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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 21 declined, 5 accepted (26 total, 19.23% accepted)

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Censorship

Submission + - European Online Library offline and censored

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "http://europeana.eu/portal/ The European Online Library is closed for maintenance, a few days after launch. http://www.betanews.com/article/Europes_ambitious_single_access_point_for_cultural_media_provides_porn/1227198858 mentions that the powers that be also will make sure that not the most looked-up subjects will show up on the frontpage, just the subjects that are approved by censorship. From TFA: "Other items from this particular front page that are also being hosted by INA.fr include, simultaneously: more scans of the Mona Lisa, pages from Gutenberg bibles, an exhibit of various Levi's jeans ads that feature nudity, examples of softcore porn shown on French television through the ages (another exhibit), and excerpts from that gripping peace of European folk literature, Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf."

If culture contains nude artistry, should a cultural library block the showing of said artistry?"
Encryption

Submission + - McEliece-encryption broken, ánd fixed (w3.tue.nl) 1

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "TU-scientists from the Dutch University of Eindhoven have succeeded http://w3.tue.nl/nl/nieuws/artikel/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=7152&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=361&cHash=e71874e762 to break the code of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McEliece_cryptosystem McEliece-ecryption. This encryption is a possible candidate for securing the internet-traffic in the quantumcomputer-era, the supposed hyperfast computer of the future. At the same time the scientists presented a new key."
Education

Submission + - How to build a beowulf cluster 101

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "I teach at a media-college a class of 15 mediatechnology-students (age 18 to 22). Programming is taken care of by 2 collegues: one for actionscript, one for php/mysql. The teaching is project-based, and I take care of OS-stuff. Last period I taught a bit of Active Directory, before that Ubuntu with Bash, and technical things like hardware, subnets and other IP-related topics.
Next period (starting in a few weeks) I intended to build a Beowulf-clusterwith with these students.

Avialable hardware is :
-Asus A8 Terminator P4 533 (as shown in http://www.hwupgrade.it/forum/showthread.php?t=1377109 but with 768 megs of RAM), for client as for server -3Com 1100 switch
It's not the best hardware but it ought to be sufficient for these purposes.
Does anyone have suggestions what distribution to use (assuming it will all be linux-based)?
What is the most straightforward way to setup communications between clients and server?
And what would be clear test to determine whether a job initiated on the server had been dispatched to the clients to be processed, and the results returned?
I am aware of live-cd's that are able to take a lot of these things out of my hands, but from an educational point of view my guess is that self-building will be better."
Supercomputing

Submission + - TOP500 Supercomputing list (top500.org)

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "http://www.top500.org/ has compiled once again The Supercomputer TOP500. Five new entries in the top 10, number 2 and 3. Number 4 is.. a debutant from India! Check the list in its full glory at http://www.top500.org/list/2007/11/100, and think of whát supercomputers are being witheld by governments and private companies, and what they are used for..."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Simon Pegg to play Scotty (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/12/scotty_role/ Simon Pegg will be the young Scotty in the latest Star Trek movie. From TFA: "Pegg joins Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, John Cho as Sulu and Zachary Quinto as Spock in the film which reportedly, and logically, "chronicles the early days of the Enterprise crew". Leonard Nimoy will also put in an appearance, while Eric Bana signed up this week as the movie's villain, Nero.""
Software

Submission + - The breathalyzer: to the source, for great justice (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "Our good friends at Ars have an interesting story: suppose you commit a crime or fellony, and computers play an important part in proving you did what was claimed you did... are you then entitled to have a go a the sourcecode or specific technical properties to make sure you won't be convicted because of an aparatus that decided you were guilty? http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070809-im-n ot-drunk-officer-you-just-have-poor-source-code.ht ml gives an example."
Math

Submission + - mathematical model about freeloaders (sciam.com)

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=7 88CF452-E7F2-99DF-3EBC599C3A9F1C6FScientific American reports about a mathematical model, describing rather common social behaviour: "When humans live together, they work together — whether they are building cities or just trying to snag some grub for dinner. But if you can still reap the benefits of contributions to the greater good without lifting a finger yourself, why would you not choose that option? Chances are you tow the line out of fear of being punished." A very interesting read, and one of the findings was that "...the punishers must dominate to sustain the success of a collective activity." http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=788CF45 2-E7F2-99DF-3EBC599C3A9F1C6F&pageNumber=2&catID=1 for the non-print-version."
Security

Submission + - *nix systems more likely to be targeted by malware

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "A Senior Virus Analyst from Kaspersky Lab writeshttp://www.viruslist.com/en/analysis?pubid=2 04791938: "It's also likely that there will be a significant increase in the number of malicious programs for other operating systems, primarily for MacOS, and for other *nix systems. Gaming consoles such as PlayStation and Nintendo are also likely to be targeted, as the increasing number of such devices and their ability to connect to each other and the Internet will make them a juicy potential target for virus writers." I guess there's software waiting to be sold?"
Quickies

Submission + - Europa has grown up.

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2577 471,00.html reports that Americans are no longer the longest people in the world. Junk food and worse access to healthcare are the most probable causes. From TFA: "Today, the two authors say, young white American men are 4.7cm ( just over 1¾in) shorter than Dutch men, and white American women are 5.7cm (just under 2¼in) shorter than their Dutch counterparts." Well, it's not size that matters, does it?"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft into chips-industry?

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/technology/19sof t.html?_r=1&em&ex=1161403200&en=6d95c61af8557b8a&e i=5087%0A&oref=slogin The New York Times reports, that Microsoft might turn their attention to development of chips. From TFA: "For more than two decades, Microsoft's software and Intel's processors were so wedded that the pairing came to be known as Wintel. But as that computing era wanes, Microsoft is turning to a new source of chip design: its own labs." My guess is (as also mentioned in the article) its emphasis will lie with the Zune, Xbox and other appliances, not with the desktop-machines."
Upgrades

Submission + - Eloi or Morlock?: pick your species

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "The http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6057734.stmBBC as an interesting article about the genetic developments of the human race. Mentioned are the changes in physique, phychology and social skills. From the fine article: "Spoiled by gadgets designed to meet their every need, they could come to resemble domesticated animals. (...) Social skills, such as communicating and interacting with others, could be lost, along with emotions such as love, sympathy, trust and respect." But no worry: it's not to be expected in the near future."
Space

Submission + - Hubble takes pictures of colliding galaxies

Submitted by
Jerry Smith
Jerry Smith writes: "http://www.theregister.com/2006/10/17/galactic_col lision/The Register reports that the Hubble Space Telescope is still going strong, and took snapshots of two colliding galaxies. That is GALAXIES, sizes average between thousands and hundres of thousand lightyears, containing ten million to one trillion (107 to 1012) stars (as in 'suns', each posibbly with planets and planetoids). Direct link: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/ releases/2006/46/image/a, link to big picture: http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2006/46/images/ a/formats/xlarge_web.jpg . The proces took hundreds of millions of years, and will take more hundreds of millions of years."

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