Comment Voldemort! (Score 3, Funny) 344
There's a db called Project Voldemort? That's awesome! I'm switching to that just for the name! I think my manager is a Harry Potter fan so getting approval shouldn't be too hard.
Comment Re:RED Hat, come on ppl (Score 5, Funny) 242
Maybe they'll rename it Red Ushanka!
Comment Cheeses (Score 1) 1397
I remember a lab with over two dozen workstations named after cheeses. It made for interesting emails from users when they crashed, such as "Mozerella is melting down again!"
The Illuminati Project Pushes For Dark Skies In 2009 315
An anonymous reader writes "2009 is the 400th anniversary of Galileo's observations of Venus, Saturn and Jupiter published in Sidereus Nuncius ('Starry Messenger'). To improve scientific literacy, the NOAO and NASA are promoting dark-sky initiatives in 2009 to draw attention to the problem of light pollution which obscures nearly all night sky colors and objects except for the moon and a few bright stars and planets. Project Illuminati is a Flickr project by James Cann to showcase the beauty of light pollution to raise awareness and educate fellow Earthmates to lower energy consumption and become more curious about our place in the universe."
'Lab On a Chip' Made From Paper and Tape 66
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Harvard University have developed a microfluidic device using ordinary paper and tape. Squares of paper are layered and connected with adhesive tape, channeling liquid horizontally and vertically in a very small area. Each square of paper has been treated with photoresist material, which creates channels that funnel liquid into tiny wells containing certain proteins or antibodies. The fluid interacts with that area of the paper and turns the well a certain color. It can, for example, detect varying concentrations of glucose. Lead researcher George Whitesides says such paper 'lab on a chip' tests may lead to a cost-effective, portable, and accurate method for diagnosing diseases in countries lacking reliable health care. The research appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science."
iPhones, FStream and the Death of Satellite Radio 397
Statesman writes "Only a little over a year ago, the
FCC approved the merger of XM and Sirius
satellite radio companies and the combined stock was trading at $4 a share. Despite being a monopoly — or perhaps because of it — the company is failing. They are losing subscribers, the stock is now trading around 22 cents a share (a 97% decline), and they have written off $4.8 billion dollars in stock value. So, what happened? The CEO is blaming pretty much everyone except himself and his business model. But is pay-for-bandwidth even a viable business plan anymore? With millions of iPhone and gPhone users out there, free streaming audio applications like FStream, and thousands of Internet radio stations to access, the question is: why would anyone want to pay for proprietary hardware and a limited selection of a few hundred stations all controlled by one company?"
Read on for the rest of Statesman's thoughts.
Comment Seen it before... (Score 0) 249
Tequila has lead to diamonds before, more often than other places in Vegas
Comment Round and Round and Round.... (Score 1) 119
hehehe... It might be kinda fun to take a phone on this system and go spin in circles for hours on a merry-go-round in a playground.
I wonder what other mischief you get into with one of these?
Smart Rubber Promises Self-Mending Products 122
An anonymous reader writes "French scientists have developed a new rubber that can heal itself after being cut or broken. If two broken ends of the material are pushed together, and left for an hour, they join to become just as stretchy as before. There is even a video of the supposed creation in action. 'Regular rubber gets its strength from the fact that long chains of polymer molecules are coupled, or "crosslinked," in three different ways: through covalent, ionic, and hydrogen bonding between molecules. Of these three bond types, only the hydrogen bonds can be remade once a material is fractured, although normally there are not enough hydrogen bonds for the rubber to re-couple in this way. The solution devised by Leibler and colleagues is to simply get rid of the ionic and covalent bonds. They developed a transparent, yellowy-brown rubber in which crosslinking is performed only by hydrogen bonds.'"
Outer Space has a Smell 274
repapetilto writes "ISS Science Officer Don Pettit reports in his journal that outer space gives off a smell best described as "a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation." Kind of odd considering smell is supposed to be due to volatilized chemical compounds."
Firefox 2.0.0.11 Released 199
BrianAU writes "Firefox 2.0.0.11 has been released, the Release Notes show the only major change as a correction of a compatibility issue with some websites and extensions as discovered in Firefox 2.0.0.10."
Thin Water Acts Like a Solid 138
Roland Piquepaille writes "What happens when you compress water in a nano-sized space? According to Georgia Tech physicists, water starts to behave like a solid. "The confined water film behaves like a solid in the vertical direction by forming layers parallel to the confining surface, while maintaining it's liquidity in the horizontal direction where it can flow out," said one of the researchers. "Water is a wonderful lubricant, but it flows too easily for many applications. At the one nanometer scale, water is a viscous fluid and could be a much better lubricant," added another one."
Submission + - Canada to Ban Incandescent Bulbs by 2012
Radon360 writes: Canada will ban the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs by 2012 as part of a plan to cut down on emissions of greenhouse gases. Canada is the second country in the world to announce such a ban. Australia said in February it would get rid of all incandescent bulbs by 2009. The ban will not apply to uses where incandescent bulbs are still the only practical alternative.
Submission + - How to legally determine an anonymous coward's ID
CPE1704TKS writes: My girlfriend is running into a weird situation. Someone is posing as her and sending her friends on her friendster account messages asking for their IM account names. Some of them have been duped and have even engaged in conversation with this person. What can I do (legally) to determine this person's true identity.
I was able to determine this person's IP address by putting trackers on specific web pages and sent those pages to them to look at. I even set up a fake AIM account and chatted with this person, pretending to be someone who thought she was my gf.
Now what?
I have the person's IP address, and I know the city that they live in, based on it. Is there any way I can narrow down who they are? If people post grey-area or not-so-legal tactics, as a law-abiding citizen, I would never do such a heinous thing, but it would be educational to know what tricks and tips there are out there to figure out who this person is.
I was able to determine this person's IP address by putting trackers on specific web pages and sent those pages to them to look at. I even set up a fake AIM account and chatted with this person, pretending to be someone who thought she was my gf.
Now what?
I have the person's IP address, and I know the city that they live in, based on it. Is there any way I can narrow down who they are? If people post grey-area or not-so-legal tactics, as a law-abiding citizen, I would never do such a heinous thing, but it would be educational to know what tricks and tips there are out there to figure out who this person is.
Encouraging Students to Drop Mathematics 618
Coryoth writes "The BBC is reporting that students in the UK are being encouraged to drop math at the senior levels. It seems that schools are seeking to boost their standing on league tables by encouraging students not to take 'hard' subjects like mathematics, in favor of easier subjects in which they are assured good grades. The result is Universities being forced to provide remedial math classes for science students who haven't done math for two years. The BBC provides a comparison between Chinese and UK university entrance tests — a comparison that makes the UK look woefully behind."
