162619836
submission
NormalVisual writes:
Synthtopia reports that Dave Smith, founder of the legendary synthesizer manufacturer Sequential Circuits and creator of the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) standard, died this past Wednesday. Some of Smith's notable creations include the Prophet 5, one of the first commercially available digitally-controlled polyphonic analog synthesizers, and the Prophet-600, the first available device to offer MIDI. Smith's contributions to MIDI earned him a Technical Grammy award in 2013. Smith, who held degrees in both computer science and electronic engineering from UC Berkeley, was scheduled to appear at this year's National Association of Music Merchant (NAMM), but died suddenly. No cause of death has yet been released.
101219152
submission
NormalVisual writes:
This LinkedIn article talks about the rise of the phenomenon of "ghosting", where candidates drop all contact with the hiring company, leaving them to wonder what's going on. It'd be interesting to hear Slashdotters' experience with this — have you ever ghosted a potential employer, or perhaps more relevant, have you ever been ghosted by a potential employer during the hiring process? Do you feel it's unprofessional, or simple justice for the behavior of some companies when the balance of power was more on their side?
81633023
submission
NormalVisual writes:
Disney is now asking its employees to chip in to promote the company's copyright agenda via the company's political action committee, DisneyPAC. CEO Bob Iger's letter to employees also lauds the company's success with the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty and the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the video service Aereo, and expresses the company's hope that DisneyPAC will be able to influence Congress in regards to lowering corporate tax rates. Not surprisingly, the company refuses to comment on the initiative.
79116157
submission
NormalVisual writes:
After decades of mystery, the lunar impact site for the Apollo 16 S-IVB third stage has finally been found. These boosters were directed to impact on the Moon beginning with Apollo 13 in order to allow scientists to learn more about the Moon's inner structure by measuring the effects of the collisions with lunar seismographs. Five boosters were directed into the Moon during the lunar missions, and the other four impact sites had already been found shortly after the missions themselves. The Apollo 16 booster had been difficult to find because of a loss of radio contact with the booster before the impact, and the actual impact location was 30 km away from the original estimate.
64448195
submission
NormalVisual writes:
The original 11-foot U.S.S. Enterprise studio model from the original series has gone back into the shop again. The Smithsonian owns the model and has had it on display in a gift shop at the National Air and Space Museum for the last 13 years, but will be placed on display in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall in 2016, to coincide with the museum's 40th anniversary. In the meantime, the model will be undergoing its fourth restoration to address a number of issues. The last restoration in 1991 was performed by Ed Miarecki, a professional modelmaker well known for his work in "Star Trek: The Next Generation", as well as films such as "Event Horizon". This previous restoration had Trek fans up in arms owing to the paint job, which many feel doesn't represent the way the model looked originally. Hopefully this next restoration will bring her back to her former glory.
55387951
submission
NormalVisual writes:
"It's a really tough time to be a patent owner", said Soverain Software, LLC president Katharine Wolanyk, after the Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit invalidated three of Soverain's shopping cart patents. Soverain had sued Newegg for allegedly infringing the patents in question, and had won in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Newegg later had the decision overturned on appeal, with the court ruling that the patents in question were obvious, and thus invalid.
35542185
submission
NormalVisual writes:
When the Jack Daniels distillery recently became aware of a book whose cover they felt substantially infringed their trademark, they didn't go into instant "Terminator mode" — instead, they wrote a very thoughtful, civil letter to the infringing party, and even offered to help defray the costs of coming into compliance. I believe plenty of other companies (and many in the tech world) could use this as an example of how *not* to alienate people and come off looking like a bunch of greedy jerks.
33564765
submission
NormalVisual writes:
License-plate reading cameras are popping up on utility poles all over St. Lawrence County in upstate New York, but no one is willing to say who they belong to . One camera was found by a utility crew, removed from the pole, and given to the local police. "Massena Police Chief Timmy Currier said he returned it to the owner, but wouldn’t say how he knew who the owner was, nor would he say who he gave it to....(Andrew) McMahon, the superintendent at Massena Electric Department, said one of his crews found a box on one of their poles and took it down because “it was in the electric space,” the top tier of wires on the pole above the telephone and cable TV wires, and whoever put it there had taken a chance with electrocution. He said they had never received a request or been informed about its placement."
126659
submission
NormalVisual writes:
The mailing lists were buzzing recently when Michael Buesch, one of the maintainers for the GPL'd bc43xx Broadcom wireless chip driver project, called the OpenBSD folks to task for apparently including code without permission from his project in the OpenBSD bcw project, which aims to provide functionality with Broadcom wireless chips under that OS. It seems that the problem has been resolved for now with the BSD driver author totally giving up on the project and Theo De Raadt taking the position that Buesch's posts on the subject were "inhuman".
14911
submission
NormalVisual writes:
It appears that the unconstitutional and controversial warrantless surveillance program being conducted by the Bush Administration can continue until an appeals court can hear the case, according to this AP article. The 6th Circuit ruled that while the lower court had ruled the program was unconstitutional, they felt that the case's chances before the appeals court and the possible danger to national security warranted their decision to let it continue despite the likelihood that the appeal process will take months.
Good to know that the whole "separation of powers" thing works so well for keeping the government in check, eh?
