Comment Next level beats (Score 3, Funny) 166
This will be perfect for my next level beats.
Comment Re:Twitter's End Game [the end is near] (Score 1) 127
The latest revision of the official Twitter iPhone app (the app formerly known as Tweetie) has location service on whenever it is in the foreground. There is no way to turn it off. There is nothing to indicate what it is doing with your location info. This coming so close to the deprecation of 3rd party apps is a really, really bad sign for where this company is going.
I will never use their iPhone app again because of this. The #dickbar is merely annoying, recording your location without consent is actively offensive to the point I'm rethinking using Twitter at all. It's not an idle threat - I haven't used Facebook in several months because of their awful attitude towards privacy.
And if a location-tracking app is the only one left, buh-bye Twitter.
Comment Re:Greenhouse gas problem. (Score 1) 760
I understand your point, but I think you're underestimating the impact of grain fed to animals. I'm more likely to trust info with a credible source, like the reports put out by the UN
I really think the 90% number is inaccurate. That is true in part, but it's certainly not a universal truth, definitely not for all animal types. Here in the midwest US 99% of hogs are kept in confinements and fed grain.Cattle, many of those used for beef are grazed, but not all, and dairy cows are fed indoors, mostly hay or silage plus grain. Poultry animals, again mostly if not all, grain. Come see the volume of corn that is grown that is not designed for human consumption-- millions of acres grown across several states, elevators full of it.
Submission + - How a Guy Found 4 New Planets Without a Telescope (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Peter Jalowiczor is a gas worker from South Yorkshire, England. He's also the discoverer of four giant exoplanets, according to the University of California's Lick-Carnegie Planet Search Team. But he's not an astronomer and he doesn't even have a telescope.
Submission + - French Use Space Tech To Find Parking Spots (itworld.com)
itwbennett writes: Using technology developed by French space agency CNES (Centre Nationale d'Etudes Spatiales) to explore the planet Venus, drivers in the city of Toulouse are discovering something much more down-to-earth: vacant parking spots. The system is based on 3,000 sensors buried just under the pavement that detect changes in the electromagnetic environment around them and communicate the results via coaxial cable to a server, which makes the information available in real time to drivers' smartphones.
Comment Re:Common sense says... (Score 1) 417
In all seriousness, it again comes down to cultural differences.
Chinese people can be absolute fanatics about respecting boundaries that are entirely imaginary to Westerners, while at the same time being completely oblivious to boundaries that are perfectly obvious to the rest of us.
Intention vs facts is the best I can come up with. It would be horrible to admit a bad intention, while no immediately perceivable fact could be construed to cause embarrassment (i.e. "but he is fat!"). Think of them as Vulcan clowns, if that helps. So you can observe or ask anything with impunity (e.g. how much money do you make), but you should always have a socially acceptable excuse for your actions ("no, i wasn't peeing on your foot, but it was on fire and i was trying to help. and i peed a little").
My in-laws are Chinese, so as puzzling as it is (and it is), I'm not the least bit surprised at this. I'm still trying to understand it, myself.
There is a logic, it's just backwards to my way of thinking.
Comment Re:Common sense says... (Score 1) 417
+2
Comment Re:Common sense says... (Score 4, Informative) 417
Common sense is different in different cultures.
In some places, common sense says you don't eat corn - it's for the animals stupid! How dare you serve it to me.
In Japan, where streets are small and houses close, people are very used to not looking and not seeing things plainly visible from the street. It would be really rude to stare, and it isn't done.
So yes, she does have a reasonable expectation of a kind of privacy that is expected in Japan, and which was violated by Google.
Submission + - Patient Cured of HIV with Stem Cell Transplant (aidsmap.com)
ChazeFroy writes: "Doctors who carried out a stem cell transplant on an HIV-infected man with leukaemia in 2007 say they now believe the man to have been cured of HIV infection as a result of the treatment, which introduced stem cells that happened to be resistant to HIV infection. The man received bone marrow from a donor who had natural resistance to HIV infection; this was due to a genetic profile which led to the CCR5 co-receptor being absent from his cells. The most common variety of HIV uses CCR5 as its ‘docking station’, attaching to it in order to enter and infect CD4 cells, and people with this mutation are almost completely protected against infection."
Submission + - The Top 50 Gawker Media Passwords (wsj.com) 1
wiredmikey writes: Readers of Gizmodo, Lifehacker and other Gawker Media sites may be among the savviest on the Web, but the most common password for logging into those sites is embarrassingly easy to guess: “123456.” So is the runner-up: “password.”
On Sunday night, hackers posted online a trove of data from Gawker Media’s servers, including the usernames, email addresses and passwords of more than one million registered users. The passwords were originally encrypted, but 188,279 of them were decoded and made public as part of the hack. Using that dataset, we found the 50 most-popular Gawker Media passwords:
On Sunday night, hackers posted online a trove of data from Gawker Media’s servers, including the usernames, email addresses and passwords of more than one million registered users. The passwords were originally encrypted, but 188,279 of them were decoded and made public as part of the hack. Using that dataset, we found the 50 most-popular Gawker Media passwords:
Submission + - EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Bees (fastcompany.com)
hether writes: The mystery of the disappearing bees has been baffling scientists for years and now we get another big piece in the puzzle. From Fast Company — "A number of theories have popped up as to why the North American honey bee population has declined--electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate change have all been pinpointed. Now a leaked EPA document reveals that the agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite warnings from EPA scientists."
Environmentalists and bee keepers are calling for an immediate ban of pesticide clothianidin, sold by Bayer Crop Science under the brand name Poncho.
Environmentalists and bee keepers are calling for an immediate ban of pesticide clothianidin, sold by Bayer Crop Science under the brand name Poncho.
Comment I don't understand (Score 1) 161
I'll admit I don't know anything about Righthaven, had to look them up, but I'm wondering why they would ask for (or have any hope of getting) control of the web site? The statutory damages and removal of infringing content I can understand, but why would they possibly get control over something due to copyright infringement, especially for content they don't own? Are they filing at the request of the News Media Group?
Submission + - EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide that Kills Bees (fastcompany.com)
hether writes: The mystery of the disappearing bees has been baffling scientists for years and now we get another big piece in the puzzle. From Fast Company — "A number of theories have popped up as to why the North American honey bee population has declined--electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate change have all been pinpointed. Now a leaked EPA document reveals that the agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite warnings from EPA scientists." Now environmentalists and bee keepers are calling for an immediate ban of pesticide clothianidin, sold by Bayer Crop Science under the brand name Poncho.
Submission + - Scientists Suggest Bar Codes for Human Embryos (foxnews.com) 1
Velcroman1 writes: In futuristic movies like "Aliens 2" and "12 Monkeys," prisoners are bar coded for easy identification. But today's reality is even wilder: Scientists have proposed bar-coding embryos. Researchers from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in Spain have just finished testing a method for imprinting microscopic bar codes on mouse embryos — a procedure they plan to test soon on humans. The venture is meant to avoid mismatches during in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer procedures. But privacy experts and children's rights advocates were instantly concerned by the concept of "direct labeling" of embryos, calling for transparency in the process. "An embryo is a human life, so we have to move forward with this very, very cautiously," said Pam Dixon, executive director for the World Privacy Forum. "Obviously we can't ask the embryo what it wants, so the individual making the donation must consent to this as well as the individual receiving the donation. There's got to be a lot of public discussion." The researchers insist that their technique is perfectly safe, claiming that the bar codes simply evaporate as the embryo develops into a fetus. Dr. Arthur Caplan, the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said that as long as development is not affected, any improvement on embryo transfer would be extremely beneficial — since mistakes can be heartbreaking.
Submission + - A Bionic Leg that Rewires Stroke Victims' Brains (xconomy.com)
waderoush writes: A startup called Tibion in Sunnyvale, CA, has begun selling battery-powered robotic exoskeletons that help stroke victims with one-sided weakness relearn how to stand, sit, walk, and negotiate stairs. The leg isn't a permanent attachment: the company says patients who use the device for 45 minutes a week for four weeks experience significant gains in walking speed that persist and even improve months after the treatment. They believe that the $40,000 device — which includes sensors that respond to subtle signs of user intentions, such a shift in weight — provides feedback that triggers neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to rewire itself to repair damage. (Article includes a video of the reporter testing the robot leg.)
