Warping it up!

Fini Alring’s Glossy Tech Zine

Archive for August, 2005

Earth’s Core Spins Faster than Earth

Friday, August 26th, 2005

Dreamwalkerofyore writes “The New York Times has an article on a recent affirmation that the earth’s core rotates faster than the earth proper. From the article: ‘Confirming assertions first made in 1996, a team of geophysicists are presenting data in the journal Science today showing that the earth’s inner core… spins faster than the rest of the planet. Over a period of 700 to 1,200 years, the inner core appears to make one full extra spin. That extra spin could give scientists information about how the earth generates its magnetic field.’”

Slashdot | Earth’s Core Spins Faster than Earth

House-Sitting Robots from Japan

Wednesday, August 24th, 2005

Eh-Wire writes “Roborior, a house-sitting robot armed with a digital camera, infrared sensors and a videophone is on sale in select Japanese department stores. The house-sitting robot can detect break-ins with it’s infrared sensors and then call the owners cell phone and stream video to the tiny screen. At $2600 each the Roborior is not cheap. For those that require something a little more substantial, Tmusk, the manufacturer of Roborior, has produced a four legged version called Banryu. This one is the size of a large dog and sells for around $18,000. It’s not supposed to shed hair or sleep on the furniture which could make it quite popular.”

Slashdot | House-Sitting Robot Hits Store Shelves in Japan

Tor starts anonymous GUI competition

Monday, August 22nd, 2005

The developerrs of Tor which is supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) - is launching a competition to create a graphical front end.

The idea is that people will be able to install and configure Tor easily without necessarily having to be software wizards.

Tor currently helps to create anonymous identities when using IRC, browsers, instant messaging and the like.

The first phase of the competition is for entrants to produce mockups of good interfaces. The second phase is providing working implementations. Entries are invited for both.

The EFF said the winning entries will be open source, show good graphic design, and have a simple interface. Everyone who enters gets a free t-shirt.

More details on the project….

Tor starts anonymous GUI competition

Mozilla: New JS Array Methods

Friday, August 19th, 2005

As an “old-schoolJavaScript hacker, I dreadfully remember the days before the Array() object. Not that we didn’t survive without it, but it’s good to have this sort of stuff properly implemented in a language..

After a whole lot of silence (not forgetting the yet to be publicized E4X) in the land of JavaScript / ECMAScript finally something is happening to the Array spec, Mozilla has added new methods which will be publicly available in Firefox 1.5. However I have not been able to locate the draft specification of EMCA-262 and thus I can not confirm if these methods are actually in the coming ECMA-262 Edition 4.

These are the new Array methods:

Item location methods:
indexOf( )
Returns the index of the given item’s first occurrence.
lastIndexOf( )
Returns the index of the given item’s last occurrence.
Iterative methods are:
every( )
Runs a function on every item in the array and returns true if the function returns true for every item.
filter( )
Runs a function on every item in the array and returns an array of all items for which the function returns true.
forEach( )
Runs a function on every item in the array.
map( )
Runs a function on every item in the array and returns the results in an array.
some( )
Runs a function on every item in the array and returns true if the function returns true for any one item.

Visit webreference.com for examples on how to use these methods.

Mozilla’s New Array Methods - WebReference.com

E=MC2 100 year anniversary

Friday, August 19th, 2005

Eric Ward writes “To mark the one hundredth anniversary of Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc2, NOVA has gone live this month with a Web site that features exclusive content and podcasts from ten of the worlds top physicists. This once-in-a-lifetime gathering of top scientists such as S. James Gates, Jr., Brian Greene, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Nobel Laureate Sheldon Glashow simplify what the equation means to our world today and the effect it has had on their careers. NOVA online also details how Einstein grappled with the implications of his revolutionary theory of relativity and came to a startling conclusion: that mass and energy are one, related by the formula E=mc2. Viewers will also find lesson plans through the award-winning NOVA Teacher’s Guide and a special library resource kit.”

Slashdot | One Hundred Years of E=MC2