Comment Re:Or maybe.. (Score 1) 278
Yep, most of the time "help" means that the parents do the stuff instead of the kids.
Comment Re:Stupid (Score 1) 183
True, but that's why it's nice that we have a herd of pioneers willing to try it out and provide us with lots of data. This is an interesting topic, and if people a doing voluntarily to get better at COD, we can learn a lot about how our brain works.
Comment All phones are smartphones (Score 1) 70
Where can you buy a "cheap feature phone" that isn't a smartphone?
Is Analog the Fix For Cyber Terrorism? 245
chicksdaddy writes "The Security Ledger has picked up on an opinion piece by noted cyber terrorism and Stuxnet expert Ralph Langner (@langnergroup) who argues in a blog post that critical infrastructure owners should consider implementing what he calls 'analog hard stops' to cyber attacks. Langner cautions against the wholesale embrace of digital systems by stating the obvious: that 'every digital system has a vulnerability,' and that it's nearly impossible to rule out the possibility that potentially harmful vulnerabilities won't be discovered during the design and testing phase of a digital ICS product. ... For example, many nuclear power plants still rely on what is considered 'outdated' analog reactor protection systems. While that is a concern (maintaining those systems and finding engineers to operate them is increasingly difficult), the analog protection systems have one big advantage over their digital successors: they are immune against cyber attacks.
Rather than bowing to the inevitability of the digital revolution, the U.S. Government (and others) could offer support for (or at least openness to) analog components as a backstop to advanced cyber attacks could create the financial incentive for aging systems to be maintained and the engineering talent to run them to be nurtured, Langner suggests." Or maybe you could isolate control systems from the Internet.
Rather than bowing to the inevitability of the digital revolution, the U.S. Government (and others) could offer support for (or at least openness to) analog components as a backstop to advanced cyber attacks could create the financial incentive for aging systems to be maintained and the engineering talent to run them to be nurtured, Langner suggests." Or maybe you could isolate control systems from the Internet.
Comment Re:Crap (Score 4, Insightful) 85
Some of us are interested in the theory, not to mention that both the article and the paper contain actual images. It's not the fault of the authors that you didn't bother to read them through.
This is an impressive step forward in image processing - while reconstructing an image from diffuse light seemed plausible in theory, figuring out how to do it in practice is a hard problem. These guys deserve some respect.
Comment Re:Why focus on length of life (Score 1) 334
Because there are rich people who live a good life, but also want it to last forever.
Comment Less competition (Score 1) 153
Seems like neither Google nor Microsoft wants to compete with the other, so they partitioned the PC market with Google getting the mobile part and Microsoft the desktop. Business as usual.
Lies Programmers Tell Themselves 452
itwbennett writes "Everybody lies to themselves now and again in both their personal lives ('my bathroom scale probably needs to be recalibrated') and professional lives ('this code doesn't need commenting'). ITworld has compiled some of the common lies programmers tell themselves. Here are a few examples: 'This bug won't take long to fix.' 'No one could possibly fail to understand my simple user interface.' 'Code is self documenting.' 'My homebrew framework will be nimble, lightweight, debugged, and easy to use.' 'I know this is dirty code, I will rewrite it later.' 'It's just one line... it won't break anything.' '"It works on my machine.' 'I don't need version control.' 'It's written in ____, so it'll be easy to ____.' What would you add to this list?"
Comment Block the signal (Score 1) 137
Set up a few antennas that add some noise on the controlling frequencies, problem solved.
Comment Re:Riiiight (Score 1) 498
True, but there's a third ingredient Ukraine doesn't have: money.
Comment Re:Help, I'm being harrassed on an app on my phone (Score 4, Insightful) 167
Maybe that's the problem. The schools don't like evidence that bullying is going on there.
Google Faces Up To $5 Billion Fine From Competition Commission of India 89
An anonymous reader writes "Google is facing investigation by the Competition Commission of India and potentially faces fines up to 10% of its three-year average turnover. While Google has settled anti-trust cases in the U.S. and the European Union, India's competition regime does not have provisions for settlement process." From the Times of India article linked: "The complaint against Google, also one of the world's most valued company, was first filed by advocacy group CUTS International way back in late 2011. Later, matrimonial website matrimony.com also filed a complaint. Referring to Google's settlement with the European Commission, matrimony.com counsel Ferida Satarawala said: 'Google's unfair use of trademarks as well as its retaliatory conduct are not specifically addressed in the European settlement and are distinct theories of harm being pursued by the CCI. Therefore, this settlement is unlikely to address CCI's concerns in our case.'"
Comment Re:We already make robots without legs (Score 1) 122
I think he is talking mostly about academic research, which doesn't care much about using robots to make our lives easier.
Comment Re:Yay! Serious effort to stop aging! (Score 1) 130
Society advances because each generation gives way to the next one. It's time to pass the torch, old man.
It's True: Some People Just Don't Like Music 268
sciencehabit writes "Researchers have found that between 1 and 3% of people don't like music of any kind. These people aren't tone deaf or incapable of grasping the emotional meaning of a song—their brains simply didn’t find listening to music rewarding. While some psychiatric disorders are associated with the loss of the ability to feel pleasure, called anhedonia, the music-haters represent the first evidence for not feeling pleasure from only one specific pleasing stimulant, a condition that has been dubbed music-specific anhedonia. Curious where you fall on the music reward spectrum? The researchers have an online quiz."
I know I actively prefer silence to most music, but what I like, I like intensely. Update: 03/06 21:48 GMT by T : Sorry for the garbled submission; now fixed.
