Comment Re:Why not, it's just another work tool (Score 1, Interesting) 364
Exactly. I'm on facebook with a name so fake it's laughable and a comic book face for a photo.
Submission + - Windows 8 Removes Start Button (theverge.com) 1
Overly Critical Guy writes: 15 years after its introduction, Microsoft is removing the Start button in Windows 8. By hovering the cursor over the lower-left corner of the taskbar, a clickable thumbnail appears to access the Metro interface. On touch devices, the interface element can be accessed with a swipe gesture. The Start button was the central theme of the famous Windows 95 commercial featuring "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones.
Submission + - MIT researchers discover how to make solar panels from grass clippings (inhabitat.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: MIT researcher Andreas Mershin has discovered a way to create a solar cell by mixing any green organic material (grass clippings, agricultural waste) with a bag of custom chemicals and painting the mixture on a roof.
Submission + - Are Football Coaches Mathematically Irrational? 1
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Joseph Stromberg writes in the Smithsonian that economist David Romer used data from more than 700 NFL games to study a choice frequently encountered by football coaches on fourth down: kick a field goal or try for a touchdown? Romer calculated the average chance of winning generated by each choice at different positions on the field and compared the data to the actual choices made by NFL coaches and concluded that most coaches avoid risk to an irrational extent (PDF), often opting to kick a field goal when going for a touchdown would provide a better chance of winning. Soon after the Romer study, Chuck Bower drew upon many of the principles used in building computer models for other games and built ZEUS: a powerful computer program that can analyze in-game situations on the fly and provide high-volume data analysis to coaches in real time. No football coach has ever admitted to using Zeus but there is evidence that one coach in particular might be utilizing the cutting-edge program: New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, set to coach in his 5th Super Bowl on Sunday. The evidence? Belichick seems to be better than average at making optimal choices in critical play-calling situations and is famous for his unconventional decision-making, often opting to go for an aggressive play on fourth down when most coaches would punt or kick a field goal. When ZEUS was used to analyze a particularly controversial fourth down call made by Belichick—at the end of a crucial 2010 game against the Indianapolis Colts, he opted to go for it on his own 28-yard line, an unusually aggressive choice. ZEUS surprised many by saying Belichick had, statistically, made the right call. "Of course, statistical projections are not guarantees. In that case, the decision didn’t work out, and the Patriots lost the game," writes Stromberg. "But if Belichick does have ZEUS on his sideline, it might give him that much better odds of being the winning coach on Sunday.""
Submission + - New drug could cure nearly any viral infection (mit.edu)
wiredmikey writes: An interesting development from Researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Lab who have developed technology that may someday cure the common cold, influenza and other ailments.
As the article explains, most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics such as penicillin, discovered decades ago. But, such drugs are useless against viral infections, including influenza, the common cold, and deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola.
Now, in a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, the MIT researchers have designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection.
In fact, in a paper published July 27 in the journal PLoS One, the researchers tested their drug against 15 viruses, and found it was effective against all of them.
As the article explains, most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics such as penicillin, discovered decades ago. But, such drugs are useless against viral infections, including influenza, the common cold, and deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola.
Now, in a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, the MIT researchers have designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection.
In fact, in a paper published July 27 in the journal PLoS One, the researchers tested their drug against 15 viruses, and found it was effective against all of them.
Submission + - Ubuntu TV unveiled (pcpro.co.uk)
Barence writes: "Canonical has unveiled the first screenshots and details of Ubuntu TV. Plans for versions of the Linux distro for tablets, smartphones and TVs were unveiled last year, and now the television is — perhaps surprisingly — the first of those to arrive. "It's a simple viewing experience for online video, both your own and routed over the internet," Jane Silber, Canonical's CEO told PC Pro. Movie streaming services will be supported as well as live television broadcasts. Ubuntu TV will be integrated into television sets, but Canoncial was unable to confirm any manufacturers. It will be released later this year."
Submission + - New slow-motion DoS attack: just a few PCs, little (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The attack is new in that it uses reading rather than POST, and limits the server response, filling up the write buffer on the server end. There are other recent attack tools that do something similar, but this tool achieves it just by limiting the response with an ACK that sends a low or zero window value. Sockstress does this, but it uses raw sockets; this attack is simpler because it only uses the TCP Sockets API. So, the vulnerability isn't new; the attack style is an evolution of the slow attack approach. It's still worth noting because of the large number of websites that are potentially vulnerable to this and the relatively low bandwidth requirements of the attack.
Comment Re:I did (Score 1) 667
A friend (we're in the US) dumped BofA for USAA and is very happy. And on the rare occasion he gets a paper check, he can deposit it via a UPS store
Submission + - Crowd Sourced Test Film About Fictional Short Trac (miningjournal.net)
jtc.carr writes: Over the past year, a group of actors, filmmakers, musicians, and speedskaters have been collaborating on a movie concept to present to Amazon Studios, the same people who brought you Amazon.com.
The story is about a brash speedskater who is challenged by returning to competition if he trains a high-functioning autistic struggling to get into an Olympic short track speedskating program.
The fruits of their effort, considered a "test film" can be watched at:
http://studios.amazon.com/movies/10282?
A trailer can be seen at the same location. The purpose of a test film is to give an audience the feel of the story and allow potential producers to have a visual reference to make decisions on what more can be done to make it a better feature film. Many groups within the Amazon Studios community have test films already constructed or are in production.
What makes this story unique is the action scenes use helmet cams (VIO POV 1.5) on speedskaters to capture races from their perspective.
The story is about a brash speedskater who is challenged by returning to competition if he trains a high-functioning autistic struggling to get into an Olympic short track speedskating program.
The fruits of their effort, considered a "test film" can be watched at:
http://studios.amazon.com/movies/10282?
A trailer can be seen at the same location. The purpose of a test film is to give an audience the feel of the story and allow potential producers to have a visual reference to make decisions on what more can be done to make it a better feature film. Many groups within the Amazon Studios community have test films already constructed or are in production.
What makes this story unique is the action scenes use helmet cams (VIO POV 1.5) on speedskaters to capture races from their perspective.
Submission + - Mars is not the best place to look for life (sciencenews.org) 1
EccentricAnomaly writes: A story over at Science News quotes Alan Stern (former head of NASA Science missions) as saying: "The three strongest candidates [for extraterrestrial life] are all in the outer solar system" He's referring to Europa, Titan, and Enceladus. So why is NASA spending $2.5B on the next Mars Rover and planning to spend over $6B more on a Mars sample return when it can't find the money for much cheaper missions to Europa or Enceladus?
Submission + - Faster-than-Light Neutrino Mystery Likely Solved
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "It's now been three weeks since the extraordinary news that neutrinos travelling between France and Italy had been clocked moving faster than light and more than 80 papers have appeared attempting to debunk or explain the effect. Now Ronald van Elburg at the University of Groningen has made a convincing argument that he has found the error. The OPERA team says it can accurately gauge the instant when the neutrinos are created and the instant they are detected using clocks at each end but the tricky part is keeping the clocks at either end exactly synchronized using GPS satellites, which each broadcast a highly accurate time signal from orbit some 20,000km overhead. But there are two frames of reference: the experiment on the ground and the clocks in orbit. If these are moving relative to each other, then under special relativity "from the perspective of the clock, the detector is moving towards the source and consequently the distance travelled by the particles as observed from the clock is shorter," writes van Elburg. How big is this effect? Van Elburg calculates that it should cause the neutrinos to arrive 32 nanoseconds early but this must be doubled because the same error occurs at each end of the experiment accounting for 64 nanoseconds, almost exactly what the OPERA team observes. "If it stands up, this episode will be laden with irony," according to the Physics arXiv Blog. "Far from breaking Einstein's theory of relatively, the faster-than-light measurement will turn out to be another confirmation of it. ""
Submission + - Windows 8 Will Run From USB Thumb Drive (computerworld.com) 1
CWmike writes: "Windows 8 will include a new feature that lets IT administrators provide workers with a portable Windows environment on a USB thumb drive. Called 'Windows To Go,' the feature seems aimed at enterprises that want to equip employees with 'complete managed Windows images' that they can use to turn a PC into a doppelganger of a secured in-house machine. It's not known whether individuals will be able to use Windows To Go for the same purpose. It's also unclear whether Windows to Go comes with a price tag: One report, based on a briefing with reporters at BUILD on Monday, said that the feature will cost about $50 per seat. Microsoft declined to provide more information about the feature, other then to refer to its a two-and-a-half-hour demonstration of some of the operating system's key components and changes that left many questions about Windows 8 unanswered, analysts said."
Submission + - Windows 8 Metro UI Will be Mandatory (networkworld.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: The Metro UI in Windows 8 is not an option. You're going to boot into it whether you like it or not, according to Network World. If you want Explorer, then you launch it like any other app. This might not be such a bad thing if it does not consume a lot of resources, but it might also make people balk at upgrading.
Comment Not a lot to see here... (Score 1) 1
FTFA:
"Doxer worked in the finance department at Akamai's Boston headquarters. Apparently out of the blue, he decided to send an e-mail to Israel's Boston consulate on June 22, 2006, writing, "I am a jewish american who lives in Boston. I know you are always looking for information and i am offering the little i may have." When Cromer contacted him a few years later, Doxer quickly began delivering information. He visited the dead drop box 62 times in the next 18 months, authorities said. He asked for $3,000 for the data."
Sounds like little more than a vindictive husband. Quite a long gap between the original email and the response from the federal agent. Why the foot-dragging? hmmm...
Comment Re:Biggest tight wad of all time (Score 1) 324
"Do not tell me of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong." Ralph Waldo Emerson.
