PlainBlack - Slashdot User

Submission + - AWS Offline in Region 1 (US Virginia) (amazon.com)

Submitted by

PlainBlack

on Monday October 22, 2012 @02:32PM

PlainBlack writes: "Amazon Web Services are offline in Region 1 (US Virginia). It started as a failure of EBS (the disk array), but since nearly all other services make use of it, it's a cascading failure of everything."

Submission + - YAPC will be Streamed Live for Free

Submitted by

PlainBlack

on Monday May 07, 2012 @12:52PM

PlainBlack writes: "Yet Another Perl Conference (YAPC) will be streamed live on the net for free on June 13 through the 15th. If you want to brush up your Perl skills but can't make it to a conference, check out the live feed."

Submission + - Leading Cloud PaaS vendors to meet in Deathmatch series (vertical-cloud.com)

Submitted by JavaGenosse on Monday May 07, 2012 @12:42PM

JavaGenosse writes: In this engaging format of knock-out `PaaS Deathmatch`panel discussions, co-hosted with 4th annual Cloud Slam’12 conference May 30-31, 2012 in San Francisco, “Players” (accompanied by one of their clients) will defend their platforms by presenting use cases / show benefits / discuss successes based on PaaS deployments.
This inaugural PaaS Deathmatch series aims to cover following topics:
- Depth vs Breadth: when do you need single language PaaS or multiple language PaaS
- IT and business perspectives on cloud platforms: problems and solutions, developer/user adoption; open source vs proprietary; application frameworks (Spring, GWT, Rails, Django etc.)
- Future directions of cloud platforms (Private vs Hosted / Public PaaS)
- Additional platforms: integration, security, middleware

PARTICIPANTS LIST
ActiveState Stackato
AppHarbor
AppScale
EngineYard
OpenShift
WSO2

TOURNAMENT TABLE
May 30, 10:30am, Match 1, Referee – Audience, Room D
May 30, 11:05am, Match 2, Referee – Audience, Room D
May 30, 2:20pm, Match 3, Referee – Audience, Room D
May 31, 10:30am, Match 4, Referee – Audience, Room D
The referees (independent analysts or audience) select the winner who will receive title recognition and complimentary sponsorship of a future event by Cloudcor.
Seats are subject to availability on first come basis. Register Now and Pick Your PaaS DeathMatch ticket at http://cloudslam.eventbrite.com/
Use #paasdeathmatch hashtag on May 30-31 to keep track of updates on Twitter

Submission + - U.S. in danger of losing earth-observing satellite capability (wired.com)

Submitted by crazyjj on Monday May 07, 2012 @12:34PM

crazyjj writes: As reported in Wired, a recent National Research Council report indicates a growing concern for NASA, the NOAA, and USGS. While there are currently 22 Earth-observing satellites in orbit, this number is expected to drop to as low as six by the year 2020. The U.S. relies on this network of satellites for weather forecasting, climate change data, and important geologic and oceanographic information.

As with most things space and NASA these days, the root cause is funding cuts. The program to maintain this network of satellites was funded at $2 billion as recently as 2002, but has since been scaled back to $1.3 billion at present, with only two replacement satellites having definite launch dates.

Submission + - 5 Things I Learned About Business Negotiating from Watching Movies (softwarequalityconnection.com)

Submitted by

Esther Schindler

on Monday May 07, 2012 @12:33PM

Esther Schindler writes: "Tim got a college degree to prepare him for a life in business. Then he realized that he could have saved a lot of time in learning about deal-making by watching movies, instead."

Submission + - How Distributed Sensemaking Could Replace Search (datanami.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07, 2012 @12:32PM

An anonymous reader writes: The era of the selfish search is passing, say Microsoft and CMU researchers who are working on moving ahead with distributed sensemaking to build on the work of searches gone by....

Submission + - Philips releases 100W-equivalent LED bulb, runs on just 23 watts (extremetech.com) 1

Submitted by

MrSeb

on Monday May 07, 2012 @12:16PM

MrSeb writes: "The Light Fair convention kicks off in Las Vegas this week so there will be any number of related announcements coming soon. Lighting giant Philips is starting things off early with the announcement of their 100W-equivalent LED bulb, the AmbientLED 23W. The model produces 1700 lumens, putting it at a very respectable 73.9 lm/W. The unveiling comes shortly after Philips’ L Prize bulb was made available to consumers. That bulb currently sells for about $60 and is a more efficient light source, capable of 94 lm/W. The two use similar designs, for example both take advantage of remote phosphor, but the AmbientLED 23W (it will be called the EnduraLED in non-consumer applications) is brighter and lacking in some of the performance characteristics of the L Prize winner, including luminous efficiency and color accuracy. Philips’ 100W-equivalent bulb will be available some time in the fourth quarter. Pricing has yet to be announced, but it will likely be well over $30."

Submission + - A Promising Protein Injection May Treat a Range of Brain Diseases (medicaldaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07, 2012 @12:10PM

An anonymous reader writes: A protein injection protected neurons in the brains of mice with prion disease, according to new research that could offer hope to patients with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In what was described as a “major breakthrough in understanding what kills neurons,” the latest study, published in the journal Nature, has for the first time found a pathway leading to neuron death in mice with prion disease, the mouse equivalent of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), which is currently an incurable, neurodegenerative and fatal condition that causes the brain to slowly die.

Submission + - Methane Producing Dinosaurs May Have Changed Climate

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Monday May 07, 2012 @11:29AM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Telegraph reports that huge plant-eating dinosaurs callled sauropods may have produced enough greenhouse gas by breaking wind to alter the Earth's climate. Scientists believe that, just as in cows, methane-producing bacteria aided the digestion of sauropods by fermenting their plant food. ''A simple mathematical model suggests that the microbes living in sauropod dinosaurs may have produced enough methane to have an important effect on the Mesozoic climate,'' says study leader Dr Dave Wilkinson. ''Indeed, our calculations suggest that these dinosaurs could have produced more methane than all modern sources — both natural and man-made — put together.'' The key factor is the total mass of the animals which included some of the largest animals to walk the Earth, such as Diplodocus, which measured 150 feet and weighed up to 45 tons. Medium-sized sauropods weighed about 20 tons and lived in herds of up to a few tens of individuals per square kilometer so global methane emissions from the animals would have amounted to around 472 million tons per year, the scientists calculated. Sauropods alone may have been responsible for an atmospheric methane concentration of one to two parts per million (ppm), say the scientists and studies have suggested that the Earth was up to 10C (18F) warmer in the Mesozoic Era. ''The Mesozoic trend to sauropod gigantism led to the evolution of immense microbial vats unequalled in modern land animals. Methane was probably important in Mesozoic greenhouse warming. Our simple proof-of-concept model suggests greenhouse warming by sauropod megaherbivores could have been significant in sustaining warm climates.''"

Submission + - America's Next Bomber: Unmanned, Unlimited Range, Aimed at China (the-diplomat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07, 2012 @11:00AM

An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. military is developing its next generation bomber with Chinese anti-access strategy -the ability to stop any enemy force from coming to fight with things like carrier killer missiles- in mind. The new bomber will replace older platforms like the 1950's B-52, the 1970's B-1, and 1990's B-2 stealth bomber.

The new bomber will sport some unique qualities. It will have an option to be unmanned, will act similar to a UAV, have better stealth capabilities, will be connected to US intelligence networks to create a 'smart' battlefield environment, and have near unlimited range thanks to in-air refueling.

Submission + - Retinal Implants Restore Partial Sight To Three Blind (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by

kkleiner

on Monday May 07, 2012 @10:26AM

kkleiner writes: "After receiving retinal implants in a trial, two people in the UK and one in China – all blind – regained part of their vision. All of the trial participants were made blind by retinitis pigmentosa in which the light-sensitive rods and cones of the retina deteriorate. British participants Robin Millar and Chris James, whose retinas had not responded to light in over a decade, were able to see immediately after the chip was turned on. Seeing the first flashes of light, James told the BBC, was a “magic moment.”"

Comment Modern Perl is worth your time and consideration (Score 2) 519

by PlainBlack on Tuesday January 03, 2012 @12:02PM (#38572724) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Which Web Platform Would You Use?

First, I should state that it's really not about the language, it's about the coder. You can build great and crappy things with any language. And every language has it's warts.

That said, the best language I've used in the past 20 years of programming has got to be Modern Perl. Not the chicken scratch Perl you saw 5 or 10 years ago, but Modern Perl. Here are some of the strengths of modern Perl:

It's object system: https://metacpan.org/module/Moose
It's web frameworks, especially Dancer: https://metacpan.org/module/Dancer
It's ORM: https://metacpan.org/module/DBIx::Class
It's package installer: https://metacpan.org/module/App::cpanminus

And so much more. Do yourself a favor and at least have a look at Perl.

Comment Agreed (Score 1) 95

by PlainBlack on Wednesday March 09, 2011 @01:05AM (#35426868) Attached to: Browsers — the Gaming Platform of the Future?

Check out The Lacuna Expanse, a browser, iPhone, and iPad game that doesn't at all feel like a browser game.

Submission + - Open Volunteers, Closed Product (plainblack.com)

Submitted by PlainBlack on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @09:37PM

PlainBlack writes: I've all of the sudden found myself in a weird position. My company recently released close sourced a game with an open API. We open sourced the client for it. And now we're getting volunteers asking if they can help contribute to the server, which is still closed. We can't open source the server, but it's also hard turning down knowledgable help, especially when it comes for free. My business partners and I are confounded as to what to do. Is there some sort of half-measure that others have employed in such a situation, or are we unique?

Submission + - Apple MacBook Airs – How fast they really ar (techhammers.com)

Submitted by hasanabbas1987 on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @08:51PM

hasanabbas1987 writes: So now is the time when we find out how fast are the Apple MacBook Airs really are and whether these can really serve as your primary machine. Some early Benchmark results are already out and this is what they show about the MacBook Air.

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