Comment Counter assessing the impact of the spill (Score 1) 138
http://gulfspill.me/ has a nice embedable widget showing the ever increasing tally of oil spewing into the gulf.
Submission + - GUI Design Book Recommendations? 8
jetpack writes: I've always hated writing user interfaces, and graphical user interfaces in particular. However, I suspect that is largely because I have no clue how to write a *good* one. By this, I don't mean the technical aspects, like using the APIs and so on. I mean what are the issues in designing an interface that is clean, easy to understand and easy to use? What are things to be considered? What are things to be avoided? What are good over-all philosophies of UI design?
To this end, I'd like to pick up a book or two (or three) and get my learn on. I'd appreciate some book suggestions from the UI experts in the Slashdot crowd.
To this end, I'd like to pick up a book or two (or three) and get my learn on. I'd appreciate some book suggestions from the UI experts in the Slashdot crowd.
China's New Internet Plan 259
eldavojohn writes "The internet in China is diverging rapidly from the state that the rest of the world enjoys it. Recent news of China's leader, Hu Jintao, has revealed a strategy to distort it even further. Jintao is tackling the issue his Communist party is having with the youth of China that are too young to remember Chairman Mao and the fanaticism the populace had for him. A strategy he is proposing is 'cleaning up' China's internet & lacing it with a little propaganda like the need to 'Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere' online. The meeting notes also declared that 'Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance.'"
Feed Recoll: A search engine for the Linux desktop (slashdot.org)
Desktop search engines are all the rage these days. While Beagle may be the most popular desktop search engine for Linux, there are alternatives. If you are looking for a lightweight and easy-to-use yet powerful desktop search engine, you might want...
Submission + - When the Earth was purple
Ollabelle writes: It's always been a bit of a mystery why plants absorb red and blue light while reflecting green when the sun emits the most visible light in the green part of the spectrum. Now a theory has come up with one possible answer: that the first chlorophyll-utilizing microbes evolved to exploit the red-and-blue reflected light of older green-absorbing microbes, eventually out-competing them through greater efficiency and the rise of oxygen.
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070410_purp le_earth.html
[note to editor: I'm baffled how to tag this story to science, and nothing else. All the "topics" seem to be anything except 'off topic'. Thanks for any insight you can give.]
Feed Scientists Create Nano Nose Aimed At Sniffing Out Diseased Cells (sciencedaily.com)
Scientists have created a kind of molecular nose that uses nanoparticle-based sensors to sniff out and identify proteins. The sensors, which can be trained to detect a wide variety of proteins, could eventually serve as a medical diagnostic tool by sniffing out the proteins made by sickly cells.
Feed Recoll: A search engine for the Linux desktop (newsforge.com)
Desktop search engines are all the rage these days. While Beagle may be the most popular desktop search engine for Linux, there are alternatives. If you are looking for a lightweight and easy-to-use yet powerful desktop search engine, you might want to try Recoll Recoll. Unlike Beagle, Recoll doesn't require Mono, it's fast, and it's highly configurable. Recoll is based on Xapian, a mature open source search engine library that supports advanced features such as phrase and proximity search, relevance feedback, document categorization, boolean queries, and wildcard search.
Feed HP sues Acer again over patents (com.com)
In second suit against Acer in a month, HP seeks to prevent Taiwan-based PC maker from selling its computers in the U.S.
Feed Sony's Phil Harrison talks PS3 homebrew possibilities (engadget.com)
Filed under: Gaming
Given some of the bold statements that Sony's Phil Harrison has made, hinting at possible PlayStation 3 homebrew plans doesn't seem all that remarkable, but it's still nice to hear it coming from the source. While he unfortunately didn't get very specific, he certainly seemed to be open to the idea in a recent interview with Slashdot, saying that he fully supports "the notion of game development at home using powerful tools available to anyone," adding that he believes it's "a vital, crucial aspect of the future growth of our industry." He then went on to earn himself a bit of cred by talking about his Commodore 64 coding past, also citing Sony's Net Yaroze homebrew development kit for the PS1 as evidence of the company's openness to the idea. Let's just hope that any homebrew effort on the PS3 doesn't demand the same premium price that the Net Yaroze did.[Via Gamesindustry.biz]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Feed USB BB gun sports barrel-mounted webcam, ensures home security (engadget.com)
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Household
While there's certainly a variety of options to keep watch and protect your property from curious intruders, the latest branch of vCrib gives a new meaning to being on guard. Crafted by the designer of the Virtual Crib home automation software, the USB BB gun sports automatic firing, manual reloading, and the ability to fire based on commands given remotely on a PC. Moreover, the weapon actually packs a webcam on the barrel, allowing users to login via computer, tilt / swivel the gun with simple mouse flicks, and fire away if you spot any intruders within its broad line of sight. It shouldn't need mentioning that we'd make absolutely sure our landlord was cool with mounting a remotely-controlled weapon in the window, but if you need to take home security into your own hands (without actually being at home), be sure to click on through to see this controversial creation spittin' hot fury.Continue reading USB BB gun sports barrel-mounted webcam, ensures home security
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Star Wars, the Lost Interviews 133
smooth wombat writes "Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Release of Star Wars, Ballantine Books is publishing J.W. Rinzler's "The Making of Star Wars", which bills itself as "The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film." The book is the result of Rinzler's discovery of interviews that Charles Lippincott, Lucasfilm's VP marketing and merchandising in the mid-'70s, conducted with the film's principals between 1975 and 1978."
Feed Theory Predicts Aging Process In DVDs, Plexiglas, Other Polymer Glasses (sciencedaily.com)
Polymer glasses are versatile plastics widely used in applications ranging from aircraft windshields to DVDs. Scientists have now developed a theory that predicts how these materials age. The theory also explains why motions at the molecular level can have macroscopic consequences.
Feed Got a question for Obama or Clinton? Join the online debate (com.com)
Charlie Rose-hosted presidential debates on Yahoo, Slate and The Huffington Post to let voters query candidates, assess performance.
Feed Google logo take Earth Day temperature (com.com)
Blog: Sunday was Earth Day, and like many tech companies, Google did its part to celebrate the environment and eco-awareness. The company...
AMD's Barcelona to Outpace Intel by 50% 199
Gr8Apes writes "AMD is upping the performance numbers for Barcelona by stating that "Barcelona will have a 50% advantage over Clovertown in floating point applications and 20% in integer performance 'over the competition's highest-performing quad-core processor at the same frequency'". AMD also claims that the new 3.0 GHz Opterons beat comparable Intel Xeon 5100 series processors in three server-specific benchmarks (SPECint_rate_2006, SPECint_rate2006, SPECompM2001) by up to 24%."
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The answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is... Four day work week, Two ply toilet paper!
