======================================================================
Choose the HP EVA 4400 when you need SAN storage with enterprise-class performance
and availability and simplified management and integration with key applications.
A Virtual storage System with enterprise-class performance and availability,
designed for storage environments supporting up to 96TB of data.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;196835415;25653286;s?https://h30406.www3.hp.com/campaigns/2008/promo/
1-4H6V4/index.php?mcc=DCGX&jumpid=ex_r2548_link//kimtsg/2Q08SWDEva4400/1-4H6V4/SourceForge_mcc|DCGX
======================================================================
Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* Beer-Drinking Scientist Debunks Productivity Correlation
* A New Tool From Google Worries Brand-Name Sites
* Nuclear Scanning Catches a Radioactive Cat On I-5
* California Edges Toward Joining Real ID Revolt
* FCC to Investigate D-Block Auction
* From "Happy Hacking" to "Screw You"
* Fixing the Unfairness of TCP Congestion Control
* Seagate May Sue if Solid State Disks Get Popular
* Why Microsoft Won't Have Blu-ray on the Xbox
* Does It Suck To Be An Engineering Student?
* Sun Turns to Lasers to Speed Up Computer Chips
* Another Web-Based Game Targeting Casual Gamers Launches
* Regular Expression Pocket Reference
* Hyper-Entangled Photons — 'Superdense' Coding Gets Denser
* Patriot Act Haunts Google Service
* Salasaga Fills Flash Creation Hole for Linux
* Graphene May be the New Silicon
* Mars Rovers Facing Budget Cuts
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Beer-Drinking Scientist Debunks Productivity Correlation |
| from the sipping-a-magnificent-pacific-northwest-microbrew-porter|
| posted by kdawson on Sunday March 23, @22:02 (Science) |
|
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/014238
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]austinpoet writes in with a blog post debunking the theory we
[1]discussed a few days back that scientists' beer consumption is
linearly correlated with the quality of their work. Chris Mack, Gentleman
Scientist and beer drinker, has [2]analyzed the paper and found it is
severely flawed. From his analysis: "The discovered linear relationship
between beer consumption and scientific output had a correlation
coefficient (R-squared) of only about 0.5 ��� not very high by my
standards, though I suspect many biologists would be happy to get one
that high in their work... Thus, the entire study came down to only one
conclusion: the five worst ornithologists in the Czech Republic drank a
lot of beer."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/014238
Links:
0. http://www.freespeechart.com/
1. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/19/0211242&tid=146
2. http://life.lithoguru.com/index.php?itemid=119
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| A New Tool From Google Worries Brand-Name Sites |
| from the first-they-came-for-the-new-york-times dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Monday March 24, @01:31 (Google) |
|
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/0143246
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Google has quietly introduced a new feature, called search-within-search,
that is [0]alarming some big-name Web publishers and retailers. They
worry that users will be siphoned away through ad sales to competitors.
What Google is doing is offering a secondary search option if the user
initially searches explicitly for one of the brand-name destinations that
Google has identified, such as "Best Buy." This secondary search lets
users refine their query entirely within the pages of the desired site ���
but using Google's search, not the site's, and showing Google ads on the
result pages, quite possibly ads from competitors. "Analysts generally
praise the feature as helping users save steps, but for Web publishers
and retailers, there are trade-offs... 'Google is showing a level of
aggressiveness with this that's just not needed,' said [one Internet
consultant]... Take, for instance, a [test where] users of Google
searched The Washington Post and were given a secondary search box. Those
who typed 'jobs' into that second box saw related results for The Post's
employment pages, but the results were bordered by ads for competing
employment sites like CareerBuilder or Monster.com. So even though users
began the process by stating their intention to reach The Post, Google's
ads steered at least some of them to competitors. Similar situations
arose when users relied on Google to search nytimes.com."
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/0143246
Links:
0. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/business/media/24ecom.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Nuclear Scanning Catches a Radioactive Cat On I-5 |
| from the paging-dr.-schrodinger-line-4-please dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Monday March 24, @04:09 (It's funny. Laugh.|
|
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/0035229
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Jeff recommends Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat's story from a
community meeting with Northwest border control agents. Seems their
[1]monitoring for dirty bombs from the median of Interstate 5 caught a
car transporting a radioactive cat. "It turns out the feds have been
monitoring Interstate 5 for nuclear 'dirty bombs.' They do it with
radiation detectors so sensitive it led to the following incident.
'Vehicle goes by at 70 miles per hour... Agent is in the median, a good
80 feet away from the traffic. Signal went off and identified an isotope
[in the passing car]. The agent raced after the car, pulling it over not
far from the monitoring spot.' Did he find a nuke? 'Turned out to be a
cat with cancer that had undergone a radiological treatment three days
earlier.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/0035229
Links:
0. http://www.idealog.us/
1. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2004300343_danny23.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| California Edges Toward Joining Real ID Revolt |
| from the blinking-every-time dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Monday March 24, @08:03 (Privacy) |
|
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/0225254
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
The Department of Homeland Security's [0]Real ID program has a real
challenge on its hands from California. DHS had said it will only grant
extensions from the Real ID rules taking effect on May 11 to states that
apply by March 31 and promise to implement Real ID by 2010. California
requested an extension but would not make the latter promise. DHS buckled
and said, in effect, "Good enough." Perhaps they realized that trying to
slap giant California around is qualitatively different than doing the
same to New Hampshire. In another crack in the wall. DHS has [1]granted
Montana a waiver it explicitly did not ask for. From Wired: "For a short
moment Thursday, millions of Californians were in danger of facing
pat-downs at the airport and being blocked from federal buildings come
May 11... DHS had said before Thursday it won't grant Real ID extensions
to states who don't commit to implementing the rules in the future. That
meant Tuesday's letter looked like enough to join California to the small
rebellion against the Real ID rules. For Californians that would mean
enduring the same fate facing citizens of South Carolina, Maine, Montana,
and New Hampshire... [A]fter Threat Level provided Homeland Security
spokesman Laura Keehner with the letter, Keehner said California's
commitment to thinking about commitment is good enough."
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/0225254
Links:
0. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/california-back.html
1. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hGWEcbtYTTl9RTiO3YS_POnaYJ9gD8VII6T80
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| FCC to Investigate D-Block Auction |
| from the messing-with-the-system dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 24, @08:54 (Government) |
|
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/1224231
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]eweekhickins writes "Feds and public interest groups are taking
seriously [1]accusations that someone tampered with the wireless spectrum
auction process. The block of spectrum that was supposed to go to
emergency responders failed to get close to the reserve price, raising
suspicions that someone was trying to make money off the Sept. 11
national tragedy. But that would never happen, right?" This is a follow
up to [2]last week's allegations.
Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/1224231
Links:
0. http://blogs.eweek.com/epiphanies/
1. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Government/FCC-to-Investigate-D-Block-Auction/
2. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/20/0437229&tid=266
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| From "Happy Hacking" to "Screw You" |
| from the now-we're-sad dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 24, @09:47 (Hardware Hacking) |
|
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/1318226
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
tquid writes "Trying to bridge the digital divide in Canada's poorest
postal code, a principled group of hackers adopt "open source"-based
technology spun off from an MIT project. Then the [0]terms on the
hardware are changed, and changed again, and then firmware to lock out
the frustrated group's software is installed, screwing them out of their
investment and many hours of development work."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/1318226
Links:
0. http://www.virishi.net/from-happy-hacking-screw-you-story-meraki
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Fixing the Unfairness of TCP Congestion Control |
| from the why-isn't-the-internet-a-democracy dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 24, @10:34 (Networking) |
|
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/1359212
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
duncan99 writes "George Ou, Technical Director of ZDNet, has an
[0]analysis today of an engineering proposal to address congestion issues
on the internet. It's an interesting read, with sections such as "The
politicization of an engineering problem" and "Dismantling the dogma of
flow rate fairness". Short and long term answers are suggested, along
with some examples of what incentives it might take to get this to work.
Whichever side of the neutrality debate you're on, this is worth
consideration."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/1359212
Links:
0. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=1078
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Seagate May Sue if Solid State Disks Get Popular |
| from the sure-why-not dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 24, @11:10 (Patents) |
|
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/141212
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]tero writes "Even though Seagate [1]has announced it will be offering
SSD disks of its own in 2008, their CEO Bill Watkins seems to be sending
out mixed signals in a [2]recent Fortune interview 'He's convinced, he
confides, that SSD makers like Samsung and Intel (INTC) are violating
Seagate's patents. (An Intel spokeswoman says the company doesn't comment
on speculation.) Seagate and Western Digital (WDC), two of the major hard
drive makers, have patents that deal with many of the ways a storage
device communicates with a computer, Watkins says. It stands to reason
that sooner or later, Seagate will sue ��� particularly if it looks like
SSDs could become a real threat.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/141212
Links:
0. http://tero.hanninen.eu/
1. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/23/2232206&tid=198
2. http://bigtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/03/17/flash-vs-hard-drive-battle-heats-up/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Why Microsoft Won't Have Blu-ray on the Xbox |
| from the wtb-final-fantasy-on-360 dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 24, @11:55 (Microsoft) |
|
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/1416204
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Ian Lamont writes "Ever since Toshiba [1]stopped production of HD DVD
players, many Xbox 360 owners have been wondering when Microsoft will
offer some sort of Blu-ray option for the Xbox 360. The answer: Probably
never. Microsoft's product manager for the Xbox 360 has told Reuters that
[2]Microsoft is not in talks with Sony or the Blu-ray Association. Why
not? The Industry Standard points to [3]HDi, an obscure Microsoft
technology that was part of the HD DVD interactivity layer. HDi may be
dead on physical media, but it could [4]potentially be applied to other
Microsoft HD-compatible technologies such as Xbox Live Arcade and Windows
Media Center, and be part of a long-term play to own a big share of the
market for HD content delivered over the Internet."
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/1416204
Links:
0. http://www.thestandard.com/people/i-lamont550036
1. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/18/0432256&tid=98
2. http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1224707720080313
3. http://www.thisishddvd.com/hdi.aspx
4. http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/03/21/real-reason-microsoft-wont-bring-blu-ray-xbox-hdi
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Does It Suck To Be An Engineering Student? |
| from the what-doesn't-suck dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 24, @12:41 (Education) |
|
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/162256
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Pickens writes "Aaron Rower has an interesting post on Wired with the
"[1]Top 5 Reasons it Sucks to be an Engineering Student" that includes
awful textbooks, professors who are rarely encouraging, the dearth of
quality counseling, and every assignment feels the same. Our favorite is
that other disciplines have inflated grades. "Brilliant engineering
students may earn surprisingly low grades while slackers in other
departments score straight As for writing book reports and throwing
together papers about their favorite zombie films," writes Rower. "Many
of the brightest students may struggle while mediocre scholars can earn
top scores." For many students, earning a degree in engineering is less
than enjoyable and far from what they expected. If you want to complain
about your education, this is your chance."
Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/162256
Links:
0. http://hughpickens.com/
1. http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/03/top-5-reasons-i.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Sun Turns to Lasers to Speed Up Computer Chips |
| from the friggin-lasers dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday March 24, @13:44 (Sun Microsyst|
|
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/1611228
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]alphadogg writes to mention that Sun is attempting to move from the
typical design of multiple small chips back to a [1]unified single-wafer
design. "The company is announcing today a $44 million contract from the
Pentagon to explore replacing the wires between computer chips with laser
beams. The technology, part of a field of computer science known as
silicon photonics, would eradicate the most daunting bottleneck facing
today's supercomputer designers: moving information rapidly to solve
problems that require hundreds or thousands of processors."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/1611228
Links:
0. http://www.networkworld.com/community/alphadoggs
1. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004301559_lasers24.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Another Web-Based Game Targeting Casual Gamers Launches |
| from the irs-is-on-hold-to-tax-your-users dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday March 24, @14:37 (The Internet)|
|
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/1620242
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
News.com is reporting that Mytopia, another casual-gaming network, has
[0]launched into public-beta. More than just a regular game with virtual
rewards, Mytopia encourages exchanging points for real-world prizes like
iTunes or Amazon certificates. "Since Mytopia is centered on "classic
games," the offering--Sudoku, chess, backgammon, hearts, spades,
dominoes, bingo, and poker--is a bit of a yawn, though the company has
said new games will be added on a monthly basis. On the flip side, the
familiarity of those games may be a draw to players who don't want to
learn a whole new set of rules. Indeed, Mytopia is targeting a thoroughly
non-"gamer" demographic."
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/1620242
Links:
0. http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9901630-36.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Regular Expression Pocket Reference |
| from the read-all-about-it dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Monday March 24, @15:26 (Book Reviews) |
|
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/1426208
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Michael J. Ross writes "When software developers need to manipulate
text programmatically ��� such as finding all substrings within some text
that match a particular pattern ��� the most concise and flexible solution
is to use "regular expressions," which are strings of characters and
symbols that can look anything but regular. Nonetheless, they can be
invaluable for locating text that matches a pattern (the "expression"),
and optionally replacing the matched text with new text. Regular
expressions have proven so popular that they have been incorporated into
most if not all major programming languages and editors, and even at
least one Web server. But each one implements regular expressions in its
own way ��� which is reason enough for programmers to appreciate the latest
edition of Regular Expression Pocket Reference, by Tony Stubblebine."
Read below for the rest of Michael's review.
This story continues at:
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/1426208
Discuss this story at:
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/1426208
Links:
0. http://www.ross.ws/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Hyper-Entangled Photons — 'Superdense' Coding Gets Denser |
| from the so-tangling-is-a-good-thing dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday March 24, @16:17 (Science) |
|
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/197229
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
ScienceDaily is reporting that researchers at the University of Illinois
have broken the record for [0]most information sent via a single photon
using the direction of "wiggling" and "twisting" a pair of entangled
photons. "Using linear elements, however, the standard protocol is
fundamentally limited to convey only one of three messages, or 1.58 bits.
The new experiment surpasses that threshold by employing pairs of photons
entangled in more ways than one (hyper-entangled). As a result,
additional information can be sent and correctly decoded to achieve the
full power of dense coding."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/197229
Links:
0. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080324112847.htm
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Patriot Act Haunts Google Service |
| from the patriot-act-so-good-at-making-friends dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday March 24, @17:03 (Google) |
|
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/1959201
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
The Globe and Mail has an interesting piece taking a look at [0]Google's
latest headache, the US Government. Many people are suddenly deciding to
spurn Google's services and applications because it opens up potential
avenues of surveillance. "Some other organizations are banning Google's
innovative tools outright to avoid the prospect of U.S. spooks combing
through their data. Security experts say many firms are only just
starting to realize the risks they assume by embracing Web-based
collaborative tools hosted by a U.S. company, a problem even more acute
in Canada where federal privacy rules are at odds with U.S. security
measures."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/1959201
Links:
0. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080324.wrgoogle24/BNStory/Technology/home
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Salasaga Fills Flash Creation Hole for Linux |
| from the flash-still-evil dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday March 24, @17:47 (Software) |
|
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/2120222
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Linux.com's Bruce Byfield is reporting that Salasaga, the renamed Flame
Project, is attempting to fill the functionality gap of Flash creation
for Linux in addition to being a cross-platform tool. While it still
lacks the spit-shine of more mature apps, it is going a long way to
filling yet another hole in Linux software. "Opening Salasaga, you could
easily think you are in a slide show program. Individual slides display
on the left, and the current slide appears on the bottom right. On the
top right is information about the layers on the current side. Menus are
logically laid out across the top of the editing window. From the editing
menu, you can set the defaults for new projects, including the default
display size of finished projects, the preview width, and the default
background color. After adjusting these settings, you proceed logically
from the right as you develop a project, progressing from Screenshots for
importation through Slide and Layer to Export. This progression is so
logical that few viewers should have trouble teaching themselves the
basics of the software and producing a test project in less than 20
minutes -- and saving it in native .flame format or exporting it to Flash
or SVG formats."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/2120222
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Graphene May be the New Silicon |
| from the bouncing-off-walls dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday March 24, @18:33 (Hardware) |
|
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/2146217
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
esocid writes to share that University of Maryland physicists have
demonstrated that the material of the future may be [0]graphene rather
than silicon. Electricity conduction through graphene is about 100 times
greater than that of silicon and could offer many improvements to things
like computer chips and biochemical sensors. "Graphene, a
single-atom-thick sheet of graphite, is a new material which combines
aspects of semiconductors and metals. [...] A team of researchers led by
physics professor Michael S. Fuhrer of the university's Center for
Nanophysics and Advanced Materials, and the Maryland NanoCenter said the
findings are the first measurement of the effect of thermal vibrations on
the conduction of electrons in graphene, and show that thermal vibrations
have an extraordinarily small effect on the electrons in graphene."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/2146217
Links:
0. https://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/release.cfm?ArticleID=1621
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Mars Rovers Facing Budget Cuts |
| from the missed-opportunity dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Monday March 24, @19:29 (Mars) |
|
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/2324207
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
BUL2294 notes a CNN article reporting that the Mars Rovers program at
NASA is facing [0]budget cuts of $4 million for this year and $8 million
for fiscal 2009. This will mean job cuts; and in all likelihood Spirit
will be put in "hibernation mode," to be reactivated when or if future
funding becomes available."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/24/2324207
Links:
0. http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/24/budget-woes-at-nasa-to-impact-mars-rovers/
Copyright 1997-2008 SourceForge, Inc.. All rights reserved.
======================================================================
You have received this message because you subscribed to it
on Slashdot. To stop receiving this and other
messages from Slashdot, or to add more messages
or change your preferences, please go to your user page.
http://slashdot.org/my/messages
You can log in and change your preferences from there.
No comments:
Post a Comment