Comment Re:By Neruos (Score 1) 162
If so I would dd dump the drive and bit scan it. Would be neat to pull out an old unreleased work that he scratched.
Comment Good Piece of History (Score 1) 162
I bet it'll go for 3-4k. If they were to auction it for charity I'd bet it'd easily go over 10k
Comment Re:No kidding (Score 1) 215
If you look at their actual web page and not the article it does say they paid $20 for the balloon (300g latex weather balloon) and around $30 for the helium.
So yeah it looks like it is within the reach of mortals now :)
Probably to late in the year to do it now, but I'm definitely going to do this next spring/summer.
Comment Cost of Balloon? (Score 1) 215
I love articles like this, and I've dreamed of doing a similiar project. While the costs of the equipment is doable and with a little know how you can get a rig together for less than $200 it's the flight that cost so much.
Does the $150 cover the weather balloon and the tank(s) of helium it took to get the payload there? If so I'd love to know where they bought it. Last time I priced a modest balloon it was in the $500-$1k US range (just for the balloon).
Comment More info please (Score 1) 45
Perhaps I'm the only one who doesnt understand what this is, can someone else elaborate?
From my understanding of the page these are programs if given a dataset or description of a dataset can tell you how that data was derived. I can see this being useful in AI. If you have significant dataset of possibilities and trying to yield the best algorithm you could spawn a million children processes with their own genetic algorithm to come up with variations.
Perhaps I'm way off. Would like some clarification or pointers to more info.
Submission + - New failsafe graphics mode for Ubuntu (arstechnica.com)
ianare writes: Ubuntu Xorg maintainer Bryce Harrington recently demonstrated the BulletProof-X feature that is planned for inclusion in Ubuntu 7.10. It provides a failsafe mode which will ensure that users never have to manually configure their graphics hardware settings from the command line. If Xorg fails to start, the failsafe mode will initiate with minimalistic settings, low resolution, and a limited number of colors. The failsafe mode also automatically runs Ubuntu's new GTK-based display configuration utility so that users can easily test various display settings and choose a configuration that will work properly with their hardware. Features like BulletProof-X deliver tangible usability improvements that contribute to a more positive user experience.
Submission + - Doom and Gloom for web radio (dailytech.com)
An anonymous reader writes: DailyTech posted interviews with the founder of Pandora and management from Proton Radio (and Proton Music) asking them what SoundExchange's latest rulings mean to them. A lot of net radio stations are dreading the upcoming changes in royalty rates, which are said to be around 400%... a number that would bankrupt most of the industry. An interesting read for anyone who uses online radio...
Submission + - NASA Employees fight invasive background check (iht.com)
Electron Barrage writes: "Longtime JPL scientists, many of whom do not work on classified materials, including rover drivers and Apollo veterans, sued NASA, Caltech, and the Department of Commerce today to fight highly invasive background checks, which include financial information, any and all retail business transactions, and even sexual orientation."
Submission + - Wine 0.9.44 released (winehq.org)
jshriverWVU writes: "This is release 0.9.44 of Wine, a free implementation of Windows on Unix.
What's new in this release: — Better heuristics for making windows managed. — Automatic detection of timezone parameters. — Improvements to the builtin WordPad. — Better signatures support in crypt32. — Still more gdiplus functions. — Lots of bug fixes."
$298 Wal-Mart PC Has OO.org, No Crapware 422
cristarol writes "Wal-Mart has begun selling a $298 PC (Everex IMPACT GC3502). It comes with Windows Vista Home Basic and OpenOffice.org 2.2, as well as a complete lack of crapware: 'Users accustomed to being bombarded with trialware offers and seeing their would-be pristine Windows desktops littered with shortcuts to AOL and other applications will likely be pleased at their absence from the GC3502.' The machine is targeted at the back-to-school market. The hardware is nothing to write home about: a 1.5GHz Via C7 with 1GB of RAM and integrated graphics, but as Ars points out, it should be more than capable of performing basic tasks." Dell sells a low-end PC through Wal-Mart for $200 more, and one assumes it is loaded with crapware. Anybody know for sure?
Submission + - Paul McCartney on music in the digital world
Rachhpal writes: "Paul McCartney, ex-Beatles member, will release his new album today, "Memory Almost Full".
In an interview with L.A. Times, he indicated ending his long time relationship with EMI and making his album fully downloadable through his new relationship with Starbucks' new Hear Music Label.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-mc cartney3jun03,1,1265126.story?track=rss&ctrack=2&c set=true
Some of his comments on the music industry currently from the interview:
"I was bored with the old record company's jaded view," McCartney says, .....
"They're very confused, and they will admit it themselves: that this is a new world, and they're a little bit at a loss as to what to do. So they've got millions of dollars and X budget ... for them to come up with boring ways — because they've been at it for so long — to what they call 'market' it. And I find that all a bit disturbing."
Alan Cox on Patent Law and GPLv3 191
tykev writes "Linux kernel guru Alan Cox talks about kernel features, cooperation with hardware vendors, and software patents. From the interview: 'I don't think [Microsoft's patent threats] are the biggest danger. As Microsoft has been finding out recently it is the patent trolls, and organisations with buried patents in interesting areas that are the biggest threat in the USA. The real answer to that problem, however, is to pull the USA back into line with the majority of the world which simply does not recognize patents on software but respects them as literary works subject to copyright law.'"
Submission + - Which ISPs Are Spying on You? (wired.com)
firesquirt writes: In an article from WIRED
http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/20 07/05/isp_privacy
The few souls that attempt to read and understand website privacy policies know they are almost universally unintelligible and shot through with clever loopholes. But one of the most important policies to know is your internet service provider's — the company that ferries all your traffic to and from the internet, from search queries to BitTorrent uploads, flirty IMs to porn.
Privacy Group Gives Google Lowest Possible Grade 260
The Washington Post is reporting on a finding by London-based group Privacy International. In a new report, they find that Google has some of the worst privacy-protection practices anywhere on the web, giving them the lowest possible grade. "While a number of other Internet companies have troubling policies, none comes as close to Google to 'achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy,' Privacy International said in an explanation of its findings. In a statement from one of its lawyers, Google said it aggressively protects its users' privacy and stands behind its track record. In its most conspicuous defense of user privacy, Google last year successfully fought a U.S. Justice Department subpoena demanding to review millions of search requests."
MySpace Gets False Positive In Sex Offender Search 345
gbulmash writes "In its eagerness to clear sex offenders off its site and publish their identities, MySpace identified an innocent woman as a sex offender. She shares a name and birth month with a sex offender who lives in a neighboring state and that was apparently enough to get MySpace to wrongly brand her and completely ignore her protests."
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The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems is a symptom of professional immaturity. -- Edsger Dijkstra
