Geodesy99 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Inside FAA's GPS-Based NextGen Air Traffic Control (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by

longacre

on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:32PM

longacre writes: "With the growing number of planes in the air setting its archaic radar-based air traffic control on a course toward "total system collapse", the FAA has quietly begun testing a new GPS-based system on Alaska Airlines 737s. While radar can take over half a minute to determine a plane's location, GPS technology known as ADS-B broadcasts an aircraft's position to controllers and nearby pilots in essentially real time. If all goes as planned, travelers will see fewer delays as planes will be able to fly closer together and in reduced visibility conditions, and airlines will achieve significant fuel savings through the ability to fly more direct routes. The feds plan a gradual rollout over the next two decades that may cost up to $40 billion."

Submission + - Looking for Quality Forum Software

Submitted by

on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:23PM

An anonymous reader writes: Hello. Our web site has been running the content management system Drupal for the past several months employing their built-in Forum software. While Drupal is an exceptional overall CMS product its Forums lack the functionality and usability that most other Forum-only products offer, and the forums are confusing to use for our members. We've been looking at switching to VBulletin or perhaps making a partial switch to VBDrupal (an integration of Drupal and VBulletin which is usually one major revision behind Drupal releases), or even using a fully threaded solution such as My Little Forum or a home-grown solution. I would very much appreciate feedback regarding what type of forum software people actually like to use. Threaded vs. non-threaded, specific products, etc. Our platform is LAMP. Thank you for your consideration.

Submission + - Cybercrime bites hard (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:11PM

coondoggie writes: "The Government Accounting Office took an assessment of the cybercrime battle and didn't very much like what it saw. In a report issued today, the GAO said despite huge efforts by public and private entities to address cybercrime, those efforts are falling way too short. The agency pointed out five areas it said were key challenges the government — federal, state and local — corporations and individuals face in slowing cybercrime. Those challenges include: Information: reporting cybercrime — companies and government agencies do not always detect or report cybercrimes; Experience: ensuring adequate law enforcement analytical and technical capabilities — law enforcement organizations often have difficulty obtaining and retaining investigators, prosecutors, and examiners with the specialized skills needed to address cybercrime; this is due in part to the staff rotation policies in place at certain law enforcement organizations... http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/17764"

Submission + - Upgrading the D.C. Madam (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

Mike Kuykendall

on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:02PM

Mike Kuykendall writes: "The "D.C. Madam," Deborah Jeane Palfrey, will be upgrading her website in preparation for more political bombshells to come."

Submission + - Online Computer Training

Submitted by on Monday July 23, 2007 @04:58PM

An anonymous reader writes: Are any of the online computer training classes any good? Are there any that would virtually guarantee you a good job or a pay increase that more than pays for the class?

Submission + - RIAA to Force Universities to Spy on Students with (digitalfreedom.org)

Submitted by

Charles Martin

on Monday July 23, 2007 @04:55PM

Charles Martin writes: ""Big Brother Amendment" Requires Student Monitoring and Annual Reports RIAA to Force Universities to Spy on Students with Public Funds WASHINGTON -Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's planned introduction of an amendment to the Higher Education Reauthorization Act in the United States Senate is a disturbing misallocation of efforts and taxpayer funds according to the Digital Freedom Campaign. The amendment, which will reportedly be offered by Majority Leader Reid during debate of S. 1642, would force Universities to adopt a policy and reporting procedure relating to, what the bill refers to as, "illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted material," and require the Secretary of Education annually report to Congress which 25 Universities have received the most infringement notices from copyright owners. "This amendment is the just latest in a series of legislative efforts by wealthy record labels to require our tax dollars to be spent on policing college students," Jennifer Stoltz, a spokesperson for the Digital Freedom Campaign said. "No one supports illegal downloading or file sharing, but the Digital Freedom Campaign and its members believe that Universities have more urgent things to do with their scarce budgets than collect information on their students for the government and for the RIAA. Academic resources would be better spent educating students rather than spying on them at the behest of large corporations." Earlier this year, the Digital Freedom Campaign launched 'Digital Freedom University,' aimed at promoting the freedom of students to participate fully in the digital revolution. The initiative seeks to expand the ability of student leaders and campus-based artists and innovators to make their voice heard in Washington, D.C., as the rights to acquire and use content in the digital age is debated. The Digital Freedom University chapters provide a base for students to help them better understand their "fair use" rights in the digital age, rights that protect their ability to listen to legally purchased content as they choose. The Campaign, which is strongly opposed to illegal downloads and piracy, views students as an important cutting-edge audience that must be educated-not threatened. The Digital Freedom Campaign fights for consumer rights in a digital age that enables literally anyone and everyone to be a creator, an innovator or an artist- to produce music, to create cutting-edge videos and photos, and to share their creative work. Digital technology empowers individuals to enjoy these new works when, where, and how they want, and to participate in the artistic process. These are basic freedoms that must be protected and nurtured. The Digital Freedom campaign is dedicated to defending the rights of students, artists, innovators, and consumers to create and make lawful use of new technologies and lawfully acquired content free of unreasonable government restrictions and without fear of costly and abusive lawsuits."

Submission + - Internet users may be ruining our culture (walterburek.info)

Submitted by

walter42b

on Monday July 23, 2007 @04:35PM

walter42b writes: "Stop the Monkeys! A recurring rant on my blog is my huffing about the "dumbing down of America" — a downward spiral in our culture caused by an educational system that graduates students who can't solve simple math problems, can't write a decent sentence and who can't comprehend what they read unless it's written in 4th-grade English. This may sound like nothing more than intellectual snobbery, but the truth is that the corrosive effects of this "dumbing down" now permeate our everyday life and work. Poor grammar and misspelling in newspapers, magazines and on television. "Song" lyrics that range from vulgar to pornographic. Books, magazines, movies and television shows that celebrate the lowest common denominators of our society. And most tragically, America's declining role as world leader in science, technology and literature. Now comes a broadside against the culturally and economically damaging effects of the Internet on our lives. "The monkeys are taking over the show," says Andrew Keen in his new book, The Cult of the Amateur . His simian allusion is to 19th century biologist T. H. Huxley's "infinite monkey theorem." Huxley theorized that if infinite monkeys were equipped with infinite typewriters, eventually some of them would write masterpieces comparable to those of Shakespeare, Plato and Adam Smith."

Submission + - The iPhone Lowering the Cost of Medical Imagery

Submitted by

Late-Eight

on Monday July 23, 2007 @04:12PM

Late-Eight writes: "Viewing medical images traditionally requires dedicated workstations costing tens of thousands of dollars, which in turn are connected to proprietary picture archiving communications and storage (PACS) systems costing millions of dollars more.

Realising the huge potential the iPhone has as a medical tool Heart Imaging Technologies (HeartIT) has recently announced that it's using the iPhone to provide these images and videos to doctors.

Now, instead of commuting to these workstations, doctors can simply click on a web link sent via email by one of their colleagues and instantly view movies of a patient's beating heart halfway around the world. they can even put their colleagues on speakerphone and carry on a medical consultation while simultaneously browsing through the imaging results"

Submission + - The hunt for Jim Gray

Submitted by

cptdondo

on Monday July 23, 2007 @04:01PM

cptdondo writes: "It looked like a fine day for a sail. On Sunday, January 28, 2007, Microsoft researcher Jim Gray woke up on his boat, a red 40-foot fiberglass cruiser called Tenacious. The water in Gashouse Cove, a cozy marina in San Francisco Bay, was nearly flat. The 63-year-old programmer phoned his wife, Donna Carnes, who was on an annual vacation with friends in Wisconsin. He said he was heading out to the Farallon Islands, a wildlife refuge 27 miles offshore, to scatter the ashes of his mother, Ann, who died in October. more...."

Submission + - New Trojan asteroid found around Mars (newscientist.com)

Submitted by

Maggie McKee

on Monday July 23, 2007 @03:48PM

Maggie McKee writes: "A new space rock has been found that devotedly travels around with Mars as it orbits the Sun, bringing the total number of such 'groupies' to four. But astronomers say it was Mars — not its tiny companions — that originally insinuated itself into the rock group billions of years ago. The asteroid, called 2007 NS2, was found on 16 July and is estimated to be about 1 kilometre across."

Submission + - Military turns to translating machines in Iraq (pressesc.com)

Submitted by

Cecilia Clay

on Monday July 23, 2007 @02:09PM

Cecilia Clay writes: "The military is now turning to real-time two-way translating machines that to help soldiers in Iraq communicate with civilians. NIST ran a series of laboratory and outdoor evaluation tests on prototype systems with English-speaking US Marines and Iraqi Arabic speakers at its Gaithersburg campus and found that the systems have improved somewhat."

Submission + - Top GunBound Player Kidnapped For His Password

Submitted by

Malygris

on Monday July 23, 2007 @02:05PM

Malygris writes: "A gang of geniuses in Sao Paulo kidnapped the world's top GunBound player, with the intent of securing his game account password and selling it for $8,000. Unfortunately for them, they didn't count on the guy's dedication to his game: After five hours of gun-waving, he refused to talk, and the four-man gang gave up and turned him loose. They were quickly taken into custody by Brazilian police, while the hard-nosed GunBound player receives equal parts acclaim for his balls and ridicule for his stupidity for refusing to give up a game password to a man with a gun. Either way you look at it, it's a whole new level of hardcore."

Submission + - Northrup Grumman Buys Scaled Composites

Submitted by Sam Allen on Friday July 20, 2007 @10:08PM

Sam Allen writes: It appears that Scaled Composites' new SpaceShipTwo design is so well regarded by Northrop Grumman that it decided to buy 100 percent of the company. Does this mean that Northrop Grumman will put more capital behind the venture to make public space flight happen sooner, or is it merely performing a CYA maneuveur? Burt Rutan has a vision and I doubt that he would sell out unless it would make that vision happen quicker.

Submission + - Cisco access point at fault for Duke's WiFi issue (macworld.com)

Submitted by bobrk on Friday July 20, 2007 @09:17PM

bobrk writes: From an article at Macworld:

After blaming Apple's iPhone for its wireless networking problems, Duke University said earlier today that it hadn't been able to pinpoint what the problem was. Now, it has been confirmed that a Cisco wireless access point was at fault for the networking issues. "Cisco worked closely with Duke and Apple to identify the source of this problem, which was caused by a Cisco-based network issue," said Cisco in a statement provided to Macworld. "Cisco has provided a fix that has been applied to Duke's network and the problem has not occurred since." In a statement posted to the universities Web site late Friday Tracy Futhey, Duke's chief information officer, said that "Earlier reports that this was a problem with the iPhone in particular have proved to be inaccurate."

DOH!

Submission + - Bullying in the workplace (macinations.net) 14

Submitted by BigBadBus on Friday July 20, 2007 @09:12PM

BigBadBus writes: We've all been involved with companies that, to one extent or another, exerted pressure to get "that crucial release" done in time. But how many companies have you been involved with that used unacceptable bullying tactics to push their workforce beyond acceptable limits? I was, and it was disgusting, all for the sake of a few extra dollars on their balance sheet. We should stand up to these bullies. What can be done?

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