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Supercomputing

Homebrew Cray-1 140

Posted by CmdrTaco from the when-i-was-a-child dept.
egil writes "Chris Fenton built his own fully functional 1/10 scale Cray-1 supercomputer. True to the original, it includes the couch-seat, but is also binary compatible with the original. Instead of the power-hungry ECL technology, however, the scale model is built around a Xilinx Spartan-3E 1600 development board. All software is available if you want to build one for your own living room. The largest obstacle in the project is to find original software."

Comment Re:Issues I've had. (Score 1) 410

by Mr. Marabou Man (#30350932) Attached to: Multiple-Display Power Tools For Linux?

What do you do with fvwm that you can't do with gnome? I used fvwm for quite a few years from about 15 years ago, and i can't say i miss it.

Well, I for one can run it on my hopelessly antiquated computer :) For me, the question is really: What can you do with Gnome that you can't do with FVWM ?

Comment Re:I know this is slashdot..... but XP (Score 1) 432

by Mr. Marabou Man (#27398561) Attached to: I typically stick with the same desktop environment

Maybe I don't have enough windows open at a time to really make it worthwhile, but the few times I played with them I always just ended up losing my windows and hunting through each desktop to find them. I think Alt+Tab / Win+Tab works fine (even better on Vista/Win7 with more detailed previews).

Remember where you start your apps. I have my virtual desktops arranged in two 3x2 grids, one labeled Personal, the other Work. Numpad 8 and 5 switching between the two. Numpad 7, 9, 4, 6, 1, 3 are bound to each screen within that section. Now on Personal, I will always run mutt on 7, Firefox on 9. On Work, I will always have Emacs in 9, xpdf in 7, figure editor in 6, spare terminal in 1, Matlab in 3, etc, and finding the right program is just a matter of hitting the corresponding Numpad key. This works extremely well for me.

Right-click any shortcut in the Start Menu or on the Desktop, go to Shortcut tab and type what you want in the Shortcut box. This works anywhere in Windows. In Vista and Win7 you have even more choices, for example, the Windows key + numbers opens the programs in your QuickLaunch in order (Win+1 opens the first shortcut, Win+2 the second, etc).

I'm guessing GP meant keyboard shortcuts used for other things, in addition to opening programs. Especially FVWM has huge possibilities here, and some people are quite into that. I obviously have quite a few myself (primarily window operations -- maximize, move windows between workspaces, etc -- The 'Windows' key actually comes in quite handy here).

My personal #1 annoyance with Windows, though, is that there is no easy way (at least that I know of) my modify the keyboard layout. I live in Denmark, but the Danish keyboard layout was really designed by someone with their head way up their ass (AltGr+7/0 to get curly braces? Bah). I personally find the UK layout rather good in many ways, but even using that as a base layout still leaves me with some serious xmodmap work to be done before I can use a system.

Is Microsoft Improving Its Image? 746

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sure-couldn't-get-worse dept.
nk497 writes "Writer makes the case that Windows 7 is a turning point for Microsoft, and we all might start liking them soon ... 'While it's not winning everyone over, there are real signs that Microsoft has taken criticisms on board where it matters most: in the software and services that it provides. The idea of a faster, slimmer Windows is one that most Vista owners would automatically put on their wishlist, and it seems that Microsoft has genuinely done something about it. It's not just reignited interest in the Windows product line, but it's got users appreciating a fresh approach from Microsoft as well.'"
Earth

More Evidence For a Clovis-Killer Comet 210

Posted by kdawson from the speak-nanodiamonds dept.
fortapocalypse sends word that a new paper was published today in the journal Science on the hypothesis that a comet impact wiped out the Clovis people 12,900 years ago. (We discussed this hypothesis last year when it was put forth.) The new evidence is a layer of nanodiamonds at locations all across North America, at a depth corresponding to 12,900 years ago, none earlier or later. The researchers hypothesize that the comet that initiated the Younger Dryas, reversing the warming from the previous ice age, fragmented and exploded in a continent-wide conflagration that produced a layer of diamond from carbon on the surface. While disputing the current hypothesis, NASA's David Morrison allows, "They may have discovered something absolutely marvelous and unexplained."
Toys

Lego Loses Its Unique Right To Make Lego Blocks 576

Posted by CmdrTaco from the this-could-be-huge dept.
tsa writes "The European Department of Justice has decided that the Danish company Lego does not have exclusive rights to the lego building block anymore (sorry, it's in Dutch). Lego went to court after a Canadian firm had made blocks that were so like lego blocks that they even fit the real blocks made by Lego. The European judge decided that the design of the lego blocks is not protected by European trademarks and so anyone can make the blocks." If true, hopefully this will open doors for people interested in inexpensive bulk purchase of bricks of specific sizes and colors. Perhaps at long last I can build a life-sized Hemos statue for my office.
PHP

PHP Gets Namespace Separators, With a Twist 523

Posted by Soulskill from the or-maybe-more-of-a-slant dept.
jeevesbond writes "PHP is finally getting support for namespaces. However, after a couple hours of conversation, the developers picked '\' as the separator, instead of the more popular '::'. Fredrik Holmström points out some problems with this approach. The criteria for selection were ease of typing and parsing, how hard it was to make a typo, IDE compatibility, and the number of characters."
Programming

Loebner Talks AI 107

Posted by timothy from the well-tell-him-ai-back dept.
Mighty Squirrel writes "This is a fascinating interivew with Hugh Loebner, the academic who has arguably done more to promote the development of artifical intelligence than anyone else. He founded the Loebner prize in 1990 to promote the development of artificial intelligence by asking developers to create a machine which passes the Turing Test — meaning it responds in a way indistinguishable from a human. The latest running of the contest is this weekend and this article shows what an interesting and colourful character Loebner is."
Operating Systems

MoBo Manufacturer Foxconn Refuses To Support Linux 696

Posted by kdawson from the must-be-some-good-explanation dept.
Noodlenose notes a thread up on the Ubuntu forums, where a user is questioning the practices of hardware manufacturer Foxconn. The user describes how his new Foxconn motherboard caused his Linux install to freeze and fire off weird kernel errors. He disassembles the BIOS and concludes that a faulty DSDT table is responsible for the errors. Even though the user makes Foxconn aware of the problem, they refuse to correct it, as 'it doesn't support Linux' and is only 'Microsoft certified.' The user speculates darkly on Foxconn's motives. Read the forum, read the code, and come to your own conclusions. "I disassembled my BIOS to have a look around, and while I won't post the results here, I'll tell you what I did find. They have several different tables, a group for Windows XP and Vista, a group for 2000, a group for NT, Me, 95, 98, etc. that just errors out, and one for LINUX. The one for Linux points to a badly written table that does not correspond to the board's ACPI implementation.' The worst part is Foxconn's insistence that the product is ACPI compliant because their tables passed to Windows work, and that Microsoft gave the the magic WHQL certification."

String Theory a Disaster for Physics? 737

Posted by timothy from the sure-is-a-disaster-for-my-brain dept.
BlueCup writes "Mathematician Peter Woit of Columbia University describes string theory in his book Not Even Wrong,. He calls the theory 'a disaster for physics.' Which would have been a fringe opinion a few years ago, but now, after years of string theory books reaching the best sellers list, he has company."

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