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Comment Re:What is the point of this story? (Score 1) 147

What on earth is the point of publishing the story days before we know for sure what will happen?

That's nothing. In previous years, Slashdot has quite happily published stories about Apple products while the presenters were still on stage announcing them. Hence the discussion is useless because everybody is talking about things that are shown to be irrelevant five minutes later and the stories invariably leave a bunch of things out, necessitating updates and subsequent articles. It's a real clusterfuck sometimes.

Transportation

Ford's Bringing Adaptive Steering To the Masses 128

Posted by Soulskill from the power-power-steering dept.
cartechboy writes: "Most automakers have made the jump from hydraulic power steering to electronic power steering to help conserve fuel. By using an electric motor instead of a hydraulic system, less energy is drawn from the engine. Many luxury automakers have also introduced adaptive steering with the electronic power steering systems, but now Ford is looking to bring this feature to the masses. Adaptive steering builds on the existing speed-sensitive function of the electronic power steering system by altering the steering ratio and effort based on driver inputs and settings. The system uses a precision-controlled actuator placed inside the steering wheel. It's an electric motor and gearing system that can essentially add or subtract from the driver's steering inputs. This will make the vehicle easier to maneuver at low speeds, and make a vehicle feel more stable at high speeds. The system (video) will be offered on certain Ford vehicles within the next 12 months."
Medicine

The Light Might Make You Heavy 138

Posted by Soulskill from the switch-to-zero-calorie-light dept.
Rambo Tribble writes: "Writing in the American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers have found that sleeping with high ambient light levels may contribute to obesity (abstract). In a survey of 113,000 women, a high correlation was found between higher bedroom light levels and increased propensity to be overweight or obese. Excess light in the sleeping environment has long been known to adversely affect melatonin production and circadian rhythms. It is posited that such an interference with the 'body clock' may be behind these results. Although there is not yet enough evidence to call this a smoking gun, as one researcher put it, 'Overall this study points to the importance of darkness.'"

Comment Re:Style over substance (Score 1) 188

by Bogtha (#47127235) Attached to: Apple Confirms Purchase of Beats For $3 Billion

The $649 iPhone 5S costs Apple about $199 to build. And of course, that doesn't account for things like the cost of developing the software, or operating the servers that supply service to these devices.

Also unaccounted for: royalties of around $120-$150. So in total, an iPhone doesn't cost Apple about $100, it costs them upwards of $350.

Comment C-x C-s (Score 1) 521

by Lemming Mark (#47077519) Attached to: Goodbye, Ctrl-S

I'm used to just randomly hitting Ctrl+X then Ctrl+S in emacs when I pause and my fingers have nothing better to do. Semi-frequently, I do this in other applications without even realising I just did it, with various mildly weird results...
Stats

You've Got Male: Amazon's Growth Impacting Seattle Dating Scene 315

Posted by timothy from the truth-in-action dept.
reifman (786887) writes "San Francisco's gender imbalance is so bad that a startup recently proposed flying women in from New York City for dates. But, if you're a straight male thinking of moving to Seattle to work in technology, think again. Seattle's gender ratio is even more imbalanced and it's about to get much worse for men. Amazon is building out enough space to employ 5% of the city population and its workforce is 75 percent male. By the end of 2014, Seattle will have 130 single men for every 100 single women."
Data Storage

Your Old CD Collection Is Dying 329

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the you-mean-you-don't-store-your-discs-in-nitrogen? dept.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Adrienne LaFrance reports at the Atlantic that if you've tried listening to any of the old CDs lately from your carefully assembled collection from the 1980's or 1990's you may have noticed that many of them won't play. 'While most of the studio-manufactured albums I bought still play, there's really no telling how much longer they will. My once-treasured CD collection — so carefully assembled over the course of about a decade beginning in 1994 — isn't just aging; it's dying. And so is yours.'

Fenella France, chief of preservation research and testing at the Library of Congress is trying to figure out how CDs age so that we can better understand how to save them. But it's a tricky business, in large part because manufacturers have changed their processes over the years and even CDs made by the same company in the same year and wrapped in identical packaging might have totally different lifespans. 'We're trying to predict, in terms of collections, which of the types of CDs are the discs most at risk,' says France. 'The problem is, different manufacturers have different formulations so it's quite complex in trying to figure out what exactly is happening because they've changed the formulation along the way and it's proprietary information.' There are all kinds of forces that accelerate CD aging in real time. Eventually, many discs show signs of edge rot, which happens as oxygen seeps through a disc's layers. Some CDs begin a deterioration process called bronzing, which is corrosion that worsens with exposure to various pollutants. The lasers in devices used to burn or even play a CD can also affect its longevity. 'The ubiquity of a once dominant media is again receding. Like most of the technology we leave behind, CDs are are being forgotten slowly,' concludes LaFrance. 'We stop using old formats little by little. They stop working. We stop replacing them. And, before long, they're gone.'" You can donate CDs to be tested for aging characteristics by emailing the Center for the Library's Analytical Science Samples. I haven't had much trouble ripping discs that were pressed in the 80s (and acquired from used CD stores with who knows how many previous owners), but I'm starting to get nervous about not having flac rips of most of my discs.
Privacy

RFC 7258: Pervasive Monitoring Is an Attack 67

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the don't-be-so-nosy dept.
An anonymous reader writes with news that the IETF has adopted a policy of designing new protocols taking into account the need to mitigate pervasive monitoring of all traffic. From the article: "...RFC 7258, also known as BCP 188 (where BCP stands for 'Best Common Practice'); it represents Internet Engineering Task Force consensus on the fact that many powerful well-funded entities feel it is appropriate to monitor people's use of the Net, without telling those people. The consensus is: This monitoring is an attack and designers of Internet protocols must work to mitigate it."

Comment Re:WTF does it do for me? (Score 1) 272

by Bogtha (#46997061) Attached to: Why Mobile Wallets Are Doomed

why is paying by phone so much better than with plastic?

One less thing to carry around. No need to hunt for the right card. Fingerprint sensors rather than having to enter a PIN. The ability to incorporate new features with a software update. The ability for your phone to keep track of your payment history instead of relying on what your bank tells you. All kinds of features that are possible with a proper CPU and data storage behind it.

Cards are essentially dumb custom hardware that do a job in the cheapest manner possible. If cards weren't already pervasive and somebody came along offering the choice between cards and phones, everybody would be questioning why on earth you would pick cards.

Comment Billions? Try zero. (Score 1) 355

by Bogtha (#46997039) Attached to: Can Thunderbolt Survive USB SuperSpeed+?

USB's installed base is in the billions. Thunderbolt's biggest problem is a relatively small installed base

If they are changing the connector type, there is absolutely no reason to consider the installed base of USB. USB-with-C-type-connectors has an installed base of zero, not billions.

Comment Less (Score 1) 340

by whitroth (#46950701) Attached to: Average American Cable Subscriber Gets 189 Channels and Views 17

757 channels and nothing's on....

And even between myself and my wife, who's much more of a tv addict, I have grave doubts that we watch 12 channels. Unfortunately, one or two of them are part of a bundle (except on DirecTV), or we could get by for less $$.

Cafe choice of channels? That's too hard for the cable companies.... (Hell, give me BBCA and you can take away *every* ESPN channel there is, but I have no choice, I have to pay for them in the bundle.)

                  mark

Comment And how reliable is this report? (Score 1) 557

by whitroth (#46942247) Attached to: Actual Results of Crimean Secession Vote Leaked

Given the total one-sidedness of western media on coverage of the Ukraine. "Oooh, he said 'fascist', we've got the cooties!", when one of the three groups of the current government *are* outright right-wing fascists.

Oh, and while you're at it, can someone explain to me how the current government making a military assault on the seperatists is different than the previous *elected* government's use of snipers and the police forces? Oh, that's right, this government's using the military against its own people....

            mark

Comment Who *doesn't* want to do something about it? (Score 1) 627

by whitroth (#46942227) Attached to: US Climate Report Says Global Warming Impact Already Severe

I mean, other than the big money in the petrochemical industry, and their suckers on their teat, who pretends it's not real, nor human-caused?

And for you suckers who aren't getting money from them, let me ask you this: are you saying that we're *NOT* good enough to work out other sources of energy, and that we're too *dumb* to be able to reengineer the way we do things to cut carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions? Or maybe that you can't wrap your heads around the tech, and so won't be able to make the big bucks from investing in, and inventing, that tech?

So, sorry. Your kids will hate your guts for not doing something... oh, that's right, you don't have any.

Btw, I read that the last quarter, I think, Texas generated 35% of it's *total* electircal use by wind power.

                  mark

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