Feed Ars Technica: Report: Amazon to release $50 tablet (arstechnica.com)
Rumored 6-inch tablet be half the price of the Kindle Fire HD 6.
Feed CNET Tech: Raspberry Pi gets an official 7-inch touchscreen (feedsportal.com)
Submission + - Windows VS Linux Software 1
An anonymous reader writes: With all the recent brouhaha about Windows 10 privacy violations and forced updates, I'm one of those that wants to thank Microsoft very gently, while taking it by the hand, and slamming the door behind it for good. Fortunately for me, I don't use any special software that is tied to Windows, except games, of course. One program I would really miss though is Total Commander file manager, which is basically my interface to the whole OS. So, I know there are Linux alternatives, but which one is the best? Also, I currently use PaleMoon fork of Firefox as my main browser, but there doesn't seem to be a Linux variant. What other software would you want to transplant to Linux, if any?
Submission + - Ham Radio Fills Communication Gaps in Nepal Rescue Effort (itworld.com)
itwbennett writes: Amateur radio has stepped in to fill communication gaps in Nepal, which is struggling with power outages and a flaky Internet after a devastating earthquake on Saturday killed over 5,000 people. Though 99 persons have ham licenses in Kathmandu, about eight use high-frequency (HF) radios that can transmit long distances, while another 30 have very high frequency and ultra high frequency sets for local traffic, said Satish Kharel, a lawyer in Kathmandu, who uses the ham call signal 9N1AA. The hobbyist radio operators are working round-the-clock to help people get in touch with relatives, pass on information and alert about developing crises.
Submission + - Systemd's Lennart Poettering: "We Do Listen To Users" 1
M-Saunders writes: Systemd is ambitious and controversial, taking over a large part of the GNU/Linux base system. But where did it come from? Even Red Hat wasn't keen on it at the start, but since then it has worked its way into almost every major distro. Linux Voice talks to Lennart Poettering, the lead developer of Systemd, about its origins, its future, its relationship with Upstart, and handling the pressures of online flamewars.
Comment Re:But that's not the real problem. (Score 1) 1651
NZ? NZ...? Hmmm... I think the city of Houston, TX has more people than the entire "country" of NZ. And cycling is not something you see a lot of other than on bike paths. I enjoy riding my bicycle for recreation and exercise, but I won't wear a helmet. Why should I? I have runners pass by me going much faster.
If a motorcyclist isn't required to wear a helmet, why should a cyclist?
Submission + - Physicists Build Bigger 'Bottles' of Antimatter (sciencedaily.com) 1
intellitech writes: Once regarded as the stuff of science fiction, antimatter — the mirror image of the ordinary matter in our observable universe — is now the focus of laboratory studies around the world. While physicists routinely produce antimatter with radioisotopes and particle colliders, cooling these antiparticles and containing them for any length of time is another story. Clifford Surko, a professor of physics at UC San Diego, who is constructing what he hopes will be the world's largest antimatter container, said physicists have recently developed new methods to make special states of antimatter in which they can create large clouds of antiparticles, compress them and make specially tailored beams for a variety of uses.
Comment Re:35 years of computer time?!?! (Score 2, Informative) 309
Finally, we were able to distribute the 55,882,296 cosets of H among a large number of computers at Google and complete the computation in just a few weeks. Google does not release information on their computer systems, but it would take a good desktop PC (Intel Nehalem, four-core, 2.8GHz) 1.1 billion seconds, or about 35 CPU years, to perform this calculation.
From the article. They are guessing based on a known configuration how long it would take.
Comment Re:Basically (Score 1) 180
Or a spouse who sees any moment of silence as an aural blank canvas just begging to be worked upon?
Best euphemism EVER to describe a talkative spouse. An Aural Artist. LOL!
Comment Re:That's because IQ isn't everything. (Score 2, Insightful) 808
I agree with this. I would go a step further and add in musicians and actors who think they know economics or politics. Shut and and entertain me you useless little monkeys. :-)
Comment Re:And so? (Score 1) 572
If any of you have ever been to a CiscoLive Networkers conference, you would say it is pretty mundane... Until you get to the BlueCat booth. This year (2009 in San Francisco) they had a blonde in a shiny silver VERY TIGHT body suit, with no underwear. How do I know she had no underwear? Well.. um.. diligent observation... I must say I was shocked! Shocked so much I went back daily to see if they were still perpetrating this outrage!!
(Really - this girl was hot!)
(Really - this girl was hot!)
Submission + - Cell phone cost calculator killed in Canada (thestar.com)
inject_hotmail.com writes: Internet and law genius Michael Geist writes about some shinanigans by the cell phone carriers and the Canadian government in his column in The Star. Canadian tax payers funded a "Cell Phone Cost Calculator" so that the average person could theoretically wade through the disjointed and incongruent package offerings just to have to yanked a couple weeks before launch. Michael Geist suggests that the major cell carriers lobbied the appropriate public officials to have the program nixed because it would bite into their profit if the general people could make sense out of pricing and fees. Geist continues "Sensing that [Tony] Clement (Industry Minister) was facing pressure to block the calculator, Canadian consumer groups wrote to the minister, urging him to stick with it.". Moving forward Michael makes a novel suggestion, one that would show an immense level of understanding by the government — "With public dollars having funded the mothballed project, the government should now consider releasing the calculator's source code and enable other groups to pick up where the OCA (Office of Consumer Affairs) left off."
Periodic Table Gets a New, Unnamed Element 461
koavf writes "More than a decade after experiments first produced a single atom of 'super-heavy' element 112, a team of German scientists has been credited with its discovery, but it has yet to be named. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has temporarily named the element ununbium, as 'ununbi' means 'one one two' in Latin; but the team now has the task of proposing its official name." Slashdotium? Taconium? Man, I shoulda gone into science so I could have named something sweet that kids have to memorize in classes.
Comment Re:A little on Texas Politcal Structure (Score 1) 149
County governments regulate things like alcohol and sex toys. Here in Harris County (Houston), I can buy alcohol 6.5 days a week, and sex toys any time the adult store is open. I don't mean novelty items. I saw things in there that made me shudder (butt-cones, fist-shaped dildos, etc), and this was a "classy" adult store.
I grew up in a dry county, and every time the proposal to lift the alcohol ban comes up there - it is voted down. Seems like the government is actually listening to the people - not telling them what to do.
And as far as buying a car, from what I understand, the one-day weekend serves 2 purposes. One is to allow the consumer time to look at cars without being harassed by over-zealous car salesmen. And second, it allows car-salesmen to have at least one day off per week. Most car places are open at least 12 hours a day. Are you sure you can't buy your dream car sometime in that 72 (12 hours x 6 days) hours per week?
I grew up in a dry county, and every time the proposal to lift the alcohol ban comes up there - it is voted down. Seems like the government is actually listening to the people - not telling them what to do.
And as far as buying a car, from what I understand, the one-day weekend serves 2 purposes. One is to allow the consumer time to look at cars without being harassed by over-zealous car salesmen. And second, it allows car-salesmen to have at least one day off per week. Most car places are open at least 12 hours a day. Are you sure you can't buy your dream car sometime in that 72 (12 hours x 6 days) hours per week?
Comment Re:A little on Texas Politcal Structure (Score 1) 149
First off - Welcome to Texas!
Thanks for such an insightful comment on the situation of our state government. You are quite correct in you assessment. Texans want to be left alone, and not be harassed by our local, state or even national government. I'm not sure why you think that Texas being an independent country for a while is unfortunate. Other states were independent countries before joining the US.(Hawaii, Vermont, and maybe California)
We certainly believe in the independence and accountability of the individual. As an example - look at the difference between media coverage of Hurricane Ike (I live in Seabrook, TX) vs coverage of Hurricane Katrina. How many Texas officials have you seen on TV crying about not enough federal aid? Whether we receive aid or not (yes - I did 5 months later - Thanks!), people got up, dusted themselves off, and got to the work of cleaning up.
Anyway - back on topic. I consider myself a conservative, and I totally think that open formats should not only be encouraged, but forced for any government organization. Unfortunately, many politicians in this area are woefully tech-illiterate, and have no clue what this means. Actually, I think this probably applies to most politicians. I know I will be calling my representative to support this bill, no matter who initiated it.
Thanks for such an insightful comment on the situation of our state government. You are quite correct in you assessment. Texans want to be left alone, and not be harassed by our local, state or even national government. I'm not sure why you think that Texas being an independent country for a while is unfortunate. Other states were independent countries before joining the US.(Hawaii, Vermont, and maybe California)
We certainly believe in the independence and accountability of the individual. As an example - look at the difference between media coverage of Hurricane Ike (I live in Seabrook, TX) vs coverage of Hurricane Katrina. How many Texas officials have you seen on TV crying about not enough federal aid? Whether we receive aid or not (yes - I did 5 months later - Thanks!), people got up, dusted themselves off, and got to the work of cleaning up.
Anyway - back on topic. I consider myself a conservative, and I totally think that open formats should not only be encouraged, but forced for any government organization. Unfortunately, many politicians in this area are woefully tech-illiterate, and have no clue what this means. Actually, I think this probably applies to most politicians. I know I will be calling my representative to support this bill, no matter who initiated it.
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