Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Reflectivity Reaches a New Low

Submitted by
sporkme
sporkme writes: "A new nanocoating material developed by a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has the lowest level of reflectivity ever seen, or not seen in this case. The amount of light reflected by the composite of silica nanorods and aluminum nitride is almost the same amount reflected by air. From the article:

Schubert and his coworkers have created a material with a refractive index of 1.05, which is extremely close to the refractive index of air and the lowest ever reported. Window glass, for comparison, has a refractive index of about 1.45.
. . .
Using a technique called oblique angle deposition, the researchers deposited silica nanorods at an angle of precisely 45 degrees on top of a thin film of aluminum nitride, which is a semiconducting material used in advanced light-emitting diodes (LEDs). From the side, the films look much like the cross section of a piece of lawn turf with the blades slightly flattened.
Suggested applications include increased efficiency in solar cells, more energy-efficient lighting and advances in quantum mechanics. No word yet on invisibility cloaks."
Unix

Submission + - Complexity of Sendmail or Postfix Email server

Submitted by
kennova
kennova writes: "I have a question for Slashdot users. I have been using the eXtremail email server for many years now. It has been actively developed for a couple of years. This prompted a thought to change to something more mainstream.

However, the complexity of Sendmail or Postfix is so daunting, and non-sensical that I have attempted a few times without success. Is there a simple email server that a home user can use, that supports Smarthosting, domain catch-all addresses, and adding users and multiple domains without setting up so much overhead that if you lose it, you pretty much have to start all over.

I don't care about Spam filters, or web-mail, or all that other garbage, GMail does that for me. The infrastructure of these large email systems is too much for a simple home user who wants to enable the power of the web to his/her advantage. eXtremail did it, but no one else has been able to."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Jesus' tomb located

Submitted by
davo
davo writes: "A tomb that once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth — and those of his wife and son — has been found in a suburb of Jerusalem, said the makers of a controversial film in a press conference today. The filmmakers base their claims on the study of ten ossuaries — stone boxes used to hold the bones of the dead — that were unearthed at an Israeli construction site in 1980. Simcha Jacobovici, James Cameron, and others at a press conference revealing stone boxes they say once held the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene picture Inscriptions on the boxes, in addition to DNA tests of tiny bits of tissue found inside, suggest that the cave was the final resting place of Jesus, his disciple Mary Magdalene, and their son, the filmmakers said. The claims, if verified, could threaten key tenets of the Christian faith, most notably that Jesus never married or had children and that he was resurrected three days after his death. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/07 0226-jesus-tomb.html?intcmp=March07"
Books

Submission + - Recommended Reading for Software Engineers

Submitted by
Tokimasa
Tokimasa writes: "Over the past few months, I've been gathering the "recommended reading" for software engineers that I've found across Slashdot and some other sites. So far, here is my collection, ordered by author:

Brooks, Frederick P. The Mythical Man-Month.
DeMarco, Tom and Lister, Timothy. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Second Edition).
DeMarch, Tom and Lister, Timothy. Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects.
Hunt, Andrew and Thomas, David. The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master.
Johnson, Jeff. GUI Bloopers: Don'ts and Do's for Software Developers and Web Designers.
McCarthy, Jim and McCarthy, Michele. Dynamics of Software Development.
McConnell, Steve. Code Complete (Second Edition).
McConnell, Steve. Rapid Development.
Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things.
Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral & The Bazaar.
Weigers, Karl E. Software Requirements (Second Edition).

First, would you recommend any other "must-have" or "should-have" books? Second, what order do you recommend reading the books in to get the most out of them (ie — do any books build on content in another book)?"
Biotech

Submission + - Rice is people?

Submitted by f1055man
f1055man writes: The Washington Post reports that the "USDA Backs Production of Rice With Human Genes": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/03/01/AR2007030101495.html


The plan, confirmed yesterday by the California biotechnology company leading the effort, calls for large-scale cultivation in Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins in its seeds. The proteins are to be extracted for use as an anti-diarrhea medicine and might be added to health foods such as yogurt and granola bars.

Despite the benefits, some consider the project risky.


But critics are assailing the effort, saying gene-altered plants inevitably migrate out of their home plots. In this case, they said, that could result in pharmacologically active proteins showing up in the food of unsuspecting consumers.

Anheuser-Busch (the nation's largest rice buyer) has prevented the application of gene-altered rice due to concerns customers would not accept GM beer. Should they use their influence to shut this down too?
Books

Submission + - Huck Finn's Pa and the case for the public domain

Submitted by
DavidRothman
DavidRothman writes: "Inspired by characters in the public domain, a new first novel delves into the twisted psyche of Huckleberry Finn's father. In praising Finn , by Jon Clinch, the Washington Post says that the author "relies on Twain's details, sometimes borrowing whole scenes and patches of dialogue... Clinch reimagines Finn in a strikingly original way, replacing Huck's voice with his own magisterial vision — one that's nothing short of revelatory." Time to question presidential candidates and others about their positions on the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act? Wouldn't creators, schools, libraries, and the rest of society be better off without it? More at TeleRead."
Announcements

Submission + - One Laptop Per Child Announces Free Music Project

Submitted by
One Laptop Per Child
One Laptop Per Child writes: "Contact: freemusic@freeculture.org
Elizabeth Stark, Freeculture.org (917-628-6238)
Tim Hwang, Antenna Alliance (973-960-4955)

FreeCulture.org and One Laptop Per Child Launch the Free Music Project

New website will let Internet users upload and share freely licensed music from all countries and genres

Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 27, 2007 — Freeculture.org announces the launch of a new website, http://freemusic.freeculture.org/ dedicated to sharing great free music, encouraging artists to release music under free licenses, and providing access to recording and production time to artists releasing works under a free license. Users can upload music from their own computers or link to music on another website distributing freely licensed music. Songs uploaded can be streamed, downloaded and remixed into new creative works.

The Free Music Project will collect and record free music for children. Selected songs uploaded to the site will be included in the first music library shipping with laptops from One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization devoted to improving education that is producing low-cost, high-quality computers to distribute to children and teachers in the developing world.

"This is a groundbreaking opportunity to locate the best free music out there and share it with millions of people of all ages around the world," said Elizabeth Stark, board member of Freeculture.org and founder of the Free Culture group at Harvard. "Freely licensing recordings allows artists to gain extremely valuable global exposure through projects such as OLPC."

Freeculture.org will also work with creators and musicians to record and license songs for the project, in collaboration with the music recording project Antenna Alliance. The Free Music Project site will provide access to uploaded music, and includes community-oriented functionality such as tagging, forums, and ratings. "This project not only marks a milestone in the position of free music worldwide, but also opens a vast universe of possibilities for the development of an international community of artists and producers committed to free culture," said Tim Hwang, President of Antenna Alliance.

For more information:

FreeCulture.org is an international organization that promotes the creation of a thriving cultural commons, in part by encouraging the use of free licenses by artists and creators. (http://www.freeculture.org)

Antenna Alliance is a Boston-based recording label that records, promotes, and distributes freely licensed music online and across a nationwide network of radio stations. (http://www.antalliance.org)

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit organization created by Nicholas Negroponte and other faculty members from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture, and distribute laptop computers that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world with access to knowledge and tools for learning and exploration. (http://www.laptop.org)"
PlayStation (Games)

PS3 Finally Ready to Rumble? 99

Posted by Zonk from the for-the-love-of-all-that-is-holy-thank-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Sony has finally settled its longstanding legal dispute over infringement of Immersion Corporation's force feedback patents, which reportedly led to Sony's decision to remove rumble technology from the PS3 controller, by agreeing to pay Immersion at least $150.3 million in damages and royalties. The agreement presumably will result in rumble and perhaps other of Immersion's force-feedback technologies being incorporated in future Sony controllers. Microsoft previously settled a similar lawsuit brought by Immersion, but Sony hung on tenaciously despite complaints about its controller products and disappointing PS3 sales." There's no guarantee that the tech will show up in the Sixaxis controller, of course. After all, rumble is a 'last-gen' feature.
The Internet

Academic Credentials and Wikiality 429

Posted by kdawson from the matter-of-degrees dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A prominent Wikipedia administrator and Wikia employee has been caught lying to the media and 'other' professors about his academic credentials. Wikipedia's Essjay has been representing himself as 'a tenured professor of theology at a private university in the eastern United States; I teach both undergraduate and graduate theology. My Academic Degrees: Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies (B.A.), Master of Arts in Religion (M.A.R.), Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology (Ph.D.), Doctorate in Canon Law (JCD).' His real identity came to light after Wikia offered him a job: It turns out that he is really 24 years old with no degree living in Louisville, KY. Wikipedia's co-founder, Jimbo Wales, says 'I regard it as a pseudonym and I don't really have a problem with it.' How will this affect Wikipedia's already shaky reputation with the academic world?"
Bug

IE and Firefox Share a Vulnerability 207

Posted by kdawson from the upload-with-daring-and-whimsy dept.
hcmtnbiker writes with news of a logic flaw shared by IE 7 and Firefox 2.0. IE 5.01, IE 6, and Firefox 1.5.0.9 are also affected. The flaw was discovered by Michal Zalewski, and is easily demonstrated on IE7 and Firefox. The vulnerability is not platform-specific, but these demonstrations are — they work only on Windows systems. (Microsoft says that IE7 on Vista is not vulnerable.) From the vulnerability description: "In all modern browsers, form fields (used to upload user-specified files to a remote server) enjoy some added protection meant to prevent scripts from arbitrarily choosing local files to be sent, and automatically submitting the form without user knowledge. For example, '.value' parameter cannot be set or changed, and any changes to .type reset the contents of the field... [in this attack] the keyboard input in unrelated locations can be selectively geared toward input fields by the attacker."

Slashdot Top Deals

Real Users never use the Help key.

Close