Comment Re:What about coal ash? (Score 2) 145
The spent fuel from nuclear energy production is highly controlled and accounted for, sealed in giant caskets.
Comment Haiku-os (Score 1) 42
Sounds great, I would love to run haiku-os on it though.
More Evidence For Steam Games On Linux 256
SheeEttin writes "Back in November 2008, Phoronix reported that Linux libraries appeared in the Left 4 Dead demo, and then in March, Valve announced that Steam and the Source engine were coming to Mac OS X. Now, Phoronix reports that launcher scripts included with the (closed beta) Mac version of Steam include explicit support for launching a Linux version."
Scientists Reconstruct Millennium's Coldest Winter 290
Ponca City, We love you writes "In England they called it the Great Frost, while in France it entered legend as Le Grand Hiver, three months of deadly cold that fell over Europe in 1709 ushering in a year of famine and food riots. Livestock died from cold in their barns, chicken's combs froze and fell off, trees exploded and travelers froze to death on the roads. It was the coldest winter in 500 years with temperatures as much as 7 degrees C below the average for 20th-century Europe. Now as part of the European Union's Millennium Project, Scientists are aiming to reconstruct the past 1000 years of Europe's climate using a combination of direct measurements, proxy indicators of temperature such as tree rings and ice cores, and data gleaned from historical documents."
KnujOn Updates Top 10 Spam-Friendly Registrars List 80
alphadogg writes "Some companies are more popular than others for spammers wanting to register their domain names. Spam-fighting organization KnujOn has updated its report on the top 10 registrars whose customers are linked to spam and other illicit activity. (We discussed the original report last year.) These 10 companies registered 83% of the domains spammed in KnujOn's sample of spam between June and January. KnujOn found that some companies have cleaned up their act in recent months and that others — most surprisingly, Network Solutions and GoDaddy sister company Wild West domains — have popped up on the list. At the top of KnujOn's list, for the second time in a row, is Xinnet.com, a Chinese registrar linked to more than 3 million spam messages. KnujOn recommends that ICANN threaten to pull Xinnet's accreditation, as it did for some of the offenders on the previous list."
The Broken Design of Microsoft's "Fix it" Tool 165
$luggo writes "Curious about MS Fix It, I recently went hunting in the MS knowledge base for articles that provide the new EZ-button. After locating on few, I decided to click the button to download the Microsoft Installer package containing the executable and/or files that automatically enable the DVD Library feature in Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate — on my XP Media Center. 'Surely, MS will use some scripting, HTTP User-Agent sniffing, or even Genuine Windows validation to verify that I am running Vista,' I thought. It did not and I canceled the download when I received the prompt to save the file. So, I wonder: is there a Fix-it for Fix it? Because I can easily imagine someone doing what I did without scrolling to the bottom of the KB article and verifying that the article applies to their OS/version. This is a great example poor design. Why not simply use the download approach that other articles / fixes / service packs use, whereby the user must select the appropriate OS?"
Google Earth 5.0 Silently Changes Update Policy 535
mario_grgic writes "Recently announced Google Earth version 5.0 adds interesting new features like images of ocean floors and some detailed images of Mars. But it also brings another unwelcome change for Mac OS X users. Google Software update daemon is installed when the application is launched for the first time. The user is greeted with an uninformative message that does not really explain what is about to happen. After the user accepts, Google Update Agent is downloaded and installed. It updates all Google applications and not just Google Earth. Also, it runs on an unchangeable schedule of its own (instead of, say, only when one of Google's apps is launched), consuming system resources. Worst of all it can not be simply removed, since it is downloaded and installed again once Google Earth is launched. Users really have only two choices: live with it, or uninstall all Google apps. There's a discussion about the updater in this Google Group, including details of a way to disable it (not for the faint of heart). So fellow Slashdotters, has Google crossed the line?"
Submission + - Electricity Over Glass (ieee.org)
guddan writes: "Running a live wire into a passenger jet's fuel tank seems like a bad idea on the face of it. Still, sensors that monitor the fuel tank have to run on electricity, so aircraft makers previously had little choice. But what if power could be delivered over optical fiber instead of copper wire, without fear of short circuits and sparks? In late May, the big laser and optics company JDS Uniphase Corp., in San Jose, Calif., bought a small Silicon Valley firm with the technology to do just that."
Submission + - Microsoft's influence on upcoming ISO vote? (groklaw.net) 2
christian.einfeldt writes: "Microsoft has experienced some criticism for its handling of its bid to have OOXML accepted as an ISO standard, including the use of financial incentives to affect the Swedish national vote, which resulted in Swedent reversing its pro-Microsoft position; and failing to honor a promise to relinquish control of the OOXML specification if it gained ISO status. Now, Groklaw has published an article that raises questions about Microsoft's influence on the upcoming February vote, citing concerns with the limitation of discussions of patent issues, public accountability of the process, and even irregularities with choosing the size of the room so as to limit the delegates opposed to OOXML ISO status, as had been done in the past."
Submission + - Intel Chief Evangelist comments on Linux scheduler
ByeByeWintel writes: "James Reinders is Intel's Chief Evangelist for Intel's Software Development Products. In a
recent interview on Devx.com he stated: "If I could get ONE wish fulfilled would be for OS scheduling to focus on processes, and not threads, for scheduling. And demand that processes manage their scheduling of threads. Why? Because an effective parallel program is going to assume, in general, that all threads are either running or stopped. It is messy to write a parallel program when the OS may be scheduling and unscheduling individual threads which are trying to cooperate. [...] There is a lot of opportunity for operating systems to offer these types of control in the "running of applications" interfaces. I'd like an OS to let me specify the 'world' my application runs in (which processors, how many, etc.) These interfaces are available in Windows at run time (the task manager will let you adjust where a running task can go). I'd like to have more global tools to specify and adjust policies (8-core machinerun "only Outlook" here, run applications on these 4 cores, OS only here, explorer here, etc.)""
Submission + - USB 3 optical connection in 2008-10 times as fast
psychicsword writes:
"Intel and others plan to release a new version of the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus technology in the first half of 2008, a revamp the chipmaker said will make data transfer rates more than 10 times as fast by adding fiber-optic links alongside the traditional copper wires."
"The current USB 2.0 version has a top data-transfer rate of 480 megabits per second, so a tenfold increase would be 4.8 gigabits per second."
This should make USB hard drives easier and faster to use. The article can be seen here http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9780794-7.html
"The current USB 2.0 version has a top data-transfer rate of 480 megabits per second, so a tenfold increase would be 4.8 gigabits per second."
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"I have more information in one place than anybody in the world." -- Jerry Pournelle, an absurd notion, apparently about the BIX BBS
