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The Science of Caddyshack 55

astroengine writes "Thirty years after the release of the cult classic comedy Caddyshack, Discovery News has geeked out and gone on the hunt for any trace amount of science they can find in the movie (video). From gopher territoriality to seismic deformation, from pool poop bacteria to the color of lightning, it turns out there's quite a lot of science to talk about..."
Social Networks

"David After Dentist" Made $150k For Family 234

It turns out recording your drugged child pays pretty well. 7-year-old David DeVore became an overnight sensation when his father posted a video of his ramblings after dental surgery. To date that video has made the DeVore family around $150,000. Most of the money came from YouTube, but the family has made $50k from licensing and merchandise. From the article: "The one seemingly minor decision to make the video available all over the Internet set off a whirlwind of changes for the DeVore family. Within just four days, 'David After Dentist' received 3 million views on YouTube and the younger David quickly became an Internet celebrity. His father quit his job in residential real estate (did we mention they live in Florida?), and the family started selling T-shirts featuring cartoon drawings of their son post-dental surgery."
Classic Games (Games)

36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist 268

Zerocool3001 writes "The recently featured 36-hour port of the original Palm version of Lemmings to the iPhone and Palm Pre has received a cease and desist letter from Sony. Only one day after submitting the app for approval on the two app stores, the developer has put up a post stating that he 'did this as a tribute to the game — we can only hope that Sony actually does a conversion for platforms like iPhone and Palm Pre in the near future.' The text of the cease and desist letter is available from the developer's website."
Handhelds

Apple Reverses iPad "No Cash Purchase" Policy 377

ZipK writes "After a few days of bad publicity, Apple has reversed its no cash purchase policy, explaining that the policy was originally implemented to limit the number of iPads an individual could buy during the introductory period of short supply. Now that supply has caught up with demand — and the story has hit front pages and gained national attention — Apple has reversed its policy, and taken the opportunity to put a bow on the story by giving the formerly scorned Diane Campbell a free iPad."

Comment Re:What about the little guy? (Score 1) 282

As a small eCommerce business owner, I spent a lot of time working on making my site appealing and functional - and as a result I chose NOT to use Flash. It's slow, cumbersome, does not work with all browsers (often due to users actively disabling it), does not play well with accessibility add-ons, and is arguably more difficult to maintain. I chose to use ASP due to my own experience with it but the back-end technology isn't important, the output presented to the browser is simply HTML with CSS. My site has ZERO specific enhancements for mobile users but as it happens the site renders quite acceptably on an iPhone.

Comment Re:Easy. (Score 1) 304

Mac mini, Apple remote, and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse

I use exactly this setup, it works great. I also have DVDPedia with the plug-in for Front Row so I can pull up all my ripped DVD's with the Apple remote, very handy.

I have a box that takes DVI and Toslink and converts it into HDMI, but I've never gotten around to hooking it up - the Mac Mini works fine through the VGA port.

Comment Re:DVR (Score 1) 753

>>With DVR's becoming more and more popular, the time that a show airs is less and less important. Agreed. My first reaction to the article was that I have no idea what day or time the shows that I like to watch are on the air. My DVR grabs them, when I have some idle time and want to watch TV I hit the "List" button and there they are.

Comment Re:$14,000 too high? (Score 2, Informative) 575

The Smart "pure" model starts out at "under $12,000" according to their site. Also, to test your theory, I went to toyota.com and configured a Corolla. Once I added in an automatic transmission and power windows/door locks (which is a $500 option on the Corolla!), my MSRP was $16,325. I would imagine that the Corolla will still be a more popular car -- but it's certainly not cheaper.
Portables

Submission + - big ram laptops? (beyond 4gb)

Fubari writes: Anybody know when laptops over 4gb might be coming out? Some of the devtools I want to run are just obscene ram-pigs. On the desktop I'm using now (win2003), it sucks up 1.6gb just to boot. By the time I log in and start doing work, it is stretching 2gb.

Move that to vista, add a vm-ware session or two, and I'm worried I'll be pushing 4gb.

I'm torn between buying a 4gb-max laptop now, or some mini-desktop that can fit in a set of luggage wheels. A friend of mine suggested something like this, but my first choice would be something designed to be portable.
Data Storage

Toshiba Touts 51GB HD DVD 236

srizah writes to mention that Toshiba plans to launch a 51 GB HD DVD, with a 1 GB advantage over Sony's Blu-ray disc. From the article: Toshiba has submitted a triple-layer, 51GB HD DVD-ROM disc to the standard's overseer in the hope the technology will be adopted as a standard by the end of the year. If approved, it allow the format to exceed the 50GB storage capacity of rival medium Blu-ray Disc. The HD DVD standard currently defines single- and dual-layer discs capable of holding 15GB and 30GB of data, respectively."
Networking

Submission + - Should a new LAN be entirely wireless?

massysett writes: "I'm in the brand new public library in Rockville, Maryland. Of course there is Wi-Fi for patrons who bring their own laptops. There are also about two dozen Windows PCs throughout to provide catalog and Internet access. I was surprised to notice that all of these public access machines are connected wirelessly, using D-Link expansion cards. The Ethernet jacks on the backs of the machines aren't connected to anything. I'd understand networking the machines wirelessly in an old building, to save the cost of pulling Cat 5. However, this is a brand new building built just for this library, and there is obviously room for cables — the power cords for the computers are coming out of the floors. I would think the low bandwidth of wireless, coupled with the headache of troubleshooting interference and performance issues, would rule out a deploying wireless like this — it's relatively easy to wire a brand new building. I'd also think Cat 5 is more future-proof. Obviously library staff disagreed. How do you think the advantages of wireless would outweigh the disadvantages in a setting such as this?"

It's OK to keep AIMing 305

fooby12 writes "According to the Univeristy of Toronto instant messaging does not hurt the grammar of the people who use it. From the article: "With 80% of Canadian teenagers using instant messaging and adopting its unique linguistic shorthand, many teachers and parents are concerned about the medium's potential to corrupt kids' grammar. But instant messaging doesn't deserve its bad reputation as a spoiler of syntax, suggests a new study from the University of Toronto.""

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