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Comment Re:August (Score 3, Interesting) 1146

by Old Grey Beard (#28955483) Attached to: Navigating a Geek Marriage?
6) Let her do things her way, even if suboptimal. When I heat a can of soup, I pour the can into the soup bowl and microwave for a few minutes. My wife insists on heating the soup in a saucepan, then ladling it into a bowl, thereby using more energy to cook and clean (and serve less soup). I've tried explaining the physics involved but it doesn't take. Live with it.

Comment Re:Beware of namechanges (Score 1) 629

by Old Grey Beard (#28940733) Attached to: RadioShack To Rebrand As "The Shack"?

unfortunetly[sic] you will hear us pitching about cell phones more than we will about a transistor

Most of the /. community understand why it works that way. What THE SHACK apparently fails to understand is that without those transistors you're not gonna get any customer traffic to pitch phones to. In fact, I just shorted RSH at 16 even, and also ended a sentence with a preposition.

Comment Re:Profits, but for whom? (Score 1) 624

by Old Grey Beard (#28809003) Attached to: Stock Market Manipulation By Millisecond Trading

"But how does this kind of stock trading benefit anyone other than the traders themselves?"

I think your question speaks (to me at least) of a more basic question. Do all actions have to be to benefit 'others' in your opinion? [...]

Well put. The burden of proof is not on the actor to justify his actions, but on the observer to demonstrate why the actions are bad.

Actually, I happen to agree that there's something wrong with this. Basically it results in an uneven playing field. Some subset of dealers can engage in "algo" behavior while others cannot. Plus, it looks a lot like front-running, except you're front-running somebody else's order. Plus, the exchanges should realize this just looks bad to a lot of their customers, and their reputation and eventual regulation is at stake.
The Courts

Visualizing the Ideological History of SCOTUS 151

Posted by timothy from the you're-just-objectifying-them dept.
langelgjm writes "An interesting exercise in quantifying and visualizing ideological shifts, the website ScotusScores.com tracks changes in the ideological history of the US Supreme Court from 1937 to 2007. Ideological positions are quantified using Martin-Quinn scores, and the chart highlights the often-bumpy transitions (Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas), as well as tendencies within each Justice's career."
Programming

Erlang's Creator Speaks About Its History and Prospects 48

Posted by timothy from the still-coy-on-the-meaning dept.
Seal writes "Erlang, originally created at Ericsson in 1986, is a functional programming language which was released as open source around 10 years ago and flourished ever since. In this Q&A, Erlang creator Joe Armstrong talks about its beginnings as a control program for a telephone exchange, its flexibility and its modern day usage in open source programs. 'In the Erlang world we have over twenty years of experience with designing and implementing parallel algorithms. What we lose in sequential processing speed we win back in parallel performance and fault-tolerance,' Armstrong said. He also mentions how multi-core processors pushed the development of Erlang and the advantages of hot swapping."
Space

Submission + - First planet may have been spotted in Andromeda (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by
KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: "All of the 300 or so extra-solar planets so far discovered lie in the local neighbourhood of our galaxy. There's a good reason for that: you've got to be able to see a star clearly to spot the telltale signs of an orbiting planet such as a slight dimming or wobble. And least that's the way it has been till now. Astronomers have now found a way to spot planets in other galaxies. The trick is to exploit a phenomenon called microlensing in which the gravity of one star focuses the light from a more distant one towards Earth. The advantage of microlensing is that it works best for more distant objects so it's ideal for planet hunting in other galaxies. In theory, it should be possible to see Earth-sized objects in this way. So far only about a dozen stars in Andromeda have been studied usng microlensing. But as chance would have it, one of them showed a distinct variability which is being attributed to an orbiting companion with a mass of about six Jupiters. That could be a brown dwarf but it might equally be a conventional planet too--the first to be spotted outside our galaxy. Microlensing events are one-offs so we'll probably never know for sure but exciting nevertheless."
Digital

Submission + - Tips to Buy a Digital Camera in 2009 (youtips.net)

Submitted by
eLaw
eLaw writes: "Nowadays, and thanks to online tips services, Choosing and buying a digital camera is becoming an easy task. You just need to consider some few factors. You\'ll discover that they aren\'t really necessary, but knowing these tips will make the difference, trust me. First of all, it\'s a question of money. And normally, you will try to find the best camera for the money you have, right? This is actually the first mistake. I\'m seeing lots of people buying digital cameras which has more features and functionalities than they need. Before buying a camera, or anything else in fact, you must know exactly what you need. And for that, you need to know : — The type of photography you are going to use the digital camera for. Meaning, it will be indoor photos ? outdoors? sports? .. — The conditions when taking photos, dark or light conditions. Are you going to use just automatic feature, or you will go manual? . -And the most important one, you need to know exactly the main features you want in your camera. -And of course, your exact budget. Before buying your camera, you must answer all these question. And believe me, it will make the task much more easy. Let\'s take a little example, there is a big difference between someone who is buying the camera and going to use it indoor and another one who will use it outdoor. The second factor to consider is the famous word \"MegaPixels\". Actually, do not be fooled by this word. Why? 10 years earlier, megapixels were more important than in 2009. Now, They are not as important. as they were. Most digital cameras nowadays come out with at least 4 or 5 megapixels. It\'s true that the number of megapixels is reflecting the quality of photos, but not totally. You must know that if the camera is used correctly, you may make excellent photos even if you camera has low number of megapixels. And I think that 5 megapixels is quite enough. The last thing you need to know, is that any digital camera will require additional accessories, and of course, there will be a difference and various choices. So the price given for the camera (considering accessories) will not be the final price you will pay . Some of these extras may be memory cards, lenses (for DSLR\'s of course), batteries, camera case, reflectors, tripods, filters and so on .. You may notice that these accessories are not really essential, but some people may use some parts. You may also be given a discount on such parts just by buying the digital camera. But be aware, you will certainly be given less than what you need. Especially when talking about memory, these days, cameras come with only 32 MB. And this is not a good deal. Most people will consider this not enough , so they will be in the obligation to buy a memory card (500 MB and so on). Just follow these tips, and believe me, you will just make excellent choices in the future. Find more Hints and tips at http://www.youtips.net"
Slashback

Submission + - SPAM: How Women Affect Male Fertility

Submitted by
fmhweb
fmhweb writes: "It's widely known that when a group of women live in close quarters, their monthly cycles start to tune in to one another's and they start to menstruate at the same time. First discovered my Martha McClintock decades ago, this phenomenon is the first example of pheromones--unconscious chemical signals that influence behavior and physiology--among humans. Pheromones are the chemicals that that trigger a natural behavioral response in another member of the same species, through odor cues. Read the whole article"
Link to Original Source
Space

Submission + - One-fifth of us have lost sight of Milky Way (cosmosmagazine.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Light pollution has caused one-fifth of the world's population — mostly in Europe, Britain and the U.S. — to lose their ability to see the Milky Way in the night sky. "The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage," said Connie Walker, and astronomer from the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. Yet "more than one fifth of the world population, two thirds of the U.S. population and one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way."
Communications

Palm Pre To Sync Seamlessly With iTunes 178

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the middle-finger-included dept.
Wired is reporting that Palm's new handheld device, the Pre, will be able to sync automagically with Apple's iTunes. Thanks to a team of ex-Apple engineers the Pre will sync everything but iPhone applications and some of the older Fairplay DRM music. "It does it by faking out iTunes, making the jukebox software think that it is connected to a real iPod. Hook it up and you'll be given three options: USB mass storage device, charging only or iTunes sync. This is a ballsy move from Palm, and we totally love it: a big fat middle finger at Apple. Apple will, we are sure, be readying its legal attack dogs as I write, and don't be at all surprised if an iTunes update pops up around June 6th. This fight just got a lot more interesting."

Comment Re:Offer the Ebook for free. (Score 1) 987

by Old Grey Beard (#27964125) Attached to: What Can I Do About Book Pirates?

Actually, I'm not. I just wish that anyone who still showed an interest in my book would be shown directly to a place where they could actually pay for it. And I wish that they wouldn't be tempted with all of the Torrent sites.

Put up a web page that (1) offers the first few chapters for free and (2) offers the entire book for 25 cents, or whatever value you think people will judge to be low enough to make paying preferable to pirating. You may need to spiff up the book a bit to widen its appeal.

All it takes is a viable micropayment system, which you may need to invent first.

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As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein

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