Comment Re:As Coroner... (Score 1) 181
It's pining for the fjords!
And here I thought it was pining for the fnords...
Comment Re:NSF Blue Waters project reboot? (Score 1) 55
Comment Every action has an equal and opposite reaction (Score 1) 230
Barnes & Noble, which paid almost $14 million for Borders' intellectual assets (including customer information) at auction last week, said it should not have to comply with certain customer-privacy standards recommended by a third-party ombudsman.
In unrelated news, I say customers should not buy anything from Barnes and Noble ever again.
Linux Receives 20th Birthday Video From Microsoft 368
moonbender writes "The Linux kernel has received birthday wishes from an unexpected direction — a video animation from Microsoft. Quoting The H: 'The video picks up on the strained relationship between Microsoft and Linux by displaying the phrase "Microsoft Vs. Linux" and then showing Tux, the Linux mascot, turning his back on the offer of a birthday cake from Microsoft. After a brief outline of the history between Microsoft and Linux, the video ends with a conciliatory gesture: Tux accepts the birthday cake in his igloo and the video ends with "Happy Birthday" and the editing of the initial phrase to "Microsoft and Linux?' The Linux Foundation has more stuff celebrating the kernel's 20th birthday."
Comment If this had happened 15-20 years ago... (Score 1) 463
...I might've cared.
Hurd is an interesting idea from a CS research PoV, but it's taken so long to come out that Linux and the BSDs have long since filled any niche it might've had in the real world.
Research Shows How Deaf Cats' Brains Re-Purpose Auditory Centers 100
An anonymous reader writes "Deaf or blind people often report enhanced abilities in their remaining senses, but up until now, no one has explained how and why that could be. Researchers at the University of Western Ontario, led by Stephen Lomber of The Centre for Brain and Mind, have discovered there is a causal link between enhanced visual abilities and reorganization of the part of the brain that usually handles auditory input in congenitally deaf cats. The findings, published online in Nature Neuroscience, provide insight into the plasticity that may occur in the brains of deaf people."
Comment Re:Linux already runs on thousands of cores (Score 1) 462
I bet that saves on licensing costs.
You'd think that, but a lot of HPC software gets priced either by-core or by-socket...
Comment Re:Linux already runs on thousands of cores (Score 3, Interesting) 462
Um, no.
The early Itanium-based Altixes (Altices?) could go up to 512 cores running a single copy of Linux. The new Nehalem-based Altixes can have up to 2048 cores in a single system image IIRC. We just finished acceptance testing on an SGI Altix UV 1000 with 1024 cores. It runs one copy of Linux on it.
Comment Re:Windows 7 scales to 256 cores (Score 1) 462
The current limit is 2048 cores in a single system image, IIRC. I currently run an SGI UV 1000 with 1024 cores (128 8-core Nehalem EXs), and that's not the biggest possible configuration of that hardware.
Microsoft Claims 'We Love Open Source' 464
jbrodkin writes "Everyone in the Linux world remembers Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's famous comment in 2001 that Linux is a 'cancer' that threatened Microsoft's intellectual property. While Microsoft hasn't formally rescinded its declaration that Linux violates its patents, at least one Microsoft executive admits that the company's earlier battle stance was a mistake. Microsoft wants the world to understand, whatever its issues with Linux, it no longer has any gripe toward open source."
Comment Re:How does this differ from glusterfs? (Score 1) 132
I remember that the guys who originally wrote Coda basically abandoned it and moved on to doing Lustre...
How To Grow a Head 355
Taco Cowboy writes "British scientists have found a mechanism within our gene sequence that allows the growing of a new head — with brains, etc. The gene is tentatively known as smed-prep, and the information contained in smed-prep also makes the new cells appear in the right place and organise themselves into working structures."
Comment Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion... (Score 5, Funny) 349
Yes, yes you are. Go and sin no more.
Joss Whedon To Direct The Avengers 349
olyar noted that Joss Whedon has been tapped to direct The Avengers. This should make a lot of nerds very excited, and begin rampant speculation on Buffy/Firefly/Horrible universe actor cameos. Hope the script doesn't suck.
Neptune May Have Eaten a Planet and Stolen Its Moon 145
jitendraharlalka noted a piece about the origins of Neptune. There is a theory now that it once ate a super-earth in the outer solar system, and kept its moon as some sort of macabre trophy to make sure that Mars and Venus didn't get any big ideas.
