Comment Re:crap (Score 1) 166
Come out to Cambridge/Boston and visit Elements at Phoenix Landing. Longest running DnB night in the US at 15 years nearly. Preferred format by many DJs is still vinyl on 1200s. You can keep your dubstep and prog house.
Rusty Foster Isn't Dead 162
While he was vacationing with his wife, Kuro5hin founder Rusty Foster was killed — at least in the eyes of Facebook. NBC News details how it happened: a "pal" pranked both Foster and Facebook by notifying the social site of Foster's supposed death, providing as documentation the obituary of another, much older man by the same name. Getting the Facebook version of his life back took some doing; based on this article it seems much easier to convince Facebook that you're dead than that you're alive.
Goldbach Conjecture: Closer To Solved? 170
mikejuk writes "The Goldbach conjecture is not the sort of thing that relates to practical applications, but they used to say the same thing about electricity. The Goldbach conjecture is reasonably well known: every integer can be expressed as the sum of two primes. Very easy to state, but it seems very difficult to prove. Terence Tao, a Fields medalist, has published a paper that proves that every odd number greater than 1 is the sum of at most five primes. This may not sound like much of an advance, but notice that there is no stipulation for the integer to be greater than some bound. This is a complete proof of a slightly lesser conjecture, and might point the way to getting the number of primes needed down from at most five to at most 2. Notice that no computers were involved in the proof — this is classical mathematical proof involving logical deductions rather than exhaustive search."
Submission + - The RMS Rider (mysociety.org)
larry bagina writes: It's no secret that rock stars have riders — provisions on their contractual appearances that require a bowl of brown-free m&ms or specify the exact brand of bottled water, cocaine purity, etc. Well, Richard Stallman has his own list of provisions. Nothing about toe jam, oddly enough.
I can't wait to see Eric Raymond's rider!
I can't wait to see Eric Raymond's rider!
Prototyping Boards Make It Easier To Find Flaws in Specialized Hardware 56
wiredmikey writes "Author Robert Vamosi writes an interesting piece on how security researchers are using open source 'prototyping boards' and other open source tools now available via the Internet for rapid prototyping of tools used in hardware analysis. 'The days of saying it would take the resources of a nation-state to discover or exploit vulnerabilities in a particular piece of hardware in an industrial control system or a healthcare environment are rapidly fading,' he writes. Vendors who do not test their products before selling them into the field are doomed to be targets of future research and, perhaps, attacks."
Comment card? (Score 1) 190
What is a SAN memory card?
Submission + - Music while programming 6
BubbaDoom writes: In our cublicle-ville, we have programmers intermixed with accounting, customer support and marketing. As a programmer, it is our habit to put on our headphones and listen to our portable music players to drown out all of the noise from everyone else. The boss recently sent an email just to the programmers demanding that we do not use our music players at work because he thinks it distracts us from our jobs and causes us to make mistakes. Of course we've explained to him that the prattle from the other people is much much more distracting but he insists his policy is the right one. What is the /. community's experience with music at work for programmers?
Comment Re:Already using 1.6 more or less. (Score 1) 69
Do these unofficial builds include Google-sanctions apps such as Gmail, Google Maps, etc? Without those, the functionality of the phone decreases to near zero for me.
New DVDs For 1,000-Year Digital Storage 274
anonymous cowpie sends word of a Utah startup that is about to introduce technology for writing DVDs that can be read for 1,000 years after being stored at room temperature. (Ordinary DVDs last anywhere from 3 to 12 years, on average.) The company, Millenniata, is said to be in the final stages of negotiation with Phillips over patent licensing and plans to begin manufacture in September. 1,000-year "M-ARC Discs" are expected to retail for $25-$30 at first, with the price coming down with volume. "Dubbed the Millennial Disk, it looks virtually identical to a regular DVD, but it's special. Layers of hard, 'persistent' materials (the exact composition is a trade secret) are laid down on a plastic carrier, and digital information is literally carved in with an enhanced laser using the company's Millennial Writer, a sort of beefed-up DVD burner. Once cut, the disk can be read by an ordinary DVD reader on your computer."
Comment Re:Urban jungles (Score 1) 538
Likewise, if you head 25 minutes west of Boston via 90 you'll hit MetroWest (Framingham, Natick, Ashland, Hopkinton, Holliston) where housing is relatively affordable and large lots of land can be had. The Commuter Rail goes into Boston at a regular and convenient schedule, so if you work in Boston and live in MetroWest you can save a lot of money on gas by taking the train every day.
Comment Re:Unexplained Achievement "The Maker"? (Score 1) 1582
I can't wait for Slashdot V: The Trolls Strike Back.
Psystar Claims Apple Forgot To Copyright Mac OS 648
Preedit writes "Mac cloner Psystar is claiming in new court papers that Apple's copyright suit against it should be dismissed, because Apple has never filed for copyright protection on Mac OS X 10.5 with the US Copyright Office. Infoweek is reporting that the claim, if it holds up, could open the door for third-parties to enter the Mac market without fear of legal action from Apple. In its latest set of allegations, Psystar is also accusing Apple of bricking Macs that don't run on genuine Apple hardware." We've been following the Psystar-Apple imbroglio since the beginning.
Comment Not even close (Score 1, Insightful) 294
Yawn. Lame. This isn't even close to the high density, high performance machines from my friends at SiCortex. If you're a serious player in HPC-land, the SiCortex machines have you salivating. I'm not trying to sound like an advertisement but they're simply awesome machines. Up to 5832 64-bit MIPS processors running Linux in a relatively small footprint. I don't have a direct connection to the company but I've worked closely with them in the past and it's the real deal. Check it out - SiCortex.com
Submission + - WARNING: driver updates causing Vista deactivation (apcmag.com)
KrispySausage writes: "After weeks of gruelling troubleshooting, I've finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA — something as small as swapping the video card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation.
Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half an hour.
How can this ridiculous situation occur, and what is Microsoft's response... read on."
Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half an hour.
How can this ridiculous situation occur, and what is Microsoft's response... read on."
Firefox 3.0 Makes Leap Forward 401
Kurtz'sKompund writes "Mozilla has announced that Firefox 3.0 has passed a major milestone! The Places feature has been added to the alpha client slated for release next week. Places is a complete re-work of the bookmarking and history browser functions. It was at one point slated for Firefox 2.0, but will instead see release in Mozilla's next major version. '"We enabled the Places implementation of bookmarks on the trunk," said the Places team in a post to the Mozilla developer center blog. "Although there is still much to be done, this is an important milestone for us." Firefox 3.0 alpha 5 is scheduled to launch June 1. Because Places uses the open-source SQLite database engine to store and retrieve bookmarks and history entries, it's incompatible with earlier Firefox editions' bookmarks. Alpha users must convert their existing entries, Mozilla developers said."
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The perversity of nature is nowhere better demonstrated by the fact that, when exposed to the same atmosphere, bread becomes hard while crackers become soft.
