nowhere.elysium - Slashdot User

Submission + - New nanomaterials able to cover large areas

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Wednesday September 12, 2007 @12:41PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a new nanomanufacturing technique which can be used to produce nanostructures measuring tens of square centimeters. This new technique, dubbed 'soft interference lithography' (SIL), can lead to nanomaterials with optical properties mimicking some metamaterials in the natural world such as peacock feathers and butterfly wings. As said the researchers, their SIL technique 'combines the ability of interference lithography to produce wafer-scale nanopatterns with the versatility of soft lithography and used it to create plasmonic metamaterials.' Read more for many additional references and to see a diagram showing what is soft interference lithography."

Submission + - NSF-funded "Dark Web" to battle terrorists (nsf.gov)

Submitted by

BuzzSkyline

on Wednesday September 12, 2007 @12:31PM

BuzzSkyline writes: "The National Science Foundation has announced a University of Arizona project, which they call the Dark Web, intended to monitor all terrorist activity on the Internet. The project relies on "advanced techniques such as Web spidering, link analysis, content analysis, authorship analysis, sentiment analysis and multimedia analysis [to] find, catalogue and analyze extremist activities online." The coolest part of the project is a tool called Writeprint, which "automatically extracts thousands of multilingual, structural, and semantic features to determine who is creating 'anonymous' content" with an accuracy of 95%, according to the release. Of course, that means that Big Brother will be able to keep en eye on all the Anonymous Cowards posting on /. too."

Submission + - 'Burning' Saltwater a New Energy Source? (post-gazette.com)

Submitted by LanMan04 on Wednesday September 12, 2007 @12:28PM

LanMan04 writes: From the Post-Gazette: For obvious reasons, scientists long have thought that salt water couldn't be burned. So when John Kanzius announced he'd ignited salt water with the radio-frequency generator he'd invented, some thought it a was a hoax. "It's true, it works," Dr. Rustum Roy (Penn State University chemist) said. "Everyone told me, 'Rustum, don't be fooled. He put electrodes in there.'" But there are no electrodes and no gimmicks, he said.

The salt water isn't burning per se, despite appearances. The radio frequency actually weakens bonds holding together the constituents of salt water — sodium chloride, hydrogen and oxygen — and releases the hydrogen, which, once ignited, burns continuously when exposed to the RF energy field. An independent source measured the flame's temperature, which exceeds 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. (Video of demonstration, more information)

Submission + - Salt Water as Fuel? (yahoo.com)

Submitted by aeron_flux on Wednesday September 12, 2007 @12:26PM

aeron_flux writes: A researcher form Erie has found a way to burn salt water. This discovery is being touted by one chemist as a "most remarkable" discovery in water science! The discovery was made while applying radio waves to salt water, which apparently cause a very high temp. burn. Sounds pretty cool. Surprising no one else has discovered this before.

Submission + - Programming Can Ruin Your Life (devizen.com)

Submitted by

devizen

on Wednesday September 12, 2007 @12:24PM

devizen writes: "There are many essays and articles extolling the virtues of becoming a great programmer. You'll have a sharp mind, great abstract reasoning skills, and a chance to become wealthy by working mere hours a day. This is what you've heard, right? Sadly, no one ever tells you about the ways in which it will adversely affect your life. Programming Can Ruin Your Life does just that."

Submission + - Russia plans own moon base (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by

Socguy

on Friday August 31, 2007 @11:14AM

Socguy writes: "After being rebuffed by NASA, Russia now plans to build it's own moon base by as early as 2027.

Russia plans to send a manned mission to the moon by 2025 and establish a permanent base shortly thereafter, the head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos said Friday.

"According to our estimates, we will be ready for a manned flight to the moon in 2025," Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov told state news agency RIA Novosti. A station that could be inhabited could be built there between 2027 and 2032, he said.

While Russia will be refurbishing existing spacecraft, the U.S. is taking a different approach after the space station is finished and plans to scrap the space shuttle program in favour of a new kind of spaceship to be called Orion.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/08/31/scie nce-russia-moon.html"

Submission + - Linux Handheld Recommendations 1

Submitted by

David Greene

on Monday July 30, 2007 @11:11AM

David Greene writes: "There's been a lot of upheaval in the Linux Handheld world lately. My trusty iPaq 3955 recently went to the big cradle in the sky so I'm looking for a new one. The landscape, however is challenging, to say the least. handhelds.org is in the doghouse due to trademark issues and looks like it's been replaced by linuxtogo.org, Familiar development seems to have slowed to a crawl, the Opie project is dead (though Opie II is hinted at), GPE seems to be humming along and Angstrom is the new kid on the block.

Given all of this change and future (unknown?) directions of handheld Linux, what are Slashdot users' recommendations for a new Linux handheld that is reasonably well supported now yet will still be actively developed for some time? WiFi support is a requirement, GPS would be nice but not absolutely necessary."

Submission + - Black Hat conference: US immigration refuses entry

Submitted by Kurtz'sKompund on Monday July 30, 2007 @11:11AM

Kurtz'sKompund writes: A German security expert has been turned away at the US border by immigration officials while on his way to present at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas. http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/security /cybercrime/news/index.cfm?newsid=4252

Submission + - How Microsoft beat Linux in China (com.com)

Submitted by kripkenstein on Saturday July 28, 2007 @09:09AM

kripkenstein writes: An analysis on TechRepublic details how Microsoft beat Linux in China, and the consequences of that victory:

Linux has turned out to be little more than a key bargaining chip in a high stakes game of commerce between the Chinese government and the world's largest software maker
[...]
The fact that [...] Linux failed to gain a major foothold in China is yet another blow to desktop Linux. After nearly eight years of being on the verge of a breakthrough, Linux seems more destined than ever to be a force in the server room but little more than a narrow niche and an anomaly on the desktop.

With the soon-to-be largest economy standardized on Windows desktops, desktop Linux does seem to have an uphill battle ahead of it.

Submission + - Acer: Vista disappointed 'entire industry'

Submitted by

Knuckles

on Saturday July 28, 2007 @09:09AM

Knuckles writes: "Financial Times Germany quotes (German) Acer president Gianfranco Lanci as saying, 'the entire industry is disappointed by Windows Vista.' Here is an English report about the FTD article by Tech.co.uk. Lanci said that despite the year-long wait that Microsoft imposed on the industry, Vista was not ready on launch. Lanci: 'Stability is certainly a problem.'"

Submission + - Cross-OS file system that sucks less?

Submitted by on Saturday July 28, 2007 @08:16AM

An anonymous reader writes: I recently got an external harddisk with USB 2.0/Firewire/Firewire 800/eSATA to be used for backup and file exchange — my desktop runs Linux (with a Windows partition for games but no data worth saving), and the laptop is a MacBook Pro.

So the question popped up: what kind of filesystem is best for this kind of situation? Is there a filesystem that works good under Linux, MacOS X and Windows? Linux has HFS+ support but apparently doesn't support journaling and there's also an issue with the case-insensitivity of HFS+.

Are we stuck with shitty VFAT forever or are there efforts underway to bring a modern filesystem (I'm thinking something like ZFS, BeFS, or XFS) to all platforms our there? Or are there other clever solutions like storing ISO images and loop-mounting those?

X07 Not Happening This Year 47

Posted by Zonk on Friday July 20, 2007 @10:21AM from the why-pay-when-you-get-it-gratis dept.

For the first time since 2004, there won't be an XO event in Europe this year. Gamespot suggests that Microsoft's annual press event is superfluous this year, as last year it fell directly within the timeframe of the Halo 3 launch. "Speaking on the E3 podcast of Microsoft fan site Squad XP, Xbox Live marketing manager Aaron Greenberg flatly said that 'There's not a real X07 this year.' And while Microsoft's official spokespersons refrained from comment, last night Xbox Live director of programming Larry 'Major Nelson' Hyrb posted a small note (pictured) on his heavily trafficked blog morosely confirming X07's demise."

Submission + - Earning extra money from part time OSS projects

Submitted by on Friday July 20, 2007 @10:05AM

An anonymous reader writes: After many years spent as a freelance consultant/contractor I have found the work life balance thing has become more like work work work no life. Anyway, so I have given that up and taken on a 9-5 job as a Sysadmin. I have achieved a good balance now between work and family life and find I have some extra time on my hands. I would like to use this time to take some of my ideas and turn them into software applications. I want to do this in a way that allows me to earn some money from my programming efforts. I am just looking to make some reasonable additional income whilst enjoying 'tinkering' around with my application ideas. The next question is Open or Closed Source or somehow a combination of the two. Has anybody been succesfull in writing Open Source applications and making a good income from that?

Submission + - The desktop -- time to say goodbye? (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Friday July 20, 2007 @09:53AM

Lucas123 writes: "Robert Scheier at Computerworld writes that while worldwide PC shipments are expected to grow 12.2% this year, portable PC volumes are expected to grow 28% and will make up more than half of all PC shipments in the U.S. this quarter. Notebooks will dominate the worldwide PC marketplace by 2010. 'One researcher predicts it will be five to seven years before only the "die-hard" desktop users are left.'"

Submission + - OpenSolaris devs grill Murdock at NY users meeting

Submitted by OSS_ilation on Thursday July 19, 2007 @08:34AM

OSS_ilation writes: Apparently, Sun Microsystem's Ian Murdock did not receive the warm welcome he may have hoped for last night at a meeting of New York City's Unix and OpenSolaris user groups. The room held approximately 50 people and a good number of those were OpenSolaris users there to hear about Project Indiana. One observer said, "What I saw at the OpenSolaris user group meeting was a shock to me. Ian was on the defensive for most of the entire meeting. And it was their own user base that was fighting back!" Why the angst? OpenSolaris users and Linux users alike were confused about Sun's strategy to make OpenSolaris more "Linux-like," and decided to let their voices be heard when Murdock showed up to talk about Project Indiana. Another unidentified attendee reportedly blurted out "all this does is help Sun, what does this do for someone using Linux?"

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