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Bug

Submission + - Computer foul-up breaks Canadian tax filing system

Submitted by
CokeJunky
CokeJunky writes: "During a weekend maintenance window, the Canada Revenue Agency (Fills the same role as the IRS south of the border) experienced data corruption issues in the tax databases. As a precaution, they have disabled all electronic filling services, and paper based returns will be stacking up in the mail room, as returns cannot be filed at all until the problem is fixed. Articles: The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, The Canada Revenue Agency. Apparently on Monday they discovered tax fillings submitted electronically where the Social Insurance Number, and the Date of Birth were swapped."
Robotics

Submission + - Automatic Beer Launching Fridge

Submitted by
gondarlinux
gondarlinux writes: "From this site:
Have you ever gotten up off the couch to get a beer for the umpteenth time and thought, "What if instead of ME going to get the BEER, the BEER came to ME???" Well, that was how I first conceived of the beer launching fridge. About 3 months and several hundred dollars later I have a fully automated, remote controlled, catapulting, man-pit approved, beer launching mini-fridge. It holds 10 beers in its magazine with 14 more in reserve to store a full case. It is controlled by a keyless entry system. Pressing unlock will start the catapult rotating and when it is aiming at your target, pressing unlock again will stop it. Then the lock button can be pressed to launch a beer in the selected direction." Here's the video:"
User Journal

Journal Journal: Open Letter to Sir Richard Branson

Journal by rohar
Dear Sir Richard Branson,

Upon reading the information on the recently announced Virgin Earth Challenge I feel that although I admire the noble effort, I have difficulty with the terms and conditions of the challenge. I believe that if you and the Virgin group of companies were serious regarding improving our planet that you have the resources to make an immediate change in the world energy si
Power

Submission + - Open Letter to Sir Richard Branson

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "Dear Sir Richard Branson,

Upon reading the information on the recently announced Virgin Earth Challenge I feel that although I admire the noble effort, I have difficulty with the terms and conditions of the challenge. I believe that if you and the Virgin group of companies were serious regarding improving our planet that you have the resources to make an immediate change in the world energy situation and to lower the risk of climate change.

I believe that we have an initial design for an implementable system that uses indirect solar collection to generate electricity and store thermal energy in an economical, environmentally friendly, scalable, reliable, efficient and location independent manner using common construction materials. This system design is not under limited Intellectual Property protection and a pilot project and further commercial ventures may be initiated under the Virgin brand.

I am challenging you to invest some resources, form an engineering team and take the energytower.org idea and to build some massive bright red convection tower renewable energy systems with the Virgin logo painted on the side.

Sincerely,
Robert J. Rohatensky
Regina, SK Canada
www.energytower.org"
Power

Submission + - Open Letter to Sir Richard Branson

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "Dear Sir Richard Branson,

Upon reading the information on the recently announced Virgin Earth Challenge I feel that although I admire the noble effort, I have difficulty with the terms and conditions of the challenge. I believe that if you and the Virgin group of companies were serious regarding improving our planet that you have the resources to make an immediate change in the world energy situation and to lower the risk of climate change.

I believe that we have an initial design for an implementable system that uses indirect solar collection to generate electricity and store thermal energy in an economical, environmentally friendly, scalable, reliable, efficient and location independent manner using common construction materials. This system design is not under limited Intellectual Property protection and a pilot project and further commercial ventures may be initiated under the Virgin brand.

I am challenging you to invest some resources, form an engineering team and take the energytower.org idea and to build some massive bright red convection tower renewable energy systems with the Virgin logo painted on the side.

Sincerely,
Robert J. Rohatensky
Regina, SK Canada
www.energytower.org"
Television

Submission + - Vacuum tube turns 100

Submitted by
wenko
wenko writes: "The device that heralded the beginning of the 20th century electronics industry first saw the light of day in late 1906, just over a century ago. This was the triode electron tube, or audion, as its inventor called it."
Education

Submission + - Questioning the Value of an IT Degree

Submitted by
jerbenn
jerbenn writes: "The following article appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education: "With interdisciplinary training all the rage in the IT industry, computer-science degrees just don't seem to carry the weight they once did. According to a new survey, three out of five British employers don't care whether applicants for high-tech jobs have IT-specific degrees. The survey — completed by E-Skills UK, a government agency — also found that only two of every five IT workers in Britain possess tech-related degrees. Karen Price, chief executive of E-Skills UK, told CNET News that applicants without IT degrees are often perceived as better entrepreneurs and communicators than their tech-trained counterparts."

What's this world coming to??? It's starting to sound like companies would rather hire someone who can't differentiate between a semaphore and a hole-in-their-ass as long as they have so called 'soft-skills'. Yes, those soft skills are important, but they can be developed much easier than learning the theory and skills needed for innovation and development, not to mention maintaining existing technology!"
United States

Submission + - Super-green minivans are possible today

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "According to the Mercury News, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has designed a super-green minivan. The Vanguard is a vehicle concept that could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent and exceed California's 2016 global warming standards. This minivan, which only exists as a computer simulation, would use existing technologies and could run on a gasoline-ethanol blend. Such a vehicle would only "cost $300 more than one of today's minivans, but it would save an owner $1,300 over the lifetime of the vehicle." Of course, as UCS is not a car maker, it's hard to know if such a concept will really be used by the automotive industry. Here is a link to more references and pictures about this concept vehicle which may reach the U.S. roads one day."
Patents

Submission + - Patent application for Godly Powers

Submitted by
Orleron
Orleron writes: "Christopher Roller of Burnsville, MN is apparently trying to corner the market on deific abilities. He has submitted a patent application for "Godly Powers". It can be found here. In yet another example of how the US Patent system is broken, this submission actually made it through the entire process for application issuance. How much farther could it go?"
Software

Submission + - Selling open source to upper management

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: I am the single member of the IT department at a small nonprofit. We were looking to replace our commercial content management system with a custom combination of open source solutions (Lucene, Jackrabbit, etc.) However, since I was the sole developer, progress was slow and we have little resources to recruit potential volunteers.

Recently, we had a closed source, commercial vendor demo their version of a content management system, and immediately upper management was willing to go along with their proposal, even at the expense of project requirements.

Although I understand and accept the decision (and am quite relieved I am not expected to deliver as the sole developer), I am interested to know if there are resources for promoting open source software in a manner like closed source, commercial software. If not, is this a challenge within the OS community? It seems that OS solutions are primarily promoted to technical implementors rather than upper management. Of course, many technical implementors do not have the marketing skills to promote open source, but are there resources to help us do so?
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - What is the cost of using hosted applications?

Submitted by foniksonik
foniksonik writes: I work at a small company, less than 30 people, and yet the leadership refuses to consider using hosted applications for ANY purpose. They won't consider going to Gmail as a POP email provider, or using Basecamp for Project Management or Harvest for timesheets, Salesforce for CRM. etc. even though these hosted applications would save them a lot of effort/grief as well as time = money.

They claim that there is a huge downside to not 'owning' their own data in these areas and that it far outweighs the savings from not having to manage, maintain and support those tools internally. SO we have created a hodgepodge of opensource versions of the tools (dotProject, timesheet, Sugar) which don't interoperate well together either AND take a lot of time to set up, deploy, configure and customize for our needs. We have competent developers and a team in India we contract to for time intensive troubeshooting... but he time they spend on these apps takes away from time they could be devoting to PAID projects.

What do you think Slashdot? Are hosted apps a money loser, does not having ultimate control of your operational business data (as opposed to your code or other proprietary data) keep you from considering them as a time = money saver? If your company has already made the leap to hosted apps for business use, what are your experiences — good and bad?
Announcements

Submission + - Australia Outlaws Incandescent Lightbulb

Submitted by
passthecrackpipe
passthecrackpipe writes: "The Australian Government is planning on making the incandescent ligtbulb a thing of the past. In three years time, standard lightbulbs will no longer be available for sale in the shops in Australia (expect a roaring grey market) and everybody will be forced to switch to more energy efficient Fluorescent bulbs. In this move to try and curb emissions, the incandescent bulb — which converts the majority of used energy to heat rather then light — will be phased out. Environmental groups have given this plan a lukewarm reception. They feel Australia should sign on to the Kyoto protocol first. (Article in Dutch). A similar plan was created together with Phillips, one of the worlds largest lighting manufacturers. What do other slashdotters think? Is this a move in the right direction? Will this boost the development of better fluorescent bulbs? Improve the design and lower the costs of LED lightbulbs? Will this plan make a big difference to the environment at all?"

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