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Comment This has been known for years... (Score 1) 307

... as a rumor, at least.

I worked with high-power RF in the military for 5 years, and it was "common knowledge" that the SHF curse was alive and well. Men who worked with the radios had the "curse" of only having female children when they had kids at all. As such, I'm totally unsurprised at reading this.

Microsoft

Microsoft Killing Silverlight? 324

SharkLaser writes "Silverlight 5 might be last version released by Microsoft. Several industry insiders and partners for the last few weeks have heard from their own Microsoft sources that there won't be new versions released after Silverlight 5. Status on service packs and support for Silverlight is unclear, as Microsoft haven't yet released lifecycle support end date even for the previous Silverlight 4. By their support page they will give full year head-up before ending support. With Adobe ending development of Flash for mobile browsers and Microsoft ending development of Silverlight, HTML5 video looks a lot more promising. But will content providers be able to give out their material without DRM and how does HTML5 perform with non-video side of Flash and Silverlight?"

Comment Re:Wouldn't that take a lot from the game? (Score 1) 141

I'm just imagining Lou Piniella shouting at a robot umpire, taking off his cap, throwing it on the ground at the robot's feet, picking up a base, throwing it down the right field line, picking up the robot ump, carrying it with him, throwing the base some more, and repeating.

... it's funny, but it doesn't quite have the same impact.

The Internet

US Intelligence Mining Your Social Network Data 240

bs0d3 writes "U.S. Intelligence has hired social scientists to mine the vast resources of the Internet — Web searches and Twitter messages, Facebook and blog posts, the digital location trails generated by billions of cellphones. They intend to use this info to track sociological laws of human behavior — enabling them to predict political crises, revolutions and other forms of social and economic instability. Privacy advocates are deeply skeptical of the project, saying it reminds them of Total Information Awareness, a 9/11 Pentagon program that proposed hunting for potential attackers by identifying patterns in vast collections of public and private data: telephone calling records, e-mail, travel data, visa and passport information, and credit card transactions. In a recent budget proposal, the defense agency argues that its analysis can expose terrorist cells and other groups by tracking their meetings, rehearsals and sharing of material and money transfers."
DRM

Submission + - Capcom announces unreplayable game (dvice.com) 3

Hatta writes: Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D for the Nintendo 3DS will be an experience that can be completed once per customer. Using a single, unwipable save slot Capcom ensures that a second hand customer gets a second rate experience. If you buy this game used, you will be stuck with the previous owner's progress, unable to start the game fresh.

Submission + - Student suspended for posting on YouTube (theglobeandmail.com) 2

An anonymous reader writes: A Canadian student has been suspended from school and had the police called on him due to satirical animations that he posted to YouTube.

Jack Christie, a 12th-grade student at the Donald A. Wilson Secondary School in Whitby, Ontario, Canada, created the videos in his own time, off-campus.

Comment Oh noes! (Score 1) 323

Golly gee! This law being passed is going to screw EVERYTHING up for me!

Or not. I'll keep doing what I've done in the past - if I want to hear something, I'll listen to it on the radio or do without. Most of the movies coming out these days? I wouldn't spend money on those either.

Let's hope that they keep spending their money on bribes^H^H^H^H^H^Hcampaign contributions, and eventually go broke. Fuck 'em.

Comment Re:From TFA... (Score 1) 320

From TFA:

The nation has been at Yellow, "an elevated significant risk of terrorist attacks" for three years. International and domestic flights have been at an Orange "high risk of terrorist attacks" for the same period.
A proposal by the Homeland Security Advisory Council, unveiled late Tuesday, recommends removing two of the five colors, with a standard state of affairs being a "guarded" Yellow. The Green "low risk of terrorist attacks" might get removed altogether, meaning stay prepared for your morning subway commute to turn deadly at any moment.

I'll grant, I might be missing^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsuck and apparently missed something in the whole mess, but calling it a "guarded" yellow implied that they were going to use the current blue "guarded" definition for the new "yellow".

So yes, ignore me. I'ma go back to sleep now.

Comment Re:How can we churn? (Score 4, Informative) 116

I actually read TFA! "Churn" is apparently when people switch from one carrier to another, presumably at the end of the contract. (This answers both the parent poster, and one in this same thread)

That being said, it looks like they'd be using this data to identify who's likely to switch over, and sweeten their deals a bit to keep them - at least, in the context of cell phone companies and the like. Obviously, this has other implications outside of cell companies, but I'm sticking with the original thought on this one.

So how do we game this system? Find people who have recently changed carriers and start having them call you. Free better phone for staying with a carrier you'd probably have already stayed with!

Silly, yes, I know. Thanks.

Government

FCC Probing Apple, AT&T Rejection of Google Voice 204

suraj.sun writes with an update to the news from a few days ago about Apple pulling Google Voice apps for the iPhone. Their actions have raised the interest of the FCC, which is now beginning an investigation into the matter. "In a letter sent to Apple, the FCC asked the company why it turned down Google Voice for the iPhone and pulled several other Google Voice-related programs from the iPhone's only sanctioned online mart. The FCC also sent similar letters to both AT&T — Apple's exclusive carrier partner in the US — and Google, asking both firms to provide more information on the issue. The FCC's letter asked Apple whether it rejected Google Voice and dumped other applications on its own, or 'in consultation with AT&T,' and if the latter, to describe the conversations the partners had. In other questions, the FCC asked Apple whether AT&T has any role in the approval of iPhone applications, wants the company to explain how Google Voice differs from any other VoIP software that has been approved, and requested a list of all applications that have been rejected and why."

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