Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Strange Disease (Score 1) 222

I can't speak about 2004, I was just getting out of high school then. But I do know that we are working very hard on finding a cure for ALS (and other neurodegenerative diseases). There have been some amazing advances in the past few years, namely surrounding destruction and regenerating of the myelin (look that up if you want to learn more) surrounding neurons that seems to be the primary cause of degeneration. I myself have seen a couple of fellow labs come up with techniques that seem to smooth out and encourage the remyelination that naturally occurs in humans and seems to be missing in patients with ALS.

Its terrible to see someone pass away like this when some days it feels like we are so close we can taste it.

Comment Weird Way to Find (Score 1) 1

I just wanted to point how random it was for me to find this. Here was my search process:


1. I was working a presentation about oligodendrocyte differentiation.
2. I was looking for papers to get background information on T3 induced differentiation
3. A couple of hours in I decided I needed a picture of mitogen withdrawal induced differentiation in culture versus T3
4. I search google images for something like "mitogen cell culture", then "mitogen withdrawal cell culture", then "PDGRF differentiation"
5. I find a random image and follow it to the BioWrites website for the Journal of Cell Biology, where it is part of a paper in the February 2010 issue.
6. Not having heard of the BioWrites website, I search google for "BioWrite".
7. The second result down is this page with the headline "BIO writes to DOJ..."
8. After reading it and realizing it was not related to what I wanted I remembered Slashdot and Microsoft v. i4i thing.

Go web.

Comment Privacy Options Also Changed (Score 1) 347

What a lot of the articles pointing this out don't mention is that the rules governing advertisers and what information they can get from the user without their knowledge/permission also changed. Ars points out that this change may make it easier for large third-party advertisers (e.g. AdMob) to get data from their users. I'm not going to argue whether the other changes to the agreement are good or not (I'm a little worried that allowing interpreted code, particularly flash, will lower the overall quality of apps available in the store). But some of the changes to the ability of third-party advertisers to get information on their users could be a serious problem.
Classic Games (Games)

36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist 268

Zerocool3001 writes "The recently featured 36-hour port of the original Palm version of Lemmings to the iPhone and Palm Pre has received a cease and desist letter from Sony. Only one day after submitting the app for approval on the two app stores, the developer has put up a post stating that he 'did this as a tribute to the game — we can only hope that Sony actually does a conversion for platforms like iPhone and Palm Pre in the near future.' The text of the cease and desist letter is available from the developer's website."
Sony

Submission + - 36 Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist (mobile1up.com)

Zerocool3001 writes: "The recently featured 36 hour port of the original Palm version of Lemmings to iPhone and Palm Pre has received a cease and desist letter from Sony. Only one day after submitting the app for approval on the two app stores, the developer has put up a post stating that "while are did this as a tribute to the game — we can only hope that Sony actually does a conversion for platforms like iPhone and Palm Pre in the near future."

The text of the cease and desist letter is here: http://www.mobile1up.com/lemmings/blog/sony-letter.txt"

Comment Gutted Program (Score 1) 455

Does anyone else think it is a bad idea? I hear a lot of hedging about how good it will be in the long run, but no one seems to think it's a terrible idea.

It seems like this is just a description of a scaled back space program. Gutting NASA's manned spacecraft development and pushing future development into the future seems like it could be even more detrimental than simply canceling the shuttle programs.

As I understand it, backers of using private space companies argued that delegating the heavy cargo transport to a private company would leave NASA to focus on exploration and science. Isn't it to opposite of this to move NASA into developing a heavy lift vehicle, and having private corporations take up manned spaceflight?

As a side note, it's interesting to remember that one of the major reasons we were able to overtake the Russian space program during the 1960's was that we focused on technical and scientific advancements rather than pure heavy lifting, in which the Russians had an estimated decade advantage.

This seems to be disappointing to those of us that would like to become future astronauts.

Comment Scaled Back (Score 1) 1

It seems like this is just a description of a scaled back space program. Gutting NASA's manned spacecraft development and pushing future development into the future seems like it could be even more detrimental than simply canceling the shuttle programs.

As I understand it, backers of using private space companies argued that delegating the heavy cargo transport to a private company would leave NASA to focus on exploration and science. Isn't it to opposite of this to move NASA into developing a heavy lift vehicle, and having private corporations take up manned spaceflight?

As a side note, it's interesting to remember that one of the major reasons we were able to overtake the Russian space program during the 1960's was that we focused on technical and scientific advancements rather than pure heavy lifting, in which the Russians had an estimated decade advantage.

This seems to be disappointing to those of us that would like to become future astronauts.

Submission + - Verizon CEO: "We Will Hunt Heavy Users Down" (arstechnica.com)

Zerocool3001 writes: "In an interview with WSJ editor Alan Murray,Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg talks about how the FCC's broadband access studies are wrong (and the US is definitely "number one, not even close"), how he had someone else stand in line for him Saturday to pick up his iPad, and how Verizon will soon hunt down, throttle and/or charge high-bandwidth users on its network."

Comment Net Boot Based Installation and Monitoring (Score 3, Informative) 460

I like you, developed deployment for a mac based network (600 or so macs) back when command line ASR and netrestore were the best options. However, we also upgraded our deployment methods as Apple incorporated some of the technologies we used (cloning and automatic install options) into their server software. Today that particular piece of software is very well polished and does the job extremely well. The last time we did an installation (a few years ago) we used custom netboot images with automatic install options for different types of computers (lab, classroom, etc.) based on mac address. At the time we used a third party unix package manager or OS X called Radmind, but it proved to be more trouble than it was worth. However, Apple Remote desktop's package management and monitoring work very well and lets your do most of the upgrade install tasks you need to. In the end, the only per-machine work was setting up the machine to boot from the network by default.

Also, if you have the bandwidth, you can centralize your OS installs as server based images that are never installed on the thin clients. If you get it to work, it makes upgrades and deployment very easy.

If you want to discuss some of the problems we faced and our solutions, please feel free to contact me.

Comment Not Entirely XMPP Friendly (Score 1) 127

Its a bit misleading to say that Pidgin now implements video and voice for XMPP networks. They have implemented video and voice for the protocols that Google Talk uses which are unique to Google Talk. Other services (such as iChat) use different video and voice protocols on XMPP (possible on the Google Talk network). Since there is no unified protocol for video and voice on XMPP each service uses their own "proprietary" protocols piggy backed on an XMPP network. I guess us snobby iChat users will just continue to talk to each other.

Slashdot Top Deals

Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant. -- Edmund Burke

Working...