Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Space

Geomagnetic Storm In Progress 110

Posted by Soulskill from the sky-is-falling dept.
shogun writes "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports a strong geomagnetic storm is in progress. The shuttle, ISS and GPS systems may be affected." They think this storm was caused by a weak solar flare on April 3rd. As you may expect, this has caused some unusually impressive northern lights since it started. What you may not expect is a photograph from Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi aboard the International Space Station showing the aurora from orbit. He apparently tweets a lot of pictures from space. He and his crewmates have taken over 100,000 pictures since coming aboard the ISS.
Input Devices

Is the Line-in Jack On the Verge of Extinction? 411

Posted by timothy from the erasing-the-analog-hole dept.
SlashD0tter writes "Many older sound cards were shipped with line-out, microphone-in, and a line-in jacks. For years I've used such a line-in jack on an old Windows 2000 dinosaur desktop that I bought in 2000 (600 Mhz PIII) to capture the stereo audio signal from an old Technics receiver. I've used this arrangement to recover the audio from a slew of old vinyl LPs and even a few cassettes using some simple audio manipulating software from a small shop in Australia. I've noticed only recently, unfortunately, that all of the four laptops I've bought since then have omitted a line-in jack, forcing me to continue keeping this old desktop on life support. I've looked around for USB sound cards that include a line-in jack, but I haven't been too impressed by the selection. Is the line-in jack doomed to extinction, possibly due to lobbying from vested interests, or are there better thinking-outside-the-box alternatives available?"

Comment Me and mine (Score 1) 238

by 6-tew (#30916706) Attached to: Canadian Android Carrier Forcing Firmware Update
I just updated my HTC Magic yesterday. I guess there was a problem. I never encountered it. The big thing here for me is that they updated the UI to the same one that's used on the HTC Hero (Telus BTW). I didn't buy the phone with this stylish, slick badass interface. I bought it with the clunky, basic spec-Android one. It feels like I got a new phone. I guess I'm weird, I like Rogers. They're just as crappy as every other carrier I've ever had.
Google

Google Earth Raises Discrimination Issue In Japan 457

Posted by kdawson from the outsourcing-the-risk-and-appropriating-the-benefit dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Times (UK) reports that by allowing old maps to be overlaid on satellite images of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, Google has unwittingly created a visual tool that has prolonged an ancient discrimination, says a lobbying group established to protect the human rights of three million burakumin, members of the sub-class condemned by the old feudal system in Japan to unclean jobs associated with death and dirt. 'We tend to think of maps as factual, like a satellite picture, but maps are never neutral, they always have a certain point of view,' says David Rumsey, a US map collector. Some Japanese companies actively screen out burakumin-linked job seekers, and some families hire private investigators to dig into the ancestry of fiances to make sure there is no burakumin taint. Because there is nothing physical to differentiate burakumin from other Japanese and because there are no clues in their names or accent, the only way of establishing whether or not they are burakumin is by tracing their family. By publishing the locations of burakumin ghettos with the modern street maps, the quest to trace ancestry is made easier, says Toru Matsuoka, an opposition MP and member of the Buraku Liberation League. Under pressure to diffuse criticism, Google has asked the owners of the woodblock print maps to remove the legend that identifies the ghetto with an old term, extremely offensive in modern usage, that translates loosely as 'scum town.' 'We had not acknowledged the seriousness of the map, but we do take this matter seriously,' says Yoshito Funabashi, a Google spokesman." The ancient Japanese caste system was made illegal 150 years ago, but silent discrimination remains. The issue is complicated by allegations of mob connections in the burakumin anti-discrimination organizations.

Comment Re:The Year of Linux on the Ultraportable? (Score 1) 395

by 6-tew (#22665704) Attached to: Moore's Law Is Microsoft's Latest Enemy

How do you play mp3s on one of these Linux "computers"? You don't.

You have to use your brain. Best of luck.

I'm pretty sure it can be done, because I'm doing it right now. And I don't possess the encyclopedic inventory of Linux skills assumed necessary to get any basic functionality from a Linux system.

You do need to learn for to use Google. I guess you need to be able to read too. And then you have to be able to reason a little. And type a bit too.

But back to the point of the article, I think it's a great point they're making. I'm only using Linux now because I got sick paying for Windows. I don't think Linux (Fedora in my case) is the greatest OS ever, but then neither is Windows. It has more potential to improve over short periods of time. I've seen this in the year and a half I've been using it. Since I'm using a massively improved version compared to the one I started on (which worked well BTW) and I'm still using XP on my other system. I do have the luxury of two desktop computers, so I can keep one aside for games and the other for everything else. The functionality of the gaming system improves enormously because of this, and the other system improves by virtue of using a "better" OS.

And it's free.

Slashdot Top Deals

Uncompensated overtime? Just Say No.

Close