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Comment Re:What makes GNU so special, anyway? (Score 1) 521

by jguthrie (#56617076) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Is It Linux or GNU/Linux?
I have a theory about why rms is so insistent that Linux be called "GNU/Linux" and it has nothing to do with the explanation he gives, which I find completely nonpersuasive. Please, don't assume that I disagree with their reasoning because I don't understand it and, therefore, explain it to me in an attempt to convince me. I understand the logic, I merely disagree with it.

Anyway, in the mid-1990's there was a joke going around. I first heard it from my friend the FreeBSD fan. The joke?

Q: What's the difference between GNU and Linux?
A: Linux has a kernel that boots.

At about the time that joke came out, the FSF engaged in a major effort to get the GNU/HURD to boot. After many months of work, you could kind of get it to run, but it was in no way useful. Shortly after, rms started insisting that people call Linux GNU/Linux.

It sure looks like the major effort was a response to that joke and, when that effort failed, they decided to respond to the punchline "Linux has a kernel that boots" with "no, Linux IS a kernel that boots." I presume they thought that devastating. To me, it seemed pathetic. I mean, with all of their resources and more than a decade of work, they weren't able to do what Linus Torvalds did all by himself in a few weeks. I think that it's an excellent example of how hard "big bang" development is when compared to a more incremental style.

Comment Re:"Edge of Space" is 100 km (Score 4, Informative) 205

by jguthrie (#29521663) Attached to: HD Video From The Edge of Space, On the Cheap

100Km is about 328,000 feet. That's why Space Ship One had a tail number of N328KF.

Also, the North Texas Balloon Team and the South Texas Balloon Project routinely (with launches approximately annually) send balloons with video cameras to altitudes in excess of 100,000 feet. Those are just the two balloon projects I'm familiar with. I am sure there are others because it's not particularly hard to do.

So, this is pure ho-hum to me. Let me know when they've done it a couple of dozen times.
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Computer Scientists Grow a Better Virtual Tree

Submitted by
Reservoir Hill
Reservoir Hill writes: "Stanford computer scientist Vladlen Koltun says the inability of casual computer users to build 3-D objects — you practically have to be a sculptor — is an anchor holding back the promise of virtual worlds and games. "There is a very, very tiny community of people around the world who are skilled at creating three-dimensional objects," Koltun said. "And they are the ones who do it all." Koltun and his team set out to prove that object construction can be sophisticated without being difficult, beginning with trees. Botanists have already cataloged and categorized the trees of the real world in great detail. Koltun's group has incorporated that data into a powerful mathematical engine that creates trees using about 100 different tree attributes, all of them almost infinitely variable. How thick is the trunk? How big the leaves? How are the limbs spaced? The result is a new, intuitive way for individual users to create unique trees by simply using a mouse to seamlessly navigate through the entire "space of trees," changing appearances by changing direction. A gallery of trees and the software to create your own is available for free download."
Unix

Submission + - DIY CPU Demo'd Running Minix

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: Bill Buzbee offered the first public demonstration of the open-source Minix OS — a cousin of Linux — running on his homebrew minicomputer, the Magic-1, today at the Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View, Calif. The Magic-1 minicomputer is built with 74-series TTL ICs using wire-wrap construction, and implements a homebrew, 8086-like ISA. Rather than using a commercial microprocessor, Buzbee created his own microcoded CPU that runs at 4.09 MHz, and is in the same ballpark as an old 8086 in performance and capabilities. The CPU has a 22-bit physical address bus and an 8-bit data bus.
Microsoft

Submission + - Do OpenOffice users save in Microsoft format? (zdnet.co.uk) 8

Submitted by
superglaze
superglaze writes: "Looking through an article on the Series 60 office suite Quickoffice, I noted a claim by a company executive that OpenOffice users usually save their documents in a Microsoft (eg. .doc) format (hence no plans at Quickoffice to support .odf). I guess I can see the rationale for this — it helps if you're sending a document to an MS-using company — but what's the general /.-user's experience of this?"
Power

Submission + - Dr Bussard passes away, polywell fusion continues

Submitted by Vinz
Vinz writes: Dr Bussard, the man behind the Bussard Collector and inventor of the Polywell fusion device, passed away last Sunday in the morning. He leaves behins him a legacy of EM fusion devices, and a team determined to continue his efforts. The news of renewed funding for the construction of his WB-7 fusion devices made it to slashdot months ago (as well as his talk at google). They may be a serious candidate in the run to bring commercial fusion, and may work at lower scales than other projects.

Let's hope the project continues in good shape despite his departure.
Graphics

Submission + - GIMP 2 for Photographers

Submitted by
Jon Allen
Jon Allen writes: "Gimp 2 for Photographers
Book review by Jon Allen (JJ)
Book homepage: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1933952032/

A glance through any photography magazine will confirm that Adobe Photoshop is the accepted standard image editing software, offering almost unparalleled power and conrol over your images. However, costing more than many DSLR cameras, for non-professionals it can be a very hard purchase to justify (and of course for Linux users this is a moot point, as Photoshop is not available for their platform).

Luckily, the free software community has provided us with an alternative. The GIMP, or Gnu Image Manipulation Program, offers a huge amount of the power of Photoshop but is available at no cost. Additionally GIMP is cross-platform, available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix.

The one downside to using GIMP is that most magazines and photography books use Photoshop in their articles and tutorials, so if you do choose GIMP there's a bit more of a learning curve. Now once you're used to GIMP you'll find that many of Photoshop's features have equivalents, albeit with a different user interface, but getting that inital level of experience and familiarity with the software can be rather difficult. The GIMP does come with a manual, but it is really more of a reference guide and while very comprehensive it is not particuarly friendly for new users.

GIMP 2 for Photographers aims to rectify this.

Written clearly from a photographer's point of view (the author is a photographer who also teaches image editing), this book takes a task-oriented approach, looking at the types of editing operations that a photographer would require and then showing how to perform each task in the GIMP.

Rather helpfully, the GIMP software (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) is included on the book's accompanying CD. This means that you can follow each tutorial using the exact same version of software as the author, which really helps to build confidence that you're doing everything right.

I already have GIMP installed on OS X, so to test out the instructions in the book I performed an installation from the CD on a clean Microsoft Windows XP machine.

The exact filenames of the installation packages on the CD differ slightly from those in the accompanying README file, but the instructions in the book do list the correct files and after following this procedure the installation went without a hitch. The setup files do not ask any overly 'techy' questions, so it literally took less than 5 minutes to set up a fully working system.

As well as the GIMP application, the CD also includes all of the sample images used in the book, and for each editing tutorial the "final" image is provided so you can check your own work against the expected result.

Even more usefully, the CD contains an electronic copy of the complete book as a PDF file, so you can keep it on your laptop as a reference guide, invaluable when editing images on location (or on holiday!).

I'd have to say that this is without a doubt the most useful CD I've ever recieved with a book. Providing the applications and example files is good, giving readers instant gratification without needing to deal with downloads and websites (which may well have changed after the book went to press). But including the complete book on the CD as well is nothing short of a masterstroke, and something I'd love to see other publishers adopt.

So, the CD gets full marks but what about the book itself?

After showing how to install the software, the author takes us through basic GIMP operations — opening and saving files, cropping, resizing images, and printing. Once these basics are out of the way, the book moves on to a series of examples based on "real-life" image editing scenarios.

These examples are very well chosen, both in the fact that the vast majority of the technques shown are genuinely useful, but also in the way that they are ordered. Each example introduces a new feature of the software, building up your knowledge as you work through the book. By the end you can expect to be skilled not only in "standard" editing — adjusting colour balance, fixing red-eye, removing dust spots, and so on — but also in compositing, perspective correction, lighting and shadow effects, and building panoramic images.

Between the examples there is a good amount of more "reference" type material, with detailed descriptions of the various menus, toolbars, and dialogs you will encounter while using the software. Combined with lots of well-labelled screenshots this strikes a very good balance, ensuring that even after going through all the tutorials you'll still get value from the book as something to refer back to.

Overall the quality of the writing and general production standard is very high indeed. There are some points where it is noticable that the book was originally published in German, but this never becomes a stumbling block to the reader's understanding. Most importantly though, the author employs the "show, don't tell" philosophy throughout which is key to successful teaching.

In conclusion, I would have no hesitation in recommending GIMP 2 for Photographers to anyone with more than a passing interest in improving their photos. And even if you already use image editing software, the book is well worth a read — I have been using GIMP for several years and still learned a great deal. The accompanying CD is the icing on the cake, making GIMP 2 for Photographers a simply essential purchase."
Education

Submission + - Is Scientific Journalism Doomed? (wordpress.com)

Submitted by
scida
scida writes: "I have spent the better half of the past six months trying to understand one thing: how can you effectively present primary scientific literature to the general public? Is this even possible?

There are many facets of Scientific Journalism, but I am only concerned with one here. First, I am not focusing on the coverage scientific work in the development government policy, biographical coverage on individual scientists, or other "newsy" work. I am strictly concerned with the communication and education of the general public of primary scientific information (i.e. what scientists know and publish in their respective academic forums).

I recently attended an interesting seminar, titled, "The Informed Science Journalist: How Much Science Do You Need to Know?" led by UBC journalism Professor and Director of the School of Journalism, Stephen Ward. During the discussion, one theme in particular caught my attention: you don't have to have any background in science to write about science. Anyone with a keen interest for a field and sharp mind can write about anything, from philosophy to advanced string theory to climate modeling.

Is this true? Is a keen interest sufficient?

During the past few months, I have spent entire days locked up in my office, writing my first manuscript to be submitted to a peer reviewed scientific journal. While doing so, I have come to realize the following: details can change everything. There are a number of assumptions I have been forced to make while analyzing my data, many of which are critical for both my methodology and the development of few of my arguments. Why? Often, the information I require simply isn't available (the studies haven't been done, or the studies that exist are based on assumptions of their own).

Now, can someone unfamiliar with a particular field, nay, a sub-discipline of that field, recognize these assumptions for what they are? I can trace the lineage and development of a number of critical assumptions through my sub-discipline's literature that have proven to be incorrect. Ultimately, the focus of the entire field was reshaped, and its direction changed forever as a result of a few "estimations" and assumptions.

Similarly, last year I was involved in organizing a student directed seminar concerned with covering the seminal work of my field over the past 30 years. Three of us canvassed resident professors, professional researchers, and professors and grad students across the world (literally) asking them for their top 20 articles.

I was blown away: more than half of these papers had become nearly obsolete (nearly obsolete, simply because their work was in of itself worthy of admiration for its brilliance). Why? You guessed it — a few key assumptions proven to be incorrect.

How do you explain to someone the relative magnitude of these assumptions? I've often caught myself saying, "Well, 10% error is nothing to be worried about. It's the real world, things aren't that simple." Surely 10% isn't much, but what about 50%? 10 fold? I've come across all of these, and justified every one to my colleagues, all whom agreed with me.

Why? There exists a certain type of intuition associated with information — when you become very familiar with a topic, some things feel more or less "right". I have a 'feeling' what is more or less likely to hold up to scrutiny, just as I can usually tell if someone is trying to pull my lab coat over my eyes.

How, then, do you effectively cover a story laden with valid assumptions, some likely to be correct, many likely to be incorrect? Let us use climate models as an example. In order to avoid long computing times, the use of super computers, or simply (and usually) because the information does not exist, modelers are forced to typically make 100's of assumptions when devising their code. Now, I'm not saying these models are not at all useful. Smart modelers have determined ways of lining up their assumptions with observations of the real world (often, modelers must predict what we already know to verify their assumptions — i.e. does it work?).

Here, the same problem exists — how do you, the science journalist, determine which of these assumptions could bring the entire model crashing down? Furthermore, if such an linchpin exists, is it an important one? How important? Is it likely to be incorrect? How likely? Unfortunately, these questions have no definitive answers, except with respect to each other, and with respect to the particular researcher.

Thus, it appears only the 'scientist' can effectively explain the scope of their work to the general public, assuming they have that ability. The socially inept individuals aside, could the front-line scientists replace science journalists, since they are the most familiar with their own assumptions (and thus the likelihood they are wrong)?

I think the answer is fairly obvious — no. Scientists are humans, and humans have emotions (not all scientists put Spock up on his fairly deserved pedestal). Therefore, this is the same as asking a politician to tell his electorate how his motivation for running for office isn't a personal one. Following that argument, competing scientists could not cover their colleagues work either, for friendships or grudges might get in the way.

Who's left? Everyone on the fringe — those in other fields with a solid understanding in your own, without any of the personal relationships (previous supervisors/bosses/friends/foes/etc) to bias their opinion (there is always bias, but the point is to minimize it).

Does such a network exist? I do not think so. However, it is the only viable solution to a problem that will only get worse as time goes on, andthe leading and developing scientific theories further creep into our everyday lives — a international group of scientists dedicated to the self promotion of their trade via the coverage of their distant colleagues work. The only question is, would anyone scientists step up to such a cause?

Ultimately, I think the majority of the public doesn't truly understand what 'scientific theory' means — either they are overly suspicious of anything scientific, or overly accepting of the 'word of the white lab coats'. In either case, scientific journalists only add to this confusion when sensationalizing recently published work, only to be discredited (the scientists, not the journalists) when something new comes along.

I'm not a professional journalist, but I am a scientist. So, whether any of this was insightful — let me know. If any of it is ludicrous, throw a comment my way. If you have suggested readings, I will give you a giant hug."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Digital 'smiley face' turns 25 :-) (msn.com) 1

Submitted by
klubar
klubar writes: "Another milestone of online communications has been reached. The smiley turns 25 according Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman who says he was the first to use three keystrokes :-). It's sad that emotional icons, known as emoticons have replaced clear writing to communicate. Soon, we'll all go back to cave paintings (but they will be digital and in high resolution).

The inventor said "But it's always possible that someone else had the same idea — it's a simple and obvious idea, after all.", but at least he didn't try to patent the concept as one would do now."
Programming

Submission + - GCC Compiler will finally gets replace by BSD PCC. (undeadly.org)

Submitted by
Sunnz
Sunnz writes: "A leaner, lighter, faster, and most importantly, BSD Licensed Compiler PCC has been imported into OpenBSD's CVS and NetBSD's pkgsrc.

The compiler is based on the original Portable C Compiler by S. C. Johnson, written in the late 70's. Even though much of the compiler has been rewritten, some of the basics still remain.

It is currently not bug-free, but it compiles on x86 platform, and works being done on it to take on GCC's job."
Education

Submission + - Scientists create di-positronium molecules (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
doxology
doxology writes: "The BBC reports that scientists have been able to create di-positronium molecules. A di-positronium molecule consists of two positronium atoms, exotic atoms which are made from an electron and a positron (the anti-particle of the electron). A potential use of these molecules is to make extremely powerful gamma-ray lasers, possibly on sharks."
Television

Submission + - FCC: analog TV lives until 2012 (Ars Technica) (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by
walterbays
walterbays writes: ""The FCC voted 5-0 to require that cable operators must continue to make all local broadcasts available to their users, even those with analog televisions."

I don't understand how AT&T manages to deliver U-verse without any analog channels. Did they get it classified as not-cable and exempt from existing rules? Or as a result of this vote, will they suddenly have to drop 50 SD channels to make room for 5 NTSC channels?"

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