David Rolfe - Slashdot User

Submission + - creationists violate copyright (blogspot.com)

Submitted by The_Rook on Saturday November 24, 2007 @08:44PM

The_Rook writes: the discovery institute copied Harvard University's BioVisions video, "The Inner Life of the Cell", stripped out Harvard's copyright notice, credits, and narration, and inserted their own creationist friendly narration and renamed the video "The Cell as an automated city". pretty insidious, as suggesting that a cell is like a city is to suggest that it was designed rather than evolved. it should also be of interest because the discovery institute, really more of a lawyer mill than a scientific institution, engaged in a particularly egregious example of copyright infringement.

Submission + - What every programmer should know about memory (lwn.net)

Submitted by

mrcgran

on Saturday November 24, 2007 @08:43PM

mrcgran writes: "LWN.NET has just finished publishing an excellent series about memory, by Ulrich Drepper:"What every programmer should know about memory". Wonder the difference between PC100 and PC1600? Challeges of NUMA systems, access optimizations for L1 and L2 caches? Want to write code which performs well in several memory contexts? Then this series is probably what you should read first. There is also a PDF version available from Ulrich's home page. While at it, why not do a combo grabbing a copy of Goldberg's classical paper "What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating Point Arithmetic"?."

Submission + - Kevin Rudd wins Australian Election (abc.net.au)

Submitted by

gunny01

on Saturday November 24, 2007 @06:06PM

gunny01 writes: "Kevin Rudd, the head of the Australian Labor Party, has defeated the Liberal Party incumbent John Howard in Saturday's federal election, with a 5.8% swing. This ends Howard's eleven year term in office, and it also appears at this stage that he has lost his seat. If this turns out to be correct, Peter Costello will be the Opposition leader in the new government.

Rudd, among other things, has promised to scrap the current governments unpopular industrial relations reforms and give Australians access to access to 100Mbs broadband and free laptops to every senior school student."

Submission + - Dislike a Relative? Turn Them in as a Terrorist! 9

Submitted by Stanislav_J on Friday November 02, 2007 @04:23PM

Stanislav_J writes: A Swedish man who had less than fond feelings for his daughter's hubby, took advantage of the son-in-law's trip to America by reporting him to the FBI as a terrorist. The e-mail, which the father-in-law admits to sending, earned him a libel charge after his poor son-in-law was arrested on his arrival in Florida, handcuffed, interrogated, and placed in a cell for 11 hours before being released.

It's a brief article, but dovetails nicely with the recent Slashdot story about "The War on the Unexpected." That article touched on many examples of well-meaning, but misguided and paranoid citizens reporting innocent activities to the authorities. In the current climate, the potential also exists for maliciously false and far from well-meaning reports made to the Feds about people one simply doesn't care for, or those made merely as a sick prank.

While the man admitted to sending the e-mail to the FBI, he claims he thought no harm would come from it because "he did not think the US authorities would be stupid enough to believe him." To quote the great philosopher Bugs Bunny, 'Nyahh....he don't know us very well, do he?'

Submission + - Madeleine L'Engle, 1918 - 2007

Submitted by mosel-saar-ruwer on Saturday September 08, 2007 @07:26PM

mosel-saar-ruwer writes: Madeleine L'Engle Camp Franklin passed away, on Sept. 6, aged 88, at Rose Haven nursing home, in Litchfield, Connecticut. Even before we discovered Tolkien, CS Lewis, or Robert Heinlein, many /.-ers' first exposure to Science Fiction and Fantasy was surely L'Engle's 1962 novel, A Wrinkle in Time. The Washington Post has an obituary, and the New York Post's John Podhoretz relates his childhood memories of life at 924 West End Avenue with Mr. & Mrs. Franklin.

Submission + - Alex The Grey Parrot, Colleague of Irene Pepperber (scienceblogs.com)

Submitted by

grrlscientist

on Saturday September 08, 2007 @06:49PM

grrlscientist writes: "Yesterday, I received the devastating news that Alex the African Grey parrot, who was both a study subject and colleague to Irene Pepperberg, died unexpectedly at 31 years of age.

From the Story: Even though Alex was a research animal, he was much more than that. This species of parrot generally lives to be 50-60 years old, so Alex was only middle-aged when he died. According to some reports I have read, it is possible that Alex might have succumbed to Aspergillosis, a fungal infection of the lungs that he has battled in the past. However, the cause of death will not be known until after a necropsy has been completed tomorrow. A necropsy is an autopsy that is performed on an animal. Alex's veterinarian is returning from vacation to personally conduct this necrospy."

Submission + - Robotech slated for the big screen (scifi.com)

Submitted by

dominique_cimafranca

on Friday September 07, 2007 @08:43PM

dominique_cimafranca writes: "Classic animé cult favorite "Robotech" may be next for the big screen live action treatment, if recent news from SciFi.com's SCI FI Wire is to be believed. Tobey Maguire will produce and may star in the film. From the story:

Warner Brothers Pictures picked up the rights to Robotech, which features giant robots known as mechas. Maguire is producing through his Maguire Entertainment banner and is eyeing the lead role in what the studio plans as an SF franchise a la Paramount's hit Transformers.
"

Submission + - Apple Surface Coffee Table Launches (cepro.com)

Submitted by

junger

on Friday September 07, 2007 @11:01AM

junger writes: "An Apple-based Surface Coffee Table has emerged as a competitor to Microsoft's Surface table. The ROSIE Coffee Table Touchpanel Controller supports integration and interaction with iTunes multimedia content, digital cameras, IP network cameras, business card readers, and many additional high-tech devices. "It can seamlessly download photos from digital cameras, play music, movies, and TV shows as well as accomplish complete home control all from within one elegant forty-inch interface.""

Submission + - iPod Touch + iPhone Earbuds = VOIP iPhone (applegazette.com)

Submitted by

Steve

on Friday September 07, 2007 @02:10AM

Steve writes: "Apple Gazette makes an interesting point...The iPod Touch should be able to make VOIP phone calls.

Since it runs the same browser as the iPhone, that means it will work with SkypeforiPhone.com. Unless Apple has somehow preemptively disabled the mic from iPhone headphones, there's no reason that they shouldn't work when you plug them into your iPod Touch.

After you log into your Skype service via the Safari browser, you should be good to go."

Submission + - BBC iPlayer to be cross platform (pm.gov.uk)

Submitted by

ddrichardson

on Thursday September 06, 2007 @02:07PM

ddrichardson writes: "The BBC iPlayer service is no longer to be tied to Windows only. Following a scucessful online government petition, the BBC trust in conjunction with Ofcom have decided to make the system cross-platform. From the Government response:

The BBC Trust made it a condition of approval for the BBC's on-demand services that the iPlayer is available to users of a range of operating systems, and has given a commitment that it will ensure that the BBC meets this demand as soon as possible."

Submission + - UK students must submit fingerprints for lunch (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

wikinerd

on Monday July 23, 2007 @10:37PM

wikinerd writes: "A school in the UK decided to start requesting fingerprint scans from its 1100 students before being allowed to get their lunch. From next term, the same school expects to use the biometric system for controlling entry into the school, as well as for dictating who is allowed to use the school's printers. According to a concerned citizen, the school did not consult the parents before implementing the new policy. Currently students carry ID cards that are used for getting their lunches, and the school claims that the biometric system is a means to limit expenses from lost cards, and since the fingerprint scans are not stored there is no breach of civil rights and no need for asking the parents first. However, a group named Leave The Kids Alone says that this is an infringement of liberty since fingerprint templates are stored and can be accessed by the police."

Wii Puts Japanese Television Under Pressure 98

Posted by Zonk on Monday July 23, 2007 @07:31PM from the must-not-see-teevee dept.

Knuckles writes "The Times reports that Japanese consumers have been 'abandoning television' in order to play with Nintendo's Wii. Recent figures from Japan's audience-tracking firms show that 'last week was the first in nearly two decades where no single show on any commercial station attracted more than a 9 per cent audience share ... According to one senior executive of the country's largest commercial television channel, Fuji TV, families who used to tune in to its colourful diet of soap operas, panel games and comedy variety shows may, instead, be drifting away and choosing to spend the same, economically-critical golden hour time playing on their Wii.'"

The Unforking of KDE's KHTML and Webkit Begins 104

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday July 23, 2007 @04:28PM from the sounds-dirty dept.

Jiilik Oiolosse writes to tell us Ars Technica is reporting that after years of existing seperately, KHTML and Webkit are finally coming back together. "In open source terms, this may be as big of a deal as the gcc and egcs merger of yonder days. KHTML and Webkit are definitely coming of age. The KDE developers, responsible for the original creation of KHTML, are dedicated to seeing this unforking happen and are taking a leading role in that effort."

Submission + - Oil (or Not) in Your Future (connectlive.com) 1

Submitted by

mdsolar

on Saturday July 21, 2007 @10:52AM

mdsolar writes: "Over at The Oil Drum there is an interesting discussion going on about a report released (in draft form) by the National Petroleum Council. The report is a response to questions from Secretary of Energy Bodman about the ability of oil companies to meet projected demand for oil (at a reasonable price). The report seems to say that this cannot be done and recommends that the government 1) force conservation through efficiency regulations, 2) shift to other energy sources, 3) reduce regulation on drilling in the US, 4) use US power to force open markets in oil, 5) pay for the education of engineers in the oil field, allow retiring workers to consult without tax penalties and raise H1-B quotas and 6) pay the oil industry to accept carbon dioxide from coal use for sequestration.

The discusion at The Oil Drum is finding that the report is fudging on the peak oil issue while at the same time predicting a greatly increased oil supply mainly from the Middle East using new technologies and discoveries. My own acerbic take on the report findings can be found here."

Submission + - Mandriva Linux pre-installed on Intel's Classmate

Submitted by

boklm

on Friday March 30, 2007 @06:33PM

boklm writes: "Mandriva announced it will have a version of its Mandriva Linux 2007 pre-installed on Intel's new low-end laptop for students in developing countries, the Classmate PC. This laptop comes with 256MB of RAM, 1 or 2GB of flash memory, 802.11b/g WiFi, 10/100Mbps ethernet, 2 USB ports, a 7-inch LCD display and 4 hours battery. Produced in Brazil, shipping is expected to begin in the second quarter of this year, and will be available to Mexico, India, and developing countries."

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