Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Why not C (Score 2) 38

A few notes on this. We're using Emscripten to compile interpreters written in C to LLVM bytecode then to JavaScript. Emscripten supports both static and dynamic library loading by compiling the libraries to JavaScript. The Python standard library on repl.it, for example, loads dynamic libraries, so it's definitely doable. Performance is of course not amazing, but for a REPL, it's certainly good enough.
Programming

Submission + - repl.it: A client-side web REPL for 15+ languages (repl.it)

MaxShaw writes: "repl.it is an online REPL that supports running code in 15+ languages, from Ruby to Scheme, to QBasic, in the browser. It is intended as a tool for learning new languages and experimenting with code on the go. All the code is open sourced under the MIT license and available from GitHub (https://github.com/replit)."
Google

Submission + - Bing Is Cheating, Copying Google Search Results (searchengineland.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Google has run a sting operation that it says proves Bing has been watching what people search for on Google, the sites they select from Google’s results, then uses that information to improve Bing’s own search listings. Bing doesn’t deny this.
Idle

Steampunk Con Mixes In More Maker Fun 50

California has once again been blessed with another steampunk convention, this time to be held in Emeryville, CA on March 12-14 as the "Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition." This year's event promises to mix in much more of the DIY/maker flavor for a greater hands-on feel. Steampunk has been gaining much broader appeal in recent months with the continued growth of maker communities, and the many delightful varieties of music and literature. The con will feature, among other things, a 2 day track of 2-hour how-to, hands-on, and interactive workshops gear towards makers, DIY-ers, mad scientists, and evil geniuses. Of course, if you are an evil genius you probably don't need a workshop except as a gathering for potential test subjects.
Space

Big Dipper "Star" Actually a Sextuplet System 88

Theosis sends word that an astronomer at the University of Rochester and his colleagues have made the surprise discovery that Alcor, one of the brightest stars in the Big Dipper, is actually two stars; and it is apparently gravitationally bound to the four-star Mizar system, making the whole group a sextuplet. This would make the Mizar-Alcor sextuplet the second-nearest such system known. The discovery is especially surprising because Alcor is one of the most studied stars in the sky. The Mizar-Alcor system has been involved in many "firsts" in the history of astronomy: "Benedetto Castelli, Galileo's protege and collaborator, first observed with a telescope that Mizar was not a single star in 1617, and Galileo observed it a week after hearing about this from Castelli, and noted it in his notebooks... Those two stars, called Mizar A and Mizar B, together with Alcor, in 1857 became the first binary stars ever photographed through a telescope. In 1890, Mizar A was discovered to itself be a binary, being the first binary to be discovered using spectroscopy. In 1908, spectroscopy revealed that Mizar B was also a pair of stars, making the group the first-known quintuple star system."
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows 7 sets direction of low power CPU market (pcper.com) 1

Vigile writes: News is circulating today about Microsoft setting hardware limits for the Windows 7 Starter Edition rather than sticking to the 3 application limit. With just a few simple specifications Microsoft has set the tech world spinning though — not only is Microsoft deciding that a netbook is now defined as having a 10.2 inch or smaller screen but by setting a 15 watt limit to CPU thermal dissipation they may have inadvertently set the direction of CPU technology for years to come. If Microsoft sticks to that licensing spec, AMD, Intel, VIA and maybe even NVIDIA (who might be building an x86 CPU) will no doubt put a new focus on power efficiency in order to cash in on the lucrative netbook market.
Censorship

Submission + - Microsoft blocks Messenger Live in Five Countries

Spooky McSpookster writes: Microsoft has turned off its Windows Live Messenger service for five countries: Cuba, Syria, Iran, Sudan, and North Korea. Users in these countries trying to log in get the following error: "810003c1: We were unable to sign you in to the .NET Messenger Service." Why now, since this flies in the face of the Obama administration's softening on Cuba? This isn't the first time the US Trade Embargo has had questionable outcomes. US-based Syrian political activist George Ajjan created a web site promoting democracy in Syria, only to find GoDaddy blocked anyone inside Syria from seeing it.

ArsTechnica argues "Messenger is a medium for communication, and the citizens of these countries should not be punished from such a basic tool because the US has problems with their governments policies." What does this say for the wisdom of non-US citizens relying on US companies for their business or communication? What about Microsoft's Product Validation or "Genuine DisAdvantage"?
Biotech

Submission + - Do cells use light to communicate? (bytesizebio.net)

SilverLobe writes: The hypothesis that living cells may use photons for communications has been on the fringes of cell biology for a while. No proof positive exists, but there is some strong circumstantial evidence. Byte Size Biology reports of a simple experiment that shows how the unicellular protozoan Paramecium may use so called "biophotons" to signal for growth and feeding. The original article in PLoS ONE concludes: "...not all cellular processes are necessarily based on a molecule-receptor recognition. The non-molecular signals are most probably photons. If so, cells use more than one frequency for information transfer and mutual influence."
Education

Submission + - College Papers Won't Rewrite History for Alumni

Hugh Pickens writes: "The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that as college papers have begun digitizing their back issues, their Web sites have become the latest front in the battle over online identities. Youthful activities like underage drinking that once would have disappeared into the recesses of a campus library are now preserved on the public record and alumni are contacting newspapers with requests for redaction because unlike Facebook profiles — that other notable source of young-adult embarrassment — the ability to remove or edit questionable content in these cases is out of the author's hands. In 2007, Cornell University alumnus Kevin G. Vanginderen sued the Cornell Chronicle over a newly digitized article from 1983 that reported he had been charged with burglary while a student at Cornell. Vanginderen found the article after Googling his name and claimed that its new presence online was causing him "mental anguish" and "loss of reputation" but a California judge threw out the case after determining the report to be accurate. Some student papers, like The University Daily Kansan, have found a middle ground by adding the noindex meta tag so that the documents stay online, but search engines such as Google do not index it. "I thought that would be better than kind of like sticking it to [the alum] and saying the paper is always right and we can publish anything on the Web we want," says the paper's editor, Brenna Hawley. "There's no reason to ... when we have a way to make it so we please both parties.""
PC Games (Games)

Terminator Salvation Game Launched, PC Version Recalled 75

On Tuesday, the video game tie-in to the Terminator Salvation movie was launched for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Most reviews pegged the game as solidly mediocre; IGN said, "the action is fairly tame throughout and the cutscenes are stunningly ordinary. And yet despite the poor presentation, there are some clever gameplay elements that make Terminator enjoyable. Too bad that joy only lasts a handful of hours before the credits roll." However, customers who had purchased the retail PC version ran into installation errors, leaving them unable to play the game. Now, publisher Evolved has issued a recall for that version of the game, saying, "a defect occurred during replication," and promising a replacement plan for people who had purchased it.
Windows

Microsoft To Disable Autorun 429

jchrisos writes "Microsoft is planning to disable autorun in the next Release Candidate of Windows 7 and future updates to Windows XP and Vista. In order to maintain a 'balance between security and usability,' non-writable media will maintain its current behavior however. In any case, if it means no more autorun on flash drives, removable hard drives and network shares, that is definitely a step in the right direction. Will be interesting to see what malware creators do to get around this ..."

Slashdot Top Deals

The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it. -- Franklin P. Jones

Working...