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J.K. Rowling Should Try the Voting Algorithm 128

Posted by timothy from the magic-voting-algorithm dept.
Frequent contributor Bennett Haselton proposes a new use for online, anonymous voting: helping sort skill from luck in the cheek-by-jowl world of best-selling (and would-be best-selling) authors: "J.K. Rowling recently confirmed that she was the author of a book she had published under a pseudonym, which spiked in sales after she was outed as the true author. Perhaps she was doing an experiment to see how much luck had played a role in propelling her to worldwide success, and whether she could recreate anything close to that success when starting from scratch. But a better way to answer that question would be to strike a deal with an amateur-fiction-hosting site and use the random-sample-voting algorithm that I've written so much about, to test how her writing stacks up against other writers in the same genre." Read on for more. Update: 07/20 01:23 GMT by T : Note: An editorial goof (mine) swapped out the word "confirmed" for "revealed" (above) in an earlier rendering of this story.

Comment Re:fourth amendment vs. first amendment (Score 1) 333

by smarkham01 (#44304081) Attached to: EFF Sues NSA, Justice Department, FBI

And I'm in favor of responsible First Amendment rights with adequate controls that, while not infringing on your 1st Amendment rights, will permit the proper authorities to determine that you haven't committed sedition, threatened the President, conspired to overthrow the government, etc. You won't mind registering your computer, friendships, reading lists, and such with those likable folks now, would ya?
 

Submission + - How to teach IT to senior management 1

Submitted by gagol
gagol writes: I recently took a position at a small industrial equipment manufacturer. We are looking to buy a new ERM software package and my boss, who is looking forward to buy the thing, knows nothing about computers or software. I will be providing basic IT training to the senior management and I am looking for your input on the scope and content of said training. I am thinking: basic components and architecture -> networking -> software -> proprietary vs open source. What do you think?

Submission + - Keep smiling, waste spammers' time with OpenBSD tools (blogspot.ca)

Submitted by badger.foo
badger.foo writes: When you're in the business of building the networks people need and the services they need to run on them, you may also be running a mail service. If you do, you will sooner or later need to deal with spam. This article is about how to waste spammers' time and have a good time while doing it, using the free tools OpenBSD offers to do your greylisting and greytrapping before any content filtering. It's fun and easy.

Submission + - Acer Has Restarted The Android Tablet Race To The Bottom: The New Target Is $100

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It’s on. The Android tablet race to the bottom has been restarted, and it’s got a new price tag: $100. Acer on Friday held a press event in New York City, announcing three devices: the Aspire R7 (a desktop/laptop combo), the Aspire P3 (an ultrabook), and the Iconia A1 (a tablet). The company saved the best for last: the 7.9-inch A1 is priced at just $169.

Submission + - Ex-Employee Busted for Tampering with ERP System (nytimes.com)

Submitted by ErichTheRed
ErichTheRed writes: Here's yet another example of why it's very important to make sure IT employees' access is terminated when they are. According to the NYTimes article, a former employee of this company allegedly accessed the ERP system after he was terminated and had a little "fun". As an IT professional myself, I can't ever see a situation that would warrant something like this. Unfortunately for all of us, some people do and continue to give us a really bad reputation in the executive suite.

Submission + - headlights that make rain invisible (autoblog.com) 1

Submitted by zlives
zlives writes: According to CNET, the headlight uses a camera housed within the headlight assembly to detect rain (and presumably snow or hail) as it falls, and then it uses a processor to anticipate the path of the rain. Finally, the actual light is created by a projector, which uses the information supplied by the processor to block out the pixels where the rain is expected to be. This technology, as you can see in the image above, should help improve visibility since there will be less light reflected back at the driver by raindrops.

Submission + - Turn That Frown Upside Down? Maybe Not: Negative People Reply to Emails 36% Fast (contactually.com)

Submitted by antdude
antdude writes: A Contactually blog reports "Turn That Frown Upside Down? Maybe Not: Negative People Reply to Emails 36% Faster ... Engineers at Contactually, a referral marketing platform, recently analyzed over 100 million email conversations and determined that being negative actually is helpful when it comes to email. On average, negative people tend to reply to emails 36% faster than their positive, bubbly colleagues..."

Seen on Slate from HardOCP.

Submission + - DEP Says Fracking Not to Blame for Flammable Water (theepochtimes.com)

Submitted by jjp9999
jjp9999 writes: The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection declared on Monday that fracking is not to blame for methane in water in Susquehanna County. Their 16-month investigation concluded the methane was naturally occurring, not from hydraulic fracturing wells nearby. Last year, the EPA declared flammable sink water in Dimock, Pennsylvania, was not contaminating, after it was made famous by the documentary film, "Gasland."

Submission + - Alpha Centauri Bb Given a Name (space.com) 1

Submitted by SchrodingerZ
SchrodingerZ writes: The nearest planet outside our solar system has recently been named Albertus Alauda. Originally named Alpha Centauri Bb, the planet is the closest known planet not orbiting the Sun, being a mere 4.3 light years away. The name comes from Jay Lark, who won the naming contest held by Uwingu starting last month and ending on April 22. Lark remarks that the name comes from the Latin name of his late grandfather, stating, "My grandfather passed away after a lengthy and valiant battle with cancer; his name in Latin means noble or bright and to praise or extol." The competition for naming the planet came from Uwing, a company which used the buying of name proposals and votes to fund grants for future space exploration ventures. Albertus Alauda won the competition with 751 votes, followed by Rakhat with 684 votes, and Caleo, with 622 votes.

Submission + - NASA lets us watch the Sun spin for 3 years in 4 minute video (geek.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Back in February 2010 NASA launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory–a 3-axis stabilized satellite and fully redundant spacecraft. The aim of the SDO is to monitor solar activity and see how that impacts space weather.

As part of its observations, the SDO captures an image of the Sun every 12 seconds using the onboard Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, but varies those shots across 10 different wavelengths. NASA has now collected 3 year’s worth of image data from the SDO and has put together a video letting us see the Sun spin in all its glory.

Submission + - Amazon's Cloud Exodus? (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: There are rumblings around this week's OpenStack conference that companies are moving away from AWS, ready to ditch their training wheels and build their own private clouds. Inbound marketing services company HubSpot is the latest to announce that it's shifting workloads off AWS, citing problems with 'zombie servers,' unused servers that the company was paying for. Others that are leaving point to 'business issues,' like tightening the reins on developers who turned to the cloud without permission.

Submission + - How can I talk to IOS with my embedded USB design?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This is an Ask Slashdot topic.

We have developed a portable battery powered device that uses USB for configuration, telemetry, and support. We have a companion pc utility that works fine but our marketing brethren would prefer an ios solution.

The technical challenges include the electrical interface and software. How have slashdotters solved these challenges? (Besides Android...)

Thanks in advance!

Submission + - "Brute Force" Aimed at WordPress (briandonohue.org)

Submitted by nightcats
nightcats writes: This morning I attempted to login into the WordPress admin area and received the message, "Wordpress administrator area access disabled temporarily due to widespread brute force attacks." An inquiry with my webhost providers revealed that "There is a an active brute force attack against WordPress sites across the internet and this is creating issues with the network and servers." I was advised to login via FTP with the following changes to the .htaccess file, replacing "xxx" with the IP address:
Order deny,allow Deny from all Allow from x.x.x.x

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