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Submission + - What is a good "Personal" Version Control system? 1

Submitted by StonyCreekBare
StonyCreekBare writes: I maintain a number of documents, spreadsheets, and some small programs for personal use. Years ago I used a version control software system to track such things in my professional world. Lately I have been itching to move to some sort of a version control system to keep the various files better organized and track my changes in my personal world. I started looking at various systems available such as Subversion, and while it would definitely do the job, it seems a bit like using an elephant gun to swat a fly. I want something simpler, with less of a learning curb, that is suited for a single user, with a small number of files, in various formats. I mainly mean Spreadsheets, Doc files, and text files. Do Slashdot users have a smaller simpler solution they recommend?

Submission + - Moscow's bid to blow up Wikileaks (thedailybeast.com) 1

Submitted by mark72005
mark72005 writes: National-security officials say that the National Security Agency, the U.S. government's eavesdropping agency, has already picked up tell-tale electronic evidence that WikiLeaks is under close surveillance by the Russian FSB, that country's domestic spy network, out of fear in Moscow that WikiLeaks is prepared to release damaging personal information about Kremlin leaders. "We may not have been able to stop WikiLeaks so far, and it's been frustrating," a U.S. law-enforcement official tells The Daily Beast. "The Russians play by different rules."
Science

Submission + - Super-Earth with a Steam Atmosphere? (discovermagazine.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "Last year, astronomers discovered a remarkable planet orbiting another star: it has a mass and radius that puts it in the "super-Earth" category — meaning it’s more like the Earth than a giant Jupiter-like planet. Today, it has been announced that astronomers have been able to analyze the atmosphere of the planet (the very first time this has ever been accomplished for a super-Earth), and what they found is astonishing: the air of the planet is either shrouded in thick haze, or it’s loaded with water vapor in other words, steam!"
Space

Submission + - Scientists Find 200 Sextillion More Stars (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: A study suggests the universe could have triple the number of stars scientists previously calculated. For those of you counting at home, the new estimate is 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That's 300 sextillion. The study questions a key assumption that astronomers often use: that most galaxies have the same properties as our Milky Way. And that's creating a bit of a stink among astronomers who want a more orderly cosmos, said astronomer Richard Ellis of the California Institute of Technology. Van Dokkum's paper challenges the assumption of "a more orderly universe" and gives credence to "the idea that the universe is more complicated than we think," Ellis said. "It's a little alarmist." Ellis said it is too early to tell if van Dokkum is right or wrong, but it is shaking up the field "like a cat among pigeons." Van Dokkum agreed, saying, "Frankly, it's a big pain."

Comment I've Gone Back to PC (Score 1) 422

by ink (#34382006) Attached to: The 5-Year Console Cycle Is Dead

I'm sorry, but I can't handle 8800GT-era graphics anymore. The 360 used to look nice, but it's definitely aging, and Microsoft seems intent on going down the casual-gamer road. I started buying more titles on PC than console last year, and I've only purchased a handful this year. I know that I'm in the minority, but this supposed "10-year cycle" is just not for me.

Submission + - Supreme Court Hears Video Game Case (kotaku.com)

Submitted by ink
ink writes: The supreme court heard arguments today about the controversial California law that makes it illegal to sell "violent" videogames to minors. The transcript is interesting, if only to read justices Kagen and Scalias thoughts on Mortal Kombat: "It's iconic", "I don't know what she's talking about".
Transportation

Submission + - Aircraft bomb finds may spell end for in-flight Wi (newscientist.com)

Submitted by wjousts
wjousts writes: According to New Scientist, the ability to use a cellphone or Wi-Fi connection on an aircraft might be a casualty of the recent package bombs.



Quoting:

In-flight Wi-Fi "gives a bomber lots of options for contacting a device on an aircraft", Alford says. Even if ordinary cellphone connections are blocked, it would allow a voice-over-internet connection to reach a handset.

"If it were to be possible to transmit directly from the ground to a plane over the sea, that would be scary," says Alford's colleague, company founder Sidney Alford. "Or if a passenger could use a cellphone to transmit to the hold of the aeroplane he is in, he could become a very effective suicide bomber."
Government

Submission + - Tea Party Pushes GOP Past Dems In Social Net Use (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Social networks transformed the 2008 presidential election and that burst of online campaigning has spread significantly in this year's mid-term elections. In the 2008 election, Democrats and then-candidate Barack Obama showed a lot of online savvy by connecting with younger voters on social networks like Facebook. This time around, the Republican party has more than caught up to the Democrats, according to non-partisan HeadCount.org. As of late September, Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate had more than 1.43 million fans on Facebook, compared with less than 300,000 for Democrats, noted HeadCount. And on Twitter, Republican Senatorial candidates collectively counted 520,000 followers, far more than the 90,000 followers of Democratic candidates. 'Candidates associated with the Tea Party are clearly responsible for much of the social media activity, most notably South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint,' reported HeadCount.org. 'Hailed as one of the most new media savvy elected officials, he has more Twitter Followers than any incumbent and more Facebook fans than any incumbent other than [Sen. John] McCain.'
Technology

Submission + - Congo minerals (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The Register has a thoughtful and informative article (I know, I was surprised too) by Tim Worstall, dealing with the minerals trade that provides much of the funding for the incredibly bloody civil war in the Congo. The key element is tantalum, which is used to make capacitors for cell phones and other portable electronics. There's an effort going on to block the use of tantalum from the Congo — but according to the author, the effort is doomed to failure since the ban is impossible to enforce, and Congo is able to provide the cheapest product.
Technology

Submission + - Forget LED lightbulbs... ESL bulbs are coming... (usatoday.com)

Submitted by Bibs_kin
Bibs_kin writes: USA Today has an article mentioning a new lightbulb technology that should start receiving orders by the end of the year. Still trying to get used to the curly-Q compact fluorescent light bulb? Haven't yet tried the LED (light emitting diode)? Well, you may be falling behind, because there's yet another, energy-efficient light bulb entering the market — known as the ESL.
Games

Submission + - Supreme Court Leaning Towards Game Industry (industrygamers.com)

Submitted by donniebaseball23
donniebaseball23 writes: Oral arguments concerning the hotly contested California violent video games law began today, and so far it appears that the Supreme Court Justices are siding with the game industry's view that the law is unconstitutional. In fact, Justice Antonin Scalia said that California is "asking us to create a whole new prohibition." Kenneth L. Doroshow, general counsel of the ESA noted that the law "would inevitably lead to a stifling of creative expression across all forms of media, not limited to video games." Furthermore, a new U.S. Gallup poll shows that the majority of Americans want to see parents as being most responsible for what violent content kids can or cannot access.
IT

Submission + - A Decade of Agile Programming: Has It Delivered? (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "InfoWorld offers a look back at the first decade of agile programming. Forged in February 2001 when a group of developers convened in Utah to find an alternative to documentation-driven, 'heavyweight' software development practices, The Manifesto for Agile Software Development sought to promote processes that accommodate changing requirements, collaboration with customers, and delivery of software in short iterations. Fast-forward a decade, and agile software development is becoming increasingly commonplace, with software firms adopting agile offshoots such as Scrum, Extreme Programming, and Kanban — a trend some see benefiting software development overall."

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