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Comment To me, the zero's a cheap deployment platform... (Score 1) 190

by Chad Page (#51077287) Attached to: Why the Raspberry Pi Zero Isn't a Practical Tool For Teaching Students

... well suited for learning how to do any sort of embedded project - for any sort of vaguely desktop role the pi 2 is much faster/better. Develop with a 2, test on a B+ (which has all the ports the 0 and A+ don't), and then when you have something finished there deploy it on the zero.

At this level you ought to customize what you put around the pi0 - if a USB cable is too expensive/big, you can solder 5V leads onto the test points on the rear side. Same with SPI and other 3.3V IO. Use the smallest used non-counterfeit Sandisk class 2 microSD's. This kinda stuff.

Also looking backwards (and upwards!) part of the post mortem about LISP machines was that there was nothing cheap (at the time) to run finished code on.
Twitter

Submission + - New Twitter Policies Put the Kibosh on Mashup Services (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by
dburr
dburr writes: "If This Then That (IFTTT) is a web mashup service that lets you connect together multiple services in unique and powerful ways. For example, you can automatically bookmark Favorited tweets using a social bookmarking service such as Delicious. Or even notify you by SMS when your server goes down. Unfortunately, Twitter has just announced policy changes that will in effect neuter it. Starting next Thursday, August 27, IFTTT will be disabling all Twitter "triggers" (the real power of IFTTT and its defining feature). (You will still be able to post Tweets through IFTTT) This has upset many long time Twitter users and members of the technorati. I have created a petition in a valiant (and perhaps vain) attempt to express our displeasure at their decision."
Movies

Submission + - Netflix changes its mind, will keep Profiles featu (netflix.com)

Submitted by Change
Change writes: I too was disappointed at Netflix's decision to remove the Profiles feature, and let them know via email and telephone. I was surprised to find the following email in my inbox today: "You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are. We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you." I thought that it sounded too good to be true, and went to their blog to confirm, finding this entry. Netflix decided to listen to its customers, and keep a feature that many of us find essential for our use of their service. I am surprised, and very pleased.
Movies

Submission + - Netflix to eliminate "Profiles" feature (netflix.com)

Submitted by
Donald Burr of Borg
Donald Burr of Borg writes: "One of my favorite features of Netflix, the video-rental-by-mail service, is "profiles." Profiles lets you create "sub-accounts" for your friends/family, so that they can share in the video rental love. Each profile gets his/her own Netflix queue that he/she can manage with their own login/password. You can divide up how many movies get sent to you vs. the other profiles under your account. E.g. if you have a 6-out-at-once plan, you can choose to get 3 movies at a time, and have 3 other profiles each receive 1 movie. Unfortunately, the fun stops September 1, at which point Netflix is, for unknown reasons, going to terminate this feature. Why? To "...help us to continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers." Improvement indeed!"
Robotics

New Robot Can Help You Find Your Way 77

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the ceiling-bot-watches-you-navigate dept.
BoingBoing is reporting that a new robotic assistant may soon be able to help you find your way the next time you are lost in a mall or a supermarket. The latest demonstration from the Osaka-based Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR) showcased "Robovie", a semi-humanoid robot designed to monitor up to 20 people at a time and classify each person's behavior into one of 10 categories (waiting, wandering, walking fast, etc). Whenever it was able to classify someone as disoriented it would approach them and ask "are you lost", if the answer was yes it provided directions, otherwise it just recommended nearby shops and restaurants.
It's funny. Laugh.

Student Given Detention For Using Firefox [UPDATED] 818

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the teacher-actually-an-opera-fanatic dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Several sites are reporting that a student has been given detention for using Firefox to do his classwork. No, really. The student was in class, working on an assignment that necessitated using a browser. The teacher instructed him to stop using Firefox and to do his classwork, to which the student responded that he was doing his classwork using a 'better' browser (it is unclear whether the computer was the student's own computer or not). The clueless teacher (who called the rogue program 'Firefox.exe') ordered him to detention." Update: 12/17 20:09 by SM One of the school officials was nice enough to contact us and let us know this is a hoax. If you are planning on calling the school please refrain from doing so, I'm sure they have had enough excitement for one day.
Privacy

Submission + - MySpace to offer spyware for parents

Submitted by mrspin
mrspin writes: Following continuing pressure from politicians (and parts of the media), MySpace is planning to offer parents the chance to download software which will monitor aspects of their children's activities on the social networking site. From a business point of view, the move appears to be a highly risky one. The young users of social networking sites are notorious for their lack of loyalty — and history suggests that a change like this could tempt many to abandon MySpace for the 'next cool thing'.
Microsoft

Submission + - Evidence that MS violated 2002 judgement surfaces

Submitted by whoever57
whoever57 writes: In the Comes Vs. Microsoft case, the plaintiffs believe they have found evidence that Microsoft has failed to fully disclose APIs to competitors. If true, this would mean that Microsoft has violated the 2002 judgement. Once again, Groklaw has the scoop. This information has become avaialble since the plaintiffs have obtained an order allowing them to disclose Microsoft's alleged mis-behavior to the DOJ ("appropriate enforcement and compliance authorities").
Space

How a Pulsar Gets Its Spin 63

Posted by Zonk from the how-the-pulsar-got-its-spin-back dept.
brian0918 writes "Until now, the assumption has been that the rapid spin of a pulsar comes from the spin of the original star. The problem was that this only explained the fastest observed pulsars. Now, researchers at Oak Ridge have shown that the spin of a pulsar is determined by the shock wave created when the star's massive iron core collapses. From the article: 'That shock wave is inherently unstable, and eventually becomes cigar-shaped instead of spherical. The instability creates two rotating flows — one in one direction directly below the shock wave and another, inner flow, that travels in the opposite direction and spins up the core. The asymmetrical flows establish a 'sloshing' motion that accounts for the pulsars' observed spin velocities from once every 15 to 300 milliseconds.'"
Google

Submission + - A Tour of the Google Blacklist

Submitted by WienerPizza
WienerPizza writes: Michael Sutton takes us on a tour of the Google blacklist, a list of suspected phishing sites. He finds that eBay, PayPal and Bank of America combined account for 63% of the active phishing sites. Amusingly, he also reveals that Yahoo! has a nasty habit of hosting phishing sites that harvest...you guessed it...Yahoo! credentials!
Moon

Geminid Explosions On Moon Visible To Amateurs 28

Posted by kdawson from the things-that-go-flash dept.
saskboy writes "The ET scanning project SETI@Home was wildly popular, and the mock project Yeti@Home much less so, but soon there will be a chance for the enthusiastic amateur astronomer to combine those two scanning techniques and spot explosions on the moon with simple telescope and camera equipment at home." From the article: "'On Dec. 14, 2006, we observed at least five Geminid meteors hitting the Moon,' reports Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL. Each impact caused an explosion ranging in power from 50 to 125 lbs of TNT and a flash of light as bright as a 7th-to-9th magnitude star... 'The amazing thing is,' says Cooke, 'we've [caught explosions] using a pair of ordinary backyard telescopes, 14-inch, and off-the-shelf CCD cameras. Amateur astronomers could be recording these explosions, too.'... [NASA will] soon release data reduction software developed specifically for amateur and professional astronomers wishing to do this type of work. The software runs on an ordinary PC equipped with a digital video card. 'If you have caught a lunar meteor on tape, this program can find it.'"
Space

Brightest Supernova Discovered 63

Posted by kdawson from the how-standard-the-candle dept.
Maggie McKee writes "Astronomers have spotted the brightest supernova ever seen — it is intrinsically two to three times brighter than any previously recorded. It has many characteristics of a type Ia explosion, but has hydrogen in its spectrum, unlike other type Ia's. That suggests that this supernova resulted from the collision of two stars — most likely a white dwarf and a red giant — rather than from an exploding white dwarf. If so, it might affect the interpretation of previous cosmological studies that depend on type Ia 'standard candle' observations, like dark energy. But other astronomers say merger-triggered explosions are probably rare and therefore won't throw a wrench in the works."

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