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Submission + - Was LinkedIn Scammed? (nytimes.com)

Submitted by chriscappuccio
chriscappuccio writes: If there’s one thing we’ve all learned in the aftermath of the financial crisis, it’s that stiffing your client is not a crime. Not if you’re an investment bank.

Suppose, he wrote, your trusted real estate agent persuaded you to sell your house for $1 million. Then, the next day, the same agent sold the same house for the new owner for $2 million. “How would you feel if your agent did that?” he asked. That, he concluded, is what Merrill and Morgan did to LinkedIn.
Moon

Submission + - Is Apollo Still a Valid Model to Explore Space 50 (yahoo.com) 1

Submitted by
MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: "Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy stood before a joint session of Congress and proclaimed a goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him to the Earth “before this decade is out.” Eight years later the goal was accomplished. Since then, two presidents, both named George Bush, have tried to set similar space exploration goals; both times the proposals fell victim to the vicissitudes of politics. How is it that President Kennedy’s proposal succeeded and the other two failed? Was Apollo unique for its time? Or was there another reason?"

Comment I'm from the Anniston area (Score 3, Interesting) 338

by dgun (#35103010) Attached to: Anniston, Alabama To Censor Employees' Facebook Pages

I live just outside of Anniston. The local paper. the Anniston Star, runs stories on the city council several times a week. It's awesome entertainment, Believe me when I say that the Anniston city council is a complete joke. One of the council members stated that the reason they want to trample on the first amendment rights of their employees (and understand that this is just not about posting on Facebook at work) is that comments made on Facebook could embarrass the city. Which is completely ridiculous considering the City council has been the #1 source of embarrassment for the city for a couple of years now. The last couple of months they have been conducting an "inquiry" at tremendous expense, apparently on the general subject of "bad stuff" that's going on at the city, But it's really about the ego of one council member who was not happy at the results of an investigation conducted by the police department and who was also attempting to punish a police officer who criticised the council member on Facebook, as well as take revenge on a judge who ruled against him.

The mayor and the various council members fight and argue like school children continuously. One of the council members files multiple law suits based on idiotic grounds. In their "inquiry" they have issued subpoena after subpoena, many of which are quashed because they're so damn ridiculous. This latest issues regarding Facebook is just one in a long list of laughable shenanigans perpetrated by the council. Honestly, a reality show based on these people would be awesome and would be the one reality show I would watch. You wouldn't even have to edit anything, just broadcast the council meetings live on Comedy Central. The truth is far more hilarious and amusing than any group of video editors could conjure,
Social Networks

Submission + - 71% of 1.2 billion Twitter "tweets" are ignored (sysomos.com) 1

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes: 1.2 billion Twitter "tweets" were analyzed over two months by analytics company Sysomos, who concluded that a whopping 71% of them got no reaction whatsover — no online responses, and no Twitter "retweets". "Only a small number of users actually have the ability to engage on Twitter in a significant way," the researchers conclude, noting that just 6% of Twitter's status updates ever get retweeted (while 23% get a reply). And among those status updates, 85% have exactly one response, while only 1.53% of Twitter conversations are more than three levels deep — where a reply receives a response which then generates a second reply. "If a tweet is not retweeted in the first hour, it is very likely that it will not be retweeted," the researchers conclude, noting that 92% of all retweets only happen within the first hour (versus just 1.63% during the second hour). But one technology reporter suggests flaws in their sample of 1.2 billion public Twitter messages. "Presumably these don't include those made by people who only allow their tweets to be seen by selected users," the reporter argues, adding that the study overlooks the possibility of conversations continuing via Twitter's private "direct messages", or that follow-up conversation may occur privately via e-mail.
Science

Submission + - 90 Percent Of Human Being Not Human (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by
drmattnd
drmattnd writes: "Scientists at the National Institutes of Health recently published an analysis of 178 genomes from microbes that live in or on the human body, and have plans to expand their reference collection to nearly a thousand genomes.

Dubbed the human microbiome, this set of fungi, bacteria, and viruses are known to outnumber human cells 10 to 1 and play a critical role in health and disease. According to Human Microbiome Project leader Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. "We are only at the very beginning of a fascinating voyage that will transform how we diagnose, treat and ultimately, prevent many health conditions."

Published in the May 21 issue of the journal Science, "this initial work lays the foundation for this ambitious project and is critical for understanding the role that the microbiome plays in human health and disease," says Collins."

Submission + - Windows 7 update installs stealth WAT 7

Submitted by unassimilatible
unassimilatible writes: A Windows 7 update released on 9/30, KB2158563, claims to "resolve issues caused by revised daylight saving time and time zone laws in several countries. This update enables your computer to automatically adjust the computer clock on the correct date in 2010." The part not mentioned by Microsoft is that KB2158563 is a Trojan, the stealth payload being a WAT (Windows Activation Technologies) update that sniffs out cracked versions of Windows 7, and declares them not genuine, complete with black screen. Looks like MS is up to its old tricks again.

Submission + - Plan to curb free software in EU (javier-carrete.com) 1

Submitted by bodski
bodski writes: "Wikileaks has posted a file showing a plan to curb the free software in Europe.
This file shows that Jonathan Zuck, president of Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) –an organization with close ties to Microsoft–, and founder of Americans for Technology Leadership, had influenced the change of working documents of the European Union.
That lobbies to exert pressure against the government institutions under their interests no doubt, and this document published by Wikileaks is clearly demonstrated.
The document in question is a work project developed by experts from the European Commission. This document has been modified by the ACT and Comptia organizations that have been percolating in several working groups."

Wikileaks link to file: http://wikileaks.org/wiki/European_Commission_OSS_Strategy_Draft,_Mar_2009?TB_iframe=1&width=1000&height=540
Scribd copy: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38773615/Towards-a-European-Software-Strategy
Robotics

Submission + - Researcher builds machines that daydream (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by schliz
schliz writes: Murdoch University professor Graham Mann is developing algorithms to simulate "free thinking" and emotion. He refutes the emotionless reason portrayed by Mr Spock, arguing that "an intelligent system must have emotions built into it before it can function". The algorithm can translate the "feel" of Aesop's Fables based on Plutchick's Wheel of Emotions. In tests, it freely associated three stories: The Thirsty Pigeon; The Cat and the Cock; and The Wolf and the Crane, and when queried on the association, the machine responded: "I felt sad for the bird."
Open Source

Submission + - Stallman crashes talk, fights 'war on sharing' (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by schliz
schliz writes: Free software activist Richard Stallman has called for the end of the 'war on sharing' at the World Computer Congress in Brisbane, Australia. He criticized surveillance, censorship, restrictive data formats and software-as-a-service in a keynote presentation, and asserted that digital society had to be "free" in order to be a benefit, and not an attack.

Earlier in the conference, Stallman briefly interrupted a European Patent Office presentation with a placard that said: "Don't get caught in software patent thickets". He told journalists that the Patent Office was "here to campaign in favor of software patents in Australia", arguging that "there's no problem that requires a solution with anything like software patents".
The Internet

Submission + - Tumblr More Successful Because Its Twice as Fast (yottaa.com)

Submitted by webguy
webguy writes: New York Times reports that Tumblr out-grew its competition and is "winning" the light blogging service battle. Why did Tumblr grow much faster than others? New York Times says first mover advantage. But there is at least one measurable reason: web site performance. According to this study, Tumblr's site speed has been twice as fast as Posterous. Does web performance matter and how much? This is a data point that says "yes, quite a lot".
Java

Submission + - Why the creator of Java quit oracle (eweek.com)

Submitted by Uttini
Uttini writes: When James Gosling led the team that created the Java language and platform, Sun Microsystems was riding high and Java stood as a landscape-changing revolutionary technology, but financial realities eventually brought Sun to its knees and Oracle entered in as a potential savior--saying all the right things, but behind the scenes, as far as Gosling was concerned, doing all the wrong ones.

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