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May Video Game Sales Drop Compared To Last Year

Say, does Windows support zero-copy Infiniband links?

Yes, it does.
Click Here

http://www.mellanox.com/pdf/whitepapers/SDPCluster2006.pdf

How about MPI performance?

Yes, it does.
http://www.purempi.net/

How about fire&forget clustered processes?

Yes, it does.
http://blogs.msdn.com/distributedservices/default.aspx

Too boring, already been done: New Zealand man builds cruise missile in his garage.

No, you're the one who isn't getting it. The whole point of my post was commercial spy sats do exist and produce imagery for the DEA or, in fact, anyone with money, something you could have learned from google in less time than it took to compose your ignorant post. You can get black and white imagery of one meter resolution from EUSI's IKONOS if you're willing to pony up the cash. One meter is pretty good even for a military bird and certainly up to the task of keeping tabs on drug smugglers.

In terms of maneuverability and availability... well, you have a basic misunderstanding of how these sorts of things work. You don't maneuver spy sats - it takes way too much fuel, which will drastically cut operational life. Typically they're lofted into a polar orbit just out of the atmosphere (130 miles up or so). They circle the globe many times (18 or so) per day, taking pictures of what's under them in each pass. At the end of the day you put all the strips together for a composite image of the earth's surface. Commercial satellite companies don't sell "availability", they sell pictures.

If you need to coordinate ground operations you don't use satellites. You use aircraft.

FREE-PC.COM was created by Idealab that used to exist in the late 1990s, when they started a bunch of Dot-COMs. It offered free PCs to individuals who agreed in exchange to use the PC at least 10 hours per month.

Free PCs were sponsored by advertisers, and ads were visible at all times. They shipped 30k+ units in 1999, their last year of operation.

They were merged with eMachines.

And about 5 years ago, eMachines got absorbed by Gateway.

There were some other companies to do similar things. And AOL has been infamous for "free computer" with long locked-in AOL subscription deals.

There are even a few references to Free PC/Free-PC on slashdot...

But I don't see any articles about it anymore. Perhaps the archives didn't go back farther than the year 2000??

Actually, there's considerable debate on that subject. Some studies have shown that people who are slightly overweight live longer than people who are normal weight. In other words, extreme obesity is unhealthy, but the middle ranges are very much uncertain.

Because of the recent changes in antitrust enforcement policy, I don't think they are planning to do too many acquisitions.

Well it is more than Botnets.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1661861/cyberspies_hack_computers_in_103_countries/

Some respected ppl in Canada have seen things
that make it appears its not as minor as one
might think.

To make matters worse counterfeit chips were
made to put into Cisco gear and used to
penetrate the pentagon among other places.

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/24/1819200

So any one piece looks mildly nefarious, but
when you dig deeper than what I have here
you start to see a pattern for concern.

Just my 2 cents.

What's going to be the next scare over -- the radioactive americium in smoke detectors?

Yes. Yes, it is. In fact, it occurred at Los Alamos National Lab a few years back (I was there when it happened).

Unfortunately, neither you nor I can assess what "203 decibels" means. That is because that is a meaningless phrase. Here is the information that the AFP left out:

• Where was the 203 dB measured? Was it measured at a reference range relative to the transducer, as is common practice, or was it measured at the dolphin? This implies to me that they produced a sound equivalent to 203 dB as heard at a 40 m range, but I am just guessing.

  The difference between the reference range measurement and the receiver measurement, assuming spherical spreading (which we're likely to see at a 40m range), is 20 log r, where R is the ratio of the reference range and the receiver range. If the dolphin is 100 m away from a source emitting 203 dB at a 1 yard reference range, it will be hit with acoustic energy at 163 dB (203 - 20 log 100).

• In what units are they working? Contrary to popular belief, decibels are not a unit, but rather a scale. Saying the dolphins were exposed to 203 dB is equivalent to saying they were exposed to 2 x 10^8. 2 x 10^8 whats? Watts? Micropascals? 20 Micropascals?

  By the way, the sound pressure levels you're accustomed to reading about as an land-lubber are probably dB//20 uPa -- i.e., measured in multiples of 20 micropascals. In underwater acoustics we almost always use dB//1 uPa -- i.e., measured in multiples of 1 micropascal. To convert from the in-air numbers to under-water numbers, add 26 dB. A 203 dB sound to an underwater physicist would be a 179 dB to an atmospheric physicist.

Unfortunately I cannot find this article on the Biology Letters web site to check the facts.

To quote: "But as wind energy developers move into wilder areas along the gorge's ridge lines, near canyons and amid shrub-covered rangeland, the potential for conflict rises. If bird studies confirm the fears of Oregon and Washington state wildlife biologists, the green-minded Northwest might be forced to weigh its pursuit of pollution-free energy against the toll on raptors and other birds."

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1122105/wind_farms_generate_bird_worries/index.html

well, in my opinion a pledge is not enough to make it a standard (see all the brouhaha about the approval of OOXML and specifically this ISO policy regarding software patents)

A pledge (which is legally binding) is good enough to make sure that, today, you can make a piece of software that e.g. reads and writes OOXML, and know that MS won't use any of its OOXML-related patents to stop you; and, of course, having the actual spec helps, too (rather than reverse engineering).

Setting standards (or even what a standard is) is a different subject. It was why I mentioned NIH - MS still often ignores existing standards in favor of its own. That said, there has been a trend against that as well, more lately. For example. ADO.NET Data Services is entirely based on REST, and uses JSON and Atom for data payloads (and all mapping details are documented).

I'd also like to have from you specific documentation to support that the Samba team was the beneficiary of anything in that court decision, since an antitrust court would not really make specific arrangements like those but instead one thay would benefit the whole community (which I believe they did by ordering Microsoft to licence the protocols to anyone for a reasonable fee)

They did that, but, as I recall, the Samba guys were the ones who specifically wanted to use that offer, and it took EU some more prodding to actually make it all work. I've found this news story from Googling, though it's not very clear on this.

Okay, wise guy...I think I just swallowed my false teeth guffawing.

Well being modded "Funny" is, for me, a rarity, so I feel good about that. Except of course about the teeth.

Now, are you gonna take my case against yourself, or what?!?!?

You'd lose.

I do admire your ability to separate work from play

Haven't been good at that lately, every since I got into this war with the RIAA. My idea of play lately has been to hang out on Slashdot, which is not so different than what I do for a living -- i.e. argue, defend myself from abuse, try to make it clear what the law is, etc.

but at the same time being able to get your viewpoint across without compromising your clients, cases, or career in the whole process of upholding a cause by effective* means.

See, my play is a lot like my work.

Kudos, sir! BTW, thanks for all your contributions here on /., and more importantly for your 'real world' efforts in court. There is a reason I added you to my friends list...keep up the good fight. (your website is the only one I disable Adblock+, and NoScript extensions in Firefox 100%

Thanks

as I also donate any income tax refunds to the EFF-I believe in the cause and am not afraid to support it)

They are a wonderful organization. The only thing I have against them is that they got me into this mess.

PS Red Orbit looks neat.

I am a junior doctor and an old time contributor to Slashdot. I want to comment on this press release but I'm not interested in any trouble my guesswork may cause me.

Steve Jobs had pancreaticoduodenectomy (Whipple's Procedure) for pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer a while ago. His press release is very cryptic and makes little sense because he's using the layman's definition of terms he's using instead of precise medical terms. I'll do my best to decipher it.

First of all, Jobs is losing weight. Is this malnutrition or cancer-related cachexia? The former simply has to do with the body not receiving enough nurishment. The latter is an inflammatory condition related to abnormalities in inflammatory cytokines. Both cause similar outward effects but the underlying processes are very different. If we are to believe the press release then Jobs doesn't have a resurgence of his cancer. A Bloomberg article today commented that "Neuroendocrine islet cell tumors can cause overproduction of either one, or other powerful hormones such as somatostatin or gastrin, which are involved in digestion." While this is true, we are assuming Jobs had his tumor completely reseted so this isn't very likely. Therefore he probably has some form of malnutrition (more on this later).

"Nutrition Management of the Cancer Patient" By Abby S. Bloch states on page 89:

"Surgical resection as a treatment modality for pancreatic cancer creates several nutrition challenges: malabsorption caused by inadequate or absent exocrine pancreatic secretions or obstruction of the common bile duct (or both), diabetes mellitus resulting from resection of endocrine pancreatic cells, and protein-calorie malnutrition, which develops secondary to malabsorption."

If we are to believe the press release, then chances are it could be any of these issues. The only issues that fall under a "nutritional problem [that] is relatively simple and straightforward" are or absent exocrine pancreatic secretions, diabetes mellitus, and protein-calorie malnutrition secondary to malabsorption.

There are several articles which discuss these issues both in chronic pancreatitis and in patients status-post pancreatic resection and intestinal bypass. The one curious omission in the press release is the onset of symptoms. Mr. Jobs sounds like he was surprised by his weight loss and his doctors were confused. In Pancreatic Exocrine Insufficiency patients often have statorrhea which is a white-colored and foul smelling fat rich stool. Did he not notice this or was this detail to vulgar for Apple's shareholders and fanbase? It's wholly possible that he didn't have statorrhea which could have caused his doctors to run more tests to check for the worst-case scenarios such as his cancer reappearing. I think its fairly safe to take Mr. Jobs at his word. If his symptoms don't change by Spring then we can revisit this topic.

Anyway, "Pancreatic Cancer" By Douglas Brian Evans, Peter W. T. Pisters, James L. Abbruzzese is a wonderful resource that spends a great deal of time discussing Whipple's Procedure and I would suggest reading Part III from pages 123 to 232. Another great research paper is: "Management of complications following pancreaticoduodenectomy" by CJ Yeo.

Lastly I'd like to say this is all guesswork without having Mr. Jobs' and his test results in front of me so I welcome other doctors, experts, and researchers to comment on this press release. We can all benefit by collaboration. Remember, chaos is the score upon which reality is written but collaboration can swiftly bring some order.

Or how about the fact that the Japanese automakers here in the States can change a production line to make small cars from SUVs in a matter of hours; whereas, Detroit takes months? Yeah, management has to take a hit on that one too, I agree, but much of that delay is union rules.

The problem with Detroit retooling to make smaller lower profit margin cars is the disadvantage they have in that market segment.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/politics/594283/gm_and_uaw_support_pensions_bill/index.html

Detroit needs a large market to sell high profit cars. Small cars is not high profit, and the maket is saturated limited the price you can charge and the volume you can sell.

There is no way to build a cheap car with enough quality to compete with Toyota, Subaru, VW, Honda, Kia, etc. to meet their obligation, so they stuck with only high profit margin SUV's until the gas price killed their goose. You can thank the Unions for protecting the workers wages, jobs, health benifits, and retirements. It only lasted while they could expand, but self implodes on any downsize.

Detroit can't donwnsize. It has to remain big of fail.

Ask me again why I don't want a Union.

The short answer is it will kill the golden goose by crippling it. When the food moves, it can't follow. When food is scarce, it can't diet.

Okay, one reference is http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1561615/plants_may_not_absorb_additional_co2_from_warming/index.html

Plants can only perform photosynthesis during the day, under exposure to light. They perform respiration at night, and emit CO2.

I recognize that place, it is just outside of Phoenix.

Yes, where else would it be? Inside of Phoenix? It's only 5.5m long and 2.2m tall, surely that's not tall enough for a dust devil?

and the line of blather you're pushing is pretty damn far off the mark

Is it?

http://www.exyoung.com/Journalism/WindFarm.htm
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080710/NEWS02/807100355/1003/NEWS02
http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1434788/wind_farm_project_could_double_in_size_developers_expect_to/
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=48596
http://www.iberianature.com/spainblog/2008/06/wind-farm-construction-in-capercaillie-habitat-paralysed-by-judge/
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16203
http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/12/31/wind-farm-plans-pose-big-threat-to-harbour-porpoise/
http://renewableenergylaw.blogspot.com/2005/02/kansas-wind-farm-faces-another-lawsuit.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/22/windpower.greenpolitics?gusrc=rss&feed=uknews
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6875711/

I'm not even trying hard. Just put

court halt "wind farm"

into Google. No FOX News involved. And no, these aren't the NIMBY cases; I skipped those. These are enviro's killing wind development over "rare grasslands", various birds, etc.

The evidence for the intolerence of "all the greens" for basically any development at all, including so-called "renewable" energy is obvious. Pull your greeny head our of your ass and pay attention.

Heck, I don't think this is a troll - it's an interesting question. So I looked, and found this:

Abandoned Spaceships on the Moon

Basically, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will get some 0.5 meter resolution pictures of the Apollo landing sites. It launches sometime after November 28th of this year (which really is 2008 - the government's telling the truth on that one). Enjoy!

You're right, they don't...
Overview - [1] [2]
Chicxulub - [1] [2]
Shiva - [1] [2]
Boltysh - [1] [2]
And probably more, such as the Silverpit crater, although that's a bit more debated.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1360660/industry_tries_to_curb_cyber_squatting/

TFA is a wee bit off.

The 20 cent nonrefundability has already been ratified and will take effect in 2009.

The June thing was to prevent registrars from offering refunds in certain cases.

"Instead Icann will vote on a plan in June that would bar domain registrars from offering a refund for any domain names deleted during the grace period that exceeds 10 percent of its new registrations in a month. The board has already voted to make their 20-cent per domain fee nonrefundable in 2009 to deter high volume domain tasters who are sampling millions of names. "

Well, it was built in the UK.

Where do you stand on the issue of medical marijuana in your state? For ten years, use of marijuana has and created a legal vacuum for the public interest versus the private use issue. Would you protect growers of medical marijuana in your state from federal prosecution when such situations occur? Do you support the free and open use of a chemical that has no known addictive qualities, no known adverse health effects and broad, diverse public support for its decriminalization?

reportedly trying to acquire a nuclear-decay based random generator.
They had previously been using this
http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=126649

It has been recognized that the critical amount of body fat leading to amenorrhea is below 17%, while 22% is needed for regular menstrual cycles

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) had previously launched HITEN in 1990, delivering the small lunar orbiter HAGOMORO. Kaguya is said to be the largest lunar mission since NASA's Apollo programme.

How many thousands of people lost their life savings when Enron folded? (Days before the end, the CEOs and other higher ups were selling their stock like it was on fire, while other investors - mostly employees of the state of California - were locked-out and unable to sell their holdings). What about MCI/Worldcom? What about ValueJet, which had dozens of safety violations prior to the crash of Flight 592 and for which the company was later indicted on 100+ counts of murder? What about Power Fasteners, which did such a shoddy job of constructing the Big Dig that the roof collapsed and killed someone (they were also indicted). What about ExonMobile, which (as a result of its operations 1888-present) is responsible for something like 5-8% of all global warming and will almost certainly face future lawsuits about it? Corporations can and willingly cause massive destruction on a global scale. They destroy lives, but they are ultimately a legal fiction created for the purpose of shielding the true decision makers from the legal liability of their decisions.

The UK introduced "Incitement to racial violence" laws and others a while back, which are basically hate speech laws. They're not as simple as incitement to violence laws, which actually require incitement to violence.

Germany has stricter ones too (as does France IIRC), there was some scholar arrested a while back for denying the holocaust. Also, amusingly, some bloke got done for getting his alsatian to do a Nazi salute to police. Well, I guess amusing in some ways...

Just googled it, here's one link - http://www.redorbit.com/news/oddities/25122/man_tr ains_dog_to_perform_nazi_salute/index.html. Seems he's not actually getting prosecuted for that.

It seems that Paris Hilton is more important than Darfur, Jefferson's bribery case (or pick some other Democratic scandal), or the Gonzales testimony (or pick some other Republican scandal). However, I will say there are at least two kinds of bias that you find, in various degrees, in the popular media. The first type of bias is in choosing what to report (Paris Hilton) and what not to report. This bias is inescapable as there is not enough time to report on all news, so someone must make what is ultimately a subjective decision on what news to report. The second kind of bias, which in my opinion is much worse and much more prevalent from sources like DailyKOS and Fox News, is in distorting the news that is reported - through deliberate omission of facts that support a different conclusion than the one they want you to reach, or through just plain mis-stating the truth, AKA lying. Two examples that come to mind: (1) When DailyKOS reported sometime back on the Supreme Court ruling that the EPA should regulate CO2, they said that some act or other explicitly gave the EPA the authority (and duty) to regulate CO2. I read the act and found that it said no such thing. One might argue that it was implicitly in there, but that's a much more subtle matter than the way they presented it. (2) When Fox News reported sometime back on a cross that people wanted to build on private land using private money they stated that the ACLU was against it just because some of those people happen to be elected officials. They completely neglected to mention (which I found out about by reading another, more reliable, conservative news source - since more liberal news sources weren't even covering the story) that the decision to build the cross was made in city council and was going to originally be paid for by city funds - until the ACLU stepped in. Whether or not you agree with the ACLU, I found the way Fox News presented the story to be patently dishonest. They really played up the angle about how just because these people happened to have a job where they worked in government, they weren't allowed to make such decisions on their own, private time, yada, yada, yada.

It is interesting to note the discrepancy in how much time I spent on 1 lie vs. the other just now, but as I said before, I'll admit to my own biases. :)

Oh, one last thing. My favorite new news site is one that you might appreciate as well. RedOrbit - it's primary bias is neither conservative nor liberal.

Incidentally, I mentioned those articles -- here's my collection. Let's get them out there to help build our industry.

They range in subject matters that assist me, with the majority being security related.

http://www.nbc4.com/money/11588165/detail.html
http://www.nbc4.com/money/11588165/detail.html
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71032-0.html
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Artic le&cid=1135552209280&call_pageid=971358637177
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20050704.gtkirwanjul4/BNStory/specialScienceandHe alth/
http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=176198
http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/060619 _hyperactive_bob.html
http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/factsheets/ fs_faq.html
http://www.e.govt.nz/policy/open-source/open-sourc e-legal
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/privacy/story/0,10801,108101,00.html
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&article Id=9004274&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_feat
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=f6f 548f7-9dfd-49f4-9ff8-8ae8f4a2e2fd
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr 2006/tc20060417_996365.htm?campaign_id=bier_tca
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_37 /b4000401.htm?chan=tc&campaign_id=bier_tcst0
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1 781895,00.html
http://panko.cba.hawaii.edu/ssr/Mypapers/whatknow. htm

Disproving another theory does not prove your theory. The fact that dej vu is not limited to sight does not mean that this prove that it is a dysfunction of the temporal lobe. Richard Feynman won the nobel prize in 1965 for discovering that a positron is an electron moving backwards in time. Many psychologists have an obsession with disproving ESP phenomenon. They believe that the possibility of information moving in different directions in the time dimension is not possible, when in fact there are experiments going on right now at CERN that may prove this is a reproducible phenomenon in the laboratory. Many psychiatrists use PET scaner (Positron Emission Tomography) who do not believe it is possible for matter to move in the opposite time direction. That is laughably ignorant. I live in a constant state of deja - vu. It is hard for me to tell if I have seen a movie before or not. This is probably related to my Asperger's but I am not sure. From what I have discovered in the last 18 years of looking into this phenomenon is that deja-vu is related to the change of our state of mind from wakefulness from sleep. Just as it is hard for us to remember our dreams upon waking, it is hard for us to remember future information remembered from dreams upon waking. It is a well-established fact of memory that recognition is the most powerful way to remember things. Recognition of what we have dreamed abou the future is what drives deja-vu. NOT species-wide temporal lobe spasms. Any access to future information would have real survival benefits. I submit that this is the same process that allows animals to sense natural disasters and is not limited to our species. In fact, it is not even limited to life. Computers now do this in a clinical reproducible way: http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=126649 LOL these people are living with their heads in the sand, you are better off seeing a witch doctor than a psychiatrist.

Even that isn't necessary anymore. With some of the newer CD DJing gear, you can do just about anything you can do with a vinyl record, and a bit more.

They've even got tools for spinning MP3's now - aside from Traktor and all that, there's also Final Scratch, which allows you to spin MP3's using a record.

There's also this little gem, which I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

The point is, collecting vinyl is not even remotely necessary for being a DJ anymore. :)

Well, with no virtual memory, I'd have a heck of a time running Oracle. Why would anyone bother even looking at an OS that can't run modern applications? From my vantage point, minix hasn't even caught up to 1980 vintage operating systems. An OS without applications is like an engine without a car. An OS without virtual memory is like a tiny little model engine. Won't get the kids to Gramma's house.

Yeah, you got that right.
Here's an example I've been saving in my journal for just such an occasion :

"Posted on: Friday, 13 January 2006, 21:00 CST

(http://www.redorbit.com/news/oddities/356787/lawy er_allegedly_kidnaps_client_over_fees/index.html#)

Lawyer Allegedly Kidnaps Client Over Fees

WACO, Texas - A lawyer faces a felony charge of kidnapping for allegedly abducting a client from his wedding celebration in an attempt to collect legal fees.

Police say Paula Allen, 51, took Rolando Castelan from his Dec. 10 wedding and then drove him around in handcuffs as Castelan called friends and family from a cell phone to scrounge up the money he owed his lawyer, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported for its Friday edition.

Allen, who was arrested this week, referred calls to her lawyer, Ron Moody, when contacted by The Associated Press. Moody could not immediately be reached Thursday night.

Castelan, 31, hired Allen in April when he was arrested for possession of a stolen firearm, tampering with a government document and possession of a controlled substance.

Allen vouched for Castelan's bond amount of $5,000, police said. Six months later, a grand jury indicted Castelan on the drug possession charge, but he failed to show up to court.

Allen tried to persuade Castelan to come to court, but when he didn't, the court found her responsible for the $5,000 bond.

Police say she took Castelan from his wedding reception with the help of three "associates," whom police have not identified.

When Castelan's ex-wife agreed to meet and pay the money, Castelan managed to escape the Suburban he had been held in for four hours.

Castelan turned himself into authorities nine days later and remains in the McLennan County Jail for his indictment. His post-indictment warrant does not allow for a bond.

Allen was released from the McLennan County Jail on Wednesday on a personal recognizance bond.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online"