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Comment Re:My vote... (Score 5, Insightful) 316

by skeptikos (#35751798) Attached to: Which Comic Character Is the Greatest Engineer?

Wiley Coyote... Super Genius.

Though, his reliance on ACME for equipment, should be reconsidered.

 

I always thought that Wiley Coyote depicts very well the agony of working as an engineer. The laws of nature seem to work against you. Murphy's laws are against you. The tools/equipment do not behave according to the specs, and tend to fail at the worst possible time. Good ideas fail because of implementation details or even bad luck. Yet, you cannot let the problem go, you have to fix it! One last try, ok, maybe another one!
Japan

Further Updates On Post-Tsumami Japan 369

Posted by timothy from the virgin-mobile-was-evidently-affected-too dept.
DarkStarZumaBeach points out a frequently updated page from the International Atomic Energy Agency with updates on the situation at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, which reports in terse but readable form details of the dangers and progress there. The most recent update says that the plant's Unit 2 has been re-wired for power, and engineers 'plan to reconnect power to unit 2 once the spraying of water on the unit 3 reactor building is completed.' Read on for more on the tsunami aftermath.

Comment Re:I'll be first to say WTF (Score 5, Informative) 700

by skeptikos (#34941338) Attached to: Polynomial Time Code For 3-SAT Released, P==NP

NP is short for Natalie Portman, and the car analogy follows:

Adleman's chief scientist, Nickolas Chelyapov, offered this illustration: Imagine that a fussy customer walks onto a million-car auto square and gives the dealer a complicated list of criteria for the car he wants.

"First," he says, "I want it to be either a Cadillac or a convertible or red." Second, "if it is a Cadillac, then it has to have four seats or a locking gas cap." Third, "If it is a convertible, it should not be a Cadillac or it should have two seats."

The customer rattles off a list of 24 such conditions, and the salesman has to find the one car in stock that meets all the requirements. (Adleman and his team chose a problem they knew had exactly one solution.) The salesman will have to run through the customer's entire list for each of the million cars in turn -- a hopeless task unless he can move and think at superhuman speed.

This serial method is the way a digital electronic computer solves such a problem.
Australia

Submission + - Pirate Party rally draws 500 to support Wikileaks (itnews.com.au) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Pirate Party Australia public demonstration at the weekend drew 500 protesters on a march through the city calling for a social media uprising and chanting for Bradley Manning's release outside the US Consulate General [photos] offices in the city. Speakers included the party's president Rodney Serkowski, journalists and activists calling for Manning and Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange to be freed. Serkowski said plans to censor the net underscored the need for such sites. US soldier Manning, suspected of leaking the diplomatic cables to Assange's whistleblowers' website last year, is in US military custody while Assange is facing extradition to Sweden and a possible US grand jury investigation for alleged espionage.
Software

Graphic Map of Linux-2.6.36 25

Posted by timothy from the under-the-hood dept.
conan.sh writes "The Interactive map of Linux Kernel was expanded and updated to the recent kernel linux-2.6.36. Now the map contains more than four hundred important source items (functions and structures) with links to source code and documentation."
Businesses

Game Prices — a Historical Perspective 225

Posted by Soulskill from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.
The Opposable Thumbs blog scrutinizes the common wisdom that video games are too expensive, or that they're more expensive than they were in the past. They found that while in some cases the sticker price has increased, it generally hasn't outpaced inflation, making 2010 a cheaper time to be a gamer than the '80s and '90s. Quoting: "... we tracked down a press release putting the suggested retail price of both Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64 at $69.99. [Hal Halpin, president of the Entertainment Consumer's Association] says that the N64 launch game pricing only tells you part of the story. 'Yes, some N64 games retailed for as high as $80, but it was also the high end of a 60 to 80 dollar range,' he told Ars. 'Retailers had more flexibility with pricing back then — though they've consistently maintained that the Suggested Retail Price was/is just a guide. Adjusted for inflation, we're generally paying less now than we have historically. But to be fair, DLC isn't factored in.' He also points out all the different ways that we can now access games: you can buy a game used, rent a game, or play certain online games for free. There are multiple ways to sell your old console games, and the competition in the market causes prices to fall quickly."

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