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Education

Submission + - Real Open Source Applications for Education?

Submitted by openeducation
openeducation writes: I have been researching open source solutions for K-12 education pretty heavily for the past year and have been disappointed to find no real alternatives to the large administrative applications like student information systems, data warehouse, ERP, etc. But recently, I ran across Open Solutions for Education. http://os4ed.com/ This group appears to be making a serious effort at creating a stack of applications that are open source alternatives to the large and costly commercial alternatives. Centre, an open source student information system that has been around for awhile, is part of the solution stack. http://www.miller-group.net/ They have a data warehouse and are proposing an open source SIF alternative and an assessment solution. While the proof is in the pudding, these guys have working demos and they look pretty good for a first run. K-12 education in dire financial straits and solutions like these could help with lower TCO. Plus, education is a collaborative industry already, which makes perfect sense for open source.
Announcements

Submission + - FCBD in the US and Canada!

Submitted by farker haiku
farker haiku writes: Just a quick reminder that it's Free Comic Book Day in the US and Canada. Here is a list of the comics available for free, and you can find a local participating comic book store here. What is Free Comic Book Day? From their press kit: As the name implies, Free Comic Book Day is a single day when participating comic book shops across North America and around the world are giving away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their stores.
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Cold fusion by US Navy breakthrough

Submitted by
Tjeerd
Tjeerd writes: "Gordon's plastic wafer is the product of the latest in a long line of "cold fusion" experiments conducted at the US navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, California. What makes this one stand out is that it has been published in the respected peer-reviewed journal Naturwissenschaften, which counts Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg and Konrad Lorenz among its eminent past authors (DOI: 10.1007/s00114-007-0221-7). More can be read at New Scientist."
Space

Submission + - A Hostile and Violent Moon

Submitted by
nlhouser
nlhouser writes: "Temperatures on the moon have a tendency to go down to minus 170 degrees in the darker side of the moon, with temperatures on the sunny side climbing to 100 degrees. At the same time, hostile and dangerous, the moons electrical charging builds up every 18 years due to the orientation of the its orbit. When this orientation begins to peak every couple of years, the orbit of the moon will intersect the plasma sheet of Eartha thin region that contains many electrically charged articles from the moon. A very little known danger on spaceflight, the surface of the moon will change about every 18 years, with a geometric analysis of the moons orbital changes showing us some dangerous events developing. Govert Schilling, writer at ScienceNOW Daily News, April 18, 2002, has written an article which says that Static Electricity Could Short-Circuit Moon Missions. Of course, this article brings also to mind that many people, astronauts, space agencies, and private businesses will be moving onto the moons surface with people and space robots in the very near futurebeing physically and mentally placed in the middle of this electrical charging pool. Scientists feel that the electrical dust is developing into a hazardous venture while being transformed into a dangerous influence due to the sensitive electronics and to people, with these particles sticking to any surface texture and causing lots of damage. Research by the University of Edinburgh, UK, is simulating lunar evolution at a high rate, bringing to the forefront the mystery of the cooling magna and how it has evolved to the present day white highlands on its surface and dark valleys. Researchers have created their own version of lunar rock that is based on Apollo mission samples, heated down in 1,500 degree Celsius furnaces to the point of melting. They let this sample cool down and crystallize for in-detail examinations, in order to better understand how the rock became the Moons main sold rock framework. Observations of these rocks and data brought back from the Moon shows us that the darker rocks on the Moon surface proves to us that an intensive meteorite shower has occurred there, throwing the darkened rocksoriginally sank into the magma oceanshas come to the surface. Our neighboring red planet will possibly soon become our home, in order to go onto Mars or Venus, so knowing the Moon and its little tendencies and quirks should become a priority of ours before this happens. Of course, we could wait until we set up temporary shelters and a possible futuristic colonization up there but that would be extremely expensive and dangerous, as seen in past Mars Odyssey reports."
Announcements

Submission + - Nano Light Bulbs for Your Shirt

Submitted by moscowde
moscowde writes: Craighead Research Group at Corenll University created a so-called "Nano-Lamp" — a microscopic collection of light-emitting fibers with dimensions of only a few hundred nanometers. The fibers are made of a polymer that is spiked with light-emitting molecules using technique called — electrospinning. The nanofiber glows bright orange when exposed to an electric field and can be seen in the dark by a naked eye. A professor at Princeton University called this "a breakthrough in the way nanosize light sources are made". Since the nanofibers are flexible they can be potentially used in clothing and flexible computer display.
Java

Submission + - Should closures be added to the Java language

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Closures are indeed a powerful mechanism for abstraction; once they get used to them, most people don't want to give them up. The issue being debated is not whether closures are a good idea — because they clearly are — but whether the benefits of retrofitting the Java language with closures are worth the costs. This article reviews the concepts involved and provides details on two competing closures proposals.
Programming

Submission + - Get Closure with JavaScript Memory Leaks

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox are the two Web browsers most commonly associated with memory leaks in JavaScript. The culprit in both browsers is the component object model used to manage DOM objects. This article explains how circular references can lead to memory leaks in JavaScript, particularly when combined with closures. You'll see several common memory leak patterns involving circular references and some easy ways to work around them.
Communications

Submission + - AT&T Dumps VOIP Customers

Submitted by Proudrooster
Proudrooster writes: In the past two-weeks AT&T sent out disconnect letters to VOIP customers in big rude red letters, stating that VOIP service would be suspended in 30-days and permanently disconnected in 60-days. AT&T cited E911 service as the reason. Many AT&T VOIP customers have found that they are unable to transfer their AT&T VOIP phone numbers to a new provider. Further, AT&T is unwilling to provide a forwarding message directing callers to a new phone number for those that are unable to transfer their old AT&T VOIP phone numbers. In effect, AT&T has told many long-term VOIP subscribers, we are turning off your phone in 30-days, goodbye, and good luck. AT&T does not appear a corporation that values customer loyalty, especially of those who hung on during the experimental days of the AT&T VOIP service

Many longterm subscribers are extremely upset at the AT&T cold shoulder and short notice. It is also interesting AT&T is unable overcome this E911 technical hurdle, since AT&T is also the local landline company (SBC/AT&T) in many areas where VOIP cancellation notices are being received.
Communications

Submission + - How Emoticons and Capitalisation Affect Perception

Submitted by
Jeremy Dean
Jeremy Dean writes: "Compared with face-to-face communication, nonverbal cues in email are lacking. But humans are fabulous at generating meaning even when cues are sparse. Psychologists have theorised our motivation for generating meaning is reducing levels of uncertainty and helping predict other people's behaviour. This might explain how, in emails, even two simple things like capitalisation and emoticons can have important effects on reader's perceptions. People want to predict our behaviour, and we theirs."
The Internet

Submission + - Front-end web design framework

Submitted by
Philip Karpiak
Philip Karpiak writes: "The ESWAT web project framework is meant to remove the hassle of recreating the same folders, HTML tags, CSS rules, Photoshop guides, etc. for every new project, and help create grid-based layouts in Photoshop to boot. All of these components have been set up already, and just require a drag and drop of the framework folder to get started on your front-end web design projects."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - A top 25 list of Sci-Fi that doesn't suck

Submitted by
mykepredko
mykepredko writes: "Entertainment Week has a list of what they consider the best 25 Sci-Fi movies and shows. The list is surprisingly thoughtful and honest — it acknowledges the bad with the good and explains why the different pieces were chosen. You probably won't agree with all their choices (there are a few movies/TV shows that weren't selected that I'm sure would be on most people's list) but the list will probably not be dissed as badly as most "best of" sci-fi lists deserve to be."
Power

Submission + - Cold fusion realised

Submitted by
Steven Herweijer
Steven Herweijer writes: "Cold fusion, the ability to generate nuclear power at room temperatures, has proven to be a highly elusive feat. In fact, it is considered by many experts to be a mere pipe dream — a potentially unlimited source of clean energy that remains tantalizing, but so far unattainable.

However, a recently published academic paper from the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (Spawar) in San Diego throws cold water on skeptics of cold fusion. Appearing in the respected journal Naturwissenschaften, which counts Albert Einstein among its distinguished authors, the article claims that Spawar scientists Stanislaw Szpak and Pamela Mosier-Boss have achieved a low energy nuclear reaction (LERN) that can be replicated and verified by the scientific community.

More at http://www.dailytech.com/Navy+Heats+Up+Cold+Fusion +Hopes/article7168.htm"
Google

Submission + - YouTube to be sued by English Premier League

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The BBC is reporting that the English Premier Football League, with high profile content worth $5.5bn over the next 3 years, has launched a lawsuit against YouTube and its owner Google claiming unspecified damages. This will be the second major attack on the site since Google's purchase, who are already defending a $1bn suit lodged by Viacom. Are the floodgates now gradually starting to open and how many well funded organisations with extremely powerful legal teams can Google hope to successfully defend against before being forced to settle?

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