cyberbian - Slashdot User

Submission + - Complete Computing System in 20K lines of Code

Submitted by

Ron Teitelbaum

on Sunday March 04, 2007 @11:27AM

Ron Teitelbaum writes: "Viewpoints Research Institute work Steps Toward The Reinvention of Programming — A Compact And Practical Model of Personal Computing As A Self-Exploratorium has been picked up by the National Science Foundation and will be supported with a 5 year grant. Check out Ian Piumarta's, of Viewpoints Research Institute, Stanford University talk"

Submission + - RIAA Bashed in the Sunday Comics

Submitted by ryanduff on Sunday March 04, 2007 @09:45AM

ryanduff writes: While reading the comics this morning, I had a good laugh as the comic Foxtrot (Bill Amend) bashes the Recording Industry Association of America for suing "single moms, widows, grandmothers, dead people, and children." Jason Fox attempts to get away with downloading by teaching his pet iguana Quincy how to use Bittorrent and someone at the RIAA puts their psychiatrist on hold because "someone named 'lizardlips' is downloading Metallica."

Submission + - Running Late and Wasting Billions; Punctuality...

Submitted by

Ant

on Sunday March 04, 2007 @07:56AM

Ant writes: "ABC News reports a recent survey found 15 to 20 percent of the United States/U.S. population is "consistently late," especially when it comes to work. Chronic lateness isn't just annoying — it's expensive. American Chief Executive Officers/CEOs are late to eight out of every 10 meetings, according to a 2006 survey by Proudfoot Consulting. And when CEOs are late by 10 minutes every day, it costs the U.S. economy $90 billion in lost productivity. This Reuters article say Peruvians are mostly late that made punctuality program organizers to make campaigns to resolve this issue. Seen on Digg and in one of its Digg comment."

Submission + - Why is RAM so bloody expensive?

Submitted by LuckyEdBoy66 on Friday February 16, 2007 @11:46PM

LuckyEdBoy66 writes: This has annoyed me for a while, but today i was surfing Newegg for some RAM (Random Access Memory), and I was outraged by the price tags on those things. none that i found were under $100 for 1gb (ok, i didn't look that hard). What is the deal? I have seen 1gb SD cards for under $10, so why is RAM so pricey? sure they use different types of memory and formating, but if technology can produce cheap SD cards and flash drives, one would think it could do the same for RAM... The only possible explanation i can think of is that all the people upgrading to Vista are flocking to upgrade their machines and thus causing a huge supply shortage (ya, right. we all know better than that...). ok, so if thats illogical, then where IS the logic? is there any foreseeable price drop in the near future?

Submission + - FCC report: TV violence should be regulated

Submitted by tanman on Friday February 16, 2007 @10:47PM

tanman writes: CNN reports that a draft FCC report circulating on Capitol Hill "suggests Congress could craft a law that would let the agency regulate violent programming much like it regulates sexual content and profanity — by barring it from being aired during hours when children may be watching, for example ... 'In general, what the commission's report says is that there is strong evidence that shows violent media can have an impact on children's behavior and there are some things that can be done about it,' FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Thursday. The issue is bipartisan. Martin, a Republican, gave a joint interview to The Associated Press with Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps."

Submission + - 802.11n AirPort Extreme reviewed: 90 Mbps +

Submitted by

Glenn Fleishman

on Friday February 16, 2007 @10:39PM

Glenn Fleishman writes: "In my review of the Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station over at Macworld.com, I note that the thing really can break 90 Mbps with real throughput using 5 GHz wide channels. Pretty impressive. The base station desperately needs gigabit Ethernet, and needs a fix to a glitch that throttles speed in limited cases between the LAN and WAN segments of the router. (A networking stack in NetBSD, the unit's OS according to documents on the CD-ROM, might be the cause.) Despite those couple of provisos, it's pretty slick to fire up a wireless router, walk halfway down a block, and still get several Mbps."

Submission + - Apple CEO lambasts teacher unions

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 16, 2007 @10:38PM

An anonymous reader writes: After publishing a controversial open letter taking a stance against DRM, Steve Jobs turned his attention to teacher unions. As reported by Associated Press, Jobs said "I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way," during an education reform conference. He stated that no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers. Acknowledging the potential fallout of this stance, Jobs also said "Apple just lost some business in this state, I'm sure."

On the other hand, Dell responded that unions were created because "the employer was treating his employees unfairly and that was not good. So now you have these enterprises where they take good care of their people. The employees won, they do really well and succeed."

Submission + - Ogame...Dead.

Submitted by

Ogame player

on Friday February 16, 2007 @09:28PM

Ogame player writes: "Ogame, ran since 2004, september. Always been the best, skill was the key, you couldnt pay for stuff, you couldnt buy "points" or "credits" to build a load of something. Your skill brought you that new ship, or that new upgrade. Now, Gameforge, its creators, lie blatantly to its users, totally reject a 93% NO vote, and implement "The Officers". The time has come, one of the best online games, now ruined, your skill doesnt count so much now, your bank account does. 4 "Officers" each with a different thing, that translates into resource...Break it down, you pay for resources, something we were promised would never happen, due to unfairness. Thousands deleting their accounts, some deleting 2-3 of their accounts, thousands more in alliances vacation-mode and delete pressed...Massive uproars, and we get told by a Gameforge community manager that its here to stay... Ogame, the best online game ruined. Didnt even make version 1.0. Gameforge, we salute you, and your greed."

Submission + - Macrovision responds to Steve Jobs on DRM

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 16, 2007 @09:13PM

An anonymous reader writes: Macrovision Corporation, best known for its long history of DRM implementations, (everything from VCRs to software copy protection), has responded to Steve Jobs open letter regarding DRM. With ample experience and despite the obvious vested interests, it's great to hear their point of view.

In the letter they acknowledge the "difficult challenges" of implementing DRM that is truly "interoperable and open"; but they also feel that DRM "will increase electronic distribution", if implemented properly, because "DRM increases not decreases consumer value", such as by enabling people to "rent" content at a lower price than ownership, and lowering risks for content producers.

While I'm impressed they responded, I can't say I'm impressed by lofty goals that might not be reached for years. The reality is, current DRM implementations often leave users with the bad end of the deal. What do you think? Should people give DRM manufacturers more time to overcome the challenges and get it right?

Submission + - Inventor of the TV remote dies

Submitted by QuietLagoon on Friday February 16, 2007 @08:12PM

QuietLagoon writes: Zenith Electronics Corporation said today that Engineer Robert Adler, who co-invented the TV remote control with fellow Engineer Eugene Polley, has passed on to the big sofa in the sky. In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 U.S. patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime. The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Adler and co-inventor Polley, another Zenith engineer, an Emmy in 1997 for the landmark invention.

Submission + - DD-WRT now running on X86

Submitted by

JimBowen

on Friday February 16, 2007 @08:08PM

JimBowen writes: "The popular linux-based router firmware project, DD-WRT, based on the free OpenWRT, has recently been made to run on an ordinary PC. This allows a significant increase in performance by the use of much faster hardware, with more memory, enabling advanced SPI firewalls even in the presence of high load P2P software. Various community extensions provide support for extra features like NAS. With the combination of large, desktop-sized storage, this makes for an extremely powerful, yet manageable and easily deployable home server. There is a tutorial on how to set it up over at graynetwork.org."

Submission + - General Aviation System in Jeopardy

Submitted by robwmc on Friday February 16, 2007 @07:42PM

robwmc writes: I'm not sure how many here on /. are pilots but the Bush administration evidently want to make that number decline. The new budget calls for charging user fees for access to airspace, raising the aviation fuel tax to $0.70 per gallon and raising fees for everything related to being a GA pilot. Take a look at one of the various articles on the AOPA website.

The AOPA has worked very hard for keeping the system "fair" for the average Joe to keep the cost of flying affordable for the general public.

Submission + - Geo-engineering to fend off climate change

Submitted by moon_monkey on Sunday February 11, 2007 @06:57PM

moon_monkey writes: While cutting greenhouse gases might be the best way to halt climate change, it's reassuring to know some scientists are already thinking about ways to combat fend off runaway warming if this doesn't work. NewScientistSpace has an interesting blog post about some pretty crazy-sounding ways for combating climate change. These include pumping sulfur into the atmosphere, sending thousands of tiny mirrors into orbit and even painting all our roads white to reflect the Sun's rays. Could this be the next X-prize?

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