dslamguy - Slashdot User

Denver Airport Overrun by Car-Eating Rabbits 278

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 14, 2010 @12:14PM from the night-of-the-lepus dept.

It turns out the soy-based wire covering on cars built after 2002 is irresistible to rodents. Nobody knows this better than those unlucky enough to park at DIA's Pikes Peak lot. The rabbits surrounding the area have been using the lot as an all-you-can-eat wiring buffet. Looks like it's time to break out The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

New York To Spend $27.5 Million Uncapitalizing Street Signs 322

Posted by samzenpus on Friday October 01, 2010 @12:48PM from the beware-the-big-letters dept.

250,000 street signs in New York City feature street names in capital letters only, which is not the national standard. Having no other issues on the table, The New York City Department of Transportation has decided to fix the problem and put up proper signs featuring both capital and lower-case letters at a cost of $27.5 million. The Transportation Department hopes to have the job completed by 2018 with 11,000 of the most important improperly capitaled signs fixed by the end of the year. Catastrophe averted.

"Choose Your Own Adventure" On Your iPhone 135

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday August 18, 2010 @04:54AM from the turn-to-page-14 dept.

If you spent a good portion of your childhood reading the classic "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, you'll be glad to know that you can soon waste countless hours at work turning to random pages on your iPhone. Edward Packard, one of the original authors of the series, has helped create an app called U-Ventures which uses special effects to create a story in the traditional Choose Your Own Adventure format. From the article: "The first U-Venture is a sort of a sequel to a classic title, The Cave of Time. In 'Return to the Cave of Time,' the U-Venture, 'you go back in the cave — you don't have a choice on that,' Packard tells NPR's Neal Conan. But from that point on, the reader chooses her own course."

New Mars Rover Rolls For the First Time 100

Posted by Soulskill on Friday July 30, 2010 @02:56PM from the keep-them-doggies-rollin dept.

wooferhound writes "Like proud parents savoring their baby's very first steps, mission team members gathered in a gallery above a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to watch the Mars Curiosity rover roll for the first time. Engineers and technicians wore bunny suits while guiding Curiosity through its first steps, or more precisely, its first roll on the clean room floor. The rover moved forward and backward about 1 meter (3.3 feet). Mars Science Laboratory (aka Curiosity) is scheduled to launch in fall 2011 and land on the Red Planet in August 2012. Curiosity is the largest rover ever sent to Mars. It will carry 10 instruments that will help search an intriguing region of the Red Planet for two things: environments where life might have existed, and the capacity of those environments to preserve evidence of past life."

Cheap Cancer Drug Finally Tested In Humans 363

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 13, 2010 @05:16PM from the good-enough-for-the-likes-of-you dept.

John Bayko writes "Mentioned on Slashdot a couple of years ago, the drug dichloroacetate (DCA) has finally finished its first clinical trial against brain tumors in humans. Drug companies weren't willing to test a drug they could not patent, so money was raised in the community through donations, auctions, and finally government support, but the study was still limited to five patients. It showed extremely positive results in four of them. This episode raises the question of what happens to all the money donated to Canadian and other cancer societies, and especially the billions spent buying merchandise with little pink ribbons on it, if not to actual cancer research like this."

Man Swallows USB Flash Drive Evidence 199

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 03, 2010 @12:37PM from the chew-it-up dept.

SlideRuleGuy writes "In a bold and bizarre attempt to destroy evidence seized during a federal raid, a New York City man grabbed a flash drive and swallowed the data storage device while in the custody of Secret Service agents. Records show Florin Necula ingested the Kingston flash drive shortly after his January 21 arrest outside a bank in Queens. A Kingston executive said it was unclear if stomach acid could damage one of their drives. 'As you might imagine, we have no actual experience with someone swallowing a USB.' I imagine that would be rather painful. But did he follow his mother's advice and chew thoroughly, first? Apparently not, as the drive was surgically recovered."

Comment Not a problem which should be solved (Score 2, Insightful) 68

by dslamguy on Friday February 17, 2006 @11:29AM (#14742285) Attached to: Choosing an Embedded OS for Sustainability?

I have been developing embedded systems for over 20 years and I have never seen the need to upgrade the OS. Never! The beauty of an embedded system is that the user does not see the OS and really does not (or should not) care what it is. You are going through a development cycle and if you do your job well, you will be fixing most problems during the development cycle before the first release and immediately after. Over the years, you will be in a maintenance mode and you will only be fixing some functionality problems.

You will NEVER want to destabilize your product and have significant retesting by upgrading the Kernel or OS. Why? What new features in the OS matter to your customers? After all the OS is not your product and the customer should not care. Keep in mind that the OS vendors will be trying to get you to distribute upgrades, but resist the temptation. You will be spending money for no reason.

When you need to develop phase II of the product, its a different ball-game. Then you can use a new version of the OS, or a different OS. The point is, you are not "upgrading" your kernel, you are developing an evolution of your product on a new OS. Different mindset.

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