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Book Reviews

Book Review: The Windup Girl 164

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
New submitter Hector's House writes "'Nothing is certain. Nothing is secure,' reflects one of the characters in Paolo Bacigalupi's novel The Windup Girl. In 23rd century Bangkok, life for many hangs by a thread. Oil has run out; rising seas threatens to engulf the city; genetically engineered diseases hover on Thailand's borders; and the threat of violence smolders as government ministries vie for power. Environmental destruction, climate change and novel plagues have wiped out many of the crop species that humanity depends on: the profits to be made from creating — or stealing — new species are potentially enormous. After a century of collapse and contraction, Western business sees hope for a new wave of globalization; Thailand's fiercely guarded seed banks may provide just the springboard needed." Keep reading for the rest of Aidan's review.
Transportation

MIT Media Lab Rolls Out Folding Car 222

Posted by samzenpus from the sub-sub-compact dept.
kkleiner writes "You think European cars are small now, wait till the Hiriko takes to the roads in Spain's northern Basque country. The two-seater is about the size of a SmartCar, but when parked, the car can actually fold. After folding, the car takes up about a third of a normal parking space. The Hiriko, Basque for 'urban car,' folds as the rear of the car slides underneath its chassis. Every square foot counts."

Comment Elitism (Score 5, Insightful) 688

by omarius (#38681544) Attached to: "Learn To Code, Get a Job" According To CNN

The above is NOT flamebait, o moderators. I meant it. I've been listening to, and reading, "blah, blah, stupid users never learn anything" since the 90's, and I think these criticisms are disingenuous as hell. Along comes an easy, fun set of lessons on the rudiments of programming, and people are deriding it for: too much media attention, too simple, too popular, et cetera. If your stance is, "I like being a computer geek because it allows me to look down on others," then that's your sad bag, but at least be honest about it. Only good can come from average people coming to realize that this stuff isn't some magic inborn to the 7th son of a rocket scientist; it just takes curiosity and persistence. I am calling bullshit on your defensive insecurity, and I have the Slashdot karma to burn doing it, tyvm.
Data Storage

IBM Shrinks Bit Size To 12 Atoms 135

Posted by samzenpus from the more-on-less dept.
Lucas123 writes "IBM researchers say they've been able to shrink the number of iron atoms it takes to store a bit of data from about one million to 12, which could pave the way for storage devices with capacities that are orders of magnitude greater than today's devices. Andreas Heinrich, who led the IBM Research team on the project for five years, said the team used the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope and unconventional antiferromagnetism to change the bits from zeros to ones. By combining 96 of the atoms, the researchers were able to create bytes — spelling out the word THINK. That solved a theoretical problem of how few atoms it could take to store a bit; now comes the engineering challenge: how to make a mass storage device perform the same feat as scanning tunneling microscope."
Government

Could Crowd-Sourced Direct Democracy Work? 594

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the kicking-back-pints-of-hemlock dept.
maccallr writes "The Occupy movement is getting everyone talking about how to fix the world's economic (and social, environmental, ...) problems. It is even trialling new forms of 'open' democracy. Trouble is, it's easy to criticize the physical occupiers for being unrepresentative of the general population — and much of their debating time is spent on practical rather than policy issues. Well-meaning but naive occupiers could be susceptible to exploitation by the political establishment and vested interests. In the UK, virtual occupiers are using Google Moderator to propose and debate policy in the comfort of their homes (where, presumably, it is easier to find out stuff you didn't know). Could something like this be done on a massive scale (national or global) to reach consensus on what needs to be done? How do you maximize participation by 'normal folk' on complex issues? What level of participation could be considered quorate? How do you deal with block votes? What can we learn from electronic petitions and Iceland's crowd-sourced constitution? Is the 'Occupy' branding appropriate? What other pitfalls are there? Or are existing models of democracy and dictatorship fit for purpose?" One issue I see with a global version of something like this is all of the people in the world who haven't even heard of the Internet.
Businesses

Amazon To Lose $10 Per Kindle Fire 181

Posted by Soulskill from the on-hardware-anyway dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to a manufacturing cost breakdown, it turns out Amazon is willing to sell its new Kindle Fire at a $10 loss. An analyst estimates that the Kindle Fire, priced at $199, actually costs $209.63 to produce. That said, the device is likely to be much more valuable to Amazon through content sales and the ability to drive more purchases through its website."

Comment Some! (Score 1) 432

by omarius (#36399592) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Linux Support In Universities?

Linux support at my university is on a "best effort" basis (which usually means you get to talk to me). To be honest, I've never had to address wireless issues, but I can't think of any reason why one couldn't connect--it's as straightforward as WPA2-Enterprise gets, I reckon. iPads and Apples have no problem. At a guess, I'd say the faculty are ~15-20% Mac users and growing all the time.

As a side note--when I got nominated the academic support Linux guy, I was terrified I'd get sneered at by rocket scientists trying to write device drivers for cyclotrons or something. I was--am--super relieved that problems usually turn out to involve things like firewalls and fstabs. :)

Comment Re:No more apples (Score 1) 601

by omarius (#36393580) Attached to: Apple Bans DUI Checkpoint Apps
Sorry, but I beg to differ--if/when the company is caving under pressure from the U.S. Senate, it becomes a free speech issue. Likewise, if there's a law in any state amounting to "Don't talk about DUI checkpoints" then that is also a free speech issue. I could accept an argument that it's constitutional to outlaw telling a drunk about a checkpoint so s/he may avoid arrest, but such a law would be extraneous at best, since there are already laws forbidding conspiracy and aiding and abetting. But that's just my opinion, of course. I don't necessarily expect anyone to agree with it.

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