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Twitter

Submission + - Kenyan chief foils robbery via Twitter (cnn.com)

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid
PolygamousRanchKid writes: A Kenyan chief in a town far from the bustling capital foiled a predawn robbery recently using Twitter, highlighting the far-reaching effects of social media in areas that don't have access to the Internet. Chief Francis Kariuki said he got a call in the dead of the night that thieves had broken into a neighbor's house. Local residents, who subscribe to his tweets through a free text messaging service, jumped into action. They surrounded the house, sending the thugs fleeing into the night.

In the town 100 miles from Nairobi, a majority of residents don't have access to computers, the Internet or smart phones. The sporadic cyber cafes strewn across the landscape charge for Internet access. However, almost every household has a cell phone and text messages are a major form of communication in the nation.
Encryption

Submission + - John Nash's declassified 1955 letter to the NSA (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In 1955, John Nash sends an amazing letter to the NSA in order to support an encryption design that he suggested. In it he no less than anticipates computational complexity theory as well as modern cryptography.

In the letter he proposes that the security of encryption can be based on computational hardness and makes the distinction between polynomial time and exponential time: "So a logical way to classify enciphering processes is by the way in which the computation length for the computation of the key increases with increasing length of the key. This is at best exponential and at worst probably at most a relatively small power of r, ar^2 or ar^3, as in substitution ciphers.
Science

Submission + - 64-fold growth for scientific research for past 3 decades (googleusercontent.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Thomson Reuters indexes scientific papers from 10,500 journals worldwide, analysed the performance of four emerging markets countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China, over the past 30 years.

China’s growth had put it in second place to the US – and if it continues on its trajectory it will be the largest producer of scientific knowledge by 2020.

The figures show not only the expansion of Chinese science but also a very powerful performance by Brazil, much slower growth in India and relative decline in Russia.

Brazil has also been building up a formidable research effort, particularly in agricultural and life sciences. In 1981 its output of scientific papers was one-seventh that of India; by 2008 it had almost caught up with India.
Science

Submission + - Texting Hurts Ability to Decode New Words (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by
garthsundem
garthsundem writes: "Does text messaging make texters more accepting of non-traditional language? Actually, the reverse is true. According to this University of Calgary study, texters lose the ability to infer meaning from words they haven't seen before. (Okay, it's a Masters thesis — but it's still pretty compelling.) In contrast, when presented with unfamiliar words, consumers of traditional media applied more sophisticated strategies to "decode" meaning. The study attributes this to more frequently coming across creative, unfamiliar words in traditional media. In contrast, texters stick to their sad little lexicons — and refuse to accept anything else."

Submission + - Buddhafy - Control a Spotify playlist with your brain (youtube.com)

Submitted by
ocelma
ocelma writes: "Control a Spotify playlist with your brain.

It uses a NeuroSky MindWave controller to track Alpha Waves in your brain (roughly corresponding to being in a relaxed/meditative state), and according to these values, it control the next song that plays in Spotify!

If you manage to achieve a highly meditative state, you'll be rewarded with good music: usually a calm, relaxing tune by one of your favorite artists from last.fm. If you lose focus and your meditation level drops, you'll be hit with some of the top-100 worst songs ever recorded!
So keep it chill, dude!

This hack was implemented in 24h. at MusicHackDay, San Francisco, on 2012/02/11-12"

Comment Good for cardiac patients, not for all? (Score 1) 437

by garthsundem (#39058035) Attached to: Scientists Study How Little Exercise You Need
It looks as if this study shows HIT can take someone with a current grade D and bring them up to a C or C+. I wonder if the same benefits will hold for people already at a B- hoping to make it to B+? Specifically, I wonder if 20 minutes of HIT is best turned into 25 minutes of HIT, or if at a certain base fitness level the paradigm flips back to needing longer, more endurance-based exercise? Hmm...
Education

Submission + - Experts Explain How to Choose a School by the Numbers (wired.com)

Submitted by garthsundem
garthsundem writes: I wrote a post that got Slashdotted last week, suggesting three somewhat half-baked metrics that parents can use to pick and elementary school (the first two were solid!). Due to the ensuing comment war, I thought it best to call around and get the REAL take on education statistics. Wired just pubbed the result, and here's the scoop from the Journal of Ed Stats and the Dept of Ed Stats.

First, be wary of "high performing" schools — the best schools will show a nice, linear gain in test scores from year to year. A 10-20 percent jump should make you question scores' validity.

Second, classrooms increasingly include a mix of student abilities — a concerned parent might do well to look for a classroom with a more restricted range. (Warning: massively controversial.)

Finally and most importantly, my Ed Stats sources point to a Harvard/Columbia study of teachers' value added. A good teacher is HUGELY important, but currently no metrics exist to *predict* teacher quality — you can only see it in hindsight.

The best thing a parent can do: until an objective measure of teacher quality crawls from the Petri dish, gather *subjective* information about your child's potential teachers.
Japan

Submission + - Valentine s Day on the Japanese way (hubpages.com)

Submitted by Ziemomyslaw
Ziemomyslaw writes: Yesterday Japanese people, like the rest of the world celebrated Valentine s Day. However, at least for some of them, these look quite different than for us. Many young men gathered in the morning outside of the shop with games in long lines, just to be able to spend time with their virtual girls.
Games

Submission + - MIT's "Crappy Game Complaining Marathon" for charity this weekend (cgcmarathon.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab is spending twelve straight hours this Saturday bitching live about the games they hate most. Why? To raise money for their local Boys and Girls Club.

The “Crappy Game Complaining Marathon” idea came out of a different gaming marathon last year, when donations spiked whenever a particular GAMBIT researcher talked trash about Gears of War.

So this year, players from GAMBIT and the greater Boston gaming community are planning to tear apart everything from Mass Effect 2 to Guitar Hero “Van Halen”.

Their slogan while raising money for programs at the Boys and Girls Club? “We mock so they can play!”

Submission + - Study: on V-Day the Thought Actually IS what counts (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by
garthsundem
garthsundem writes: "A Northwestern University study just published in Personality an Social Psychology Bulletin found that couples who appreciate their partners' ability for positive change actually see more of this change. The implication (according to the study): have faith in a partner's attempts to improve the relationship, even if an attempt happens to fall on Valentine's Day."

Comment Study: Fantasy Play with Storylines Raises Kid IQ (Score 1) 313

by garthsundem (#39031375) Attached to: <em>Twisted Metal</em> Designer Rails Against Storytelling Games
This seminal study in 1977 showed that kids who immerse themselves in the storylines of fantasy play outperform kids who play "real" games (like house or firefighters), kids who read and discuss fantasy, and kids who read and discuss "real" stories. I just talked to one of the co-authors, David Dixon, who now teaches at Missouri State, and he guessed that his study's results had something to do with helping kids both stretch their narrative imaginations and to disentangle the concepts "thought" from "action" (In young kids, thinking IS doing). So what I wonder is this: do video games WITHOUT storylines encourage kids to formulate their own? Or do games without storylines lose this narrative aspect altogether?
Science

Submission + - Did life emerge in ponds rather than ocean vents? (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: The prevailing scientific view holds that life began in hydrothermal vents in the deep sea. But a controversial study (abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/02/08/1117774109) suggests that inland pools of condensed and cooled geothermal vapour have the ideal characteristics for the origin of life. The study hinges on the observation that the composition of the cytoplasm of modern cells is very different to that of seawater. On the other hand, the mix of metal ions in cytoplasm is (almost exclusively) found where where hot hydrothermal fluid brings the ions to the surface — places such as geysers and mud pots. There are a number of problems with the study, however — for instance, a lack of land 4 billion years ago would have made it difficult for life to start in such pools.
Google

Submission + - Will Google's Valentine Doodle Win Over Santorum?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: 'It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be,' was the 2003 marriage quote that launched presidential candidate Rick Santorum's 'Google Problem'. So, whether intentional or not, it's kind of funny that this year's Google Valentine Day's Doodle concludes with a happy ending that is, you know, man on alien, cat on dog, man on man, princess on frog, black on white, and milk on cookie. Hey, you can't fight love. BTW, today is also special in that it marks Google's first patent-protected Valentine's Day Doodle!

Submission + - CmdrTaco, wife revisit famous Slashdot marriage proposal (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "Ten years ago today, at 9:25 a.m., Slashdot founder Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda, used his insider access to the homepage of this forum to send a very public Valentine’s Day marriage proposal to Kathleen Fent. Fifteen minutes later she said yes — and then called him a dork — an exchange that would generate more than 2,000 comments here and make news on other tech sites. As the 10th anniversary of the proposal approached, Network World asked the couple to share their memories of that day and thoughts about it since, as a kind of case study on how this type of public proposal – be it on Slashdot or the stadium Jumbotron – holds up over the years. Would they recommend it? Seems there is disagreement on that score."

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