[Slashdot] Stories for 2008-04-27 ======================================================================
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Slashdot Daily Newsletter

In this issue:
    * The Last Pinball Machine Factory
    * Senate Proposal To Clarify 'State Secrets' Doctrine
    * Backup Tapes With 2 Million Medical Records Stolen
    * Self-Healing Computers For NASA Spacecraft
    * AT&T Denies Resetting P2P Connections
    * The Physics of Zero-G Whipped Cream
    * Nanomicroscopic Image Or Modern Art?
    * Five Days Locked in a Room With GTA IV
    * Donald Knuth Rips On Unit Tests and More
    * Call For Open Source Awards 2008 Nominations
    * Competition In the Free Textbook Market
    * Congress Considers Reform On Orphaned Works
    * Is Mathematics Discovered Or Invented?
    * Phantom Lapboard May Actually Ship

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The Last Pinball Machine Factory                                   |
|   from the producing-at-full-tilt dept.                            |
|   posted by Soulskill on Friday April 25, @21:27 (Games)           |
|   http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/25/2349256        |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

The New York Times is running a story about Stern Pinball Inc., which
they say is the [0]last pinball factory left worldwide. The story
describes working there as a "game geek's fantasy job." The company
president, Gary Stern, acknowledges the lack of demand, but he plans on
sticking around. He also expects the industry to rebound within the next
10 years. We've previously discussed a [1]slightly smaller version of
pinball. "Corner shops, pubs, arcades and bowling alleys stopped stocking
pinball machines. A younger audience turned to video games. Men of a
certain age, said [Pinball Hall of Fame operator Tim Arnold], who is 52,
became the reliable audience. ("Chicks," he announced, "don't get it.")
And so for Mr. Stern, the pinball buyer is shifting. In the United
States, Mr. Stern said, half of his new machines, which cost about $5,000
and are bought through distributors, now go directly into people's homes
and not a corner arcade."

Discuss this story at:
    http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/25/2349256

Links:
    0. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us/25pinball.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1209115080-trRtfYz2aD+QpghxAjSQlA&oref=slogin
    1. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/20/1443208&tid=14


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Senate Proposal To Clarify 'State Secrets' Doctrine                |
|   from the you-can-trust-us dept.                                  |
|   posted by Soulskill on Friday April 25, @23:40 (The Courts)      |
|   http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/0053213         |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Sen. Edward Kennedy
(D-MA) and other lawmakers are pushing legislation to [1]limit the power
of the state secrets doctrine in blocking lawsuits. The doctrine has been
used as a 'get out of jail free' card in cases like the [2]EFF's
warrantless wiretapping lawsuit. This new legislation would make it
harder for the administration to invoke the doctrine, and provide new
allowances, such as using attorneys with security clearances to enable
the lawsuits to go forward even when the issue is appropriately raised."
Update: 04/28 16:58 GMT by [3]KD : The New Yorker is running a detailed
piece, [4]State Secrets, by Patrick Radden Keefe, about how the use of
the state secrets doctrine is playing out in one particular case.

Discuss this story at:
    http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/0053213

Links:
    0. http://www.eff.org/support
    1. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080425-senators-seek-to-stymie-state-secret-shenanigans.html
    2. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/18/2225247&tid=158
    3. http://slashdot.org/~kdawson/
    4. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/28/080428fa_fact_keefe


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Backup Tapes With 2 Million Medical Records Stolen                 |
|   from the doctor-patient-thief-confidentiality dept.              |
|   posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 26, @01:58 (Security)      |
|   http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/0115227         |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]Lucas123 writes "A vehicle used by an off-site archive company to
transport patient data was broken into on March 17. The University of
Miami just made the theft public last week, saying the thieves removed a
transport case carrying the school's six computer backup tapes. On those
tapes were more than [1]2 million medical records. In fact, the archive
company waited 48 hours before notifying the university itself. A
University spokeswoman said the school has stopped shipping backup tapes
off-site for now."

Discuss this story at:
    http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/0115227

Links:
    0. http://www.computerworld.com/
    1. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&articleId=9080322&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_top


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Self-Healing Computers For NASA Spacecraft                         |
|   from the it-worked-for-the-borg dept.                            |
|   posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 26, @05:07 (NASA)          |
|   http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/0539239      |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]Roland Piquepaille writes "As you can guess, hardwired computer
systems are much faster than general-purpose ones because they are
designed to do a single task. But when they fail, they need to be totally
reconfigured. This can be just a costly problem in a lab on Earth, but it
can be vital in space. This is why a University of Arizona (UA) team is
working with NASA to design [1]self-healing computer systems for
spacecraft. The UA engineers are working on hybrid hardware/software
systems using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to develop these
[2]reconfigurable processing systems. As the lead researcher said, 'Our
objective is to go beyond predicting a fault to using a self-healing
system to fix the predicted fault before it occurs.'"

Discuss this story at:
    http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/0539239

Links:
    0. http://www.primidi.com/2008/04/25.html
    1. http://uanews.org/node/19382
    2. http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=903


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| AT&T Denies Resetting P2P Connections                              |
|   from the it-was-the-one-armed-isp dept.                          |
|   posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 26, @08:14 (Networking)    |
|   http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/0419234          |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

betaville points out comments AT&T filed with the FCC in which they
[0]denied throttling traffic by resetting P2P file-sharing connections.
Earlier this week, a [1]study published by the Vuze team found AT&T to
have the 25th highest (13th highest if extra Comcast networks are
excluded) median reset rate among the sampled networks. In the past, AT&T
has [2]defended Comcast's throttling practices, and said it wants to
[3]monitor its network traffic for IP violations. "AT&T vice president of
Internet and network systems research Charles Kalmanek, in a letter
addressed to Vuze CEO Gilles BianRosa, said that peer-to-peer resets can
arise from numerous local network events, including outages, attacks,
reconfigurations or overall trends in Internet usage. 'AT&T does not use
"false reset messages" to manage its network,' Kalmanek said in the
letter. Kalmanek noted that Vuze's analysis said the test 'cannot
conclude definitively that any particular network operator is engaging in
artificial or false [reset] packet behavior.'"

Discuss this story at:
    http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/0419234

Links:
    0. http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6555207.html?desc=topstory
    1. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/24/0128220&tid=230
    2. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/19/2048219&tid=266
    3. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/17/1413221&tid=187


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The Physics of Zero-G Whipped Cream                                |
|   from the government-spending-at-work dept.                       |
|   posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday April 26, @09:10 (NASA)           |
|   http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/1232259      |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]SpaceAdmiral writes "[1]An experiment on the Space Shuttle Columbia
has been analyzing your ice cream sundae. Or, rather, it looked at the
phenomenon of "shear thinning," which explains why whipped cream comes
out of the can like a liquid, but sits atop your sundae like a solid. The
experiment actually involved shear thinning of xenon, a substance used in
ion rocket engines, but whipped cream tastes better." I'm not sure it was
cost effective to fly Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass into low earth
orbit either, but hey it's NASA, who am I to judge?

Discuss this story at:
    http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/1232259

Links:
    0. http://www.fanehenderson.com/
    1. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/25apr_cvx2.htm?list832167


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Nanomicroscopic Image Or Modern Art?                               |
|   from the i-like-pictures dept.                                   |
|   posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday April 26, @10:17 (Graphics)       |
|   http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/1248227         |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

SillyConCarbide writes "Every six months, the Materials Research Society
holds a science as art competition. The [0]winners from their most recent
meeting are particularly breathtaking. Materials researchers may struggle
for years with stubborn instruments, fragile crystals or difficult
chemical reactions before obtaining a bit of precious data from the
exotic substances they study. Now, the scrutiny of samples not only
yields potentially important data, but also artistic inspiration. Polymer
films, cerium oxide membranes, and tantalum oxide crystals can look
beautiful in the right light ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ especially if that light is an electron
beam."

Discuss this story at:
    http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/1248227

Links:
    0. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2008/04/gallery_nano_art


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Five Days Locked in a Room With GTA IV                             |
|   from the looking-forwrad-to-this-one dept.                       |
|   posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday April 26, @11:29 (XBox (Games))   |
|   http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/1253236        |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

bippy writes "Five days, one game. The Rocky Mountain News has a write up
of [0]five days spent playing Grand Theft Auto IV recently in a San
Francisco hotel. It ends: "In Grand Theft Auto IV the story isn't just an
amalgam of cut scenes and cleverly written dialogue, it's the experiences
I create, too. It's now, watching Niko stand, his shoulders slumped, that
the depth of this game finally hits me. Niko's journey, the one crafted
by Rockstar, may have ended, but Niko's adventures in the story I am
creating have just begun."" The most anticipated game in awhile to be
sure. I'm certainly looking forward to busting some heads and jumping
ramps.

Discuss this story at:
    http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/1253236

Links:
    0. http://kotaku.com/5006939/five-days-with-gta-iv-a-newspaper-diary


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Donald Knuth Rips On Unit Tests and More                           |
|   from the all-hail-knuth dept.                                    |
|   posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday April 26, @12:46 (Programming)    |
|   http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/1627248         |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]eldavojohn writes "You may be familiar with Donald Knuth from his
famous Art of Computer Programming books but he's also the father of TeX
and, arguably, one of the founders of open source. There's an
[1]interesting interview where he says a lot of stuff I wouldn't have
predicted. One of the first surprises to me was that he didn't seem to be
a huge proponent of unit tests. I use JUnit to test parts of my projects
maybe 200 times a day but Knuth calls that kind of practice a "waste of
time" and claims "nothing needs to be 'mocked up.'" He also states that
methods to write software to take advantage of parallel programming
hardware (like multi-core systems that [2]we've [3]discussed) are [4]too
difficult for him to tackle due to ever changing hardware. He even goes
so far as to vent about his unhappiness toward chipmakers for forcing us
into the multicore realm. He pitches his idea of "[5]literate programming"
which I must admit I've never heard of but find it intriguing. At the
end, he even remarks on his adage that young people shouldn't do things
just because they're trendy. Whether you love him or hate him, he sure
has some interesting/flame-bait things to say."

Discuss this story at:
    http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/1627248

Links:
    0. http://www.misrarecords.com/mp3.php
    1. http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1193856
    2. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/22/1218238&tid=156
    3. http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/02/1329251&tid=156
    4. http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/29/0058246&tid=185
    5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Call For Open Source Awards 2008 Nominations                       |
|   from the singing-the-unsung dept.                                |
|   posted by kdawson on Saturday April 26, @14:00 (Software)        |
|   http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/1748204         |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]chromatic writes "Google and O'Reilly have published the [1]Call For
Open Source Awards 2008 Nominations. These awards, given at [2]OSCON 2008,
recognize individual contributors who have demonstrated exceptional
leadership, creativity, and collaboration in the development of open
source software. The nomination process is open to the entire open source
community, and nominations close on May 15. Here's your chance to sing
the praises of previously unsung hackers."

Discuss this story at:
    http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/1748204

Links:
    0. http://onyxneon.com/books/gravitas/
    1. http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/04/open-source-award-nominations.html
    2. http://www.conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Competition In the Free Textbook Market                            |
|   from the disintermediating-ecducation dept.                      |
|   posted by kdawson on Saturday April 26, @15:14 (Education)       |
|   http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/1823250         |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]bcrowell writes "The NYTimes has an [1]editorial plugging [2]Flat
World Knowledge, a startup that will offer college textbooks
inexpensively (~$30) in print, and free as PDFs. They plan to make their
profits from add-ons like podcast study guides and mobile phone
flashcards. Books will be licensed under [3]CC
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike. Mashups and customizations are
encouraged, but the NC license is incompatible with strong copyleft
licenses such as the GFDL used by Wikipedia. Other companies trying to
find a workable business model for free textbooks include [4]Ink
Textbooks (revenue from online homework) and [5]Freeload Press (revenue
from ads inside the books). So far, none of these companies seems to have
succeeded in building up much of a catalog of books; it seems more common
for authors of free textbooks to take a DIY approach, putting PDFs on
their own web pages, and sometimes arranging on-demand printing with
vanity-press publishers like lulu.com. [6]Lots [7]and [8]lots of web
sites exist to help people find free textbooks, and CalPIRG has an active
[9]campaign pushing for affordable textbooks."

Discuss this story at:
    http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/1823250

Links:
    0. http://www.lightandmatter.com/
    1. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/opinion/25fri4.html
    2. http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/
    3. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
    4. http://www.inktextbooks.com/
    5. http://freeloadpress.com/
    6. http://textbookrevolution.org/
    7. http://www.opentextbook.org/
    8. http://theassayer.org/
    9. http://www.calpirg.org/issues/affordable-higher-education/affordable-textbooks


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Congress Considers Reform On Orphaned Works                        |
|   from the mashup-with-daring-and-whimsy dept.                     |
|   posted by kdawson on Saturday April 26, @16:27 (The Almighty Buck|
|   http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/1946253          |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Bills have been
introduced in both the House and the Senate to liberalize copyright law
in the case of [1]orphaned works. The almost-identical bills would limit
the penalties for infringement in cases where the copyright holder could
no longer be identified. The idea is that one could declare their intent
to use the work with the Copyright Office and if the copyright holder
didn't care to respond, they would only be able to get 'reasonable
compensation' instead of excessive statutory penalties. Public Knowledge
has [2]more details on the bills."

Discuss this story at:
    http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/1946253

Links:
    0. http://www.eff.org/support
    1. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080425-new-orphaned-works-act-would-limit-copyright-liability.html
    2. http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1537


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Is Mathematics Discovered Or Invented?                             |
|   from the plato-says-yeah-but dept.                               |
|   posted by kdawson on Saturday April 26, @17:42 (Math)            |
|   http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/210230       |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader points out an article up at Science News on a
question that, remarkably, is still being debated after a few thousand
years: [0]is mathematics discovered, or is it invented? Those who answer
"discovered" are the intellectual descendants of Plato; their number
includes Roger Penrose. The article notes that one difficulty with the
Platonic view: if mathematical ideas exist in some way independent of
humans or minds, then human minds engaged in doing mathematics must
somehow be able to connect with this non-physical state. The European
Mathematical Society recently devoted space to the debate. One of the
papers, [1]Let Platonism die, can be found on page 24 of this PDF. The
author believes that Platonism "has more in common with mystical
religions than with modern science."

Discuss this story at:
    http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/210230

Links:
    0. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/31392/title/Still_debating_with_Plato
    1. http://www.ems-ph.org/journals/newsletter/pdf/2007-06-64.pdf


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Phantom Lapboard May Actually Ship                                 |
|   from the use-it-to-play-duke-nukem-forever dept.                 |
|   posted by kdawson on Saturday April 26, @18:54 (Input Devices)   |
|   http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/26/2115211     |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

notthatwillsmith writes "Despite never actually releasing the Phantom
console, it looks like Phantom Entertainment (the company formerly known
as Infinium Labs) [0]may actually ship its sofa-friendly mouse/keyboard
combo controller, the Lapboard, sometime this decade. The Lapboard is
currently scheduled for a mid-June release at a price of $130, with the
included laser mouse." We've been mulling over the [1]much [2]delayed
Phantom console for years.

Discuss this story at:
    http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/04/26/2115211

Links:
    0. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/first_look_the_phantom_lapboard
    1. http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/24/1953252&tid=206
    2. http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/22/192240&tid=10



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