rail gauges. Australia still has three. Most of Europe runs on standard gauge, but Russia uses essentially the same five foot gauge as the old South and Spain and Portugal use an even broader gauge. India has a multi-year Project Unigauge aimed at converting its narrow gauge lines to the subcontinent's five foot six inch standard.

The US South's two day conversion was accomplished in difficult times, only 21 years after the end of the bloody American Civil War, and required cooperation among bitter competitors. Could it serve as a model for the Internet's long-delayed transition from IPv4 to IPv6? Are we less able to work together toward an important goal than our great-great-grandparents?"

Software

Graphic Map of Linux-2.6.36 25

conan.sh writes "The Interactive map of Linux Kernel was expanded and updated to the recent kernel linux-2.6.36. Now the map contains more than four hundred important source items (functions and structures) with links to source code and documentation."
The Courts

Judge Berates Prosecutors In Xbox Modding Trial 285

mrbongo writes with this excerpt from Wired: "Opening statements in the first-of-its-kind Xbox 360 criminal hacking trial were delayed here Wednesday after a federal judge unleashed a 30-minute tirade at prosecutors in open court, saying he had 'serious concerns about the government's case.' ... Gutierrez slammed the prosecution over everything from alleged unlawful behavior by government witnesses, to proposed jury instructions harmful to the defense. When the verbal assault finally subsided, federal prosecutors asked for a recess to determine whether they would offer the defendant a deal, dismiss or move forward with the case that was slated to become the first jury trial of its type. A jury was seated Tuesday."

Comment Re:Impossible (Score 1) 80

But Shakespeare has well defined meaning to a considerable level of sophistication. The way to do it is to extend the language logically from what is already available and where this is not enough, invent more Klingon to express the concepts. Done well, this project has great potential to develop the Klingon language into something fully functional. Not that there is much point, of course.
Image

Publishing Company Puts Warning Label on Constitution Screenshot-sm 676

Wilder Publication is under fire for putting warning labels on copies of historical US documents, including the Constitution. The label warns "This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today." From the article: "The disclaimer goes on to tell parents that they 'might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.'"
GNU is Not Unix

New LLVM Debugger Subproject Already Faster Than GDB 174

kthreadd writes "The LLVM project is now working on a debugger called LLDB that's already faster than GDB and could be a possible alternative in the future for C, C++, and Objective-C developers. With the ongoing success of Clang and other LLVM subprojects, are the days of GNU as the mainstream free and open development toolchain passé?" LLVM stands for Low Level Virtual Machine; Wikipedia as usual has a good explanation of the parent project.
Programming

When Rewriting an App Actually Makes Sense 289

vlangber writes "Joel Spolsky wrote a famous blog post back in 2000 called 'Things You Should Never Do, Part I,' where he wrote the following: '[T]he single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make: They decided to rewrite the code from scratch.' Here is a story about a software company that decided to rewrite their application from scratch, and their experiences from that process."

Comment This is just piffle. (Score 1) 178

NTP has its limitations and to me the miracle is that it is as good as it is, given the lack of promises concerning packet delivery in a TCP/IP network [No guarantee on route, latency or even delivery]. If you need something more accurate, then use GPS as already suggested or one of the atomic clock backed radio services around the world and calibrate for transmission distances, which is a consistent correction for any location. This will take accuracy close to the theoretical limits and is potentially available cheaply enough that the cost should not be a bar to any application where this sort of accuracy really is justified. I just cannot see any point whatsoever in trying to do this over the internet when you cannot hope to meet the accuracy of existing means.
Earth

Aral Sea May Recover; Dead Sea Needs a Lifeline 131

An anonymous reader writes "It's a tale of two seas. The drying up of the Aral Sea is considered one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in history, but the northern sector of the sea, at least, is showing signs of life. A dam completed in 2005 has increased the North Aral's span by 20 percent, and birds, fish, and people are all returning to the area. Meanwhile, the Dead Sea is still in the midst of precipitous decline, since too much water is being drawn out of the Jordan River for thirsty populations and crops. To keep the sea from shrinking more, scientists are pushing an ambitious scheme called the 'Red-Dead conduit,' which would channel huge amounts of water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. However, the environmental consequences of such a project may be troubling."
Government

Bill To Ban All Salt In Restaurant Cooking 794

lord_rotorooter writes "Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, introduced a bill that would ruin restaurant food and baked goods as we know them. The measure (if passed) would ban the use of all forms of salt in the preparation and cooking of food for all restaurants or bakeries. While the use of too much salt can contribute to health problems, the complete banning of salt would have negative impacts on food chemistry. Not only does salt enhance flavor, it controls bacteria, slows yeast activity and strengthens dough by tightening gluten. Salt also inhibits the growth of microbes that spoil cheese."
Image

The 10 Most Absurd Scientific Papers Screenshot-sm 127

Lanxon writes "It's true: 'Effects of cocaine on honeybee dance behavior,' 'Fellatio by fruit bats prolongs copulation time,' and 'Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull?' are all genuine scientific research papers, and all were genuinely published in journals or similar publications. Wired's presentation of a collection of the most bizarrely-named research papers contains seven other gems, including one about naval fluff and another published in The Journal of Sex Research."

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