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Science

Submission + - Increasing the Usability of LaTeX With Templates (latex-community.org)

Submitted by Velimir
Velimir writes: LaTeX produces beautiful high-quality documents but anyone who has used it casually can attest that it can be cumbersome and time consuming to create a new document from scratch. We use templates for websites and Word documents, so why not for LaTeX? A template should capture the main elements of the document type it is written for and display these elements in a stylish way. It should also be easy to edit with commenting on almost every line and clear instructions for where to place user content. If this is done correctly, the template allows both novice and advanced LaTeX users to focus more on content rather than layout. This article explains what a LaTeX template is, why you should use one and introduces a new resource for LaTeX templates.
Science

Submission + - LaTeX needn't be so hard (latextemplates.com)

Submitted by Velimir
Velimir writes: Few among us would argue that LaTeX is useless, but I'm sure we can agree that it is not the easiest way of creating a document. It can be frustrating and time-consuming to create a document from scratch for a specific purpose such as a CV, assignment or thesis. This is where templates come in handy since they capture the necessary elements of the document type and clearly point out where user content should go. Unfortunately, no one has created a single easy to use resource for LaTeX templates until now. LaTeXTemplates.com aims to provide such a resource to help new users of LaTeX get started making documents more quickly and to allow veteran users to focus on content over structure.
Science

Submission + - We Come From Earth Bearing Life

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "About 65 million years ago, Earth was struck by an asteroid some 10 km in diameter with a mass of well over a trillion tonnes that created megatsunamis, global wildfires ignited by giant clouds of superheated ash and, the mass extinction of land-based life on Earth. Now astrobiologists have begun to study a less well known consequence: the ejection of billions of tons of life-bearing rocks and water into space that has made its way not just to other planets but other solar systems as well. Calculations by Tetsuya Hara and his collegues at Kyoto Sangyo University in Japan show that a surprisingly large amount of life-bearing material ended up not on the Moon and Mars, as might be expected, but the Jovian moon Europa and the Saturnian moon Enceladus also received tons of life-bearing rock from earth. Even more amazingly calculations suggest that most Earth ejecta ended up in interstellar space and some has probably already arrived at Earth-like exoplanets orbiting other stars. Hara estimates that about a thousand Earth-rocks from this event would have made the trip to Gliese 581, a red dwarf some 20 light years away that is thought to have a super-Earth orbiting at the edge of the habitable zone, taking about a million years to reach its destination. Of course, nobody knows if microbes can survive that kind of journey or even the shorter trips to Europa and Enceladus. But Hara says that if microbes can survive that kind of journey, they ought to flourish on a super-Earth in the habitable zone (PDF). "If we consider the possibility that the fragmented ejecta (smaller than 1cm) are accreted to comets and other icy bodies, then buried fertile material could make the interstellar journey throughout the Galaxy," writes Hara. "Under these circumstances fragments could continue the interstellar journey and Earth origin meteorites could be transferred to Gl 581 system. If we take it is viable, we should consider the panspermia theories more seriously.""
Science

Submission + - Helping bring LaTeX to the masses (latextemplates.com)

Submitted by Velimir
Velimir writes: Few among us would argue that LaTeX is useless, but I'm sure we can agree that it is not the easiest way of creating a document. I would like to introduce a new resource for users of LaTeX or those that are interested but have been put off by the time required to master it: http://www.latextemplates.com./ I have made this website to provide a free resource for LaTeX templates which look great and are easy to edit. The idea is that you download a template, fill in your content where instructed and hit compile to generate a completed document. I believe this makes LaTeX more accessible to everyone and is of use to the LaTeX community.
Science

Submission + - Making LaTeX Easier to Use

Submitted by
Velimir
Velimir writes: "After noting a distinct absence of a dedicated, well-designed, resource for LaTeX templates, I decided to create one. LaTeXTemplates.com aims to provide a free resource of templates for a variety of applications. I believe that providing templates acts to take the hassle out of learning and using LaTeX and promotes learning by doing. It has been my goal to produce a high quality, easy to use website with templates that are well-commented and easy to edit. I hope this is of use to the LaTeX community."

Submission + - Making LaTeX Easier to Use (latextemplates.com)

Submitted by
Velimir
Velimir writes: "After noting a distinct absence of a dedicated, well-designed, resource for LaTeX templates, I decided to create one. LaTeXTemplates.com aims to provide a free resource of templates for a variety of applications. I believe that providing templates acts to take the hassle out of learning and using LaTeX and promotes learning by doing. It has been my goal to produce a high quality, easy to use website with templates that are well-commented and easy to edit. I hope this is of use to the LaTeX community."
Science

Submission + - A new resource for LaTeX Templates to take the hassle out of LaTeX (latextemplates.com)

Submitted by
Velimir
Velimir writes: "After noting a distinct absence of a dedicated, well-designed, resource for LaTeX templates, I decided to create one. LaTeXTemplates.com aims to provide a free resource of templates for a variety of applications. I believe that providing templates acts to take the hassle out of learning and using LaTeX and promotes learning by doing. It has been my goal to produce a high quality, easy to use website with templates that are well-commented and easy to edit. I hope this is of use to the LaTeX community."
Software

Submission + - Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix ready for download (raspberrypi.org)

Submitted by
TheNextCorner
TheNextCorner writes: "The Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix is ready for download! The recommended distro to run on the Raspberry Pi is a Remix of the Fedora open source software mirror.

Get a Glimpse At the Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix

The Remix is a distribution comprised of software packages from the Fedora ARM project, plus a small number of additional packages that are modified from the Fedora versions or which cannot be included in Fedora due to licensing issues – in particular, the libraries for accessing the VideoCore GPU on the Raspberry Pi."
Microsoft

Submission + - Enjoy Office on the iPad while it lasts, because it won't last long (networkworld.com)

Submitted by colinneagle
colinneagle writes: Last month, the cloud gaming company OnLive announced a service for $5 a month that would provide a Windows 7 desktop with major Microsoft Office applications like Word and Excel, plus Internet Explorer with Adobe flash support for iPad and Android tablet users.

So you knew that was too good to last.

After a few weeks of curious silence, Microsoft finally made a comment, and it's not good news for OnLive. The company believes OnLive is in violation of Microsoft licensing terms.

It seems a research note from Gartner challenging the legality of the offering, along with reporter queries, finally pushed Microsoft to say something. "We are actively engaged with OnLive with the hope of bringing them into a properly licensed scenario, and we are committed to seeing this issue is resolved," Joe Matz, corporate vice president of worldwide licensing and pricing at Microsoft, wrote in a March 8 blog post.

Comment Re:FLAC (Score 1) 277

by Velimir (#36876150) Attached to: Public AAC Listening Test @ ~96 Kbps [July 2011].
Hi there, the iTunes encoder was set to a single bitrate (i.e. not VBR). This was so I could compare what a 128kbps vs a 192kbps sounds like, since with VBR they may just sound the same. I agree entirely that there are better methods of encoding these samples which would have likely made them indistinguishable. I was more interested in the worst case regarding how someone might rip a song since the majority of people would just stick it into their computer and rip with iTunes. It was the easiest place to start :) I would definitely like to re-do the test with the same samples using modern codecs and see if there is any difference. I also think that you could tell the difference, for the ones where I nailed it all the way through, it was clear as day. I described the exact thing I was latching on to in each sample in the blog and I'm sure anyone could hear it. Whether these samples extend to all music in general is another question though... Suffice it to say I rip all my music in Apple Lossless or FLAC.

Comment Re:FLAC (Score 3, Interesting) 277

by Velimir (#36867656) Attached to: Public AAC Listening Test @ ~96 Kbps [July 2011].
I heard the difference between an iTunes-encoded 320kbps MP3 and FLAC in 2/7 samples I used. This is through ABXing and using statistics. Granted, these samples were chosen as good examples that show differences between lossy and lossless. I wrote up a series of blog posts on it here: http://www.vel.co.nz/vel.co.nz/Blog/Entries/2009/8/21_ABX_of_Lossless_versus_MP3_-_Part_3_-_Results_and_Discussion.html
Science

Submission + - Lossless vs. MP3: Is there an audible difference? (vel.co.nz)

Submitted by Velimir
Velimir writes: A short while ago I wrote a series of three blog posts with the ultimate aim of discovering, for myself, whether I could tell the difference between lossless and mp3 sound clips at various bitrates. I started by figuring out how a lossless encoder manages to take data from a CD and compress it in a way that when it is uncompressed it is identical to the original. I then described the ABX test, a common method of comparing sounds and provided the sound clips I would be using. Finally, I did the test and plotted the data showing what I could and couldn't hear. The overall result is that it is possible to hear a difference between lossless and MP3 at all bitrates but it depends on the specific sound.
The Courts

Submission + - Swiss banker who used WikiLeaks faces trial (businessweek.com)

Submitted by Edsj
Edsj writes: Rudolf Elmer, a former employee of the swiss bank Julius Baer is now facing a trial for uploading files to WikiLeaks.
The files reportedly showed that the bank helped its clients set up secret offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes. In Feb 2008, the bank won an injunction that forced WikiLeaks website to be temporaly shut down.

If convicted he could be sentenced to up to three years in prison and a fine.
Social Networks

Submission + - MySpace to slash half of its workforce (news.com.au)

Submitted by sg00
sg00 writes: MySpace, the once mightly social networking site, is reportedly set to lay off half of its employees as it scales back its social netowrking ambitions. The financial position of the company is dismal with some arguing that it's enough for News Corporation to pull the pin.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/myspace-to-cut-staff-numbers-in-half/story-e6frfro0-1225985459667

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