Comment Re:Awesome... (Score 1) 259
They also dabble in dirtamancy from time to time. Naked trucker and T-Bone? Colbert and Stewart might count as thinkamancy... they've got a trimancer!
Comment That's not okay. (Score 2, Insightful) 911
At least, not by me. I imagine that most users will be confused by the presence of more than one "internet" on their machines, and one browser or another still has to be the default. Does MS have to make Firefox the default browser, too?
Journal Journal: Teaching Programming to Kids? 2
I'm an undergrad Math/CS student. One of my cousins, an exceptionally bright 11-year-old, is interested in learning to program. I'd like to give him some kind of direction; at least, more than I got: to teach him to avoid bad habits, use design patterns (OO vs procedural, especially) properly, and make sure that he stays interested. I'd like to see what Slashdot thinks: what are appropriate resources to use? Which language should I try to teach him? Are there any good books out there?
Submission + - Dell Linux Details
jon_anderson_ca writes: Dell, through their direct2dell website, has released some details of their soon-to-be-available Linux machines. Among the highlights:
Seems reasonable, but it's too bad that Click2Run isn't in Ubuntu 7.04 for the sake of those wanting to (legally) play DVDs, use AVI files, etc.
- only hardware that works with Linux is offered
- open-source drivers used where possible
- binary drivers for Intel wireless cards, etc.
- no support for media codecs
Seems reasonable, but it's too bad that Click2Run isn't in Ubuntu 7.04 for the sake of those wanting to (legally) play DVDs, use AVI files, etc.
Submission + - Polyethylene Bulletproof Vests better than Kevlar
teflonscout writes: When I think of bulletproof vests, the first word that comes to mind is Kevlar. Wired is running a story on Dynema SB61, a bulletproof material that is made of polyethylene. It is a higher grade of the plastic found in Tupperware. The story also mentions the recall of Second Chance bulletproof vests that were made from Zylon, a material that degraded slowly when exposed to moisture. At least one police officer was injured when a bullet penetrated his Zylon vest. Polyethylene is impervious to moisture. The first vests made from this new material are 5mm thick and can stop at 9mm bullet traveling at 1777 feet per second, which is slightly better than other top of the line vests.
Submission + - Piracy Economics
Anonymous Coward the younger writes: Mises.org has an article on The Market Functions of Piracy. Including a link to another article about the Ludwig Von Mises Institute's experience with giving things away for free Books, Online and Off.
Submission + - JFK bullet analysis was wrong
Spy Handler writes: "Researchers analyzing bullet fragments from the 1963 Kennedy assassination using new techniques say that the government's 1976 conclusion that the bullets came from only one gun (Oswald's) is wrong."
Submission + - Microsoft to open source some of Silverlight
Kurtz writes: "Microsoft will release the source code to part of its Silverlight technology at MIX 07 this week, according to sources familiar with the company's plans.
http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.c fm?newsid=8703"
Journal SPAM: What is going "too far" to win a Playstation3? 9
"How about eating still warm intestines uncoiled from the carcass of a freshly slaughtered goat? At the party to celebrate God Of War II's European release, members of the Press were invited to do just that . .
Submission + - Court rules playlist customization not interactive
prostoalex writes: "Is music played via customized playlist delivered interactively (i.e., via user participation) or non-interactive (i.e., decisions are made on the server side)? The question does seem metaphysical, but it took Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Yahoo! six years to figure it out. User-driven playlists are bucketed with on-demand music services, while server-driven playlists are equaled to broadcasts, thereby causing different licensing mechanisms to take place. Yahoo! inherited the legal wrangle when it purchased a music startup Launch, which built a music recommendation feature. Court decision determined that recommendation algorithms that rely on usage data to build playlists server-side are still eligible for broadcast license, thereby substantially lowering the costs of operating a music recommendation site."
Norway Liberal Party Wants Legal File Sharing 563
dot-magnon writes "The Liberal Party of Norway (Venstre) passed a unanimous resolution that advocates legal file sharing. The party wants to legalise sharing of any copyrighted material for non-commercial use. It also proposes a ban on DRM technology, free sampling of other artists' material, and shortening the life span of copyright. The Liberal Party is the first Norwegian political party, and the first European mainstream political party, to advocate file sharing. The Liberal Party's youth wing proposed the resolution."
Submission + - Student Database Misused?
pin_gween writes: The Washington Post reports on the probable abuse of a government (go figure) database: the National Student Loan Data System. The database was created in 1993 to help determine which students are eligible for for financial aid. Students' Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and sensitive financial information such as loan balances are in the database, which contains 60 million student records and is covered by federal privacy laws.
Advocates worry that businesses are trolling for marketing data they can use to bombard students with mass mailings or other solicitations. "We are just in shock that student data could be compromised like this," said Nancy Hoover, director of financial aid at Denison University in Ohio.
The department has spent over $650,000 in the past four years protecting the data. However, some senior education officials are advocating a temporary shutdown of access to the database until tighter security measures can be put in place.
Advocates worry that businesses are trolling for marketing data they can use to bombard students with mass mailings or other solicitations. "We are just in shock that student data could be compromised like this," said Nancy Hoover, director of financial aid at Denison University in Ohio.
The department has spent over $650,000 in the past four years protecting the data. However, some senior education officials are advocating a temporary shutdown of access to the database until tighter security measures can be put in place.
Submission + - Wolfpack Stands Up to RIAA; NC State Says "No&
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The Technician Online at North Carolina State Unversity reports that its Director of Student Legal Services, Pam Gerace, has advised students to remain anonymous, and has indicated her office's willingness to challenge the RIAA's subpoenas. What is more, the newspaper urges students to take Ms. Gerace up on her offer. The fighting spirit of Jimmy Valvano lives on."
New Sony DVDs Not Working In Some Players 651
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that the most recent DVDs released by Sony — specifically Stranger Than Fiction, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness — have some kind of 'feature' that makes them unplayable on many DVD players. This doesn't appear to be covered by the major media yet, but this link to a discussion over at Amazon gives a flavor of the problems people are experiencing. A blogger called Sony and was told the problem is with the new copy protection scheme, and they do not intend to fix it. Sony says it's up to the manufacturers to update their hardware."
Feed Mold By-product Kills Multiple Myeloma (sciencedaily.com)
Mayo Clinic Cancer Center researchers have found that chaetocin, a by-product of a common wood mold, has promise as a new anti-myeloma agent. Results of their study show the by-product to be more effective than currently used therapies at killing multiple myeloma cells.
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It appears that PL/I (and its dialects) is, or will be, the most widely used higher level language for systems programming. -- J. Sammet
