dl248 - Slashdot User

Man Uses Drake Equation To Explain Girlfriend Woes 538

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 13, 2010 @07:57PM from the less-math-more-social-science dept.

artemis67 writes "A man studying in London has taken a mathematical equation that predicts the possibility of alien life in the universe to explain why he can't find a girlfriend. Peter Backus, a native of Seattle and PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, near London, in his paper, 'Why I don't have a girlfriend: An application of the Drake Equation to love in the UK,' used math to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. In describing the paper on the university Web site he wrote 'the results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.'"

Moscow Police Watch Pre-Recorded Scenes On Surveillance Cams 114

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 13, 2010 @01:46PM from the I-always-feel-like-nobody-is-watching-me dept.

An anonymous reader writes "During several months of 2009, Moscow police looked at fake pictures displayed on their monitors instead of what was supposed to be video from the city surveillance cams. The subcontractor providing the cams was paid on the basis of 'the number of working cams,' so he delivered pre-cooked pictures stored on his servers. The camera company CEO has been arrested."

PhD Candidate Talks About the Physics of Space Battles 361

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 17, 2009 @03:18PM from the load-photon-torpedoes dept.

darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."

Proton Beams Sent Around the LHC 115

Posted by kdawson on Friday November 20, 2009 @05:40PM from the going-in-circles dept.

feldhaus writes "The BBC reports that the first beams for over one year have been successfully sent around the complete circumference of the Large Hadron Collider. Engineers do not yet have a stable circulating beam but they hope to by 0600 GMT on Saturday."

Submission + - Canadian Quantum Computer Demonstration

Submitted by

lost eden

on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @07:35PM

lost eden writes: ""D-Wave of British Columbia has promised to demonstrate a quantum computer next Tuesday, which can carry out 64,000 calculations simultaneously, thanks to a new technique, which rethinks the already-uncanny world of quantum computing."

Does this yet have any 'real world' implications, or is it merely a scientific milestone to simply document & brag about?"

Submission + - Net neutrality in Canada now in serious risk.

Submitted by

Oshawapilot

on Monday February 12, 2007 @09:23PM

Oshawapilot writes: "A editorial piece in todays Toronto Star newspaper points towards some disturbing movements on the Net Neutrality front in Canada.

With a Minister Of Industry making such troubling statements as "[Maxime] Bernier believes that consumers are best served by giving the dominant telecom companies maximum regulatory freedom" along with several questionable decisions on the Internet front, one must wonder if this government minister either fails to grasp what he is dealing with, or is in the pockets of big-telecom in Canada.

With 84% of the internet connections in Canada being controlled by only a few companies, this should concern Canadians, and be a wakeup call to all those who concern themselves with Net Neutrality.

With some ISP's in Canada already subjecting their customers to content or application discrimination, is a full blown attack on Net Neutrality that far away on this side of the border?

Does the government care? Or even understand?"

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