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Comment Re:They'd complain about anything probably. (Score 1) 187

I second that. I've traveled to the NYC metro area on business trips for many years, and my company has switched providers three times in the past decade. AT&T was the worst, followed by my current carrier, VZW, although they are a quantum leap ahead of AT&T. I had the best coverage, reception and fewest dropped calls with Sprint, but my experience was only a little better than VZW. Put another way, of the carriers I've used in the NYC area, I found Sprint to provide the best service, VZW a close second, and AT&T a dismally distant third.
Medicine

One Night Stands May Be Genetic 240

An anonymous reader writes "So, he or she has cheated on you for the umpteenth time and their only excuse is: 'I just can't help it.' According to researchers at Binghamton University, they may be right. The propensity for infidelity could very well be in their DNA. In a first of its kind study, a team of investigators led by Justin Garcia, a SUNY Doctoral Diversity Fellow in the laboratory of evolutionary anthropology and health at Binghamton University, State University of New York, has taken a broad look at sexual behavior, matching choices with genes and has come up with a new theory on what makes humans 'tick' when it comes to sexual activity. The biggest culprit seems to be the dopamine receptor D4 polymorphism, or DRD4 gene. Already linked to sensation-seeking behavior such as alcohol use and gambling, DRD4 is known to influence the brain's chemistry and subsequently, an individual's behavior."

Comment Re:Isn't this going to get expensive? (Score 1) 421

You can't expect students to be 100% focused on their education every waking minute. People live at college as well, they need recreational time. In this day and age that means internet pastimes such as games, YouTube, Hulu, etc, even P2P for legal recreation, like coding & hacking. Room & board charges include internet, and students should be able to use the network in their dorms however they please, without censorship, subject to existing law. The terms of service should not restrict lawful activity, and if they do, the university should allow students to opt out, credit the cost of the residential internet, and allow them to install a competitor such as DSL or cable. Or they could just live off-campus...
Censorship

Submission + - Group demands $100 for use of "Light Up Night" (pittsburghlive.com)

standbypowerguy writes: Officials from some communities think the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership is the Grinch that stole "Light Up Night." The partnership is demanding $100 from any community wishing to use the "light up" name, which it copyrighted in 2003. This is the first year the group is enforcing its trademark.A spokeswoman for the group, which organizes the city's annual holiday kickoff, says it's just protecting the event and that all fees collected will be donated...
Graphics

The First Photograph of a Human 138

wiredog writes "The Atlantic has a brief piece on what is likely to be the first photograph (a daguerreotype) showing a human. From the article: 'In September, Krulwich posted a set of daguerreotypes taken by Charles Fontayne and William Porter in Cincinnati 162 years ago, on September 24, 1848. Krulwich was celebrating the work of the George Eastman House in association with the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Using visible-light microscopy, the George Eastman House scanned several plates depicting the Cincinnati Waterfront so that scholars could zoom in and study the never-before-seen details.'"

Comment Re:A limited reading (Score 1) 175

Just to be clear, browsers allow users to right-click. That's not the website.

Disagree, the problem is not with the browser, but with the website. Browsers have a feature that allows users to right-click and copy content, but that feature can be switched off by the server-side code. I'm not a web programmer so I can't explain precisely how it's done, but I've run across several web sites over the years which restrict right-clicking. This works in both IE (work machine) and Firefox on both Linux and Windows (home machines).

Website operators can take additional means to prevent stupid people from saving their content, but the law doesn't require them to do so in order to gain copyright protection.

Agree. Just because you can do something doesn't make it legal, or even right. Don't they teach the concepts of copyright, plagiarism and theft in schools anymore. Or in the home, for that matter? Linking to the article with a description or short excerpt is protected as as fair use, but copying the entire article is a specific form of theft known as copyright infringement, which is punishable under civil law.

Comment Key Box/Sort by Device/Key Alike When Feasible (Score 1) 763

I mounted a key cabinet on the wall. Nothing fancy, bought it at Home Depot. I put the master key for each item or location (workshop, house, garage, etc.) on a separate tag in the box, labeled by item. Same for spare vehicle keys. I key alike where possible, for example, one key unlocks every door on my house, another the shop, a third the garage. I use the same padlock for almost everything, the exceptions being my fuel oil storage tank and box trailer. Fuel is too valuable to trust to a commonly available Master key code, and the trailer gets parked in some nasty spots, so it needs beefier locks on the doors and anti-theft cables. My wife and I each carry a ring with the keys to our primary vehicle on one end of a quick disconnect and keys for the house, shop, key cabinet, and the common master padlock on the other end. We have garage door openers, so no key needed there. My ring has an extra male quick disconnect which I use whenever I tow a trailer. I group sets of keys by trailer on a ring in the key cabinet, so I can just grab, hook and go. Each personal keyring has a carabiner. I keep mine on a belt loop, my wife hooks hers inside her purse. I also have a work truck, and a remote office and storage cage I rarely visit. Both sets of keys for the truck are kept in the cabinet. One set has a carabiner, the other is a spare. On the set I carry, I keep the office and storage cage keys, plus a set of gate keys for various other work facilities, and a spare quick disconnect so I can take my house/shop keys. Work has their shit together, there are four gate keys for the entire nation, and the facilities themselves all use an access system that allows security to track the comings and goings of employees and contractors. Any time I go anywhere, I carry less than a dozen keys at most, and often no more than half of that.
GUI

Flash Builder 4 — Defective By Design? 66

ApolloX writes "Adobe has released its new version of the Flex Builder, now renamed Flash Builder 4. This version is radically different from previous versions of Flex, introducing the new Spark architecture and theme support. While I am pleased Adobe has finally added support for Eclipse 3.5, I am disappointed with some of the new architecture changes that make doing simple things, such as skinning a button, now quite cumbersome."
Math

7 of the Best Free Linux Calculators 289

An anonymous reader writes "One of the basic utilities supplied with any operating system is a desktop calculator. These are often simple utilities that are perfectly adequate for basic use. They typically include trigonometric functions, logarithms, factorials, parentheses and a memory function. However, the calculators featured in this article are significantly more sophisticated with the ability to process difficult mathematical functions, to plot graphs in 2D and 3D, and much more. Occasionally, the calculator tool provided with an operating system did not engender any confidence. The classic example being the calculator shipped with Windows 3.1 which could not even reliably subtract two numbers. Rest assured, the calculators listed below are of precision quality."

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