rockus - Slashdot User

How To Make Money With Free Software 81

Posted by kdawson on Monday November 03, 2008 @09:14AM from the coin-of-the-realm dept.

bmsleight writes "The Dutch Ministry of Finance organized an architecture competition to design not a building, but rather the new 5-Euro commemorative coin. The theme was 'Netherlands and Architecture'. The winning design was made 100% with free software, mainly Python, but also including The Gimp, Inkscape, Phatch, and Ubuntu. The design is amazing — the head of Queen Beatrix is made up of the names of architects based on their popularity in Yahoo searches (rendered in a font of the artist's own devising). In the end the artist, Stani Michiels, had to collaborate closely on location with technicians of the Royal Dutch Mint, so all the last bits were done on his Asus Eee PC. Soon, 350,000 Dutch people will use and enjoy the fruits of free software."

Blue Lights To Reset Internal Clocks 332

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 20, 2008 @02:28AM from the you-can-sleep-when-you-are-dead dept.

holy_calamity writes "Researchers at RPI are testing the effects of putting blue LEDs inside cars to keep drivers alert. People driving through the night are much more likely to cause accidents because our circadian rhythms just want to sleep — blue light at around 450nm wavelength can fool them into thinking it's morning and keep them awake."

Comment Re:What about Gallileo (if it was operative) (Score 1) 772

by rockus on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @09:36AM (#5543529) Attached to: U.S. May Reduce Non-Military GPS Accuracy

Not at all.

Galileo is designed and will be operated as a Civilian system with additional features. Some of these features are that you can rely not only the accuracy of data but also on their integrity. The model is such that you can buy the guarantee that the system will work and delivers correct data. As there is no single military body involved, there won't be any degradation of the signal (esp. since such a functionality isn't built int in the first place).

The whole concept and orientation of the two systems (GPS and Galileo; Glonass doesn't really count) is completely different, the one a military system turned public, the other a public-private system useable by anyone with additional services depending on contract.

So, no, there wouldn't be any degradation would Galileo be operational.

And I don't even touch on the political aspects of all that...

Slashdot Top Deals