Technology

Developing Open Source Defense Projects 388

Posted by michael from the real-submissions-unedited dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I'm a developer looking to develop an open source surface-to-air missile guidance system, with the aim of helping developing nations develop low-cost missile defense systems to aid them against attack by the warplanes of invading forces. However, given the very nature of the project, I feel I may be walking into a bit of a minefield regarding the legalities of such a project, since, as I'm sure you can imagine, this project could easily benefit hostile nations was well as relatively peaceful ones! Unfortunately, since Google does not seem to shed much light on the subject, I'd be very interested in hearing Slashdot's views on the matter, especially some advice from those in the know about the legal matters - whether there would be any restrictions (exports, perhaps?) or whether it would be simply plain illegal to develop!"
Music

Homemade Subliminal CDs 305

Posted by michael from the real-submissions-unedited dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Hello Slashdotters, I am totally stumped on how to do this. I would like to create custom subliminal CDs for my own use. I don't trust the CDs for sale in the stores, after all, who regulates that industry and ensures there actually is a message on them, and if so, what is the message? I would like to create positive motivational CDs, or even recite text from study guides/trivia, you name it, and lay it underneath tracks from a custom CD of my favorite bands. What is the best software to use to create such a beast on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems? And conversely, has anyone used any of the music software on these platforms to actually analyze the contents of commercial subliminal CDs? Any advice would be of use...thanks!"
Graphics

Graphical Manipulation - Beheaded and Sold? 40

Posted by Cliff from the identity-frog dept.
popdookey asks: "Can a known image of me be beheaded and marketed as someone else without my permission? I just returned home to Georgia and discovered that my head had been replaced on a favorite photograph that was now being used to promote sandwiches. It was a great photo of a few of the old-time employees and founders of a very successful restaurant franchise taken in front of its original location. The faces of the employees have been replaced with those of the wealthy but absent owners to create a more marketable and nostalgic image. It is great advertising, but 92.3% of that body is mine as was 100% of its contribution. Is this legal without my permission, and if so, wouldn't this lead to historical fraud?"
Science

Death by Coffee? 628

Posted by michael from the real-submissions-unedited dept.
Clif Griffin writes "Slashdots question of the year, are you ready for this? No? Too bad, you'll hear me anyways. Will drinking 100 cups of coffee (the good kind, not that crappy decaf mocalatte crap) in 24 hours kill a person? Sure, there is one way we can find out but we can't let myself die under mysterious circumstances."
Programming

Rediscovering Your Inner Code Geek? 58

Posted by Cliff from the tarnishing-off-the-old-coder-inside dept.
tachijuan asks: "I'm an old time hand in the PC world (started with trash-80 in late 70's). Along the way I've gone from the geek in school with the only computer to a CS degree to a position as a senior systems administrator at a major university to industry. And that's where I went to the dark side and became not a geek. About 10 years ago, the corporate rat race caught me and now I'm an exec at a midsize company. After 10 years of no code, it seems like I've never worked on anything serious (still do Perl, PHP, shell, etc scripting at home). Now, I feel the need to change this. How does an old UNIX coder/SysAdmin turned professional corporate cog get back into coding? I've looked at all sorts of languages (C#, C++, Delphi, VB(eh gads), Squeak, IO, etc.) but my problem is that I have unlearned most of the S in CS and the learning curve for the API's to both UNIX and Windows has become...daunting. Short of going back to school, what would you soon to be fellow geeks recommend as a good kick start?"
The Almighty Buck

How Much was a CDC 1604 in the 60's? 41

Posted by Cliff from the costs-of-computers-in-the-past dept.
An Oxymoran asks: "Greetings Slashdot. A colleague, that is sadly preparing an obituary for a late, great scientist, recently posed the following question: How much did a Control Data Corporation (CDC; Cray predecessor) 1604 cost in the late 60's? Apparently the 1604's controller computer, the 160, cost ~$100K. However, I have failed to turn up a price for the 1604. I would be highly appreciative of any estimates of 1604 prices from the 60's that the collective Slashdot genius can unearth. Thank you."
Sci-Fi

Best Sci-Fi Space Battles? 247

Posted by Cliff from the beams-missles-and-railguns dept.
ardor asks: "Recently, while watching Babylon5, I wondered about the space dogfights in popular sci-fi outings. I find the space battle in Star Wars VI to be still one of the best in existence, and some battles from B5 are amazing too. But where are more good space fights? I've found them to be surprisingly rare. Most are very short, or not very big (less than 5 ships). I know, large & complex scenes are very expensive, nevertheless I mean some with tons of small interceptor & bomber ships, large/huge cruisers, stations, and so forth. Have you watched a really awesome space battles, and if so, what show/movie was it?"
Programming

The Worst Development Job You've Ever Had? 1078

Posted by Cliff from the weeping-anecdotes dept.
manavendra asks: "I'm currently working for a solution provider for telcos, and as part of product migration the entire API has to be 'internationalized'. Owing to a legacy architecture, most (if not all) application logic is still embedded in PL/SQL stored packages. My job: find hard coded strings, and replace with calls to the globalization API. Yes there is a script written to handle most tasks, but its quite primitive (not to mention fears of automating 'too much'). Boredom is at all time high. Have tried all means of whittling away the time, and hence this question to other Slashdot users: What's the worst ever job you had to do in the name of 'software development' (or as a software developer)?"

PHP Template Engines? 90

Posted by Cliff from the topics-seeking-discussion dept.
kubed asks: "I've recently learned how to use PHP template engines to separate business logic from presentation. Some argue that template engines make applications easier to maintain and make for cleaner code. Others argue that template engines introduce unnecessary overhead and require too much additional processing power. Do the readers of Slashdot think that it is important to use templates or are they just an extra unnecessary layer? There are dozens of PHP template engines to choose from including Smarty, phplib, and bTemplate. Which template engines do you have experience with and which ones have the best performance?"
Hardware

CE Risks from Argentina's Drop to 209V? 85

Posted by Cliff from the will-anything-break dept.
stm2 asks: "Effective yesterday at 6 PM GMT, the voltage in Argentina was dropped from 220V to 209V (without any warning). The aim of this change is to save power. According to gov' officials, it won't affect domestic appliances. As a concerned IT worker I think some high precision electric devices could be at stake. There is an ongoing national debate about it. Could the technical community at Slashdot give some insights about possible unintended effects?"

Information on OLAP Databases? 34

Posted by Cliff from the new-ways-to-look-at-your-data dept.
oh-lap asks: "One relatively new topic in computing that hasn't seen much mainstream press (yet) is OLAP or multidimensional databases. OLAP is based on the principle of organizing your data along a number of dimensions which can be pivoted and drilled into. OLAP sounds like a neat idea and represent an abstraction of several problems which I've seen tackled by custom coding jobs. The biggest problem with OLAP right now, seems to be a dire lack of expert knowledge in the area and no standardized API or query language for OLAP servers. But the lack of decent introductory reading material is particularly bothersome. If there are any experts (or even dabblers) in OLAP out there, what are the sources of information (books, websites, forums, webblogs, etc) that you go to for info about OLAP? The issues I'm interested in are wide ins scope and include everything from querying and data modeling to actual design of an OLAP server. Any pointers"
Software

Building an Unattended Computer Presentation? 33

Posted by Cliff from the information-on-a-switch dept.
hastenslowly asks: "I'm a member of a non-profit Association restoring a 1920's gas station, here in the midwest, for National Historic Register status. I'd like to provide an 24/7 'unattended' audio (visual) presentation for visitors using an 'el cheapo' computer, monitor, and mouse. I'd like to connect the entire thing to the doorbell which, when triggered, will start the presentation. Can anyone steer me to some hardware, software (for whatever OS), programming, newsgroup or any other source of info, so I don't re-invent the wheel when I do this?"
Unix

Build From Source vs. Packages? 863

Posted by Cliff from the what-do-you-do dept.
mod_critical asks: "I am a student at the University of Minnesota and I work with a professor performing research and managing more than ten Linux based servers. When it comes to installing services on these machines I am a die-hard build-from-source fanatic, while the professor I work with prefers to install and maintain everything from packages. I want to know what Slashdot readers tend to think is the best way to do things. How you feel about the ease and simplicity of installing and maintaining packaged programs versus the optimization and control that can be achieved by building from source? What are your experiences?"
Software

Has Intuit Made Good on DRM Removal? 79

Posted by Cliff from the checking-up-on-past-promises dept.
M-G asks: "It's tax time again in the US. Last year, Slashdot and other sites were abuzz with Intuit's use of activation software in TurboTax. As a result, many long time TurboTax users, myself included, sought alternatives last year and wrote Intuit to tell them so. After tax season, Intuit said they would drop DRM from future TurboTax releases and other products sold in retail packaging. While I have no reason to assume that Intuit lied, they did violate my trust last year. So, has anyone confirmed that this year's TurboTax is indeed free of DRM? What about products like Quicken?"
Businesses

Fighting the Forced Ranking of Employees? 194

Posted by Cliff from the quotas-and-bell-curves dept.
Allen asks: "The company I work for has a forced ranking system for performance reviews. Employees are ranked from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, in a bell curve arrangement. Department managers are required to identify: 10% as 5s (excels), 20% as 4's (exceeds), 50% as 3s (fully meets), 15% as 2s (partially meets), and 5% as 1s (requires action). In an department of 100 employees, this means that 5 employees must be identified and labeled as ones, and at least 20 employees as below average. The net result is every employee in the department is competing against their peers to increase (or maintain) their ranking. We're supposed to work together as a team, and support each other to get the product out the door, but the forced ranking system encourages us to instead stomp on each other, and stab each other in the back, in order to secure a higher ranking. That and, after working our collective rears off to get a new product out the door, several of us were given below average rankings that we believe are undeserved. How would you fight a forced ranking system at your job? I enjoy the technology I work on, and I enjoy working with my peers, but this forced ranking system is very demoralizing."

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