Slashdot: Ask SlashdotNews for nerds, stuff that mattersPersistent Terminals For a Dedicated Computing Box- June 29, 2008 Theovon writes "I just built a high-end quad-core Linux PC dedicated to number-crunching. Its job is to sit in the corner with no keyboard, mouse, or monitor and do nothing but compute (genetic algorithms, neural nets, and other research). My issue is that I would like to have something like persistent terminal sessions. I've considered using Xvnc in a completely headless configuration (some useful documentation here, here, here, and here). However, for most of my uses, this is overkill. Total..http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotAskSlashdot/~3/322629190/article.pl Working With 2 ISPs For Home Networking- June 28, 2008 An anonymous reader writes "This is, I think, a simple question — but one which I can't get the answer to. As a typical, but perhaps high-demand home user I would like to use 2 separate ISPs. ADSL is pretty cheap nowadays, and 2 x ADSL seems a better value than one fast one — especially in terms of reliability. If one breaks, at least the other will work. Using an old box as a routerfirewall, how can I configure a system to use two completely separate ISPs in a sensible manner...http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotAskSlashdot/~3/322165536/article.pl Where To Draw the Line With Embryo Selection- June 27, 2008 Tjeerd writes "There is currently a discussion going on in the Netherlands about embryo selection. The process means that when using in vitro fertilization, you can check what kind of genetic defects will definitely become activated during life. When embryos with those defects are identified, they can be avoided or destroyed. The next step the government is considering is to make it possible to select against genetic defects which might become active in life, such as breast and colon cancer. Of.http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotAskSlashdot/~3/321685427/article.pl Can Any Router Guarantee Bandwidth For VoIP- June 26, 2008 cartman94501 writes "My wife and I use Vonage for Voice over IP at home, mainly for work-related phone calls so we don't have to give out our home number to clients and colleagues. Most of the time it works fine, but when I'm using BitTorrent or other high-bandwidth applications (purely for legal and non-copyright-violating purposes, of course), the call quality gets choppy. I have used my Linksys (not a WRT54G, so 'upgrading' it to Linux probably won't work) router's QoS feature to assign high.http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotAskSlashdot/~3/320885422/article.pl Software Diagramming In Embedded Systems- June 25, 2008 afd100 writes "I work for a medium-sized company building embedded systems using C. As of yet, we do not have a great design methodology, but it is something we're working on. For the last 7 years now, we've been documenting our embedded software in an IEEE'esque Software Detailed Design, and using a very cryptic block diagram to explain our software. What does the embedded software community at large currently use to graphical represent their software or do they even try this Since the...http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotAskSlashdot/~3/319962983/article.pl When Is a Self-Signed SSL Certificate Acceptable- June 25, 2008 UltraLoser writes "When is it acceptable to encourage users to accept a self-signed SSL cert Recently the staff of a certain Web site turned on optional SSL with a self-signed and domain-mismatched certificate for its users and encourages them to add an exception for this certificate. Their defense is that it is just as secure as one signed by a commercial CA; and because their site exists for the distribution of copyrighted material the staff do not want to have their personal information in...http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotAskSlashdot/~3/319595208/article.pl CoolWeird Stuff To Do On a Cluster- June 24, 2008 Gori writes "I'm a researcher at a university. Our group mainly does Agent Based Modeling of interdisciplinary problems (think massive simulations where technology, policy, and economics meet). Recently, we managed to get a bunch of money for a High Performance Cluster to run our stuff on. The code is mostly written in Java. Our IT support people are very capable of setting up a stable cluster that will run Java perfectly. But where's the fun in that What I'm trying to figure out are other,...http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotAskSlashdot/~3/319246626/article.pl Multi-page PDF To Multi-page TIFF and Archiving- June 24, 2008 GeorgeMonroy writes "One of my clients has aperture cards that they have been scanning into multi-page PDF files — but now they want them in multi-page TIFFs instead. One of the reasons they gave for this is that TIFF files require less storage space. While that is true, I wonder if TIFF is the best format going into the future. Are TIFFs better than PDFs for future use I wonder what format you think would last longer. Are there any other formats that you think would be better or more...http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotAskSlashdot/~3/319002774/article.pl Cutting-Edge AI Projects- June 24, 2008 Xeth writes "I'm a consultant with DARPA, and I'm working on an initiative to push the boundaries of neuromorphic computing (i.e. artificial intelligence). The project is designed to advance ideas all fronts, including measuring and understanding biological brains, creating AI systems, and investigating the fundamental nature of intelligence. I'm conducting a wide search of these fields, but I wanted to know if any in this community know of neat projects along those lines that I might overlook..http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotAskSlashdot/~3/318557041/article.pl DIY Solar Resources- June 21, 2008 TihSon writes "I'm building a large shed out back and I want to power the lighting using a surplus solar panel. In searching for information on how to go about this, I have found a lot of rough DIY guides for various projects that are close to my goal. But none seem to explain the reasoning and theory behind using solar panels, so hacking their project to suit my own needs could be pretty much hit-and-miss. I don't want to do a hacked-up job, and future solar projects are not out of the...http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotAskSlashdot/~3/317120269/article.pl |