Comment Re:AI != design brain (Score 1) 266
And the obligatory xkcd.
Comment Re:what for????, its just x86 now anyway (Score 1) 256
They are competitive, at the beginning of their life cycle. Because of the way Apple updates its products, though, price competitiveness goes down throughout the cycle until the next refresh.
All this means is that yes, you should wait until the next refresh to buy a shiny new MB/MBP/MP.
Comment Re:I Think You're Reaching There (Score 2, Informative) 204
Like many others here, it was logic that led me to CS. My degree is in philosophy, but my career is in software development. So maybe I'm a bit biased.
I can't really point to applications in the last 2.5 years, but I think you're overstating the case. I'm quite familiar with work done by people here (Nick Asher, mentioned on that page, was chair of UT's philosophy dept. for some time). Paul and Patricia Churchland have done a great deal to bring the philosophy of mind in line with contemporary scientific thought - which includes CS. Neural networks are now regularly discussed in undergraduate philosophy courses. In no other liberal arts major will you find students so familiar with the work of Kripke, Goedel, Turing, or Frege. Hell, I know CS majors who can't go toe-to-toe with a good philosophy major when it comes to theory.
And when you ask us to set aside "logic, predicate calculus and the philosophy of mathematics," you're asking us to ignore the foundation of the philosophy of language, a field of study that's enormously popular today and overlaps into linguistics, semantic modeling, etc.
That's not to mention whole subfields of metaphysics, such as ontology.
I'm not saying there's some "killer app" for philosophy here. But the fields are more closely bound than you make them seem.
PS3 Helps Folding@Home Reach World Record Status 51
mytrip wrote with a note that the PlayStation 3 should be very proud of itself. Sony's monster-powerful console has lifted Stanford's very own distributed computing project (Folding@home) into the record books. "Guinness has apparently certified the project as the world's most powerful distributed computing system. According to a release from Sony, Folding@home topped 1 petaflop last month, meaning that it surpassed a thousand trillion floating point operations per second. By comparison, the well-known SETI@home project has topped out, according to Wikipedia, at around 265 teraflops, or 265 trillion floating point operations a second." There appears to be a team slashdot if you're looking for someone to support. Go fighting 006666!
Submission + - FCC to End Exclusive Cable for Apartments
spiffyman writes: "The New York Times is reporting (registration may be required) that on Wednesday the FCC will end exclusive contracts to provide cable service to apartment buildings. The article quotes Kevin J. Martin, the Commission's Chairman, as saying that cable prices have risen "about 93 percent in the last 10 years" and that the FCC hopes to see more competition out of this move. While more has yet to be done, this is a step in the right direction. In my apartment, for example, I have (dead) outlets for one cable company but am forced to go with the higher-priced firm. Moves like this will help those who live in areas where competition — even minimal competition — exists. The article also discusses the impact this may have on low- to middle-income families, which disproportionately live in apartment complexes."
Feed Wired: Verizon's Phone Has IPhone Written All Over It (wired.com)
Submission + - GAO Report Says FCC Favors Lobbyists (wired.com)
spiffyman writes: Wired news is running an AP story about the Government Accountability Office's latest report, which is a survey of recent FCC actions. According to the story, the GAO found that FCC staff regularly inform lobbyists of key events — such as upcoming votes — before the general public is informed. This apparently gives lobbyists "a window of opportunity for lobbyists who 'time their lobbying efforts to maximize their impact.'" Naturally, the FCC's director of media relations, David Fiske, insists that his agency "actively reaches out and works with consumer and public interest groups, not only industry." With important decisions always on the horizon, what effect does this have on the public's ability to weigh in with the agency?
Yahoo! Asks That Chinese Rights Suit Be Dismissed 248
Eviliza writes that Yahoo! is asking that the suit filed against it over the infringement of a Chinese journalist's civil rights be dismissed in US courts this week. The company has stated that it had no choice but to give up the journalist's information, as it's Chinese subsidiary is subject to Chinese laws. "'Defendants cannot be expected, let alone ordered to violate another nation's laws,' the company said in its filing. But Morton Sklar of the World Organization for Human Rights said the company had failed to meet its ethical responsibilities. 'Even if it was lawful in China, that does not take away from Yahoo's obligation to follow not just Chinese law, but US law and international legal standards as well, when they do business abroad,' he said."
Submission + - Building a (fast) Wikipedia offline reader (softlab.ntua.gr)
ttsiod writes: "An internet connection is not always at hand... I wanted to install Wikipedia on my laptop
to be able to carry it along with me on business trips... After trying and rejecting the normal (MySQL-based) procedure, I quickly hacked a much better one over the weekend, using open source
tools. Highlights:
(1) Very fast searching (2) Keyword (actually, title words) based searching (3) Search produces multiple possible articles, sorted by probability (you choose amongst them) (4) LaTEX based rendering for Mathematical equations (5) Harddisk usage is minimal: space for the original .bz2 file plus the index built through Xapian (6) Orders of magnitude faster to install (a matter of hours) compared to loading the "dump" into MySQL — which, if you want to enable keyword searching, takes *days*.
Enjoy!"
Submission + - iPhone Hacked by Security Firm (nytimes.com)
spiffyman writes: The New York Times is reporting that the iPhone has been hacked. From TFA:
The researchers, working for Independent Security Evaluators, ... said that they could take control of iPhones through a WiFi connection or by tricking users into going to a Web site that contains malicious code. The hack, the first reported, allowed them to tap the wealth of personal information the phones contain.
I.S.E. will display the hack at the Black Hat conference, but unlike other researchers, they have submitted a report and a patch to Apple. Also, the article contains an apparent acknowledgment of the report by Apple.
Submission + - Temp. difference observed between Sun's poles
ATestR writes: From the Article (science.nasa.gov), one pole of the sun is cooler than the other. That's the surprising conclusion announced today by scientists who have been analyzing data from the ESA-NASA Ulysses spacecraft.
Measurements of the Northern Solar pole taken by Ulysses in 1994 and 1995 observed a temperature difference of 7 — 8 percent from the recent measurements taken of the Southern pole. Since the average Solar temperature has been measured to be constant during this twelve year period, the scientists invovled with the project are scratching their heads over the difference.
Measurements of the Northern Solar pole taken by Ulysses in 1994 and 1995 observed a temperature difference of 7 — 8 percent from the recent measurements taken of the Southern pole. Since the average Solar temperature has been measured to be constant during this twelve year period, the scientists invovled with the project are scratching their heads over the difference.
Submission + - Saudi Free Speech Campaign Goes Online
cultrhetor writes: "Following the arrest of ten Saudi activists involved in circulating a petition in favor of protecting freedom of expression, fellow reform advocates have posted the petition online, according to a BBC news article posted today. According to the article, By placing their petition on the internet, the Saudi activists are taking an enormous risk. From the article:
What do you think? Can the Internet be use effectively to change policy in truly authoritarian governments?"The petition calls for elections in which both men and women would be allowed to vote.
The signatories want freedom of expression to be protected by law and they want the powers of the interior ministry curtailed.
But the Saudi authorities have made it clear they will not tolerate public calls for political change.
Submission + - Google and cable firms warn of risks from Web TV
RebelScum writes: "According to this article in Reuters, Google says the Internet was not designed for TV, and warns media companies that it won't offer the QoS that customers expect."
Submission + - SPAM: Study: Security pros fail to secure their own Wifi
alphadogg writes: "More than half of the wireless LAN devices being used at this week's massive RSA Conference on information security are themselves unsecured.
[spam URL stripped]w ifi-security.html"
Vista the End of An Era? 446
mikesd81 writes "The Times Online has an article about the uncertain future of Windows. Even Microsoft, it seems is admitting that Vista will be the last OS of its kind. With the push towards a constant presence on the internet, and the churn that entails, the company has admitted that even with a two year delay 'it is not really ready'." From the article: "Security experts are acknowledging that Vista is the most secure of Windows to date. However, 'The bad guys will always target the most popular systems,' Mikko Hypponen, of F-Secure, the security group, said. 'Vista's vulnerability to phishing attacks, hackers, viruses and other malicious software will increase quickly.' But the current fear is that the Internet will kill Windows, with Google being Public Enemy No. 1: 'Microsoft is way behind Google when it comes to the internet,' Rupert Godwins, the technology editor at ZDNet, the industry website, said. 'Building Vista, Microsoft is still doing things the old way at the same time as it undergoes a big shift to catch up.'"
