Comment Re:RIP GSM (Score 5, Funny) 102
Yes, I understand now, that I understand nothing about mobile standards.
Comment The circle of life (Score 2) 396
The next step is robots, then zombies, then vampires and we're back to superheroes again.
How Huffington Post's Clever Traffic-Generation Machine Works 165
Hugh Pickens writes "Frédéric Filloux writes that traditional newspapers that move online are losing the war against pure players and aggregators because original stories are getting very little traffic due to the poor marketing tactics of old-fashion publishers. Meanwhile, aggregators like the Huffington Post use clever traffic-generation techniques, so the same journalistic item will generate much more traffic. Here's an example: On July 5th, The Wall Street Journal runs an editorial piece about Mitt Romney's position on Obamacare and the rather dull and generic 'Romney's Tax Confusion' title for this 1000-word article attracted a remarkable 938 comments. But look at what the Huffington Post did: a 500-word treatment, including a 300 words article plus a 200-word excerpt of the WSJ opinion and a link back (completely useless) but, unlike the Journal, the HuffPo ran a much sexier headline: 'Mitt Romney is 'Squandering' Candidacy With Health Care Snafu.' The choice of words for the headline takes in account all Search Engine Optimization prerequisites, using high yield words such as 'Squandering' and 'Snafu,' in conjunction with much sought-after topics such as 'Romney' and 'Health Care.' Altogether, this guarantees a nice blip on Google's radar — and a considerable audience : 7000+ comments."
Insects As Weapons 160
An anonymous reader writes "Timothy Paine, an entomologist at the University of California-Riverside, recently 'committed to the scientific record the idea that California's eucalyptus trees may have been biologically sabotaged, publishing an article [in the Journal of Economic Entomology] raising the possibility of bioterrorism.' Specifically, Paine argues that foreign insect pests have been deliberately introduced in the Golden State, in hopes of decimating the state's population of eucalyptus (especially the two species regarded as invasive, which 'are particularly susceptible to the pests.') In California's Bioterror Mystery, Paine (and scientists who are skeptical) make their arguments. What isn't in dispute is that the insect pests have already inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, making the story a cautionary tale about what might happen if a food or crop were intentionally targeted."
Comment Re:Simply Solution, High Minimum Salary for H1B's (Score 2) 262
Isn't that how it already works? The employer has to offer a salary that is above average of what the standard is. Foreign workers on H1-B visas ARE more expensive. But maybe they are willing to work in a lower position than they normally should so all in all they cost less.
BTW, I'm someone who missed this year's H1-B quota by a few days myself.
Comment Re:Digital Consulting What? (Score 1) 131
Should have read the article more carefully. Yes, that seems to be the cost of their Facebook ads.
Comment Digital Consulting What? (Score 1) 131
$1million and $300k - that's a very small percentage of money out of the estimated $1billion each spend. And what is this digital consulting anyway? Is that what they are paying for facebook ads?
Comment Re:Gotcha! (Score 1) 414
It seems like no one simply bothered doing it before him because everything is done much easier numerically. And you can do a lot more with numerical integration (account better for the environment) than this one specific case of the problem could ever handle.
Hacked Bitcoin Financial Site Had No Backups 331
An anonymous reader writes "A fortnight ago the Bitcoin financial website Bitcoinica was hacked and the hacker stole $87,000 worth of Bitcoins. At the time the owner promised that all users would have their Bitcoins and US dollars returned in full, but one of the site developers has just confirmed that they have no database backups and are having difficulty figuring out what everyone's account balance should actually be. A failure of epic proportions for a site holding such large amounts of money."
Comment Is it just me (Score 0) 95
or every bit of news about solar arrays is pretty much the same - better efficiency, lower cost. I'm getting tired of reading the same thing every week.
Comment Re:I still don't get it. (Score 1) 445
Perhaps they know they have a problem and are basically cashing in and getting out, while the gettin' is good.
That's exactly what I'm thinking. I just can't believe how many people have been mislead into buying this stock. Well, at least it frees up the money of the investors so they can invest in some other companies.
Comment Re:36,000 employees? Why? (Score 2) 178
I sometimes wonder what these people will do once the reverse is true.
Comment Re:Creativity (Score 1) 185
Social benefits of oxygen outweigh the risks while for meth it's not true.
Comment Statistics of motivation (Score 5, Interesting) 162
It would be interesting to see how many of us started out wanting to make a game/some graphics demo and then learning how to do it compared to some other motivation for learning programming. I started out that way myself.
Comment Re:Buy a 17" laptop (Score -1) 300
My 17" doesn't have a numeric keypad, not even space for one. Maybe you meant 19"
