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Software

Submission + - Language Tools

Submitted by creolophus
creolophus writes: I am a college student and I am looking for language tools which will help me with my writing, by giving me useful feedback (on my grammar, usage, etc). I will be writing mostly English prose with very little technical content.

So far, I have been using only Microsoft Word's spelling and grammar checkers, and they don't provide any feedback.

Do you know (or) have you been using any such tools?
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Daydreaming now stimilus-independent thought

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One investigator had decided not to describe daydreaming as "having fanciful thoughts" but "stimulus-independent thought or mind wandering" based upon their finding that people are thinking about what they have to do later. Must keep that in mind for that next time that I am caught gazing into space by the Boss. from the article: "Neurologists and psychologists have debated what goes on when people are not specifically thinking about or doing something, and there had been general agreement that the mind does not simply go blank. Mason's team set up an experiment using the relatively new technology of functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI to see what is going on. FMRI allows scientists to take real-time images of the brain, showing which areas are active and when. They can do this while talking to the person being imaged, so they can see the effects of an activity as it happens. "In the absence of a task that requires deliberative processing, the mind generally tends to wander, flitting from one thought to the next with fluidity and ease," the researchers wrote. "Although the thoughts the mind produces when wandering are at times useful, such instances do not prove that the mind wanders because these thoughts are adaptive; on the contrary the mind may wander simply because it can," they concluded.
Portables

Submission + - What's The Best New PDA?

Submitted by
ddillman
ddillman writes: "Dear Slashdot:

I find myself once again looking to buy a new PDA. I've owned several Palm devices ranging from low-end to high-end over the years, had an employer supply a Handspring Visor, had a friend with a Sony Clie (PalmOS), and another with a Dell Axim (WinCE). I note that Palm has little faith in the reliability of their own low-end devices with just a 90-day warranty, and a 1-year warranty on their upper crust products. The longest span I've got from a Palm is just over 1 year, and I try to treat my gadgets pretty well, so I'm not particularly pleased by Palm's reliability.

A PDA running Linux would be cool for the geek factor, but is not required. I'm most familiar with PalmOS in a PDA, but it's not required. I'd prefer to avoid Windows based on desktop Windows experience, but if there's a compelling reason to use it on a PDA I won't rule it out. One thing I'm NOT looking for is a cellphone, so no phone-based PDA's need apply. Reliability is key, if you hadn't already guessed. I'd like Wifi and perhaps Bluetooth, though bluetooth isn't required, and decent battery life is a plus. And, I'm not rich, so I'd prefer to keep the price down where a mere mortal can afford it.

With all of that said, what's the best way to go in a new PDA these days?"
The Internet

Submission + - SPAM: Adword/Adsense alternatives list

Submitted by
klajdi2
klajdi2 writes: "Primarily CPM Based Ad Networks * 121Media * 24/7 RealMedia * Accelerator-Media * Ad Solutions Network * Ad World Network * AdAgency1 * AdBonus * AdDynamix / Pennyweb Networks * AdOrigin * AdPepper * AdSmart * Adtegrity * AdZuba * Ampira Media * Bannerconnect * BannerSpace * BlueLithium * BURST! Media * Casale Media * Claxon Media * Click Agents * ClickBooth * CPX Interactive (Formerly Buds Media) * EuroClick * Experclick * FastClick/ValueClick * Federated Media * Gold Group * Gorilla Nation Media * Hurricane Digital Media * Impression|Up * InterClick * Interevco (Interactive Revenue Company Ltd.) * Joetec * Mamma Media / FocusIn * MaxOnline * Oridian * Premium Network * Quake Marketing * Quin Street * RealCastMedia * RealTechNetwork * Revenue.net * Right Media * Rydium * The Robert Sherman Company * TMP * Tribal Fusion * Valuead.com * Yes Advertising For the hull list go to: [spam URL stripped]"
Music

Submission + - Create yourown online music channel

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "There is a lot of great music in the world. Much more than you hear on popular radio and television. Because of formats, timeslots, playlists and other old media concepts you are not getting what you should. There are bands out there that are going to change the future of music. And bands that already did. Very few of them are getting airplay these days. One thing that they are doing is touring the world and playing live. Fabchannel.com brings you a wide variety of live music in sound and vision. From upcoming acts to big stars playing rock, hiphop, folk, avant-garde and everything in between. With a team of dedicated, music loving directors, editors, programmers and promoters Fabchannel has built one of the biggest online concert archives in the world. 700 full-length concerts, festivals, performances, debates and lectures can be freely experienced in the Fabchannel video on demand archive. Live from the famous Paradiso and Melkweg Amsterdam. Originated from Paradiso and with the continuous help of the Paradiso and Melkweg staff, Fabchannel provides you with the music and the tools to watch it. We record, you choose. All high quality and virtualy endless playlists."
Google

Where Does Google's Hardware Go to Die? 123

Posted by Cliff from the and-can-I-go-dumpster-diving dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "I was talking with a co-worker today about how Google is so big, and how they make such great use of commodity hardware to do their business, and one of the topics that came up is what Google does with its old hardware. Google has been around for many years now, they have more machines than any sane person would own, and they are continually expanding. At some stage they have to push out old equipment, either when it starts entering into its MTBF limits or it's been depreciated down. Searching (using Google of course) wasn't particularly fruitful. Has anyone seen where Google's hardware goes when it dies?"
Math

Submission + - Your web browser, now a graphing calculator

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Taking advantage of the vector graphics features offered by the latest browsers, a recently created website called FooPlot turns your web browser into a function plotter (in 2-D and 3-D), offering a few basic graphing calculator features with a promise for further developments and integration with popular online spreadsheet applications. Gaining popularity in an educational context both in high schools and universities, this is another great example of the potential of the Internet to become the application platform of the future.

As an added extra, FooPlot also permits functions to be tacked onto the URL: http://fooplot.com/x^2+2x+1.
Education

Submission + - Advice to Upcoming College Students

Submitted by
sandrorafael
sandrorafael writes: "I was invited as one of the resource speakers for convocation on career guidance program in order for senior graduating students to be guided and assisted in choosing the courses or profession they prefer upon entering a chosen college or university after high school graduation. I'm asking fellow slashdotter to help me in giving advice to the graduating students. Thank you."
Space

Submission + - The electric solar wind sail

Submitted by niekko
niekko writes: 'The electric sail is a new space propulsion concept which uses the solar wind momentum for producing thrust. The electric sail is somewhat similar to the more well-known solar radiation pressure sail which is often called simply the solar sail. A full-scale electric sail consists of a number (50-100) of long (e.g., 20 km), thin (e.g., 20 microns) conducting tethers (wires). The spacecraft contains a solar-powered electron gun (typical power a few hundred watts) which is used to keep the spacecraft and the wires in a high (up to 20 kV) positive potential. The electric field of the wires extends a few tens of metres into the surrounding solar wind plasma. Therefore the solar wind ions "see" the wires as rather thick, about 50 m wide obstacles. A technical concept exists for deploying (opening) the wires in a relatively simple way and guiding or "flying" the resulting spacecraft electrically. The implementation details are presently under study.'
Linux Business

Submission + - Why we need to get rid of BSD

Submitted by
Moulinneuf
Moulinneuf writes: "This reality is software stealing by corporations ecosystem or what happen daily in the US and other country who have not yet wised up yet.

1. Universities ( Publicly funded education systems ) do research ( billions in investments paid by taxes dollars ) and release code under BSD style license ( allowing corporation to steal billion in public investment in the process ).

2. All of these projects are very valuable and stolen by companies and universities teachers to commercialize them and patent them in there names only.

3. These companies/thieves ( CEO and management and sometime shareholders ) makes tons of money and make software engineer do the job on the cheap and if they cost too much outsource them to other country where engineer cost a dime on the dollars.

4. The companies/thieves donate some of the money back to universities for tax evasion purpose. Creating a gap on the return on investments witch increase cost of education yearly instead of decreasing it.

5. Go to step 1.

This is the ecosystem promoted by BSD. GPL Stop that. If you ever read official reports from the education systems, students are showing major interest in computer science and once they see that it is financially more profitable and a good field to support their family, you see even them dual majoring in something related to computers and there first field of choice and filling some of the major gap needed in those fields.

That is why BSD is being replaced by GNU/Linux mostly all over the world but not in the US.

The GPL based products and engineers have earned more money then what they do for on Microsoft based products and that is why IBM , Dell , Motorola and even Apple ( KHTML ) have all seen wise to invest in supporting the GPL products where they interact with there own offers and products.

In a country like the USA where a doctor charge 300$ for 30 minutes appointment, the people are dying more then other country where they have health systems that cover the entire populations who pay less overall in taxes around 650$ per year per people then what 2 session cost in the US.

You need money to live a good life and your taxes are wasted on corporation who steal public research to sell it back to you for a extreme profit it is not making better software and it is why there is no money left for the US Health systems.

The choice is simple protect your investment by getting rid of all BSD or continue to pay for the privilege to acquire technology you already paid for and be locked out from modifying and making it your's , when the fact say it is your's.

Making money is not a crime , or a bad thing , making you pay *to rent* something you bought , paid for in full and that you rightfully own , well its for you to decide.

Invest in yourself , profit from your investment , make yourself and your kids profit.

This is not a scam , a lie or a trick.

If you invest in BSD , Microsoft , Apple and other corporations profits from it and from your investments.

If you invest in the GPL someone named ( insert your name here ) is family ( insert your family name here ) , is friends , is country , is planet and is friends in other country and even people he don't know , profit from it.

Invest in yourself , make yourself some profit !

Return on investment is GPL , return of payment is BSD."
It's funny. Laugh.

GPS Devices Lead Authorities to Thieves' Home 124

Posted by Zonk from the please-put-the-stolen-locatermabob-down dept.
Radon360 writes "A trio of not-so-bright thieves in Lindenhurst, NY stole 14 GPS position reporting devices used on public works equipment from a nearby township garage. Authorities didn't have to look too far to locate him or the devices, as one of them was still active and indicated the location of his home when it was queried. From the article: 'Town officials said the thieves didn't even know what they had: they thought the GPS devices were cell phones, which they planned to sell.'"

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