Dont miss LinuxCon - a new technical conference providing an unmatched collaboration
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Speakers include Linus Torvalds and Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu.
Register by the early registration deadline of August 15th and attend for US$399.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/linuxcon
======================================================================
Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* Ten Things We Still Don't Understand About Humans
* Garbage Collection Algorithms Coming For SSDs
* Malaysian Government Wants Internet Filtering
* Finding New and Unintended Ways of Playing Games
* Contributing To a Project With a Reclusive Maintainer?
* Iran Getting Better At Filtering Web Traffic
* Microsoft Finally Joins HTML 5 Standard Efforts
* Tesla Motors Turns a Profit For the First Time
* Sony Producing New PS3 Hardware, Slim Appears Likely
* Movable Clouds Migrate To Chase Tax Breaks
* GM Gets To Dump Its Polluted Sites
* Opera Dominates CNET Survey of "Underdog" Web Browsers
* Poor Passwords A Worse Problem Than Poor Antivirus
* Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1 Released
* Linux-Friendly, Internet-Enabled HDTVs?
* Several Quantum Calculations Combined At NIST
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Ten Things We Still Don't Understand About Humans |
| from the why-do-they-like-will-ferrell-movies dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Friday August 07, @20:01 (Science) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/07/2356221 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]ParticleGirl writes "New Scientist has an article examining [1]10
human features (bugs?) that we still don't understand, like blushing,
laughing, and nose-picking. There are some interesting, speculative
evolutionary explanations listed for each. '[Psychologist Robert R.
Provine] thinks laughing began in our pre-human ancestors as a
physiological response to tickling. Modern apes maintain the ancestral
'pant-pant' laugh when they are tickled during play, and this evolved
into the human 'ha-ha.' Then, he argues, as our brains got bigger,
laughter acquired a powerful social function ��� to bond people. Indeed,
Robin Dunbar at the University of Oxford has found that laughing
increases levels of endorphins, our body's natural opiates, which he
believes helps to strengthen social relationships.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/07/2356221
Links:
0. mailto:SlashdotParticleGirl@gmaiDEGASl.comminuspainter
1. http://www.newscientist.com/special/ten-mysteries-of-you
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Garbage Collection Algorithms Coming For SSDs |
| from the take-out-the-tash dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Friday August 07, @22:11 (Data Storage) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/0210246 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]MojoKid writes "A common concern with the current crop of Solid State
Drives is the performance penalty associated with block-rewriting. Flash
memory is comprised of cells that usually contain 4KB pages that are
arranged in blocks of 512KB. When a cell is unused, data can be written
to it relatively quickly. But if a cell already contains some data, even
if it fills only a single page in the block, the entire block must be
re-written. This means that whatever data is already present in the block
must be read, then it must be combined or replaced, and the entire block
is then re-written. This process takes much longer than simply writing
data straight to an empty block. This isn't a concern on fresh, new SSDs,
but over time, as files are written, moved, deleted, or replaced, many
blocks are a left holding what is essentially orphaned or garbage data,
and their long-term performance degrades because of it. To mitigate this
problem, virtually all SSD manufacturers have incorporated, or soon will
incorporate, garbage collection schemes into their SSD firmware which
[1]actively seek out and remove the garbage data. OCZ, in combination
with Indilinx, is poised to release new firmware for their entire line-up
of Vertex Series SSDs that performs active garbage collection while the
drives are idle, in order to restore performance to like-new condition,
even on a severely 'dirtied' drive."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/0210246
Links:
0. http://hothardware.com/
1. http://hothardware.com/News/OCZ-and-Indilinx-Collaborate-On-New-SSD-Garbage-Collection-Scheme/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Malaysian Government Wants Internet Filtering |
| from the it's-fashionable-these-days dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 08, @00:07 (Censorship) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/0243231 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]adewolf tips news that the government of Malaysia is looking into
[1]the development of an internet filtering program. According to a
Reuters report, "A vibrant Internet culture has contributed to political
challenges facing the government, which tightly controls mainstream media
and has used sedition laws and imprisonment without trial to [2]prosecute
a blogger." The Malaysian government insists that such a filter would
[3]only be used to block pornography, though critics of the plan expect
it would be wielded as a political tool, censoring websites that are
critical of the current administration. "An industry source says the
government could [4]impose the filters late this year or in 2010,
coinciding with the rollout of a high-speed broadband network run by
Telekom Malaysia. Malaysia aims to increase broadband penetration to half
of all homes by 2010 as part of its drive to boost economic efficiency."
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/0243231
Links:
0. mailto:adewolf@gmail.com
1. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINSP37415520090806?rpc=44
2. http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/06/1952201&tid=357583
3. http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE5763JF20090807
4. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/reuters/2009/08/07/2009-08-07T071038Z_01_KLR434414_RTRIDST_0_MALAYSIA-INTERNET-Q-A.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Finding New and Unintended Ways of Playing Games |
| from the trickjumping-and-speedruns-and-bears-oh-my dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 08, @02:13 (Games) |
| http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/0345231 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Ronald Diemicke writes "World of Warcraft players sometimes hang out
in front of Ironforge and dance. Fallout 3 players seek out new and
elaborate ways of destroying their avatar. Brawlers in Smash Brothers
have an itchy pause finger, ready to catch any humiliatingly hilarious
screengrabs. The thugs running rampant in Grand Theft Auto are putting
Evil Knievel to shame by using a full assortment of vehicles to pull off
some incredible stunt work. Personally, I like to collect and move
things. My favorite is making piles of bodies in any game that lets me
move them around. Ever catch yourself [1]doing something in-game that
isn't exactly part of the game, or just something really dumb?"
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/0345231
Links:
0. http://www.sleeperhit.net/
1. http://www.sleeperhit.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=77&catid=53
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Contributing To a Project With a Reclusive Maintainer? |
| from the pulling-a-davis dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 08, @05:13 (Programming) |
| http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/0628215 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]zerointeger writes "I am still fairly new to programming in C, but I
was asked to extend an open source authentication module by my employer.
The project is complete, testing has been done and it works as designed.
The extension/patch I have created is fairly robust, as it includes
configuration options, help files, and several additional files. The
problem is that I have been unable to make contact with the current
maintainer about having this feature added. I think the only reason I'd
like to see this included is to prevent any patching of later revisions.
A few others I have spoken with agree that the patch would benefit
administrators attempting to push Linux onto the desktop, as we have done
at the University that employs me. Has anyone else submitted
patches/extensions to what seems to be a black hole?"
Discuss this story at:
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/0628215
Links:
0. http://sourceforge.net/projects/pam-krb5-ldap/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Iran Getting Better At Filtering Web Traffic |
| from the practice-makes-perfect dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 08, @08:16 (The Internet) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/0448223 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Al writes "Rob Lemos reports that Iran's national ISPs seem to have
recently [1]gained the ability to filter large quantities of web traffic
more effectively. Arbor Networks used data gathered from distributed
network sensors to monitor the data going to Iran from the global
internet. The firm found that all of the country's providers showed an
enormous drop in traffic [2]following the contested June 12 election,
then nearly normal traffic patterns until June 26. After that, [3]five of
six national ISPs showed an 80 percent drop in traffic for approximately
three weeks. The one internal ISP that continues to see significant
traffic during those three weeks counts many government ministries among
its client��le. The picture painted by the data is of an ISP that is
becoming increasingly skilled in filtering, says Craig Labovitz, chief
scientist for Arbor Networks."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/0448223
Links:
0. http://www.technologyreview.com/
1. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/unsafebits/23946/
2. http://asert.arbornetworks.com/2009/08/return-to-the-iranian-firewall/
3. http://asert.arbornetworks.com/2009/08/1132/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Microsoft Finally Joins HTML 5 Standard Efforts |
| from the fashionably-late dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 08, @09:18 (The Internet) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/1231231 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
bonch writes "On Friday, Microsoft [0]posted to a mailing list that IE
developers are [1]reviewing the HTML 5 standard for future versions of
Internet Explorer. They've given some feedback on the current editor's
draft, saying that they 'have more questions than answers' and
criticizing many of HTML 5's new tags, like <header>, <footer> and
<aside>, calling them 'arbitrary' or unnecessary. It remains to be seen
whether Microsoft waited too long to try to influence basic parts of the
spec that most of their competitors have already adopted."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/1231231
Links:
0. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0389.html
1. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10305822-92.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Tesla Motors Turns a Profit For the First Time |
| from the even-a-blind-squirrel dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 08, @10:26 (Transportation|
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/146225 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
d0rp writes with news that Tesla Motors has reported [0]earning a profit
for the first time in its six-year history. Sales of the $109,000
Roadster earned the company $20 million in revenue, which settled out to
$1 million in profits. "Most of that money rolled in after Tesla
[1]delivered cars customers had already placed deposits on. Although the
company has, according to spokeswoman Rachel Konrad, seen a 'surge' in
orders for the Roadster and the higher-performance Roadster Sport (price:
$127,500), it isn't likely to keep rolling cars out so quickly. Konrad
says Tesla is 'definitely on pace' to meet its goal of 1,000 to 1,200
cars a year but didn't say when that might happen. Tesla has so far
delivered about 609 Roadsters since production started in March, 2008."
The company is working on a new 'Model S' sedan, with the help of [2]$465
million in government loans, and has also entered into a partnership with
Daimler to help the German auto company produce electric Smart cars.
Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/146225
Links:
0. http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/07/technology/tesla_profitability/?postversion=2009080716
1. http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/tesla-profit
2. http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/06/tesla-loan/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Sony Producing New PS3 Hardware, Slim Appears Likely |
| from the consoles-on-a-diet dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 08, @11:34 (PlayStation (G|
| http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/1517241 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
The Opposable Thumbs blog reports on a confluence of rumors and
information leaks that suggest Sony will be [0]unveiling a PS3 Slim
sooner rather than later. Despite [1]waning console sales, orders for
PS3-related hardware have risen sharply. There's evidence to suggest that
Sony is [2]phasing out its 80GB model, which would help clear the way for
a hardware revision. Some expect the official announcement to come [3]as
early as August 18th, during the [4]gamescom expo in Germany.
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/1517241
Links:
0. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/08/the-ps3-slim-is-coming-evidence-builds-for-updated-system.ars
1. http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/01/0359210&tid=670
2. http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/08/04/ps3.80gb.phaseout.and.slim/
3. http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/04/sonys-playstation-3-slim-to-debut-august-18th-at-cologne-gamesc/
4. http://www.gamescom-cologne.com/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Movable Clouds Migrate To Chase Tax Breaks |
| from the overcast-overcost dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 08, @12:40 (The Internet) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/1549206 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]1sockchuck writes "State legislators have been offering huge tax
incentives to attract data center projects from cloud-builders. But what
happens if the political climate changes and the tax break disappears? If
you're Microsoft, you can just [1]take your cloud and move it someplace
else. The infrastructure for the Windows Azure platform is being
[2]migrated out of a facility in central Washington after the state ruled
that data centers no longer qualify for a tax exemption on equipment.
Mike Manos, a key player in site selection for many major data centers,
predicts that future cloud platforms will [3]move often to chase lower
taxes or cheaper power."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/1549206
Links:
0. http://www.gamehostingguide.com/
1. http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/08/05/microsoft-migrates-azure-citing-tax-laws/
2. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/08/microsoft_azure_migration/
3. http://loosebolts.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/the-cloud-politic-how-regulation-taxes-and-national-borders-are-shaping-the-infrastructure-of-the-cloud/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| GM Gets To Dump Its Polluted Sites |
| from the too-big-to-clean dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 08, @13:48 (Earth) |
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/1645242 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]ParticleGirl writes with this excerpt from the Detroit Free Press:
"GM's unusual, government-engineered bankruptcy allowed the Detroit
automaker to emerge as a new company ��� and to shed billions in
liabilities, including [1]claims that governments had against GM for
polluting. Environmental liabilities estimated at $530 million were left
with the old GM, which has only $1.2 billion to wind down. Administrative
fees and other claims will soak up that money, and state and local
officials told the Free Press they fear the cleanups will be
shortchanged. ... The New York Attorney General's Office, seeking to
protect environmental claims for cleanup at Massena and other sites,
argued that federal and state regulatory requirements should not be
eliminated by a bankruptcy sale. ... But [US Bankruptcy Judge Robert
Gerber] ruled otherwise."
Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/1645242
Links:
0. mailto:SlashdotParticleGirl@gmaiDEGASl.comminuspainter
1. http://www.freep.com/article/20090807/BUSINESS01/908070382
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Opera Dominates CNET Survey of "Underdog" Web Browsers |
| from the html's-great-blessing-is-heterogeneity dept. |
| posted by timothy on Saturday August 08, @14:37 (Software) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/1750241 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "Whether you consider Opera an underdog
browser or not, it came out on top [0]in a feature on CNet this weekend.
It was up against 'underdog Web browsers' Camino, K-Meleon, Shiira and
Arora in a piece loosely aimed at determining whether these browsers are
yet ready to steal significant numbers of users from Firefox, Safari, IE
etc. Interesting most to me, however, is that it transpires that Shiira,
the Mac browser from Japan, is [1]one of the fastest browsers on the
planet, beating the original Chrome v1.0, Firefox 3.5 and more in its
benchmark tests."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/1750241
Links:
0. http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49303237-1,00.htm
1. http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49303237-2,00.htm
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Poor Passwords A Worse Problem Than Poor Antivirus |
| from the sure-is-for-me dept. |
| posted by timothy on Saturday August 08, @15:40 (Security) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/1927252 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]dasButcher writes "Viruses and worms get all the headlines, but poor
password management is a worse problem according to a new study by
Channel Insider and CompTIA. As Larry Walsh writes in his Security
Channel blog, VARs and security service providers say they find [1]more
problems with password management than antivirus applications when they
do security assessments. While password problems are nothing new, Walsh
and those posting on his blog correctly assert that users remain cavalier
about passwords and businesses are doing too little to address this
serious vulnerability."
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/1927252
Links:
0. http://www.channelinsider.com/
1. http://blogs.channelinsider.com/secure_channel/content/authentication_and_access_control/poor_password_management_eclipses_virus_problem.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1 Released |
| from the waiting-in-the-wings dept. |
| posted by timothy on Saturday August 08, @16:49 (Mozilla) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/2020255 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes with word of the [0]release of the first beta
of Firefox 3.6, "intended for developers and testers only." "As with
Firefox 3.5, there are improvements to the performance; pages render
faster, and pages with JavaScript code run much faster with the new
Tracemonkey engine. Although this Firefox version [1]carries the code
name 'Namoroka' Alpha 1, it is also currently referred to as
Firefox.next. And like other Firefox Alphas, it does not bear the Firefox
logo. This release [2]uses the Gecko 1.9.2 engine and will likely include
several interface improvements in later versions, such as new graphical
tab-switching behavior, which was removed from 3.5 with Beta 2." Update:
08/09 03:54 GMT by [3]T : Read [4]more at InaTux.com.
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/2020255
Links:
0. http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/08/firefox-36a1-for-developers/
1. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Namoroka
2. https://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2009/08/07/firefox-3-6-alpha-1-now-available-for-download/
3. http://www.monkey.org/~timothy/
4. http://www.inatux.com/articles/firefox_3.6_alpha_1
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Linux-Friendly, Internet-Enabled HDTVs? |
| from the for-the-well-equipped-hermit-cave dept. |
| posted by timothy on Saturday August 08, @17:57 (Displays) |
| http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/2139247 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
mrchaotica writes "I'm in the market for a new HDTV (in the
$1200-or-slightly-more range, as I won the extended-service-plan lottery
and have a Sears store credit). Several of the TVs I've looked at have
various 'Internet TV' features (here are [0]Samsung's and [1]Panasonic's).
Some manufacturers appear to be rolling their own, while [2]others are
partnering with Yahoo (maybe in an attempt to create a 'standard?').
Moreover, these TVs also [3]tend to run Linux under the hood (although
their GPL compliance, such as in Panasonic's case, may leave [4]something
to be desired). Finally, it's easy to imagine these TVs being able to
support video streaming services (YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, etc.) without
a set-top box, but I don't know the extent to which that support actually
exists. Here are my questions: 1) Is this 'Internet TV' thing going to be
a big deal going forward, or just a gimmick? 2) Which manufacturers are
most [open standard|Linux|hacker]-friendly? 3) Which TV models have the
best support (or best potential and community backing) for this sort of
thing?"
Discuss this story at:
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/2139247
Links:
0. http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/learningresources/medi2.0/internet_introduction.html
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viera_Cast
2. http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/
3. http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/356287
4. http://www.am-linux.jp/dl-usa.htm
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Several Quantum Calculations Combined At NIST |
| from the can-we-entangle-the-katies? dept. |
| posted by timothy on Saturday August 08, @19:08 (Technology) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/08/2219220 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Al writes "Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) [1]have demonstrated a crucial step toward building a
practical quantum computer: multiple computing operations on quantum
bits. The NIST team performed five quantum logic operations and 10
transport operations (meaning they moved the qubit from one part of the
system to another) in series, while reliably maintaining the states of
their ions--a tricky task because the ions can easily be knocked out of
their prepared state. The researchers used beryllium ions stored within
so-called ion traps and added magnesium ions to keep the beryllium ones
cool and prevent them from losing their quantum state." In related news,
another reader links to an Australian study indicating that quantum
computers "[2]can continue to work perfectly even if half their
components, or qubits, are missing."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/08/2219220
Links:
0. http://www.technologyreview.com/
1. http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23137/
2. http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2906/quantum-computers-still-work-with-half-their-bits-missing
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