Comment Re:Winston Churchill (Score 1) 505
Try, "Ending a sentence with a preposition is something which I will not tolerate."
I'm fairly certain ol' Winnie's waiting on your insight with bated breath.
Literally, in fact.
Comment Re:Stop shopping with companies that employ the RI (Score 2) 333
Why sue everyone with an internet connection when you could just surcharge the connection? There are surcharges on blank discs and burners in various places on this planet, so why not start nickeling and diming at the source here?
Eeurgh. I'm not so sure if it's more revolting that it's plausible or that there have been approximations of this already done successfully.
Comment Re:the alternative to the revolving door, of cours (Score 1) 333
That's a false duality. There is no reason that regulators can't listen to the industries they regulate as long as the industries aren't buying them trips, cars, vacations, etc...
In terms of avoiding legal messes of the bribery kind, sure. In terms of objectively judging whether or not an industrial operation should or should not be doing something? Um... no. Industry does not tend to be more ethical with its information than it is with its money.
Are 10-11 Hour Programming Days Feasible? 997
drc37 writes "My current boss asked me what I thought of asking all employees to work 10-11 hour days until the company is profitable. He read something from Joel Spolsky that said the best way to get new customers is to add new features. Anyways, we are a startup with almost a year live. None of the employees have ownership/stock and all are salary. Salaries are at normal industry rates. What should I say to him when we talk about this again?"
Florida Man Sues WikiLeaks For Scaring Him
340
Stoobalou writes "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been accused of 'treason' by a Florida man seeking damages for distress caused by the site's revelations about the US government. From the article: 'David Pitchford, a Florida trailer park resident, names Assange and WikiLeaks as defendants in a personal injury suit filed with the Florida Southern District Court in Miami. In the complaint filed on 6th January, Pitchford alleges that Assange's negligence has caused "hypertension," "depression" and "living in fear of being stricken by another heart attack and/or stroke" as a result of living "in fear of being on the brink of another nuclear [sic] WAR."' Just for good measure, it also alleges that Assange and WikiLeaks are guilty of 'terorism [sic], espionage and treason.'"
DHS Seized Domains Based On Bad Evidence 235
An anonymous reader writes "Back over Thanksgiving, the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit (ICE) made a lot of news by seizing over 80 domain names. While many of these involved sites that sold counterfeit products, five of the domains involved copyright issues. Four of them involved hiphop-related blogs — including ones that hiphop stars like Kanye West and others used to promote their own works, and the last one was a meta search engine that simply aggregated other search engines. Weeks went by without the owners of those sites even being told why their domains were seized, but the affidavit for the seizure of those five sites has recently come out, and it's full of all sorts of problems. Not only was it put together by a recent college graduate, who claimed that merely linking to news and blog posts about file sharing constituted evidence of copyright infringement, it listed as evidence of infringement songs that labels specifically sent these blogs to promote. Also, what becomes clear is that the MPAA was instrumental in 'guiding' ICE's rookie agent in going after these sites, as that appeared to be the only outside expertise relied on in determining if these sites should be seized."
Al Franken Makes a Case For Net Neutrality 604
jomama717 writes "In a post titled 'The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time' this morning on The Huffington Post, Senator Al Franken lays down a powerful case for net neutrality, as well as a grim scenario if the current draft regulations being considered by the FCC are accepted. Quoting: 'The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to issue regulations that protect net neutrality. The bad news is that draft regulations written by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski don't do that at all. They're worse than nothing. That's why Tuesday is such an important day. The FCC will be meeting to discuss those regulations, and we must make sure that its members understand that allowing corporations to control the Internet is simply unacceptable. Although Chairman Genachowski's draft Order has not been made public, early reports make clear that it falls far short of protecting net neutrality.'"
Do High Schools Know What 'Computer Science' Is? 564
theodp writes "The first rule of teaching high school-level Computer Science should be knowing what CS is-and-isn't. Unfortunately, many high schools offering 'Computer Science' really aren't. Using her old California high school as an example, now-a-real-CS-student Carolyn points out that one 'Computer Science' class (C101) touted keyboarding 'speeds in excess of 30 words per minute at 95% accuracy' as a desired outcome, while another (C120) boasted that students will learn to use hyperlinks to link to other sites. While such classes fill a need, she acknowledges, they should not be called Computer Science. What's the harm? 'Encouraging more girls to take computer classes as they are now might have the opposite of the desired effect,' she explains. 'More girls might get the impression that computer science is only advanced application use, which might turn them off to computer science.'"
Vint Cerf, US Congresswoman Oppose Net Regulation 156
schliz writes "Vint Cerf, Google, ICANN and California Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack have opposed a recently revealed UN initiative to regulate the internet. Congresswoman Mack put forward a US resolution that the United Nations and other international governmental organisations maintain a 'hands-off approach' to the internet, arguing that 'the internet has progressed and thrived precisely because it has not been subjected to the suffocating effect of a governmental organization's heavy hand.' Meanwhile, the so-called 'father of the internet,' Vint Cerf, called on stakeholders to sign a petition to mobilize opposition of the UN's plan. 'Today, I have signed that petition on Google's behalf because we don't believe governments should be allowed to grant themselves a monopoly on Internet governance,' said Cerf, who is also Google's chief internet lobbyist."
Comment Re:This is actually more impressive than it sounds (Score 1) 473
Why on earth would you want a doctor to do that, instead of a materials engineer who's actually going to design the implant? The engineer does this every day. The doctor does not.
I want them both to have that knowledge -- the engineer, who's designing to specs based on the literature and on what's feasible for use in the OR, and the doctor, who's going to be installing it and following up to make sure it's working as it should.
At the absolute least, if they're not talking at all to begin with, I don't want that implant.
Comment Re:This is actually more impressive than it sounds (Score 1) 473
The students aren't interested in the derivation anyway, I suppose; why bother giving it to them? For that matter, why bother teaching physics to med students?
I could work up quite a list here, but instead I'll send you to Steve Vogel. Read Prime Mover: a Natural History of Muscle and Vital Circuits. Vogel wrote the latter to describe circulatory systems largely in terms of physics, and he cites his (then) recent heart surgery as a guiding animus.
The truth is, physics counts. Yes, there are idiot doctors out there who got by with memorizing all kinds of stuff and who, by extension, can handle the overwhelming majority of "simple" complaints. For my money, I want a doctor who has had some education to let him think beyond Gray's Anatomy and the PDR if and when I present with something outside of that overwhelming majority. If it's a biomechanical problem, that doc had damn well better have had physics.
Comment Re:This is actually more impressive than it sounds (Score 1) 473
What I think is most odd about this is that no-one in his peer review group noticed that this is actually relatively trivial calculus. My nephew has recently applied to study medicine in the university and I was more than a little surprised that he wasn't required during his undergraduate studies to obtain a classical scientific education. In fact, the only non-chemistry oriented science he was required to take was "Physics 1" and he wasn't required to take calculus at all. I'm not even sure how you can teach a physics course without calculus, but they appeared to be happy with nothing more than "pre-calc" style topics covering basic derivatives.
I would indicate to you that your nephew's situation is not typical. Programs tend to vary widely in how they approach requirements and prerequisites. I would question their approach, myself -- especially if your nephew has any interest in moving on to research.
Granted, I don't work in medicine. Still, I work in biology, and I came to this work with both calculus and calculus-based physics. I may not have the same mathematical toolbox someone working in physics has, but my field doesn't let me be ignorant of calculus to be deemed acceptable as a scientist, either.
Medical Researcher Rediscovers Integration 473
parallel_prankster writes "I find this paper very amusing. From the abstract: 'To develop a mathematical model for the determination of total areas under curves from various metabolic studies.' Hint! If you replace phrases like 'curves from metabolic studies' with just 'curves,' then you'll note that Dr. Tai rediscovered the rectangle method of approximating an integral. (Actually, Dr. Tai rediscovered the trapezoidal rule.). Apparently this is called 'Tai's Model.'"
A Mind Made From Memristors 320
Csiko writes "Researchers at Boston University's department of cognitive and neural systems are working on an artificial brain implemented with memristors. 'A memristor is a two-terminal device whose resistance changes depending on the amount, direction, and duration of voltage that's applied to it. But here's the really interesting thing about a memristor: Whatever its past state, or resistance, it freezes that state until another voltage is applied to change it. Maintaining that state requires no power.' Also theoretically described, solid state versions of memristors have not been implemented until recently. Now researchers in Boston claim that memristors are the new key technology to implement highly integrated, powerful artificial brains on cheap and widely available hardware within five years."
Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans' Real Time Credit Card Activity 299
PatPending writes "A 10-page Powerpoint presentation (PDF) that security and privacy analyst Christopher Soghoian recently obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request to the Department of Justice reveals that law enforcement agencies routinely seek and obtain real-time surveillance of credit card transactions. The government's guidelines reveal that this surveillance often occurs with a simple subpoena, thus sidestepping any Fourth Amendment protections."
