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Submission + - Opportunity Surpasses 30 KM Driving ! (universetoday.com) 1

Submitted by
Phoghat
Phoghat writes: "With her most recent drive of 482 feet (146.8 meters) on June 1, 2011 (Sol 2614), NASA’s Opportunity Mars Rover has zoomed past the unimaginable 30 kilometer (18,64 miles) mark in total odometry since safely landing on Mars nearly seven and one half years ago on Jan 24, 2004. That’s 50 times beyond the roughly quarter mile of roving distance initially forseen.
And Opportunity is still going strong, in good health and has abundant solar power as she continues driving on her ambitious overland trek across the martian plains of Meridiani Planum. She is heading to the giant Endeavour crater, some 22 km (14 miles) in diameter."

Submission + - Man ordered At Gunpoint To Hand Over Phone (pixiq.com) 1

Submitted by HungryHobo
HungryHobo writes:

Miami Beach police did their best to destroy a citizen video that shows them shooting a man to death in a hail of bullets Memorial Day. First, police pointed their guns at the man who shot the video, according to a Miami Herald interview with the videographer. Then they ordered the man and his girlfriend out the car and threw them down to the ground, yelling “you want to be fucking paparazzi?” Then they snatched the cell phone from his hand and slammed it to the ground before stomping on it. Then they placed the smashed phone in the videographer's back pocket as he was laying down on the ground.
Government

Submission + - Is identity theft overwhelming the IRS? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The number of tax-related identity theft incidents is exploding and nowhere is that more obvious than at the Internal Revenue Service which as seen reports rice from 51,702 in 2008 to 248,357 in 2010.While it has programs in place to fight the identity theft issue, it is also hamstrung in many other areas, according to a report out this week from the Government Accountability Office. For example, the GAO says the IRS's ability to address identity theft issues is constrained by among othre things, privacy laws that limit IRS' ability to share identity theft information with other agencies."
Firefox

Submission + - Google dropping support for older browsers (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: "Google announced on its blog that it is dropping support for Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7 and Safari 3 from the 1st of August. In these older browsers you may have trouble using certain features in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and Google Sites, and eventually these apps may stop working entirely."

Submission + - Too Much Data? Then "Good Enough" is Good Enough

Submitted by ChelleChelle
ChelleChelle writes: Today’s data systems differ greatly from those of the past. While classic systems could offer crisp answers due to the relatively small amount of data they contained, today’s systems hold humongous amounts of data content—thus, the data quality and meaning is often fuzzy. In this article, Microsoft’s Pat Helland examines the ways in which today’s answers differ from what we used to expect, before moving on to state the criteria for a new theory and taxonomy of data.
Medicine

Submission + - Powerful magnets could prevent heart attacks (physicscentral.com)

Submitted by
BuzzSkyline
BuzzSkyline writes: "A few minutes in a high magnetic field (1.3 Tesla) is enough to thin blood by 30%, potentially leading to a new drug-free therapy to prevent heart attacks. The powerful field causes blood cells to line up in chains that flow much more easily than randomly-scattered individual cells, according to research scheduled to appear this month in the journal Physical Review E."
User Journal

Journal Journal: .Tornados hit Springfield again 4

Journal by mcgrew

Lucky for me, it wasn't my Springfield, but the Springfield in Massachusetts. Unlike when the tornados hit Springfield, IL, the ones in Massachusetts killed four people. The AP article's description sounds exactly like what I went through:
Book Reviews

Submission + - JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 6th Edition

Submitted by
coder4hire
coder4hire writes: "Released during the early days of the Web, in 1995, JavaScript has come a long way: Initially a client-side scripting language typically (mis)used for decorative effects, it is now an essential part of countless major websites. Its increasing capabilities and popularity are due to several factors, including the development of libraries that resolve earlier stumbling blocks that held the language back (such as inconsistencies among the implementations in different vendors' browsers). JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, authored by David Flanagan, was first published just one year later, in 1996, with several significant updates made since then.

The book is now in its sixth edition, under the ISBN 978-0596805524, and was published on 10 May 2011 by O'Reilly Media (who kindly provided me with a review copy). At 1100 pages, it certainly feels heavier than its advertised 2.6 pounds — but that may only be a side effect of the thought of wading through over a thousand pages of technical explanations and example code. Yet one could argue that the size is justified, considering the amount of information the book conveys, and its obvious aim to be a comprehensive treatment of the language. The material is organized into four parts, including 22 chapters. On the publisher's Web page, visitors will find a brief description, the complete table of contents, a few consumer reviews, reported errata (seven as of this writing, and none confirmed), the example code used in the book, some free content (the first chapter), and links to purchase the print and e-book versions.

The book commences with a multipart introduction, which begins with the sentence "JavaScript is the programming language of the Web." Even though that statement is not true — since there are many other Web programming languages — it does hint at the importance of the language in the mind of the author, and his willingness to put so much effort into creating such a detailed monograph. The introduction is also the first point in the book where one sees the clear demarcation made by the author between core JavaScript (i.e., the language definition, regardless of its runtime environment) and client-side JavaScript (i.e., usage of the language within Web browsers, including the use of libraries). Both areas are covered in great detail in the first two parts of the book, in quasi-tutorial format, while the last two parts cover the same areas, but in a purely reference format.

Specifically, the first part of the book, "Core JavaScript," offers almost a dozen chapters that explicate the basics of the language: its lexical structure; types, values, and variables; expressions and operators; statements; objects; arrays; functions; classes and modules; regular expressions; JavaScript subsets and extensions; and server-side JavaScript. At almost 300 pages, this part alone could form its own volume. The manner in which the author dives into the technical details, and the amount of example code, immediately make it evident that the book is intended for readers who have experience programming, although not necessarily in JavaScript. In fact, some readers — especially newbie programmers — may become frustrated with those places in the narrative where the explanation is not entirely clear. For instance, on page 7, the "points array from above" refers not to any code on that page, but instead refers to an array defined two pages earlier. Fortunately, such stumbling blocks are infrequent. For experienced JavaScript programmers, these chapters could provide a comprehensive review. For readers new to JavaScript, the material may seem overly dry, but the illustrative code should be quite helpful.

The ten chapters that compose the second part of the book, "Client-Side JavaScript," show how to work with the language within a Web browser. This includes learning how to embed JavaScript code in HTML files; differences among browsers and the versions thereof; the security of JavaScript code; the Window object; how to access and manage the elements within the Document Object Model (DOM); scripting CSS styles; events, and methods of handling them; scripting HTTP, and its use in Ajax (reflected in this edition's subtitle, "Activate Your Web Pages"); the jQuery library; techniques for storing data on the user's computer; how to use JavaScript to dynamically create and manipulate graphics, audio, and video content, as well as charts and drawings; and, lastly, the use of several HTML5 APIs. Speaking of that last topic, probably the most significant changes in this edition, versus the previous one, is the coverage of ECMAScript 5, as well as the new objects and methods introduced with HTML5. Naturally, some of these enhancements do not work in any version of Internet Explorer but the most recent, so the author discusses workarounds, if available.

As noted earlier, the third and fourth parts of the book constitute the purely reference material, with the first part focusing on core JavaScript, and the latter on the client-side aspects of the language. Every chapter is organized into a series of entries, each devoted to a particular class or object, ordered alphabetically. For each entry, the reader is given a brief synopsis, description, and in some cases example code and references to other entries. Each class entry also includes information on its properties and methods, where applicable. Each single method entry includes information on its arguments and any return value. The book concludes with what is arguably the longest and possibly most valuable index I have ever seen in a computer book.

There are only a few immediately-evident weaknesses of this book: Firstly, there are some phrases that may be clear to the author, but likely will prove baffling to the typical reader — e.g., "nonlinear cross-reference problem" (page 8) and "the jQuery gives a synopsis of each method" (page 523). Secondly, some of the example HTML code could have been written better, such as the use of an HTML table for defining the layout of a simple form, with labels and fields (page 13). Finally, despite the claims of the marketing copy that this title is suitable as both "an example-driven programmer's guide or a complete desk reference," it would serve better as the latter, and not as a tutorial for learning the language. Clearly, the more comfortable one feels with computer programming — especially JavaScript itself — the more that one could get out of this book.

On the other hand, there are far more pluses than minuses. One of the real strengths of the book is how the author does not hesitate to use (sometimes lengthy) blocks of code, with explanatory comments for almost every line, to clarify the language — as opposed to paragraphs of text, which could have easily doubled the length of the first two parts (which comprise roughly the first two thirds of the book). Also, in conjunction with the narrative and code fragments, the author makes effective use of figures whenever needed — particularly in Chapter 21, in demonstrating how to work with graphics and multimedia content.

Evolving with the language itself, and again brought up to date, JavaScript: The Definitive Guide still retains its crown as the ultimate reference resource for JavaScript programmers.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance website developer and writer."
Power

Submission + - Harnessing the energy of Galloping Gertie (newscientist.com)

Submitted by FatLittleMonkey
FatLittleMonkey writes: You've all seen the footage of Galloping Gertie, the infamous Tacoma Narrows bridge. This is due to a type of turbulence called Wake Galloping, caused by airflow creating lift on the lee-side of cylinders (or cables on suspension bridges.) Now researchers in South Korea have developed a way of harnessing the turbulence to generate electricity. Their device works most efficiently at wind speeds too low for conventional wind turbines.
Networking

Submission + - YouTube, gaming and social networking busting TV's (arnnet.com.au) 1

Submitted by splitenz
splitenz writes: TV executive tells major Australian broadband conference that television audiences are slipping away into social media, gaming and other online subscription spaces. YouTube and online gaming is taking the traditional TV audience online and TV is struggling to fightback.
Yahoo!

Submission + - YouTube Founders Acquire Delicious (delicious.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From the official blog — Today, we’re pleased to announce that Delicious has been acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. As creators of the largest online video platform, they have firsthand experience enabling millions of users to share their experiences with the world. They are committed to running and improving Delicious going forward.
The Courts

Terry Childs Found Guilty 982

Posted by kdawson from the miss-carriage dept.
A jury in San Francisco found Terry Childs guilty of one felony count of computer tampering. The trial lasted four months. Childs now faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

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