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Programming

Ask Slashdot: Web Site Editing Software For the Long Haul? 545

Posted by timothy
from the when-tripods-collapse dept.
MouseR writes "It seems we can't rely on software, in particular Web site editing software, to exist for the long haul. Every time I rely on something, it takes only a couple of years before it gets trashed. I have used GoLive's CyberStudio before it got engulfed as GoLive from Adobe. Both got trashed. I eventually used Apple's .Mac HomePage. It got trashed and replaced with iWeb. I then used iWeb, hosted on MobileMe, and Apple just killed it again, along with the hosting. So, as I'm preparing to move my stuff on various web sites, onto my own hosting server (outsourced), I'm wondering what kind of visual web site editor(s) I could use, for the long haul. I'm rather sick of changing tools every other year and as a software developer, would rather spend my time editing my web site rather than code it. Any suggestions?"
Science

Will Graphene Revolutionize the 21st Century? 345

Posted by samzenpus
from the step-right-up dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Much has been made of graphene's potential. It can be used for anything from composite materials — like how carbon-fiber is used currently — to electronics. 'Our research establishes Graphene as the strongest material ever measured, some 200 times stronger than structural steel,' mechanical engineering professor James Hone, of Columbia University, said in a statement. If graphene can be compared to the way plastic is used today, everything from crisp packets to clothing could be digitized once the technology is established. The future could see credit cards contain as much processing power as your current smartphone."
Math

Blue Gene/P Reaches Sixty-Trillionth of Pi Squared 212

Posted by timothy
from the just-warming-it-up dept.
Reader Dr.Who notes that an Australian research team using IBM's Blue Gene/P supercomputer has calculated the sixty-trillionth binary digit of Pi-squared, a task which took several months of processing. Snipping from the article, the Dr. writes: "'A value of Pi to 40 digits would be more than enough to compute the circumference of the Milky Way galaxy to an error less than the size of a proton.' The article goes on to cite use of computationally complex algorithms to detect errors in computer hardware. The article references a blog which has more background. Disclaimers: I attended graduate school at U.C. Berkeley. I am presently employed by a software company that sells an infrastructure product named PI."

Comment: Re:Living in the past (Score 1) 121

by Willtor (#35311966) Attached to: <em>King's Quest III</em> Remake Released

Quality frequently doesn't abide by a rule of progress. It is okay to continue to play old games and not treat it as a commentary on new ones. There were some real gems that were produced back then. Keeping them alive for the next generation is a noble end in itself. Recognizing that is not criticism of games that have been produced more recently. It is merely proper acknowledgment of the quality of those games.

Encryption

Sony Marketing Man Tweets PS3 Master Key 351

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the social-hacking dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Sony Marketing Man, Kevin Butler's official Twitter feed retweets a post by @exiva that posts the PS3 Master key. Kevin Butler who has over 69,000 followers tweet read (The tweet now deleted): '@TheKevinButler Lemme guess... you sank my Battleship? RT @exiva: 46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4 CD B2 C2 Come at me, @TheKevinButler'" Here is a screenshot of the tweet.
Sci-Fi

Geek Culture Will Never Die...or Be Popular 320

Posted by Soulskill
from the no-true-spocksman dept.
adeelarshad82 writes "Last year CNN wrote an interesting article on how geek culture is now a big part of pop culture, while Patton Oswalt gave his own opinion on how he thinks pop culture has outright co-opted and diluted it. These articles gave birth to a completely different view, which is that geek culture can never truly be part of pop culture. The movies and t-shirts might sell, and everybody might use Facebook, but there will still be a small percentage that loves comics, imports video games, and can build their own computers. In other words, true geeks are much different from the stereotypes we learn about in the movies. The geek culture is not just playing D&D or watching V for Vendetta but also having a bookshelf full of D20 system manuals as well as reading all the Alan Moore material one can find. The fact of the matter is that while geek culture is far from dead, it's not exactly a part of the pop culture either. So, no matter hard media outlets try to make the concept catch on, no matter how many studios try to capitalize on the cultural waves of comic book movies and best-selling video games, there is no such thing as pop culture geekdom."
Government

CIA Launches WTF To Investigate Wikileaks 402

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the that's-just-adorable dept.
krou writes "In an effort to investigate the impact of the leaked diplomatic cables, the CIA have launched the Wikileaks Task Force, commonly referred to at CIA headquarters as 'WTF.' 'The Washington Post said the panel was being led by the CIA's counter-intelligence centre, although it has drawn in two dozen members from departments across the agency.' Although the agency has not seen much of its own information leaked in the cables, some revelations (such as spying at the UN) originated from direct requests by the CIA. The Guardian notes that, 'WTF is more commonly associated with the Facebook and Twitter profiles of teenagers than secret agency committees. Given that its expanded version is usually an expression of extreme disbelief, perhaps the term is apt for the CIA's investigation.'"

+ - Opt-Out Day: A Peep at the Numbers->

Submitted by Willtor
Willtor writes "According to the New York Times:

"According to a blog operated by the security agency, 39 people had opted out of the body scans in Atlanta by 5 p.m. In Los Angeles, 113 had. One had opted out in Charlotte, N.C. Boston seemed to have something of a mini-spike, with 300."

This is a tiny fraction of passengers, of course. But when I flew out of Boston this afternoon, they had opened a line that led to a traditional metal detector. When I flew out in June all lines went to the nudie scanners. Is it safe to be optimistic that we have been heard and policies have changed? I am not particularly concerned whether we get credit or whether it is reported that the protest fizzled. But it would be nice to know that some of the more invasive theatrics have become optional."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:7x0 = (Score 1) 491

by Willtor (#34313164) Attached to: Wikileaks Vows Release '7x the Size' of Iraq Leak

You're going to get a lot of replies about U.S.-centric or U.S.-favoring media. And there's some truth to that. But a much bigger issue, methinks, is that the modern American media is _really_ lazy. It takes legwork to sift through gigabytes of information and follow up on leads. On the other hand, checking Twitter is trivial -- and it even comes in chunks of the right size. My grandfather used to criticize the news for "man on the street interviews" because it was really easy to do but virtually devoid of content. I think the same criticism applies to tweets, emails, random and radical guests (or worse, celebrities), and most everything else they do, these days. But this sort of non-news constitutes the bulk of American media on a good day.

None of this is to say that there was anything damning, vindicating, or otherwise valuable in the last batch. Merely, I wouldn't make inferences from the media's relative silence regarding the content.

Education

A Robot In Every Korean Kindergarten By 2013? 136

Posted by timothy
from the here-robot-teachers-are-normal-already dept.
kkleiner writes "Elementary school children in Korea in the cities of Masan and Daegu are among the first to be exposed to EngKey, a robotic teacher. The arrival of EngKey to Masan and Daegu is just a small step in the mechanization of Korean classrooms: the Education Ministry wants all 8400 kindergartens in the nation to have robotic instructors by the end of 2013. Plans are already under way to place 830 bots in preschools by year's end. EngKey can hold scripted conversations with students to help them improve their language skills, or a modified version can act as a telepresence tool to allow distant teachers to interact with children."
Businesses

Leaked Letter — BSA Pressures Europe To Kill Open Standards 156

Posted by Soulskill
from the open-and-shut-investigation dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Business Software Alliance is trying to kill open standards. Free Software Foundation Europe has gotten hold of a letter in which the BSA tries to bully the European Commission into removing the last traces of support for open standards from its IT recommendations to the public sector. FSFE published the BSA's letter (PDF), and picked apart its arguments one by one."

"The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity." - Oscar Wilde

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