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Comment Re:or just don't fuck up this planet so bad (Score 1) 438

by plutoXL (#38115372) Attached to: Human Survival Depends On Space Exploration, Says Hawking
There was a cost-benefit analysis done by Philip Morris for the Czech government that showed economical "benefit" of smoking.

It is not unbiased, but it is interesting to read about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Finance_Balance_of_Smoking_in_the_Czech_Republic

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1442555.stm

Off course, I guess that a value of human life is more than just how much they can produce (or perhaps we should all agree just to kill our grandparents and parents as soon they retire to stop them from being a burden on our economy, Philip Morris style).
Google

Submission + - Google Confirms Chrome GPU Acceleration (conceivablytech.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google is already experimenting with GPU acceleration in its latest Chrome developer builds. Chrome 7 can separate different layers of w webpage into CPU and GPU processes and combine those layers using the GPU as long as the browser is now launched with certain switches. Chromium 7 has also a new Labs feature that reveals that Google is thinking about moving tabs from the top of the browser top the left side. It seems that Chrome will be catching up with Firefox 4 and IE9 in terms of hardware acceleration soon.
Programming

Submission + - Recruiters? CS Don't Need No Stinking Recruiters! 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Out of necessity, reports Slate, tech startups are changing the way workers are screened and hired. Take database technology startup RethinkDB, whose old-school recruiting effort — job boards, external recruiters — yielded hundreds of resumes, dozens of phone screens, and numerous four-hour meetings with viable candidates, but no one who fit their criteria. 'They [recruiters] can't tell the difference between the competent ones and the stars,' complained Y Combinator's Paul Graham. Instead, the RethinkDB founders turned to sites like Github.com and stackoverflow.com to pick up six people (they're still looking), a mix of full-timers and interns, both senior and junior. 'You can see the code being written and how technically accurate they are,' explained RethinkDB's Michael Glukhovsky.
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Sony Blazing Trails or Following the Herd? (industrygamers.com)

Submitted by donniebaseball23
donniebaseball23 writes: On Monday, news came down the pipeline from SCEE president Andrew House that Sony wants to focus on a younger audience for the PSP with future titles. My immediate reaction was one of shock and confusion. After all, in an interview with IndustryGamers at E3, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime noted that, “the way I would describe the market for the Nintendo 3DS would be the launch market that we had with the Nintendo DS plus the launch market that maybe PSP had.” When your primary competitor is looking to the exact market that you’ve catered to, why would you abandon that market? There was a time when Sony Computer Entertainment was a trailblazer, bringing things to the industry ahead of everyone else. Nowadays, however, it seems that Sony is content to merely fall in step behind everyone else and simply try hard to not fall too far behind.
Security

Submission + - Blackberry battle in India going down to the wire (skunkpost.com)

Submitted by crimeandpunishment
crimeandpunishment writes: With just days before the deadline, Blackberry's maker was shot down by India in its latest effort to avoid having its services cut off for about a million Indian users of the device. Research in Motion's effort to broaden the debate over data encryption were rejected. The Indian government wants access to users' emails. The head of a powerful industry group in India accused RIM of taking the wrong approach to negotiations, saying "It need not have escalated to this level. Folks like RIM have to understand business is done differently here".
Mozilla

Submission + - Firefox 4 to Force HTTPS Connections (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: In an effort to help mitigate man-in-the-middle attacks that make normal HTTP connections look like secured HTTPS sessions, Mozilla is adding support in Firefox 4 for a new technology called HTTP Strict Transport Security that enables site operators to tell browsers to always request an HTTPS session on future visits.

The technology, which is also known as ForceTLS, is currently an IETF draft specification and Mozilla officials say it should give users more confidence in HTTPS connections over time. Right now, the existence of HTTPS in front of a URL in a browser's address bar is nothing close to a guarantee that the connection is actually a secure one. There are myriad man-in-the-middle attack scenarios that introduce a high level of uncertainty for SSL connections.
Security

25% of Worms Spread Via USB 190

Posted by CmdrTaco from the to-your-mom dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In 2010, 25 percent of new worms have been specifically designed to spread through USB storage devices connected to computers, according to PandaLabs. This distribution technique is highly effective. With survey responses from more than 10,470 companies across 20 countries, it was revealed that approximately 48 percent of SMBs (with up to 1,000 computers) admit to having been infected by some type of malware over the last year. As further proof, 27 percent confirmed that the source of the infection was a USB device connected to a computer."
The Courts

Facebook Says It Owns 'Book' 483

Posted by samzenpus from the first-book dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Facebook has sued a tiny start-up called Teachbook.com over the use of 'book' in its name. The start-up, which has two employees, aims to provide tools for teachers to manage their classrooms and share lesson plans and other resources. 'Effectively they're bombing a mosquito here, and we're not sure why they want to do that,' Teachbook.com co-director Greg Shrader told the Tribune. Facebook said its use of 'book' in its name is 'highly distinctive in the context of online communities and networking websites.' Facebook apparently is alleging that no other online 'network of people' can use the word 'book' in its name without violating its trademark."

Comment Re:A330 -- No Margin for Error (Score 2, Informative) 403

by plutoXL (#28504101) Attached to: Investigators Suspect Computers Doomed Air France Jet

1. How can an airplane be allowed to carry passengers when the margin to airframe disintegration is so narrow? I can understand falling out of the sky if it stalls, but to be able to tear the airplane apart in level flight? What happened to margin of safety in airframe construction -- or is that whole concept now obsolete?

The load limits for A330 (and i believe for all other modern big passenger aircraft) are from -1g to +2.5g.

The ultimate loads, leading to rupture, are 1.5 times the load factor limits. Same for Boeing. Yes you might increase it to 2.0, or 3.0. Same as you could drive a tank instead of a car - costs and risks would probably outweigh the benefits.

If the aircraft stalled because of significant overspeed and consequent loss of lift, the loads might cross the ultimate load limits. Not so in normal flight conditions, specially because A330 computers restrict the aircraft load within -1g to +2.5 limits. Even with full pilot input, the load would not cross those limits.

Comment Gee, I wonder why... (Score 1) 337

by plutoXL (#28502497) Attached to: Why Don't MMOs Allow Easier Transportation?

I don't need to spend half an hour of my time that I've allocated for playing games trudging at whatever stupidly slow speed a game's decided to impose upon me. There is no good reason, whatsoever, to not just let me be there.

You are paying, let's say, $15 per month for the privilege of playing a game?
Gee, I wonder why the game designers would want to make you spend more time playing their game...

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