Comment Re:Asimov. Strips. (Score 1) 357
Which answers the question: what could possibly go wrong?
Comment Say no to software patents! (Score 2) 308
The currently #13 petition is to end software patents. Sign it now!
Comment 28 hour day (Score 1) 359
Somatically, I'd prefer 36 hours, but, not being a hermit, I need to sync with weekly events.
Comment Re:How Much is a Trillion? (Score 1) 499
Nope. This is what a trillion dollars looks like: $1000000000000.00
This kind of money only exists in financial institution computers, it never gets moved around on pallets. The most that was ever moved around that way was the billion or so that got "misplaced" in Iraq.
Submission + - How to monitor your Internet data transfer amounts 1
Vrtigo1 writes: With many ISPs either already using bandwidth caps or talking about them, I was wondering how other Slashdot readers are keeping tabs on how much data is being transferred through their home Internet connections. None of the consumer routers I've used seem to make this information easily accessible. I'd like some way to see exactly how much data has been sent and received by the WAN port facing my ISP's modem so I can compare the numbers I get with the numbers they give me. I don't want to pay for their modem firmware updates and other network management traffic, so I'd like to see how the two numbers line up.
Submission + - Tom Tom Sells GPS Info To Dutch Cops (itworld.com) 2
jfruhlinger writes: "As smartphones with GPS capabilities wear away at the dedicated GPS market, vendors like Tom Tom need to find new revenue streams. Tom Tom decided that it would be a good idea to "share" (i.e., sell) aggregated data from their users to Dutch law enforcement. The company claims that they assumed that the data would be used to improve traffic safety and road engineering, and were shocked, shocked to discover that instead the police used it to figure out the best places to put speed traps."
Comment Re:Efficiency is not the issue (Score 1) 204
RFMD has licensed some NREL 3-junction technology, and is in the midst of the approx. 3-year project to take it from "we made one in the lab" to "we're mass-producing them in our foundry". I think they're going to rock the market in one to two years. http://www.semiconductor-today.com/news_items/2011/MAR/RFMD_030311.html
"All forward-looking statements are present expectations of future events and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements."
Comment Re:Persistent myth? (Score 2) 705
Unix is a trademark owned by the The Open Group, and you may use that trademark to describe your system if you pay money to have them run their tests to verify compliance with the Single Unix Specification. I believe Red Hat has done that in the past, and that particular version of Linux was thus bona fide Unix(R), but it seems Red Hat has not chosen to continue certifying their systems. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
I believe Red Hat sent back upstream all the changes they needed to make to pass the test; I presume many others also worked on conformance to the standard. Sometimes those behaviors aren't there unless the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is set.
Thus, while not "legally" Unix, Linux normally does realize all the concepts and behaviors of real Unix.
Comment "To improve your shopping experience, (Score 2) 725
this store is now a cell-phone free environment."
There. If I predict it, it will be less likely.
Submission + - New Form of Matter? (technologyreview.com)
locallyunscene writes:
'Back in 1970, a young physicist working in the Soviet Union made a counterintutive prediction. Vitaly Efimov, now at the University of Washington in the US, showed that quantum objects that cannot form into pairs could nevertheless form into triplets.
In 2006, a group in Austria found the first example of such a so-called Efimov state in a cold gas of cesium atoms. [...]
Today, Nils Baas at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology makes another startling prediction. He says that the strange, unworldly bonds that allow cesium atoms to stick together in triplets should allow much more complex objects to form too. In fact, he says we're on the verge of discovering a brand new form of matter governed by an entirely new branch of physics.'
Looking at the pictures in the article and trying to imagine how they work in multiple dimensions only makes my brain hurt a little bit. Here is the arxiv paper the article references.
Submission + - Missile Defense Gets an F (wordpress.com)
Martin Hellman writes: Today’s test of our missile defense system failed to intercept its target, making the score only 8 successes in 14 tests. That would be a failing grade on any exam, and countermeasures are likely to reduce the success rate even further in a real attack. So why do the Russians object so strenuously to our missile defense program? Because, where nuclear deterrence is concerned, perception matters more than reality.
Submission + - Free Aviation Site Sued Offline Over Patent Claims (techdirt.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Techdirt reports on an unfortunate outcome in the beginning steps of a new patent troll. A small Oregon firm, FlightPrep, has begun suing free flight planning web sites (using Google Maps, etc) with the claim that it violates their broad patent. Although some of the largest industry players (Jeppesen, AOPA, FlightAware, etc) have pushed back on the infringement, a site called RunwayFinder.com has gone offline after being unwilling/unable to pay $3.2M/mo.
Submission + - 6th Circuit Rules Email Search Requires Warrant (nacdl.org)
DarkVader writes: Fourth Amendment Protects E-Mail From
Warrantless Government Surveillance, Federal Court Rules
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled in United States v. Warshak that the government cannot search email stored on a commercial ISP server without a warrant, and has ruled portions of the Stored Communications Act of 1986 that declare email left on an ISP server longer than six months to be "abandoned porperty" as unconstitutional as applied to searches of email.
Carbon Dioxide Emissions Fall Worldwide In 2009 221
Hugh Pickens writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that the good news is that emissions from burning coal, oil, and natural gas fell 1.3 percent compared with emissions in 2008 primarily because of the global economic downturn and an increase in carbon-dioxide uptake by the oceans and by plants on land. One big factor was La Niña, a natural seesaw shift in climate that takes place across the tropical Pacific every three to seven years, where the climate is cooler and wetter over large regions of land in the tropics, encouraging plant growth in tropical forests. However the bad news is that even with the decrease in emissions the overall concentration of CO2 rose from 385 ppm in 2008 to 387 ppm in 2009, as concentrations continue to rise even as emissions slip because even at the reduced pace, humans are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere faster than natural processes can scrub the gas. Many countries have agreed in principle to try to stabilize emissions at 350 ppm by century's end, which would result in a 50 percent chance of holding the increase in global average temperatures to about 2 degrees C over pre-industrial levels."
Comment Re:Even so! (Score 1) 521
The original article was concerned with expected longevity for mature adults. General "life expectancy", such as being cited in these comments, includes life expectancies for children and young adults as well as mature adults. Assuming both the original article and these general life expectancy figures are correct, one must conclude it is more dangerous to be a child or young adult in the U.S.
