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Comments: 18 +-   The Science of Santa on Friday December 25, @09:38AM

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday December 25, @09:38AM
from the santa-from-the-future dept.
humor
Santa Claus must use advanced technologies to pull off his annual feat. Thankfully, NewScientist has the exclusive about the what and the how. "He relies on some impressive gadgets: miniature flying robots, advanced satellites, highly sensitive surveillance devices, memory-erasing milk, self-assembling toys, and a warp-drive-powered sleigh that's capable of bending and twisting space-time to such an extent that it slips Santa and his reindeer out of the observable universe. In 1949, Kurt Gödel published one of the first mathematical descriptions of how it could work. In his version, the universe has paths called closed time-like curves that might allow you to jump in a ship, fly for a while, and end up right back where you started in space and time."
Read More... 18 comments story

Comments: 55 +-   Fraudulent Anti-Terrorist Software Led US To Ground Planes on Friday December 25, @07:58AM

Posted by timothy on Friday December 25, @07:58AM
from the our-man-not-in-havana dept.
military
The Register, citing this Playboy article, reports that a Nevada man named Dennis Montgomery was able in 2003 to connive his way into a position of respectability at the CIA on the basis of his company's claimed ability, using software, to "detect and decrypt 'barcodes' in broadcasts by Al Jazeera, the Qatari news station." Montgomery was CTO of Reno-based eTreppid Technologies, which produced bucketloads of data purported to represent "geographic coordinates and flight numbers" hidden in these broadcasts. All of which, it seems, was hokum, finally debunked in cooperation with a branch of the French intelligence service — but not, says the article, before the fabricated information, chalked up to "credible sources," was used as justification to ground some international flights, and even evacuate New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Read More... 55 comments story

Comments: 121 +-   Gnome Switches Nautilus Back To Browser Mode on Friday December 25, @05:12AM

Posted by timothy on Friday December 25, @05:12AM
from the open-in-new-window dept.
gnome
An anonymous reader writes "In one of the ( Do the developers actually use their own software?) decisions in the Linux Desktop World , back in 2004 Gnome switched to the 'Spatial' view by default with their Nautilus file manager opening a new window with each new folder viewed. Many derided the decision as poor design or as being different for the sake of being different. Well, after five long years the Gnome powers that be have decided to switch back to browser mode."
Read More... 121 comments story

Comments: 126 +-   Texas County Will Use Twitter To Publish Drunk Drivers' Names on Friday December 25, @03:07AM

Posted by timothy on Friday December 25, @03:07AM
from the only-animal-that-blushes dept.
alphadogg contributes this snippet from Network World: "If you get busted for drunk driving in Montgomery County, Texas, this holiday season, your neighbors may hear about it on Twitter. That's because the local district attorney's office has decided to publish the names of those charged with driving while intoxicated between Christmas and New Year's Eve. County Vehicular Crimes Prosecutor Warren Diepraam came up with the idea as a way of discouraging residents from getting behind the wheel while drunk. 'It's not a magic bullet that's going to end DWIs, but it's something to make people think twice before they get behind the wheel of a car and drive while they're intoxicated,' he said."
Read More... 126 comments story

Comments: 122 +-   Cygwin 1.7 Released on Friday December 25, @12:00AM

Posted by timothy on Friday December 25, @12:00AM
from the christmas-present dept.
microsoft
jensend writes "The 1.7 branch of Cygwin, the Unix-like environment for Windows, has reached stable status after about 3 1/2 years of effort. Among many other changes, this release drops support for Windows 9x. Since the NT API and NT-based versions of Windows are more capable and somewhat less of a mismatch with POSIX (for instance, they include a security model), this has allowed for code path simplifications, better performance (particularly noticeable with pipe I/O), better security, and better POSIX compatibility."
Read More... 122 comments story

Comments: 231 +-   Does Santa Hate Linux? on Thursday December 24, @08:58PM

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 24, @08:58PM
from the elf-beating-question dept.
xmas
beernutmark writes "Well, it looks like Santa or at least Norad/Google hates Linux. This year, for the first time since its inception, Norad is not making a simple .kml file available for download to track Santa. You must connect to their website with a Windows/Mac browser and use the browser plugin. No full-screen Google Earth to look at the beautiful areas around Santa's path. (Anyone have any open source source kml files for tracking Santa or any idea how we can go about making one for 2010?)"
Read More... 231 comments story

Comments: 138 +-   Testing Network Changes When No Test Labs Exist? on Thursday December 24, @06:14PM

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 24, @06:14PM
from the michael-gurski-special dept.
networking
vvaduva writes "The ugly truth is that many network guys secretly work on production equipment all the time, or test things on production networks when they face impossible deadlines. Management often expects us to get a job done but refuse to provide funds for expensive lab equipment, test circuits and for reasonable time to get testing done before moving equipment or configs into production. How do most of you handle such situations, and what recommendation do you have for creating a network test lab on the cheap, especially when core network devices are vendor-centric, like Cisco?"
Read More... 138 comments story

Comments: 216 +-   Really Misleading Ads From Broadband Providers on Thursday December 24, @05:18PM

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 24, @05:18PM
from the should-have-been-in-the-tos dept.
business
Bourdain writes "Gizmodo has put together a good compilation of the — seemingly almost criminally — misleading (largely plain wrong) advertising from our favorite local monopolies. My personal favorite is from AT&T which states you need 3mbps to use social networking sites like Facebook."
Read More... 216 comments story

Comments: 129 +-   Launching Frequently Key To NASA Success on Thursday December 24, @04:22PM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday December 24, @04:22PM
from the more-is-better dept.
nasa
teeks99 writes "Even NASA could benefit from the 'Launch Often' idea that is frequently referred to in the software development community. However, in NASA's case, the 'launch' is a bit more literal. Edward Lu, writing in the New York Times, points out that by lowering the consequences of launch failure, and making frequent launches available to engineers, NASA could open up a new wave of innovation in space exploration. If there were weekly launches of a rocket, there would be many opportunities for new ideas to be tried out in communications, remote sensing, orbital debris mitigation, robotic exploration, and even in developing technology for human spaceflight. Another benefit would be that the rockets would be well understood, which would improve reliability."
Read More... 129 comments story

Comments: 30 +-   Amazing New Movies of Saturn's Moons on Thursday December 24, @03:28PM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday December 24, @03:28PM
from the that's-a-lot-of-flowery-words dept.
RobGoldsmith writes "Like sugar plum fairies in 'The Nutcracker,' the moons of Saturn performed a celestial ballet before the eyes of NASA's Cassini spacecraft. New movies frame the moons' silent dance against the majestic sweep of the planet's rings and show as many as four moons gliding around one another."
Read More... story
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