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Comment Re:Facebook is in the business of mining data (Score 1) 483

However, this does shed some light onto why some decisions from Facebook management don't seem to have the user's best interest in mind. I believe that as more and more people realize that the profitability of the company rests solely on pillaging data from their users, fewer and fewer people will find themselves willing to subject their digital details to such a flogging.

Well stated. To use an analogy, the relationship between Facebook and it's users is similar to that of a farmer and his milking cows. Yes, he gives the cows the cool field to run around and play in, but he's really only interested in the milk they provide. While effort spent to make the process of milking more efficient will likely be pursued, beautification of the barn and comfort for the cows is not a primary concern for the farmer. Sorry, I couldn't think of a good car analogy, as I know how popular those are here.

Classic Games (Games)

Submission + - Average gamer is 35, fat and bummed (msn.com) 4

mdonley writes: CDC study finds playing leads to 'lower extraversion' in adult gamers

A new study says the average age of video-game players in the United States is 35, and oh, by the way: They're overweight and tend to be depressed.

Investigators from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University and Andrews University analyzed survey data from more than 500 adults in the Seattle-Tacoma area. The subjects ranged in age from 19 to 90, according to the study, published in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Upgrades

Submission + - SanDisk gets pSSD, watch out! (gpsobsessed.com)

mdonley writes: "SanDisk has launched a new line of flash memory-based solid state drives for netbooks. Called the SanDisk pSSD line, the solid state drives step up the performance level a notch.

The drives now use a SATA interface between the SSD and the motherboard. The first-generation modules, introduced in mid-2008 and available last fall, relied on parallel ATA. Also unlike those first-gen modules, the pSSD-P2 and pSSD-S2 will rely on Multi-Level Cell flash technology (previously, SanDisk offered both Single-Level Cell and MLC varieties).

The second-gen pSSD will be available in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities (the 32GB model will be priced the same as a 2.5-inch hard disk drive in large OEM quantities). SanDisk expects the drives to be available in February 2009."

Comment Re:Install Ubuntu (Score 1) 823

Linux cannot answer it all for me. My one user has AOL dial-up (for some reason i can't figure out). However, they are many AOL dial-up users out in the world stil. The problem is that none of the current distros I have found can handle any interaction with AOL dial-up. Peng (Penggy/PenAOL) was the most promising program for this, but they seem to have abandoned the software, and it seems to have been dropped from most repositories. I can't even get the source I can find to compile correctly on Ubuntu, Fedora, or Suse. As much as AOL is crap to me, it is somehow easier for older folks to understand (until they get their first HTML-formatted email in the crappy plain text interface). I think that these folks are still very much in AOL's prime target audience. Until I can set up a linux box again, with dial-up to AOL, and pulling email into Evolution (which is easy as cake), I have to support this box on a windows environment.

Comment Re:Red Sea tag suggestion: (Score 1) 261

The debate about the age of the earth is ultimately a question of whose word we are going to trust: the all-knowing truthful Creator who has given us His inerrant book (the Bible) or finite, sinful creatures who give us their books that contain errors and therefore are frequently revised. If you firmly trust and carefully read the Bible and become informed on creationist interpretations of the geological record, you can easily see how the rocks of the earth powerfully confirm the Bible's teaching, both about Noah's Flood and a young earth.

-- Taken from the text of "The Key to the Age of the Earth", found at Answers In Genesis.

Dr. Terry Mortenson is a well-known speaker, researcher, and writer. He earned his doctorate in history of geology from Englandâ(TM)s University of Coventry and his M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.

I would challenge most scholars to review the other material at Answers In Genesis to get a true understanding of Biblical Geology before further discussion on the matter.

Microsoft

Submission + - Live Search for Windows Mobile - Now with Speech (msdn.com)

mdonley writes: Rob Chambers has posted the following on his blog:

The press release just went live. The web site is online. And the details are all spelled out. Here's what the press release has to say about Live Search:

Live Search for Windows Mobile with voice input. The updated Live Search for Windows Mobile® 5.0 and 6.0 will be available for download for free on Tuesday, Oct. 16, and now includes voice input (beta version), gas prices, and hours of operation for businesses. The service can also use Global Positioning System (GPS) data on GPS-enabled phones to provide location-aware local search for customers.

Operating Systems

Submission + - Vista SP1 released to Beta testers, possibly WU (windowsvistablog.com)

mdonley writes: The Windows Vista team have posted information about the beta release of Vista SP1. The article post goes on to specify Windows Update as the main deployment methodology to be Windows Update. The article states that "When SP1 shows up in Windows Update, it does so as an 'important update' and gives a size range from 51MB — 679.6MB." At that maximum size, it is well over 1/3 the size of the original Vista release. Sounds like a lot of fixes!

Elsewhere chatter on the forums at JCXP state that "Windows Vista SP1 will also be released over WU within the next 48 hours. A separate communication will be sent regarding the details of the WU release."

The Internet

Submission + - What ever happened to all the visto.com users?

mdonley writes: Back in the day, I used a free web-based email client called Briefcase.com. At some point, they were either bought or changed their name to Visto.com. They provided a host of features that even the mighty Google has yet to fully replace. It was a free web-based suite of applications. You could access your email, calendar, address book, bookmarks, and even upload files to their server, which you could then download at home with ease. It was by far the best product I ever used to keep my home and work PCs synchronized.

A number of years ago, they decided to change their business model in a drastic way. All those services they had perfected were suddenly gone. You could not even pay to continue them. They are now working in the mobile phone market, and iPhone users may want to check them out for corporate push e-mail similar to BlackBerry functionality.

Google still teases me as if it has been a bad dream when I search for the term "Visto". The subtitle of the Visto entry still states (all these years later) "Free web-based suite of applications. Access your email, calendar, address book, bookmarks, and files."

My question, to the /. users at large is this? Did any of you ever use the old Visto.com services, and have you ever found another solution to meet all of the same functionality across multiple systems and platforms? Why can't (in this age of huge storage capacities) anybody bring another suite of products like that to market?
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Wireless Electricity? (dailymail.co.uk)

mdonley writes: "The DailyMail is reporting the creation of a device to wirelessly beam electricity to devices.


From the article:

Scientists have sounded the death knell for the plug and power lead.

In a breakthrough that sounds like something out of Star Trek, they have discovered a way of 'beaming' power across a room into a light bulb, mobile phone or laptop computer without wires or cables.

In the first successful trial of its kind, the team was able to illuminate a 60-watt light bulb 7ft away.
"

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