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Programming

It's Not the 15th Birthday of Linux 261

Posted by CmdrTaco from the burn-the-cake dept.
Glyn Moody writes "There's been a spate of celebrations of Linux's 15th birthday recently. What they're really marking is the 15th anniversary of version 1.0. But do version numbers matter for free software? The 'release early, release often' approach means there's generally little difference between version 0.99.14z, say, and version 1.0. In fact, drawing attention to such anniversaries is misguided, because it gives the impression that free software is created in the same way as traditional proprietary code, working towards a predetermined end-point according to a top-down plan. So how should we be choosing and celebrating free software's past achievements?"
First Person Shooters (Games)

Review: F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin 217

Posted by Soulskill from the revenge-of-the-punctuation dept.
First-person shooters comprise one of the most well-developed video game genres in existence. The number of high-quality games and franchises practically demands that any new entry must have an interesting concept and a rock-solid engine. Otherwise, it will quickly get buried under an avalanche of award-winning titles. When the original F.E.A.R. came out in 2005, a well-crafted horror theme, the AI, and a few gameplay innovations allowed it to succeed despite direct competition from established franchises, such as Quake 4 and Call of Duty 2, among others. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin draws on the strengths of its predecessor and adds a few improvements. The question that now remains is whether or not the additions make up for the fact that the game's concept is no longer new and unique. Read on for the rest of my thoughts.
Perl

Apple's Mac OS X Update Breaks Perl 264

Posted by CmdrTaco from the how-will-i-regex-now dept.
mir writes "It looks like if you use CPAN to install modules, Apple's latest security update might just have broken your Perl. According to Tatsuhiko Miyagawa 'The Security Update brings (old) IO.bundle with version 1.22 but your IO.pm has been updated to the latest 1.23 on CPAN shell. (But hey, 1.23 was released in 2006...Why do you bring that ancient version back, Apple!?)'."
Earth

Black Holes From the LHC Could Last For Minutes 672

Posted by kdawson from the becoming-greyer dept.
KentuckyFC writes "There is absolutely, positively, definitely no chance of the LHC destroying the planet (or this way either) when it eventually switches on some time later this year. And yet a few niggling doubts are persuading some scientists to run through their figures again. One potential method of destruction is that the LHC will create tiny black holes that could swallow everything in their path, including the planet. Various scientists have said this will not happen because the black holes would decay before they could do any damage. But physicists who have re-run the calculations now say that the mini black holes produced by the LHC could last for seconds, possibly minutes. Of course, the real question is whether they decay faster than they can grow. The new calculations suggest that the decay mechanism should win over and that the catastrophic growth of a black hole from the LHC 'does not seem possible' (abstract). But shouldn't we require better assurance than that?"
Biotech

Baby To Be Born Without the Gene For Breast Cancer 259

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.
manoftin writes to tell us that next week a baby will be born without the gene for breast cancer, according to the BBC. "But he said that, in this case, not carrying the BRCA1 gene would not guarantee any daughter born to the couple would be unaffected by breast cancer because there are other genetic and environmental causes. Dr Alan Thornhill, scientific director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre, said: 'While the technology and approach used in this case is fairly routine, it is the first time in the UK that a family has successfully eliminated a mutant breast cancer gene for their child. It is a victory for both the parents and the HFEA that licensed this treatment.'"
Moon

Unbelievably Large Telescopes On the Moon? 292

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thats-no-moon dept.
Matt_dk writes "A team of internationally renowned astronomers and opticians may have found a way to make "unbelievably large" telescopes on the Moon. 'It's so simple,' says Ermanno F. Borra, physics professor at the Optics Laboratory of Laval University in Quebec, Canada. 'Isaac Newton knew that any liquid, if put into a shallow container and set spinning, naturally assumes a parabolic shape, the same shape needed by a telescope mirror to bring starlight to a focus. This could be the key to making a giant lunar observatory.'"
It's funny. Laugh.

8 People Buy "I Am Rich" iPhone App For $1,000 684

Posted by kdawson from the more-money-than-good-sense dept.
FsG writes "In the first 24 hours that it was available, eight people bought a completely useless iPhone app for $1,000 a pop. This app does nothing except alert onlookers that you have a lot of money. The developer priced it at $999.99, which is the most you can charge on Apple's store. Apple has since yanked the app (without explanation as usual), while the inventive programmer walked away with $5,600."

Comment Microsoft innovation (Score 1) 189

by Xilman (#15467522) Attached to: When Cellphones Become Webservers

Nope, not an oxymoron on this occasion.

Microsoft Research put a web server on a mobile phone several years ago, back when I still worked for them.

A cow-orker (or should that be core-searcher? named Kai Rannenburg did the dirty deed. Kai left MSR shortly before I did. Chase down to Kai's exp-rojects at http://research.microsoft.com/security/ for more information.

Paul
User Journal

Journal Journal: Another baby in the house

Journal by Xilman

The monkey puzzles are doing well. There are a total of four seedlings now. The biggest is 10 weeks old and 9cm high.

Last night the first of the pomegranates sprouted. Growing pomegranates outside, up here in the sub-arctic at 52N (i.e. Cambridge UK), is likely to be challenging. Nonetheless it's worth a try.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Making progress

Journal by Xilman

Good news: I should be in paid employment again in a couple of weeks. An offer has been made and accepted but the paperwork has to be issued and signed.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Two purchases

Journal by Xilman

For a reason that is too complex to go into right now, we bought an old church pew a couple of days ago. It's longer than average, very close to 2 metres, and very heavy. It's in very good condition but needs patchy wax and/or varnish and decades of human grease removing from it.
User Journal

Journal Journal: A new arrival!

Journal by Xilman
One of my monkey puzzle (Araucaria Araucana) seeds sprouted yesterday afternoon. There was no sign of life at lunchtime but by 6pm several mm of green was showing. It has about doubled in height since, to around 10mm. Looks like these things grow quite quickly when they get started.

I don't know whether the baby is a little boy or a little girl and I'm unlikely to find out for another fifty or sixty years unless DNA sequencing becomes cheap and easy.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Hello world 1

Journal by Xilman

Is this thing switched on?

Testing, testing, 1, 2, testing.

tap tap

I can't get this damn thing to work. Is there anyone here who knows how to drive this?

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