Comment Waaay too complicated (Score 2, Interesting) 140
A simple cylinder, replicated many many times, would be easier and more reliable to produce:
Sometimes I think guys from MIT have a degree in over-engineering
Comment I predict (Score 1) 134
That his 90% hit rate will shrink now that he has the Internetz attention.
Bet he didn't predict *that*...
Comment New Title (Score 1) 426
I, Robot: The Ca$hening
Submission + - Dyson invents $300 bladeless fan (ft.com)
Crash McBang writes: In his neverending search for solutions for which there are no problems, James Dyson has invented a $300 bladeless fan , which goes on sale in the US and Australia this coming Tuesday. US wintertime fan users, rejoice! Australian fan users rejoice even more as summer is just around the corner!
Submission + - Does Anxiety make you a better programmer? (nytimes.com)
Crash McBang writes: In Understanding the Anxious Mind, it is proposed that an anxious temperament might serve a more exalted function: âoeOur culture has this illusion that anxiety is toxic,â Kagan said. But without inner-directed people who prefer solitude, where would we get the writers and artists and scientists and computer programmers who make society hum?
Comment Age-related CAPTCHA (Score 5, Funny) 921
Just use handwriting in a CAPTCHA to filter out the twentysomethings!
Comment Obligatory (Score 1) 539
Brain?
Brain?
What is BRAIN?
Comment Experience vs Automation (Score 1) 911
Someone told me that the reason Airbus relies on automation is that it makes their planes easier to sell to airlines that have pilots with less experience.
Boeing aircraft are designed to be flown by pilots with more experience.
Anybody know how much flight time you need to drive an Airbus vs Boeing?
Submission + - 'Flying Segway' floats 5 to 15 feet off the ground 1
Crash McBang writes: Anderson-based Air Buoyant, is developing a one-person flying platform called the VertiPod . Classified as an ultralight aircraft, the propeller-powered VertiPod's simple controls could spark a transportation revolution — like the Segway, you just lean in the direction you want to go. Oddly, the website doesn't seem to have any movies of people actually flying them. An article describing the product and its inventors is here.
The thought of these hovering in Burger Kings' Drive Thru lane fills my heart with nameless dread.
Submission + - Lenovo Drops Thinkpad 2yrs ahead of schedule
Crash McBang writes: According to the Register, Lenovo will be dropping the Thinkpad brand two years ahead of schedule. No word on what will happen to the brand. What should Thinkpad users have as a Plan B? What would you suggest as an alternative to Thinkpad?
Submission + - Germans Break the Speed of Light
Crash McBang writes: From the article:
A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light — an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time.
Personally, I can't wait to get home before I leave...
A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light — an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time.
Personally, I can't wait to get home before I leave...
Submission + - Battlestar Galactica: Beyond the Red Line
doh123 writes: Battlestar Galactica: Beyond the Red Line, the free Freespace 2 engine stand-alone game that has been in the works a long time has a Demo now available for download. Windows only at the time of writing this, but the Linux and Mac OS X versions should be available soon. This is probably the coolest game in development in a long time, and its not from any of the major game companies. Anyone who is going to try it, please help seed the bittorrent downloads.
http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/
Submission + - Harnessing the economic power of the Internet
Anonymous Coward writes: "I've read slashdot for a few years, posted as an AC a few times and the discussion here is always lively and insightful. Hopefully there can be something mutually beneficial here. I'm writing a paper and I hope that this can cause some lively discussion. It'd be good for the site and be pretty much a free brainstorming session for me.
How has the Internet and the environment surrounding it affected the way it is commercialized or people/firms derive profit from it? Not just the Internet itself specifically, but its creation and other things like dial-in BBS and other steps along the way.
What changed? What took it from hobbyists (like Christensen from the BBS example above) to profiteers (like, say, a Mark Cuban, or a firm) for the most part? Were regulatory/legal changes a significant factor? Were IT and electronic communications just emerging technologies that were bound to be harnessed? Was it a gradual process or were there watershed moments?
Essentially, what caused the Internet (and related/similar modes of communication) to shift more and more towards vehicles for profit rather than hobby?"
Feed Drilling Down: Peer-to-Peer Downloaders Gorge on Songs (nytimes.com)
Peer-to-peer networks yielded five billion downloads in 2006, whereas 509 million songs were downloaded from iTunes-style services.
Submission + - The Secret
ravnatelj writes: The Australian author of The Secret, Rhonda Byrne, introduces the book by admitting, "A year ago, my life had collapsed around me". Through searching for answers in a variety of books new and old, Rhonda Byrne began to trace what she believed was a common thread in them all. She dubbed it the "Great Secret — The Secret to Life".It is a motivational self-help book of some kind and the synopsis referred to physicists, old oral traditions, religions, poetry and philosophy. The essence of The Secret is "the law of attraction." According to Rhonda Byrne and the twenty-nine co-contributors, everything in the Universe vibrates on a particular frequency. When you think in harmony with the frequency of something, you attract it to you. If you think about wealth, you will receive wealth. If you think instead about your debt, you will receive more debt. You attract what you think about; your thoughts determine your destiny.
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