The Little Hacker's Room

Hundreds of thousands of people flee towns and villages threatened by fresh floods in Pakistan's deluged southern Sindh province.

A limber binding is a happy binding. (Submitterated by Gabriel Andery)

bossanovalithium writes that an umbrella group including Japanese heavyweights like Panasonic and Toyota is working on bringing the price of self powered parts down to levels where they can be mass produced: "The idea is that the parts will make external power sources redundant mdash; because they can convert energy from body heat, light and vibrations straight into electricity. Self powered electronics have already sporadically been used in technology like wall-mount remote control units for air conditioners, says Nikkei, but existing parts are bulky and cost a couple thousand yen a piece. 3,000 yen is about $35 mdash; which means they're not the best bet, financially, yet."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fhardware.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F1620255%2FSelf-Powered-Parts-Are-the-Future" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Self-Powered+Parts+Are+the+Future%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FdntOF1" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/1620255/Self-Powered-Parts-Are-the-Future?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1778632amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d7b59be/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/QOD5AKg_IX0vsBPzwC60U6ME-2o/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/QOD5AKg_IX0vsBPzwC60U6ME-2o/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/QOD5AKg_IX0vsBPzwC60U6ME-2o/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/QOD5AKg_IX0vsBPzwC60U6ME-2o/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/rk_VjYz74gk" height="1" width="1"/

Liverpool striker Dirk Kuyt injures shoulder during training with the Netherlands, according to Dutch boss Bert van Marwijk

mspohr writes with a sad excerpt from Fast Company: "Despite a seemingly stout business plan, and all the financial, social, and educational benefits it would bring, the FCC's just turned down M2Z's application for a coast-to-coast free wireless broadband system. ... The FCC is known to have heard complaints about M2Z's plan from existing wireless carriers. Though M2Z's network would've operated at under 1 Mbps peak speeds mdash; meaning it was very slow by today's standards, and probably snail-like by tomorrow's mdash; its free pricing may well have tempted many folks away from spending cash with an established ISP. Those carriers are now reported to be pleased with the FCC's decision, though they argue it's in line with the greater National Broadband Plan. Whenever that actually gets off the ground."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmobile.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F1227249%2FM2Zs-Free-Wireless-Broadband-Killed-In-Advance" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=M2Z's+Free%2C+Wireless+Broadband+Killed+In+Advance%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FaTwXhC" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/1227249/M2Zs-Free-Wireless-Broadband-Killed-In-Advance?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1778472amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d794ef4/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/H9H_N0YeHmmqVU7Yko1u7kHn5CI/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/H9H_N0YeHmmqVU7Yko1u7kHn5CI/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/H9H_N0YeHmmqVU7Yko1u7kHn5CI/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/H9H_N0YeHmmqVU7Yko1u7kHn5CI/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/NYBLbzitl_g" height="1" width="1"/

An anonymous reader writes "I have kept every email I have ever sent or received since 1990, with the exception of junk mail (though I kept a lot of that as well). I have migrated my emails faithfully from Unix mail, to Eudora, to Outlook, to Thunderbird and Entourage, though I have left much of the older stuff in Outlook PST files. To make my life easier I would now like to merge all the emails back into a single searchable archive mdash; just because I can. But there are a few problems: a) Moving them between email systems is SLOW; while the data is only a few GB, it is hundred of thousands of emails and all of the email systems I have tried take forever to process the data. b) Some email systems (i.e. Outlook) become very sluggish when their database goes over a certain size. c) I don't want to leave them in a proprietary database, as within a few years the format becomes unsupported by the current generation of the software. d) I would like to be able to search the full text, keep the attachments, view HTML emails correctly and follow email chains. e) Because I use multiple operating systems, I would prefer platform independence. f) Since I hope to maintain and add emails for the foreseeable future, I would like to use some form of open standard. So, what would you recommend?"pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fask.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F1533203%2FBest-Way-To-Archive-Emails-For-Later-Searching" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Best+Way+To+Archive+Emails+For+Later+Searching%3F%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fbe1F7W" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/1533203/Best-Way-To-Archive-Emails-For-Later-Searching?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1778598amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d7adc24/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Xc6zKt1HJ3HmL1k55OygsU5BTgM/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Xc6zKt1HJ3HmL1k55OygsU5BTgM/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Xc6zKt1HJ3HmL1k55OygsU5BTgM/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Xc6zKt1HJ3HmL1k55OygsU5BTgM/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/vEuWHHHhyT0" height="1" width="1"/

MojoKid writes "Remote-controlled helicopters are not new, but Parrot's AR.Drone Quadricopter is set to make a splash when it goes on sale on Sept. 9th. It will use an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a controller, and give a live video feed from two different cameras to the pilot. Each model comes with two hulls, one of them for indoor use, with protective loops around the rotors. The device creates its own Wi-Fi network, which the iOS device connects to in order to control the Quadricopter."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fentertainment.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F1441240%2FParrot-iPod-Controlled-Quadricopter-Launches-This-Week" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=+Parrot+iPod-Controlled+Quadricopter+Launches+This+Week%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FcJOmXv" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/1441240/-Parrot-iPod-Controlled-Quadricopter-Launches-This-Week?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1778566amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d7a8cb4/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/uHsY_we5ostXGhtnV5RqjoaZ6LM/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/uHsY_we5ostXGhtnV5RqjoaZ6LM/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/uHsY_we5ostXGhtnV5RqjoaZ6LM/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/uHsY_we5ostXGhtnV5RqjoaZ6LM/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/vDmGSmH9kEI" height="1" width="1"/

The EU budget commissioner says he sees no grounds for the UK to keep its budget rebate.

Fedora will be a href=http://www.happyassassin.net/2010/09/05/systemd-test-day-on-tuesday-20100907/holding a Systemd test day/a on September 7, 2010. spana href=https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2010-09-07_SystemdThis week's Test Day/a, which will take place on Tuesday 2010/09/07 rather than the more usual Thursday, is on systemd, so it's a very important one! It will also serve at least two functions: as usual, the testing will help us to improve the code so that if it does go into the final Fedora 14 release it will work as well as possible, but the Fedora steering committee will also be using the results of the Test Day to help inform their final decision as to whether to go ahead with systemd for the Beta and final release, or whether to revert to upstart. So there's a lot riding on this Test Day./span

The BBC's Orla Guerin has returned to the Pakistan town of Nowshera, which was one of the first areas to be hit by the rising waters.

An anonymous reader writes "One of the big, unsolved problems in explaining how life arose on Earth is a chicken-and-egg paradox: How could the basic biochemicals mdash; such as amino acids and nucleotides mdash; have arisen before the biological catalysts (proteins or ribozymes) existed to carry out their formation? In a paper appearing in the current issue of The Biological Bulletin, scientists propose that a third type of catalyst could have jumpstarted metabolism and life itself, deep in hydrothermal ocean vents."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F05%2F2118241%2FTransition-Metal-Catalysts-Could-Be-Key-To-Origin-of-Life" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Transition+Metal+Catalysts+Could+Be+Key+To+Origin+of+Life%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fd5c2OY" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/05/2118241/Transition-Metal-Catalysts-Could-Be-Key-To-Origin-of-Life?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777902amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d7b317b/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rzvI0nlboENzVh5aI_2GI-tZhzE/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rzvI0nlboENzVh5aI_2GI-tZhzE/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rzvI0nlboENzVh5aI_2GI-tZhzE/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rzvI0nlboENzVh5aI_2GI-tZhzE/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/Ik-NlEWfOgE" height="1" width="1"/

eldavojohn writes "MSNBC spoke with the senior producer of a new stereoscopic 3D game called Killzone 3 and highlighted problems they are trying to solve with being one of the first FPS 3D games for the PS3. The team ran into serious design problems, like where to put the crosshairs for the players (do they constantly hover in front of your vision?) and what to do with any of the heads-up display components. Aside from the obvious marketing thrown in at the end of the article (in a very familiar way), there is an interesting point raised concerning normalized conventions in all video games and how one ports that to the new stereoscopic 3D model mdash; the same way directors continue to grapple with getting 3D right. Will 3D games be just as gimmicky as most 3D movies? If they are, at least Guerrilla Games is at least making it possible for the player to easily and quickly switch in and out of stereoscopic 3D while playing."pa href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgames.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F09%2F06%2F0027236%2FThe-New-Difficulties-In-Making-a-3D-Game" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"/a a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=The+New+Difficulties+In+Making+a+3D+Game%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FddhwoQ" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"img src="http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"/a/ppa href="http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/09/06/0027236/The-New-Difficulties-In-Making-a-3D-Game?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./piframe src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discussamp;id=1777962amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"/iframeimg width='1' height='1' src='http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/32909/f/530758/s/d74ab4f/mf.gif' border='0'/ pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/u7ZcJZcLfY0GGobkVhut4yETQYs/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/u7ZcJZcLfY0GGobkVhut4yETQYs/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/u7ZcJZcLfY0GGobkVhut4yETQYs/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/u7ZcJZcLfY0GGobkVhut4yETQYs/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/Z0m57-c-rpo" height="1" width="1"/

South African trade unions suspend a nationwide strike which has paralysed schools and hospitals for 20 days.

Version 7.2 of the GDB debugger is out. New features include support for the D language, some C++ improvements, better Python support, better tracepoint support, and more; see the announcement for the details.

A primary school is closed in Antrim after an explosive device is found by an eight-year-old pupil and carried into a classroom.

The police and not the government should decide whether to re-open the investigation into the News of the World phone-hacking allegations, Home Secretary Theresa May has said.

Les électeurs du Nouveau-Brunswick assistent à une véritable surenchère de promesses électorales de la part du Parti libéral et du Parti progressiste-conservateur.

The MWR Labs group at MWR Info Security is running a series of articles comparing Linux distributions from a security point of view. a href=http://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/notices/security_mechanisms_in_linux_environment__part_1___userspace_memory_protection/Part 1: user space memory protection/a looks at protection against memory corruption attacks, while a href=http://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/notices/assessing_the_tux_strength_part_2_into_the_kernel/ Part 2 - into the kernel/a examines kernel security settings. spanThe notable exceptions in the results are Fedora and Ubuntu. Both distributions do not allow the ability to write code to a certain memory region and then execute it. This can be observed from the results of the first five tests. Fedora goes one step further and also prevents the bss, data and heap sections from being marked as executable using the 'mprotect' system call. It should be noted that there would still be numerous other memory regions where an attacker could upload their code and then use the 'mprotect' function to mark it as executable./span

Les proches de la femme de 42ans, portée disparue depuis plus d'une semaine, craignent le pire après la découverte de restes humains, dimanche, dans la région d'Orangeville, en Ontario.

England manager Fabio Capello says striker Wayne Rooney is in the right frame of mind to play against Switzerland on Tuesday despite allegations about his private life.