captslacker - Slashdot User

Comment I have a good guess. (Score 1) 903

by captslacker on Sunday May 11, 2008 @07:17PM (#23372554) Attached to: What Is the Oldest Code Written Still Running?

I have a suggestion of the answer. I suppose someone could get a confirmation lose but it would be from some pretty cagey folks who have made obscene amounts of money. Lexis/Nexis, in an effort to deal with the complete lack of optimized solutions for dealing with massive search and inddexing problems... They took several IBM mainframes beginning with the old 370 architecture days and put them together in what today would be a cluster. At the time it was all big iron, and there was no O/S per se, it was all customized IBM assembler. Today the core iron is still all IBM, but the outer edges are all client/server worstations and servers. It is apparently configured in a massively parallel configuration around the IBM mainframe core. I would propose that the core IBM mainframe code has changed only incrementally over time, and hence is probably the some of the oldest code in the industry still running. I guess logic would prevent one from assuming that no changes have been made as the hardware has been upgraded, but that core code has got to be ancient. mdw ;-)

Manmade Flood to Nourish Grand Canyon Ecosystem 56

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 05, 2008 @10:01PM from the two-of-every-kind-of-tourist dept.

Dr. Eggman writes "The Associated Press brings us news of a flood in the Grand Canyon. This flood is no ordinary flood, however. This is a man-made flood released from the Glen Canyon Dam. The Dam is releasing four to five times its normal amount of water over the course of a three day artificial flood. Scientists are conducting this massive experiment in order to document and better understand the complex relation of the aquatic habitats, natural floods, and the sediment they bring. Floods no longer bring sediment to these parts of the canyon as the Dam keeps it locked up and released in small, drawn out intervals. The Dam prevents the floods from bringing the sediments in to replenish the sandbars and allow the river to maintain its warm, murky habitat rather than a cool, clear one. It is thought that this cool clear environment brought on by the dam is responsible for helping to extinguish 4 species of fish and push 2 more towards the brink. It is hoped that this terra-reformation experiment will positively impact the habitat and fish populations, warranting further artificial floods at an increased rate of every one to two years rather than the time span between the two previous floods and this one of 8 and 4 years."

Will Mars be a One-way Trip? 724

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 05, 2008 @09:56PM from the please-send-paris-hilton dept.

alexj33 writes "Will humans ever really go to Mars? Let's face it, the obstacles are quite daunting. Not only are there numerous, difficult, technical issues to overcome, but the political will and perseverance of any one nation to undertake such an arduous task is huge. However, one former NASA engineer believes a human mission to Mars is quite possible, and such an event would unify the world as never before. But Jim McLane's proposal includes a couple of major caveats: the trip to Mars should be one-way, and have a crew of only one person."

Feed Science Daily: Hepatitis C Virus Affects Many Organs And Tissues, Not Just Liver (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed on Thursday January 17, 2008 @09:13PM

Hepatitis C virus is a major health problem worldwide, and more than 3 percent of the world's population is infected with HCV. Despite popular belief, HCV is not only a liver disease, but affects many organs, tissues, and systems.

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