Dash_Rantic - Slashdot User

Submission + - Can statistics predict the outcome of a war? (texyt.com)

Submitted by StatisticallyDeadGuy on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @12:39PM

StatisticallyDeadGuy writes: A University of Georgia scientist has developed a statistical system that, she claims, can predict the outcome of wars with an accuracy of 80 percent. Her approach, applied retrospectively, says the US chance of victory in the first Gulf War was 93%, while the poor Soviets only had a seven percent chance in Afghanistan (if only they'd known; failure maybe triggered the collapse of the USSR). As for the current Iraq conflict: the US started off with a 70% chance of a successful regime change, which was duly achieved — but extending the mission past this to support a weak government has dropped the probability of ultimate success to 26%. Full details of the forecasting methodology are revealed in a new paper (subscription required — link goes to abstract).

Submission + - The Demise of Physics Education (wellingtongrey.net)

Submitted by TomSun on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @12:08PM

TomSun writes: Wellington Grey is a physics teacher who has been pushed to the edge by the dumbing down of his curriculum. After changes made by the government this year which introduced what he calls 'the vague, the stupid, the political and the non-science' into standardized exams, he wrote an open letter to the government begging for his subject back and asking for your help.

Some of the examples of test questions he gives will make the mathematically minded among us ill at ease with the future of education.

Submission + - Will Safari-on-windows lead hackers to mac? (newscientist.com)

Submitted by Light Licker on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @12:05PM

Light Licker writes: New Scientist suggests that Steve Jobs latest plan could encourage hackers to develop exploits that work on a Mac platform. Security-through-obscurity was always a bad idea, but is Safari really going to be that popular with Windows users?

Submission + - Intro to C for the Security Professional (ethicalhacker.net)

Submitted by

ddonzal

on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @10:53AM

ddonzal writes: "Here's the first article in this great, new column from Craig Heffner, the man who updated the very popular paper, "Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit". His new monthly column on the Ethical Hacker Network, a free online magazine, is aimed squarely at those in the InfoSec field who are tired of hearing that you truly can't be in the security game without knowing how to code. This easy to follow tutorial not only gives you the basics, but it also helps you complete your first working program... all while keeping security at the forefront of your efforts. http://www.ethicalhacker.net/content/view/141/24/"

Submission + - SoundExchange: Billion Dollar Administrative Fee

Submitted by

palewook

on Friday June 08, 2007 @09:11AM

palewook writes: "On June 7th, Yahoo, RealNetworks, Pandora, and Live365 sent letters to US lawmakers emphasizing they owe SoundExchange "administrative fees" of more than $1 billion dollars a year for collecting the increased CRB royalities effective July 15th unless the Internet Radio Equality Act passes Congress. SoundExchange, the non-profit music industry entity, admits the levied charge of $500 per "channel" is supposed to only cover their administrative costs. Last year, SoundExchange collected a total of $20 million dollars from the Internet radio industry. Examining the new "administrative fee", means that RealNetworks which hosted 400,000 unique subscribed channels in 2006, would owe an annual administrative charge of 200 million dollars in addition to the retroactive 2006 rate hike per song played."

Submission + - PCs are cheaper than Macs, right? Wrong! (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

jcatcw

on Friday June 08, 2007 @08:44AM

jcatcw writes: "The recently converted Scot Finnie went notebook shopping. At the high end of the notebook spectrum, in order to get comparable power and features, a Dell machine comes in $650 over the Apple, and it was clunkier and weighed more. Sony couldn't beat the Apple either. Midrange and low-end machines, though, turn out to be pretty comparable, with more choices in the PC arena but some good values if you happen to want what Apple has decided you need. So, if you're talking name-brand hardware, it's just no longer the case that PC's are cheaper than Macs."

Submission + - More Allegations of Developer Misconduct in EVE

Submitted by umilmi81 on Friday May 25, 2007 @06:14PM

umilmi81 writes: The EVE Online player based alliance GoonSwarm has published an open letter, including screen shots, accusing CCP employees of joining a member corporation, giving himself director level permissions, and then leaving the corporation.

In-game petitions sent to CCP about the incident were subsequently deleted. A forum moderator acknowledged the accusations, and has directed the matter to internal affairs.

CCP created an internal affairs department after admitting developer misconduct on previous occasions.

Submission + - EU questions Google privacy policy

Submitted by on Friday May 25, 2007 @05:42PM

An anonymous reader writes: BBC reports that the European Union is saying that Google's privacy policy may be breaking European privacy laws by keeping people's search information on its servers for up to two years. A data protection group that advises the European Union has written to the search giant to express concerns. The Article 29 group, made up of data protection commissioners around the EU, has asked Google to clarify its policy. Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said the firm was committed to dialogue with the group.

The EU has a wide range of privacy protections that set limits to what information corporations may collect and what they may or may not do with them. In the US on the other hand privacy laws generally cover government actions while the business sector remains largely unregulated. Is it perhaps time to follow the European example and extend privacy laws to include corporations?

Submission + - Online Graphic Novel for the ipod

Submitted by

Michael Regina

on Friday May 25, 2007 @05:07PM

Michael Regina writes: "From forbiddenplanet.co.uk: Howard Webster, the man behind the upcoming Jonas Moore mixed-media webcomic I mentioned a couple of days ago, has been in touch to say that a new 3 minute preview trailer is up on the official site, with Bond movie star Colin Salmon strutting his stuff as the eponymous hero, an online computer game character who becomes self aware only to find himself targetted for deletion by the system, forcing him to move through different game scenarios to escape — games that look very much like our own worlds real history. The system oversees a massive international gaming system which keeps the population docile and controlled in the real world, where the British Empire is still running the show; the whole thing has a bit of a Mike Moorcock multiverse feel to it with touches of the Matrix and Luther Arkwright too.

When I spoke to Howard he was quite excited by the fact they had managed to secure an actor like Colin Salmon to star in Jonas Moore — as he pointed out, there isnt a big tradition of black action heroes in the UK, so it was especially nice to have Colin in this lead role (and Im sure he is pretty easy on the eye for the ladies, and some of the men too no doubt). And he had some strong opinions on PR and ad agencies, who seem to be less inclined to help publicise the work and more interested in seeing if there were ideas they could pinch to use to sell their wares to folks online and seemed to harbour a grudge because the guys at Editor Factory were prepared to use new media to get out there and publicise it themselves (creators doing their own thing online is part of their ethos for the whole project, with a call for fans to use it to make their own offshoot material). When one PR flunky condescended to comment that they thought some it looked like it was put together in a coffee shop, Howard grinningly informed him that actually they did edit some of it together sitting in a Starbucks! Go new media empowerment! Besides, putting together a new story in a coffee shop seemed to work for J K Rowling

Im really looking forward to seeing how this unfolds, especially the use of mixed media to make the webcomic more than art panels on a screen, which makes sense to me, since the web offers more far options than that — after all, as new media blurs the lines between movies, TV and the web, we should expect it to do so with some comics too. Meantime, as well as the new preview, the official site is stuffed with material to check out and Howard has also been busy uploading to YouTube — not only a story introduction, but a couple of shorts which are less than complimentary to the media agencies (and we know what Bill Hicks said of those things). Online comics makers are doing it for themselves — go and have a good look around the goodies on offer and give a little support to an interesting Brit comics independent endeavour."

Submission + - First Publishers Sign for Free, Legal Guitar Tabs

Submitted by

MXTabs.net

on Friday May 25, 2007 @04:34PM

MXTabs.net writes: "Musicnotes and MXTabs.net have announced the first publishers to sign on to offer free guitar, bass and drum tab downloads at the MXTabs.net web site. Thousands of publishers have signed on, including BMG, peermusic, Famous and Bug Music. Artists include Coldplay, Maroon 5, Linkin Park, Wilco, Ryan Adams, Elvis Costello, Spoon and others. Musicnotes Announces Songwriter Support and Initial Publisher Signings for MXTabs.net"

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