I would expect that the people who know how to root their phone are also unlikely to pay $3.99 to rent a movie - I can't imagine there's a lot of overlap or heartache here amongst the users.

On the other hand, these are also the most tech savvy users who might actually be swayed by a convenient and cheap (and legal) movie downloading system. Certainly I used to buy music from a certain Russian site because the cost was worth the convenience of high quality music on demand.

Replying to myself, some further googling [PDF] shows a number of studies that suggest a link between learning chess and improved performance. There does seem to be evidence that learning chess improves performance (although there also seems to be some studies that suffer from correlation/causation issues; without reviewing each study individually, I'm also suspicious that some studies might not have controlled for the fact that any intervention produces improvement, not just learning chess. But the devil is in the details, and there's a broad trend towards improvement).

Looks like chess is already being taught in the Phillipines too?

Their president should be Knighted! :)

Seriously, though, this is an intriguing way of fostering logical/analytical/creative thinking. I wonder if there is any peer reviewed literature on the impact of chess on children?

On my 2005 Macbook, that runs everything else perfectly, this comment thread is chewing up *80%* of my CPU (one core out of two). Really, Slashdot? This is what the top site for geeks comes up with?

And, like everyone else has said, too much white space. I don't mean this as a direct criticism - but did none of the beta testers make these observations? I'm genuinely curious.

Actually, the ETS (at least) has a reasonably good chance of being passed in some form. Yes, Labor will need the support of the Greens MPtwo independents, but Oakeshott will probably be in favour and Windsor, although opposing the existing scheme, is generally in favour of an emissions trading scheme. The Greens opposed the scheme originally because they knew it couldn't be passed even with their support, and thought they'd gain more political mileage by being the Extreme Left voice. Now that they're actually in a position of responsibility all of those guys are likely to play ball, with the Greens in particular keen to get something through the Senate (from July next year) while Labor still has government!

I just love the irony that to support them you have the option of loging in via your Facebook details ;)

It's a darn tough sell, but I threw them $5 - why not? If it comes together, it would be a fantastic Wikipedia-esque next-step of social networking. On the other hand, if Buzz can't do it...

Fantastic post - absolutely agree!

Agreed - if Google were hacked, well, that's bad. But the same goes for anything I store on my personal computer. And while Google's a much more likely target than my lonely IP address, they're also a hundred times better equipped to come with those attacks than I am, despite my moderate geek status.

The concern is there, but the difference is that I acknowledge and accept it. These guys are calling for the destruction of Google, which, to me, is a disproportionate response.

Believe it or not, Google is a free service (for the most part) supported by advertising. I love the stuff that Google does, the way they handle advertising, and the way that advertising is actually (for the first time ever on the net) actually relevant. They've never done anything to earn my mistrust, far from it. So if by giving them my search histories I can improve both their overall advertising revenue and my own browsing experience, then I am more than willing to do so.

If things ever go wrong, well, then I'll suffer the consequences. But people demanding Google stop collecting this information is just crazy talk. Yes, Google is fast becoming a necessity because of its sheer usefulness, but it's by no means crossed the line and doesn't look like it will. If you're really that worried - just don't use Gmail, Gcalendar or any of those other things. Your Google searches will still be reasonably anonymous!

Honestly, it's rubbish like this that gives privacy advocates a bad name. Fight a battle worth fighting, for cryin' out loud.

I happily stand corrected! Cool examples.

That said, in the bigger picture, I think better decisions can usually be made with more information. That might include by terrorists, however, so whether or not those "better" decisions are in your interest is debatable, but the less restrictions on open speech the better, in general. IMHO!

Now if Simon Singh could just win his case, then maybe the world will move one step closer to free and open speech. Security through obscurity never helped anyone in any context (*), and the more knowledge one has the better decisions one can make.

(*) Counterexamples welcome...

I think the point is that there *must* have been some difference, or there'd be no point in reporting the statistic. Water is found in 100% of cancer patient's breath samples, for instance, but that doesn't really help us. My guess is that the original article includes a typo - probably they just copied in the wrong statistic.

Neither of the other articles includes a statistic, so I'd just assume there's a (more-than-just-statistically-)significant difference for now.

I know, I know, it's just a (repeated) typo. But to consistently assign products 64-128 GB of RAM...it doesn't really inspire confidence in me as to the accuracy of the rest of the article...