Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Internet

YouTube Breeding Harmful Scientific Misinformation 816

Posted by kdawson from the playing-to-the-emotions dept.
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "University of Toronto researchers have uncovered widespread misinformation in videos on YouTube related to vaccination and immunization. In the first-ever study of its kind, they found that over half of the 153 videos analyzed portrayed childhood, HPV, flu and other vaccinations negatively or ambiguously. They also found that videos highly skeptical of vaccinations received more views and better ratings by users than those videos that portray immunizations in a positive light. According to the lead researcher, 'YouTube is increasingly a resource people consult for health information, including vaccination. Our study shows that a significant amount of immunization content on YouTube contradicts the best scientific evidence at large. From a public health perspective, this is very concerning.' An extract from the Journal of the American Medical Association is available online."
Biotech

Study Suggests Genome Instability Hotspots 72

Posted by Zonk from the perfect-place-to-splice dept.
Dr. Eggman writes "Ars Technica reports on a new study that suggests not only that certain areas of the mouse genome undergo more changes, but that changes to those areas are more tolerable by the organism than changes in other areas. Recently published in Nature Genetics, the study examined the certain copy number variations of the C57Bl/6 strain in mice that have been diverging for less than 1,000 generations. The results were a surprising number of variations. While the study does not address it, Ars Technica goes on to recount suggestions that genomes evolved to the point where they work well with evolution."
Communications

Submission + - Delaying the "inevitable" death of Morse C (pete.net)

Submitted by
synchros
synchros writes: "The Wall Street Journal had a front-page article today describing one man's work to encourage the uptake of Morse code, by transcribing books into Morse Code-based audio CDs.

From the article: "So far, Mr. Adams says he has sold or donated thousands of Morse versions of such novels as Edgar Rice Burroughs's "At the Earth's Core," Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe," and H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine." In about an hour his software can take any book in the public domain and turn it into a string of digital dits and dahs; last weekend, he turned out a version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's - .... . / -... . .- ..- - .. ..-. ..- .-.. / .- -. -.. / -.. .- — -. . -.. (a.k.a., "The Beautiful and Damned")."

I'm just disappointed I didn't get my 20WPM before the Morse Code requirement for radio amateurs was dropped."
Toys

James Randi Posts $1M Award On Speaker Cables 1239

Posted by kdawson from the money-where-your-ears-are dept.
elrond amandil writes "James Randi offered US$ 1 million to anyone who can prove that a pair of $7,250 Pear Anjou speaker cables is any better than ordinary (and also overpriced) Monster Cables. Pointing out the absurd review by audiophile Dave Clark, who called the cables 'danceable,' Randi called it 'hilarious and preposterous.' He added that if the cables could do what their makers claimed, 'they would be paranormal.'"
Programming

GCC Compiler Finally Supplanted by PCC? 546

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the all-good-things-must-end dept.
Sunnz writes "The leaner, lighter, faster, and most importantly, BSD Licensed, Compiler PCC has been imported into OpenBSD's CVS and NetBSD's pkgsrc. The compiler is based on the original Portable C Compiler by S. C. Johnson, written in the late 70's. Even though much of the compiler has been rewritten, some of the basics still remain. It is currently not bug-free, but it compiles on x86 platform, and work is being done on it to take on GCC's job."
Security

Submission + - Fox News' FTP Password Anyone?

Submitted by Paris The Pirate
Paris The Pirate writes: Jeff Goodman writes "While browsing around the Fox News website, I found that directory indexes are turned on. So, I started following the tree up, until I got to /admin. Eventually, I found my way into /admin/xml_parser/zdnet/, in which, there is a shell script. Seeing as it's a shell script, and I use Linux, I took a peek. Inside, is a username and password to an FTP. So, of course, I tried to login. The result? Epic fail on Fox's part. And seriously, what kind of password is T1me Out. This is just pathetic." Anyone want to suggest a password policy to Fox?

Feed Linux.com: Open source software on the Nintendo DS (Lite) (linux.com)

From feed by lcfeed
The Nintendo DS is an excellent gaming device, but that's not all you can do with it. The machine's "hackability" makes the Nintendo DS a great platform for running open source software and even Linux, if you want to run a slimmed down version of Linux. In fact, several nifty open source applications can turn your Nintendo DS into a rather useful all-around computing device.
Businesses

Submission + - Outsourcing IT

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Recently my boss announced at a meeting that the focus at our company should be to outsource all 'non-core' aspects of our business. Because what we do is very much IT related, it surprised me to hear that parts of IT should be outsourced as well. While our email and phone systems are currently outsourced, certain systems such as corporate websites, source code management, and project collaboration seem like things that are better managed in house. My question to the slashdot crowd is this: Given such a directive, would you recommend outsourcing? Why or why not?

Feed Engadget: UK retailers reveal Xbox 360 Elite pricing (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Gaming

Retailers such as HMV, Play, and Game in the UK are gearing up for the August 24th European release of Redmond's deluxe game system, and have begun pricing and taking pre-orders on Xbox 360 Elite packages at £330, although there's been no official word from the company on pricing. Microsoft has been tight-lipped, but speculation is that sellers have been tipped off from other regions, as many of them have a European presence. Of course, Steve McGill, the UK mouthpiece for the Xbox, stated last week that the Elite vs. Premium package pricing would be similarly relative to their US counterparts, thus placing the Elite costs close to £336 -- which certainly seems to solve this mystery.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
The Courts

Gateway Customer Sues to Get His PC Fixed 147

Posted by Zonk from the toss-the-tossing-toses dept.
prostoalex writes "The Sacramento Bee tells the story of an El Dorado resident who had to go to small claims court to get his Gateway PC fixed: 'Right out of the box, he says, the computer displayed scattered graphics and wouldn't work properly. He says he called a Gateway salesman five times and sent him an e-mail to get an authorization number to send the computer back, but his phone calls and message were never returned. Then, over the course of months, Sheehan said he called Gateway technical support dozens of times.' Gateway insists that by clicking 'Accept' on a customer service EULA when the computer was first booted, Mr. Sheehan has waived his rights to sue the computer manufacturer in United States courts. The Gateway EULA states that conflicts must be resolved via private arbitrage. Sheehan, though, argues that he never saw the EULA, because of the broken graphics. As such, he's not held to that agreement." Some connections between this and a discussion about a Second Life case we had yesterday.
Robotics

Satellites Mating Via Robotic Arm 91

Posted by Zonk from the that's-one-way-to-do-it dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "The launch of the Orbital Express mission, with its two satellites ASTRO and NextSat, the first one servicing the other, was widely covered a month ago. But what is happening in space now? In 'Robotic satellite servicer rehearsal underway in orbit,' Spaceflight Now reports about the progress done. A week ago, the two satellites were able to link to each other to operate the first transfer of hydrazine fuel from ASTRO's propellant tanks into NextSat. This weekend, ASTRO's ten-foot-long robotic arm is going to be used to move objects to NextSat. But what does it mean for international satellite operators when they need help with their space birds? Will they use a system designed for U.S.'s DARPA? "
The Internet

The Virtual Teacher 94

Posted by samzenpus from the aibo-ate-my-homework dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from Illinois and Florida are developing a networking system which will create virtual representations of real people to improve our knowledge. They will use artificial intelligence and natural language processing software to enable us to interact with these avatars. The goal of the project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is to give us the possibility to interact with these virtual representations as if they were the actual person, complete with the ability to understand and answer questions. We should see the results at the beginning of 2008 — if the researchers succeed."
It's funny. Laugh.

XP On 8-MHz Pentium With 20 MB RAM 410

Posted by kdawson from the golden-hourglass dept.
swehack writes "The guys over at winhistory.de managed to get their Windows XP Professional running on a very minimal box: an Intel Pentium clocked down to 8 MHz with 20 MB of RAM. (The installer won't work with less than 64 MB, but after installing you can remove memory.) The link has plenty of pictures of their progress in achieving this dubious milestone. They deserve a Golden Hourglass award for 'extreme waste of time.' What obscure hardware configurations have you managed to get Windows running on?"

Slashdot Top Deals

If you think the system is working, ask someone who's waiting for a prompt.

Close