mgar - Slashdot User

Life-size Eva Unit 01 Being Built In Japan 80

Posted by samzenpus on Friday May 14, 2010 @01:03PM from the summon-godzilla dept.

JoshuaInNippon writes "Japan has gone life-size anime model crazy. Last year there was the robotic 1:1 Gundam model that guarded Tokyo for a few months in the summer to mark the series' 30th anniversary, and then there was the giant Gigantor moment that opened in Kobe in the fall in honor of the city's rejuvenation from the devastating 1995 earthquake. Now, an amusement park near Mt. Fuji named Fuji-Q Highland is building an Eva Unit 01 from the popular Neon Genesis Evangelion series, or at least a bust of it, in conjunction with the series' recent movies. The bust will sit in a replica hanger, and reportedly stand around 9 meters tall. Visitors will have the chance, for a little extra money, to have their photo taken in the unit's cockpit, where the series' protagonist-of-sorts Shinji Ikari normally sits. The attraction is set to a cost of over US$1.6 million to build, and open on July 23 of this year. It will also undoubtedly be swamped by crazed fans looking the opportunity to bring their anime dreams to life."

7 of the Best Free Linux Calculators 289

Posted by timothy on Saturday January 30, 2010 @08:36PM from the open-in-tabs dept.

An anonymous reader writes "One of the basic utilities supplied with any operating system is a desktop calculator. These are often simple utilities that are perfectly adequate for basic use. They typically include trigonometric functions, logarithms, factorials, parentheses and a memory function. However, the calculators featured in this article are significantly more sophisticated with the ability to process difficult mathematical functions, to plot graphs in 2D and 3D, and much more. Occasionally, the calculator tool provided with an operating system did not engender any confidence. The classic example being the calculator shipped with Windows 3.1 which could not even reliably subtract two numbers. Rest assured, the calculators listed below are of precision quality."

Researchers Pooh-Pooh Algae-Based Biofuel 238

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 21, 2010 @04:56PM from the feed-it-pooh-pooh-undies dept.

Julie188 writes "Researchers from the University of Virginia have found that current algae biofuel production methods consume more energy, have higher greenhouse gas emissions and use more water than other biofuel sources, such as switchgrass, canola and corn. The researchers suggest these problems can be overcome by situating algae production ponds behind wastewater treatment facilities to capture phosphorous and nitrogen — essential algae nutrients that otherwise need to come from petroleum."

Apple Patches Massive Holes In OS X 246

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 20, 2010 @05:23PM from the well-it-wouldn't-be-polite-to-patch-windows dept.

Trailrunner7 writes with this snippet from ThreatPost: "Apple's first Mac OS X security update for 2010 is out, providing cover for at least 12 serious vulnerabilities. The update, rated critical, plugs security holes that could lead to code execution vulnerabilities if a Mac user is tricked into opening audio files or surfing to a rigged Web site." Hit the link for a list of the highlights among these fixes.

Tower Switch-Off Embarrasses Electrosensitives 292

Posted by samzenpus on Friday January 15, 2010 @03:03PM from the radiation-placebo dept.

Sockatume writes "Residents in Craigavon, South Africa complained of '[h]eadaches, nausea, tinnitus, dry burning itchy skins, gastric imbalances and totally disrupted sleep patterns' after an iBurst communications tower was put up in a local park. Symptoms subsided when the residents left the area, often to stay with family and thus evade their suffering. At a public meeting with the afflicted locals, the tower's owners pledged to switch off the mast immediately to assess whether it was responsible for their ailments. One problem: the mast had already been switched off for six weeks. Lawyers representing the locals say their case against iBurst will continue on other grounds."

Attractive Open Source Search Interfaces? 65

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 13, 2010 @04:22PM from the you'll-have-this-ansi-terminal-and-like-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I work for a company that manages an online database for the political market. We add to this DB daily with updates from a variety of sources and our customers then search through this content via our Solr/Lucene search engine. My problem is, our search interface is a little, well, basic and I would love to know if there are any feature-rich open source alternatives out there. The only one I can find is Flamenco, and while that seems strong on categorisation, that seems to be about the height of it."

Mars Images Reveal Evidence of Ancient Lakes 128

Posted by timothy on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @11:39AM from the older-I-get-the-wetter-mars-was dept.

Matt_dk writes "Spectacular satellite images suggest that Mars was warm enough to sustain lakes three billion years ago, a period that was previously thought to be too cold and arid to sustain water on the surface, according to research published today in the journal Geology. Earlier research had suggested that Mars had a warm and wet early history but that between 4 billion and 3.8 billion years ago, before the Hesperian Epoch, the planet lost most of its atmosphere and became cold and dry. In the new study, the researchers analysed detailed images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently circling the red planet, and concluded that there were later episodes where Mars experienced warm and wet periods."

Antarctic's First Plane, Found In Ice 110

Posted by timothy on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @10:11AM from the ice-tractor-cometh dept.

Arvisp writes "In 1912 Australian explorer Douglas Mawson planned to fly over the southern pole. His lost plane has now been found. The plane – the first off the Vickers production line in Britain – was built in 1911, only eight years after the Wright brothers executed the first powered flight. For the past three years, a team of Australian explorers has been engaged in a fruitless search for the aircraft, last seen in 1975. Then on Friday, a carpenter with the team, Mark Farrell, struck gold: wandering along the icy shore near the team's camp, he noticed large fragments of metal sitting among the rocks, just a few inches beneath the water."

Apple Orders 10 Million Tablets? 221

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday January 04, 2010 @03:11PM from the pricepoint-better-be-right dept.

Arvisp writes "According to a blog post by former Google China president Kai-Fu Lee, Apple plans to produce nearly 10 million tablets in the still-unannounced product's first year. If Lee's blog post is to be believed, Apple plans to sell nearly twice as many tablets as it did iPhones in the product's first year."

Artificial Gecko Adhesive, Now In Experimental Glue 102

Posted by timothy on Friday October 10, 2008 @05:45PM from the will-arrive-one-day-before-singularity dept.

thefickler writes "Scientists at the University of Dayton have created a peel-on, peel-off glue which mimics the wall-climbing abilities of Spiderman. The substance, based on the feet of the Gecko lizard, is three times stickier than existing adhesives. The material is so strong that a 4×4mm pad would be enough to hold a 1.5kg object such as a hardcover book. However, it's likely too expensive for consumer use: one British scientist calculates that a single Post-it note using the glue would cost around a thousand dollars." We've mentioned the possibilities of synthetic gecko technology several times before, including as applied in this wall-climbing robot; commercial applications have seemed just around the corner for a while now.

Cell Users As Bad As Drunk Drivers 738

Posted by Zonk on Friday June 30, 2006 @02:57PM from the eyes-on-the-road dept.

An anonymous reader writes "News.com reports on a cell-phone use study which confirms that talking on your cell is as bad as being drunk, when it comes to driving skill. The researchers studied 40 volunteers in a driving simulator." From the article: "[The subjects were observed] while undistracted, using a handheld cell phone, using a hands-free cell phone and while intoxicated to a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level--the average legal level of impairment in the United States--after drinking vodka and orange juice. Three study participants rear-ended the simulated car in front of them. All were talking on cell phones and none was drunk, the researchers said."

Comment Re:Complaints about Linux (Score 1) 586

by mgar on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @10:17PM (#15063146) Attached to: Negroponte Responds to $100 Laptop Criticisms

There nothing stopping this project from using a custom Linux distribution with a custom Kernel. The distribution could be customized by region to reduce the size. The open source modular concept seems much more attractive for this kind of project than any flavor of Windows with all of its attached baggage.

Slashdot Top Deals