Quanetic Software

alphadogg writes "Forrmer CEO of Sun Microsystems Jonathan Schwartz has taken to his personal blog, provocatively titled "What I couldn't say...," to dish some industry dirt and tell his side of the story about the demise of Sun. He has already hinted at plans to write a book, and a new post suggests a tell-all tome could indeed be in the offing. "I feel for Google — Steve Jobs threatened to sue me, too," Schwartz writes, apparently referring to Apple's patent lawsuit against HTC, which makes Google's Nexus One smartphone. As for Bill Gates, Schwartz says he was threatening regarding Sun's efforts in the office software space."

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Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that professors have banned laptops from their classrooms at George Washington University, American University, the College of William and Mary, and the University of Virginia, among many others, compelling students to take notes the way their parents did: on paper. A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen, but during the past decade it has evolved into a powerful distraction as wireless Internet connections tempt students away from note-typing to e-mail, blogs, YouTube videos, sports scores, even online gaming. Even when used as glorified typewriters, laptops can turn students into witless stenographers, typing a lecture verbatim without listening or understanding. 'The breaking point for me was when I asked a student to comment on an issue, and he said, "Wait a minute, I want to open my computer,"' says David Goldfrank, a Georgetown history professor. 'And I told him, "I don't want to know what's in your computer. I want to know what's in your head."' Some students don't agree with the ban. A student wrote in the University of Denver's newspaper: 'The fact that some students misuse technology is no reason to ban it. After all, how many professors ban pens and notebooks after noticing students doodling in the margins?'"

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An anonymous reader writes "Philippe Dauman, Viacom CEO and President, announced today that Harmonix is currently working on the next Rock Band game, Rock Band 3, due for release Holiday 2010. 'The company is pursuing the game in spite of an industry-weakening decline in the once-booming genre of peripheral-equipped music games. Although the franchise has generated over $1 billion to date, the category in general saw sales contract by as much as half throughout 2009. MTV Games parent Viacom also saw Rock Band declines drag on its balance sheet in its last fiscal quarter, and expressed a need to refocus away from pricey peripherals in favor of software. It also said that due to royalties it would need to be more "selective" about track listings, and that it needs more support from the music industry in that department.'"

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daria42 writes "The Electoral Commission in the Australian state of Victoria has made plans to expand its use of electronic voting kiosks based on Linux in the next state election in November of this year. But it appears to be a little confused: the documentation states it will be using the '2.6 kernel/Gentoo release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.' Huh?"

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An anonymous reader writes "After a little over five months of pondering, xkcd fans have cracked a puzzle hidden inside Randall Munroe's recent book xkcd: volume 0. Here is the start of the thread on the xkcd forums; and here is the post revealing the final message (a latitude and longitude plus a date and time)."

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Mirk writes "Computer-science legend Edsger W. Dijkstra famously wrote: 'It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.' The Reinvigorated Programmer argues that the world is full of excellent programmers who cut their teeth on BASIC, and suggests it could even be because they started out with BASIC."

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gollum123 writes "US regulators may dedicate spectrum to free wireless Internet service for some Americans to increase affordable broadband service nationwide, the Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday. The FCC provided few details about how it would carry out such a plan and who would qualify, but will make a recommendation under the National Broadband Plan set for release next week. The agency will determine details later. One way of making broadband more affordable is to 'consider use of spectrum for a free or a very low-cost wireless broadband service,' the FCC said in a statement." Nobody has more than a couple of paragraphs on this story. None of the press coverage mentions the obvious likelihood that any such free network would be heavily filtered, censored, and monitored.

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eldavojohn writes "A new report from Games Industry indicates that MMO gamers in the United States paid $3.8 billion to play last year, with an analysis of five European countries bringing the total close to $4.5 billion USD. In America, the report estimated that payments for boxed content and client downloads amounted to a measly $400 million, while the subscriptions came to $2.38 billion. Hopefully that will fund some developer budgets for bigger and better MMOs yet to come. The study also found that roughly a quarter of the US population plays some form of MMO. Surely MMOs are shaping up to be a juicy industry, and a market that can satisfy people of all walks of life."

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ElectricSteve writes "It's been a long time coming. While Arthur C. Clarke's geosync satellites have taken to space, and James Bond's futuristic mobile technology has become commonplace, still the dream of sustained personal flight has eluded us — until now. At $86,000, the Martin Aircraft jetpack costs about as much as a high-end car, achieves a 30-minute flight time, and is fueled by regular gasoline. A 10% deposit buys you a production slot for 12 months hence." Here's a video of some indoor test flights. This isn't Buck Rogers's jetpack — it's about 5 by 5 feet and weighs more than the average human. You won't be able to commute with it (the FAA has not certified this class of device) so it's recreational only for now.

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gollum123 sends an excerpt from the NY Times on how Google has taken a lead in language translation, in one of the company's few unqualified successes as it attempts to broaden is offerings beyond search. "...Google's quick rise to the top echelons of the translation business is a reminder of what can happen when Google unleashes its brute-force computing power on complex problems. The network of data centers that it built for Web searches may now be, when lashed together, the world's largest computer. Google is using that machine to push the limits on translation technology. Last month, for example, it said it was working to combine its translation tool with image analysis, allowing a person to, say, take a cellphone photo of a menu in German and get an instant English translation. ...in the mid-1990s, researchers began favoring a so-called statistical approach. They found that if they fed the computer thousands or millions of passages and their human-generated translations, it could learn to make accurate guesses about how to translate new texts. It turns out that this technique, which requires huge amounts of data and lots of computing horsepower, is right up Google's alley. ...Google's service is good enough to convey the essence of a news article, and it has become a quick source for translations for millions of people."

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blozza2070 notes the news that Jeff Jaffe has been appointed CEO of the World Wide Web Consortium. Until January Jaffe was CTO at Novell and, while his name hasn't come up very often in this community, he is one of the architects of the Novell-Microsoft patent deal. A reading of Jaffe's blog while at Novell tends to paint him as a software patent supporter, Microsoft apologist, and no fan of the FSF. This strongly worded page at Boycott Novell features copious links to support the above characterization.

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adeelarshad82 writes "After originally rejecting the story, online retailer NewEgg confirmed that a shipment of Core i7s were indeed fake, and apologized for the affair. NewEgg has also broken off its relationship with IPEX, the supplier of the phony lot. The retailer said that it has already contacted affected customers and would continue to reach out and replace the counterfeit parts. We discussed the fake Core i7s over the weekend."

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netbuzz writes "When the NASDAQ stock index hit its all-time high of 5,133 on March 10, 2000, it had more than doubled in a year and the dot-com bubble was already leaking in a big way. A week later the NASDAQ had fallen 9 percent. A year later it was below 2000. Gone were such poster children of the era as Pets.com, Kozmo, and — who could forget? — Whoopi Goldberg's Flooz. Here's a look back."

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bjb writes "While helping a somewhat computer illiterate person figure out a problem recently, they mentioned that PDF files had recently stopped working. Upon investigation I found something installed called 'PDF Suite.' Never having heard of it, I Googled it with 'malware' and other key words, but nothing turned up, though my suspicion remained (and was somewhat confirmed by WOT.) So my question is, where can you go to find out if something is legitimate? Because the person I'm helping is on a dial-up connection, downloading malware detection applications (and updates) is too heavy consider. And I don't maintain a USB stick with such apps, since I don't do this kind of thing very often. Where can you quickly find information?"

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CWmike writes "Today Cisco Systems introduced its next-generation Internet core router, the CRS-3, with about three times the capacity of its current platform. 'The Internet will scale faster than any of us anticipate,' Cisco's John Chambers said while announcing the product. At full scale, the CRS-3 has a capacity of 322Tbit/sec., roughly three times that of the CRS-1, introduced in 2004. It also has more than 12 times the capacity of its nearest competitor, Chambers said. The CRS-3 will help the Internet evolve from a messaging to an entertainment and media platform, with video emerging as the 'killer app,' Chambers said. Using a CRS-3, every person in China, which has a population just over 1.3 billion, could participate in a video phone call at the same time. (Or you could pump nearly one Library of Congress per second through the device, or give everyone in San Fransisco a 1Gbps internet connection.) AT&T said it has been using the CRS-3 to test 100Gbit/sec. data links in tests on a commercial fiber route in Florida and Louisiana."

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You’ve probably heard that Apple recently released the iPad. The absence of Flash Player on the device seems to have awakened the HTML5 vs. Flash debate. Apparently, it’s the final nail in the coffin for Flash. Either that, or the HTML5 community is overhyping its still nascent markup language update. The arguments run wide, strong, and legitimate on both sides. Yet both sides might also be wrong. Designer/developer Dan Mall is equally adept at web standards and Flash; what matters, he says, isn't technology, but people.

E-books aren’t going to replace books. E-books are books, merely with a different form. More and more often, that form is ePub, a format powered by standard XHTML. As such, ePub can benefit from our nearly ten years’ experience building standards-compliant websites. That's great news for publishers and standards-aware web designers. Great news for readers, too. Our favorite genius, Joe Clark, explains the simple why and how.

Another generation of technology has passed and Unicode support is almost everywhere. The next step is to write software that is not just “internationalized” but truly multilingual. In this article we will skip through a bit of history and theory, then illustrate a neat hack called accent-folding. Accent-folding has its limitations but it can help make some important yet overlooked user interactions work better.

Whether it’s in front of a huge audience or a handful of executives, smooth public speaking is essential to a successful web design career. Yet most of us are more afraid of speaking in public than we are of death. In a lively give-and-take, Liz Danzico interviews Scott Berkun, author of Confessions of a Public Speaker, for tips on how to prepare for public speaking, how to perfect your timing, and what to do when bad things happen.

When someone consults a website, there is a precious opportunity not only to provide useful information but also to influence their decision. To make the most of this opportune moment, we must ensure that the site says or does precisely the right thing at precisely the right time. Understanding the rhetorical concept of kairos can help us craft a context for the opportune moment and hit the mark with appropriately zingy text.

Abandoning password masking as Jakob Nielsen suggests could present serious problems, including undermining a user’s trust by failing to meet a basic expectation. But with design patterns gleaned from offline applications, plus a dash of JavaScript, we can provide feedback and reduce password errors without compromising the basic user experience or losing our visitors’ trust.

In Part II, dig deeper into the technology behind using SVG for your site design. Explore how to incorporate SVG in a cross-browser friendly manner, including using SVGWeb to ensure that the SVG shows in Internet Explorer. And discover the unique characteristic that makes SVG ideal for page backgrounds: scalability.

Many of us think of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) as an also-ran: fine for charts and tables, but not much else. Yet SVG can actually enhance a site’s overall design, and can be made to work in even the most stubborn browser. In Part I of a two-part series, Shelley Powers covers important basics of working with SVG, including browser support and accessibility.

For the third year in a row, good citizens of the web, we ask that you take a few minutes to tell us about your professional skills, educational background, career prospects, job benefits, and more.

Because clients expect everything to be faster, better, and simpler, web professionals must take an instant, foolproof, paperless, modern approach to how clients approve proposals and sign contracts. Implementing an instantaneous contract agreement helps to get projects off the ground, attract clients on tight timelines, and prevent potential delays. All it takes is a little PHP and some PDF magic.

80s teen idol and film star Corey Haim, has died in Los Angeles of an apparent overdose.

BRIDGTON, Maine, February 27 (ESPN) -- It takes a certain kind of confidence for an athlete to wear a cape. You can't just be good. You have to be amazing, as in world champion-caliber amazing. Otherwise, you run the risk of looking ridiculous. Luckily, Christian Housh, better known as Tiger Claw, proved himself worthy of a world title. "I can't say I ever had any dreams of being a four square champion until I found out about the world championships of four square," Housh said. "Then the dream came alive."

Bonus: incomplete list of cool rules. Previously on MetaFilter. Previously at a MetaFilter meetup. Get well soon, klangklangston!

8 Unconvential Ways to Be "Buried." We've all heard about strange practices surrounding the remains of the deceased, but even I (who am morbid to a fault) hadn't been aware of half of these.

When Washington D.C. began licensing same-sex marriages last week, this story came out on the paper edition of the Washington Post with this photo on the front page. (WARNING: the photo depicts two men kissing) The paper received complaints from upset readers, some of whom canceled their Post subscription. Andrew Alexander, the Post's ombudsman, responds: "There was a time, after court-ordered integration, when readers complained about front-page photos of blacks mixing with whites. Today, photo images of same-sex couples capture the same reality of societal change."

This post is about two recent(ish) strands of British dance music.
The first is basically a garagey, housey style called UK funky or simply funky (not to be confused with funky house, ridiculous genre proliferation fans!). Although gradually gaining recognition as a distinct style, it remains fairly amorphous - no one's really articulated what makes funky funky, although some have tried. The general consensus, though, is that it's an offshoot of UK garage from the early 2000s, with pattering percussion rhythms imported from soca and elsewhere.

Funky is still largely a London-based sound, but the other style mentioned is more dispersed around the UK. There's even less consensus on a name for this genre, with attempts ranging from the dull (post-dubstep) to amusingly tongue-in-cheek (purple wow sound!). Bristol, with Joker, Gemmy & Guido, and Glasgow, with Rustie (one of whose videos is linked above the fold) and Hudson Mohawke are important outposts. There's also some suggestion of a link with US folk like Flying Lotus and Samiyam (note that this link uses yet another terrible name - wonky).

Some decent resources for keeping up to date with this music:
Rinse FM was a London pirate station, now aboveground and a good source for British dance music of all stripes.
FACT is a magazine with lots of coverage of purple/wonky/etc. - so much, in fact, that yet another nother name for it is fact music.
Hyperdub are a label that started out dubsteppin but have gotten weirder and weirder as time goes on - the site's a bit minimalistic but they do have a mailing list.
Tim Finney and Martin Clark are good writers and fans of funky.
A good chunk of the links in this post have been cadged from a couple threads which are continually being updated by the good folks at ILX.

MLYT:
Geeneus remixes Benga + Coki
Nursery rhyme style
Lady Chann + Warrior One
More Rustie
Ikonika
Hyetal + Shortstuff

(If you're unfamiliar with the term 'nuum as used in a couple of the above links, this is a reasonably short description.)

Raffaella Traniello (Vimeo profile) is an educator and multimedia enthusiast who describes herself as "Animation lover. Linux user. Hungry for clever beauty." She's also committed to bringing free/open source software to the classroom. Her efforts are remarkable in that she achieves pleasant results with community-developed software and involves school children in the production process. Since many users of Linux video editing software -- especially the Cinelerra software package -- are quickly turned off by its opaque interface, Raffaella has also created Cinelerra for Grandma, in which she covers everything from the basics to more difficult subjects like animation.

Ever wonder what professions top the list as the most guilty of infidelity? A dating site for married people surveyed all of their new members last year. Of the 1.9 million folks who signed up, female teachers and male physicians topped the list for their genders.

You know the rules ansd so do I. Now dance!

Galactica: Sabotage is a shot-by-shot remake of the Beastie Boys' Sabotage video, using footage from Battlestar Galactica. Here's a side-by-side comparison.

The driver software for the Energizer DUO USB battery charger contains a back door. It permits a remote user full access to your Windows system.
According to US-CERT,

An attacker is able to remotely control a system, including the ability to list directories, send and receive files, and execute programs. The backdoor operates with the privileges of the logged-on user.

Cats have toilets. Dogs have toilets. Even rats have toilets... but according to the World Toilet Organization, 2.5 billion *people* worldwide still do not have access to sanitation. Peepoo (YouTube video), developed by Swedish entrepreneur, architect and professor Anders Wilhemson, is a new biodegradable single-use toilet that could help grow crops (New York Times). A layer of urea crystals in the bag kills off disease producing pathogens and breaks the waste down... into fertilizer. If you prefer patent-free alternatives, Joseph Jenkins offers Humanure. You can get his Humanure Compost Toilet System Instruction Manual (Direct Download PDF) free of charge. All you need is a bucket, cover materials (sawdust, rice husks or coffee grounds) and the knowledge in his handbook. Peepoo or Humanure? Poo decide.

Ralph Steadman's Alice in Wonderland. Salvador Dali's Alice In Wonderland.

Droops and 8-balls in this man's army shouldn't take unnecessary chances with their lives. Illustrated by Walt Ditzen.
Advice and observations include:
A man is mighty tempted to go along in an overcrowded car.
It is dangerous to stand in the probable path of automobiles.
Common mistakes that result in drownings are: Swimming within 2 hours of eating a heavy meal, plunging into cold water when overheated.
Soldiers have been decapitated by sticking their heads out of railroad car windows, and have lost arms that way, too.

It looked legit and not entirely out of the realm of possibility in today's heated political climate: an anti-gay resolution being introduced in Utah to expel homosexuals from the state. Except that it was an entire, elaborate hoax courtesy of the Yes Men.

Blosics 2 is a physics game. Throw blocks off the stage by shooting balls at them. There are many types of blocks, there are many types of balls. 30 levels to finish. (flash, music/sound effects optional)
Choose the size ball you want to use on the right. The bigger the ball, the bigger the point deduction. Left-click on the orange circle stage, and pull your mouse cursor to aim and increase the throw strength, and release the button to throw. Try to knock off enough blocks to exceed the stage requirement.

Stray Cats in Tokyo as seen by professional photographers.
The group project moved from here, where there are lots more. More from the individual photographers, though not just in Tokyo.

Once upon a time, before boats had motors, the only way to move vessels up the Shennong River (a tributary to the Yangtze River near Badong, Enshi) was for labourers, known as River Trackers, to haul them by hand using heavy ropes along a dangerously narrow ledge hacked from solid rock. And while naked (slightly NSFW).
Being naked was practical, as wet clothes restricted movement and caused chafing, not to mention the clothing itself never lasted very long anyway. Over the years the tradition waned, with trackers wearing clothes to haul tourist boats and while singing folk songs.

But in February 2010, Enshi's deputy party secretary Yao Benchi suggested at a meeting of the local people's congress that a return to the tradition of nude tracking would turn Shennong into a major tourist attraction, an announcement that has generated some controversy.

Yet the trackers themselves don't care about wearing clothes if it makes money. As lead hauler Zhang Houfang told a Wuhan web site: "So long as there is a demand for this from tourists, and they are ready to pay, the majority of rope handlers are happy to haul ropes in the nude. Foreign tourists and amateur photographers find it more interesting."

Soon we may see the return of the Naked River Trackers, which in my mind wouldn't be a bad thing.

Disney restyles "Rapunzel" to appeal to boys. Disney is wringing the pink out of its princess movies. After the less-than-fairy-tale results for its most recent animated release, "The Princess and the Frog," executives at the Burbank studio believe they know why the acclaimed movie came up short at the box office. Brace yourself: Boys didn't want to see a movie with "princess" in the title. Dear Disney: Boys Aren't Stupid, but renaming "Rapunzel" is.

Historian Tony Judt has been the subject of MetaFilter posts before. He has also written an essay on his struggle with ALS that has been debated here. However, it may have taken an article in the mass-market magazine New York to put his race to complete his latest book into perspective.

What a pretty little outfit, good girl! Look at you, wow, you're not just a pretty face! Now come over here, stand close to me.

Jhonen Vasquez best known for his comic book Johnny the Homicidal Maniac [Google Book] and his Nickelodeon show Invader Zim has decided to post Zim "Facts" throughout the month of March.
He's done nine so far.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Warning: some facts might not be entirely for the sane true. They are, however, quite entertaining.

Erik Malmstrom, veteran, writes an opinion piece for the New York Times about the purpose of war movies Malmstrom talks about The Hurt Locker and The Messenger, as well as the documentary Restrepo. He argues to give the Hollywood films some slack, yet he argues that the documentary provides "reality" because it operates without the Hollywood filter.

Cultivated Play: Farmville

I mean, in these days of indoor plumbing, the toilet is a naturally potent metaphor for everyday repression, for all the bile and rage and memories and sins and other impure thoughts and unclean urges that can't always kept down or flushed away. Every once in a while when the psychological plumbing gets clogged, the load of excrement becomes more than one's psychological pipes can handle, and the shit all comes bubbling back up from below and spews out onto the surface.

A survey of plumbing in the movies. Wee bit NSFW in both word and image.

Blog: Daily Plays. "Reading a play a day and writing about what I read."