schweinhund - Slashdot User

Introduction to Linden Scripting Language 139

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday February 25, 2007 @01:08PM from the fad-or-fantastic dept.

prostoalex writes "Dr. Dobb's Journal runs a lengthy introduction to Linden Scripting Language, the language behind avatars and their interaction in Second Life: "LSL is a scripting language that runs server-side, on a piece of software called the simulator. The simulator does just what it's name implies — it simulates the virtual world of Second Life. Each simulator runs everything for 16 acres of virtual land — buildings, physics, and of course, scripts. While you manipulate the script text in a form that is somewhat easy to read, the actual code that runs on the simulator is compiled. A compiler is a piece of software that takes the text version of the script and converts it into something that can actually run. In the case of LSL, the compiler exists within the Second Life viewer itself. In the future, it is likely that the compiler will move from the viewer into the Second Life simulators, but where the code is compiled isn't very important. What matters is that the text is converted into a form that can run on the simulators.""

Submission + - The RegisterFly battle continues: Kevin in control

Submitted by kimvette on Sunday February 25, 2007 @01:05PM

kimvette writes: from http://story.malaysiasun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/d8 05653303cbbba8/id/230159/cs/1/

The two principal shareholders John Naruszewicz and Kevin Medina at the weeks-end were still trading verbal blows, while ICANN stepped in to the fray after nearly three years of complaints. Whilst most focus has been on the failure of the company's support systems, allegations of fraud and corruption were flowing freely Friday, not only from the principals involved, but from ICANN.

Meantime the control of RegisterFly.com, seized by Naruszewicz on Tuesday, was back in the hands of Medina late Friday. Both parties are accusing the other of hijacking the company's Web site and administration, which has been effectively dysfunctional for weeks. Medina has also replicated the current site at www.registerfly-inc.com so if he loses control again, or the original site is brought down, he can continue to trade on.

What does this mean for the 90,000 domain holders? Many of us have domains in redemption or pendingDelete status because of this internal RegisterFly battle. We finally got ahold of Kevin Medina by getting him to come to RegisterFlies, and all he did was attack the partners who ousted him; he had nothing to say about rescuing customers' domains nor did he seem to care in the slightest. He seems intent only on maintaining control of the company, the database, and of course his investment, and forget about customer service issues.

Whereas John Naruszewicz and Glenn Stansbury raise customers' losses as their first concern, and saving their investment second. On the surface they appear sincere in their claim that they want to make things right.

Rumors are flying about Kevin, about back-room deals with other registrars, reasons why domains have disappeared from customer accounts, why domains have been allowed to remain in redemption status until they move to pendingDelete and are lost.

The coming week will be very telling. If the authorities step in Monday and arrest Mr. Medina, we will know that Mr. Naruszewicz and Mr. Stansbury are likely legitimate in their claims.

But, what happens for small businesses who have lost their domain names due to Mr. Medina's alleged misconduct? Who will ensure that we get our domains back?

Submission + - Bacteria to protect against quakes

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Sunday February 25, 2007 @12:41PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "If you live near the sea, chances are high that your home is built over sandy soil. And if an earthquake strikes, deep and sandy soils can turn to liquid, with some disastrous consequences for the buildings sitting on them. But now, U.S. researchers have found a way to use bacteria to steady buildings against earthquakes by turning these sandy soils into rocks. Today, it is possible to inject chemicals in the ground to reinforce it, but this can have toxic effects on soil and water. On the contrary, this use of common bacteria to 'cement' sands has no harmful effects on the environment. But so far, this method is limited to labs and the researchers are working on scaling their technique. Here are more references and a picture showing how unstable ground can aggravate the consequences of an earthquake."

Submission + - Google aims for desktop plartform with Apps

Submitted by

InfoWorldMike

on Sunday February 25, 2007 @12:40PM

InfoWorldMike writes: "Ephraim Schwartz takes a bigger pic, day-after look at the Google Apps news this last week, with which it added key business applications — a word processor and spreadsheet — to Google Apps. The company is now offering the kind of support corporate IT would expect: IT management tools, technical support, and service level agreements for uptime. Even all that, however, does not tell the entire story or give the scope of Google's plans, Schwartz writes in his news analysis. In its press announcement and in an interview with a Google executive, Dave Giroud, vice president and general manager of the Enterprise Unit, Google made it clear that it will offer APIs forhttp://weblog.infoworld.com/daily/archives/2007 /02/interview_googl.html business integration, thus creating a business platform not unlike what Salesforce.com offers with AppExchange. An InfoWorld podcast interview with Google's Rajen Sheth, product manager for Apps, also makes it pretty clear. Is this a play on Google's part to go head to head against a player in its own backyard, Salesforce.com and its AppExchange? Despit some roadblocks, sources say Google is buying up a great deal of dark fiber all around the country and at the same time hiring telecommunications engineers and delivering during the past year or two thousands of server blades to what are called Peering Centers, datacenters where networks converge to optimize connectivity."

Submission + - Book: End of Dayz

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25, 2007 @11:35AM

An anonymous reader writes: End Of Dayz is an eclectic collection of underground text files compiled from Soljo Publishing's full 1992 to 2006 run — a snapshot of creativity and opinion from the digital jilted generation, right from the ASCII edge and onto your bookshelf. Hacking, politics, science, fiction and humour from the group that brought you The Soljo, The Discordant Opposition Journal, SPACT and the RWM Collective. A must read for any self respecting old school geek, or indeed any geek interested in the history and traditions of underground geekdom. Internet counter culture at it's best. Available from lulu.com or read Cult Of The Dead Cows review of the book here

Submission + - Lightscape Makes First Release of TeleKast 1.0.0

Submitted by

Greg Marine

on Sunday February 25, 2007 @11:20AM

Greg Marine writes: "TeleKast has made its first release. It is a pre-alpha release of version 1.0.0. It has a functioning teleprompter and Web document editor. Feel free to give it a try and let Lightscape Software know what you think! The next release will include a Kiosk editor/display of the script items. So, look for it to come out soon."

Submission + - Frances Allen wins the Turing Award

Submitted by

ParticleGirl

on Sunday February 25, 2007 @11:18AM

ParticleGirl writes: "For the first time in its 40-year history, the $100,000 ACM Turing Award has been presented to a woman. Frances E. Allen, who worked for IBM from 1957 to 2002 and founded PTRAN in the 80s, won the Ada Lovelace award for women in computing in 2002. This week she was awarded the Turing for pioneering contributions to the theory and practice of optimizing compiler techniques that laid the foundation for modern optimizing compilers and automatic parallel execution. CNN is reporting. One small step for a woman, one giant leap for womankind!"

XP On 8-MHz Pentium With 20 MB RAM 410

Posted by kdawson on Sunday February 25, 2007 @01:55AM from the golden-hourglass dept.

swehack writes "The guys over at winhistory.de managed to get their Windows XP Professional running on a very minimal box: an Intel Pentium clocked down to 8 MHz with 20 MB of RAM. (The installer won't work with less than 64 MB, but after installing you can remove memory.) The link has plenty of pictures of their progress in achieving this dubious milestone. They deserve a Golden Hourglass award for 'extreme waste of time.' What obscure hardware configurations have you managed to get Windows running on?"

Submission + - DragonFly BSD to develop own filesystem

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25, 2007 @01:40AM

An anonymous reader writes: Matt Dillon has decided to develop a new filesystem from scratch to support DragonFly's clustering, rather than port an existing one. From his post: "There are currently two rough spots in the design. First, how to handle segment overflows in a multi-master environment. Such overflows can occur when the individual masters or slaves have different historical data retention policies. Second, where to store the regeneratable indexes."

Submission + - Watch Big Brother, Watch you

Submitted by jedimaud on Sunday February 25, 2007 @01:30AM

jedimaud writes: This is the most have for our tin foil wearing friends out there. An expensive but pretty cool device that allow you to "tap" into the wireless signal of those cameras around the city. I wonder what else you can do with it? http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/dd9000.html

IRS May Ask eBay To Snitch On Sellers 418

Posted by kdawson on Saturday February 24, 2007 @10:34PM from the taxman-cometh dept.

Makarand writes "The IRS thinks that many sellers on online auction sites are unaware of their obligation to declare their profits and pay their taxes to the IRS. Tax experts are now asking the IRS to require online auction sites like eBay, Yahoo, and Ubid to report the gross sales numbers for their sellers. Such a requirement will surely send a shock wave across the online trading world because it could drastically reduce the profits a seller would make on these sites. The IRS thinks it can collect an extra $2 billion in taxes from this requirement that auctioneers report sellers who complete 100 or transactions a year worth at least $5,000."

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