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Comment Re:And here I was, (Score 1) 116

The problem with creating such a device is not the technological factors, but rather the ergonomic factors. The reason a mouse-keyboard combo gives you such control is that your desk it at just the right height to work at. It is harder to work with controls if they are at waist height instead of mid-torso height.

Comment Progress (Score 1) 628

Obsolescence is the result of progress. How many carriage manufacturers still exist? When automobiles were first introduced, they were direct competitors to carriages. However, since automobiles have proven themselves to be better than carriages, the carriages have become obsolete, and therefore are no longer produced, except as historical replicas. The carriage manufacturers all went out of business or converted to building automobiles. When a new technology replaces an old technology, businesses must adapt, or go out of business. Please not that a few companies still produce carriages. Physical media will always have a special place. Everyday reading may become increasingly digital, but digitizing ordinary books allows special books to have prominence on the physical bookshelf.
Space

Submission + - China Aims to Build Largest Rocket (xinhuanet.com)

hackingbear writes: Back in march, China revealed it is studying the feasibility of designing the most powerful carrier rocket in history for making a manned moon landing and exploring deep space, according to Liang Xiaohong, vice head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. The rocket is envisaged to have a payload of 130 tonnes, five times larger than that of China's current largest rocket. This rocket, if built, will eclipse the 53 tonne capacity of the planned Falcon 9 Heavy from SpaceX. It will even surpass the largest rocket ever built, the 119-tonne Saturn V. China's next generation rocket Long March 5, currently scheduled to debut in 2014, has a payload capacity of 25 tonnes to LEO.
Science

Submission + - New Spin on Graphene Makes It Magnetic (sciencedaily.com)

intellitech writes: A team led by Professor Andre Geim, a recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize for graphene, has shown that electric current can magnetize graphene. The researchers found a new way to interconnect spin and charge by applying a relatively weak magnetic field to graphene and found that this causes a flow of spins in the direction perpendicular to electric current, making a graphene sheet magnetised.
Idle

Submission + - Best. Geek. Wedding. Invitation. Ever. (createdigitalmusic.com)

kfogel writes: "Karen Sandler (a lawyer at the Software Freedom Law Center) and Mike Tarantino (a professional musician) are getting married in May. They've sent out the coolest wedding invitation ever: a beautifully packaged flexidisc record where the invitation itself is the record player. That's right: It's paper! And it plays a record! The song itself was written by Mike, is performed by Karen and Mike together, and FTW is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. The person who designed the invitations — a friend of the couple's — has blogged about it. It's also made Make Magazine, Mashable, and Geek.com."

Submission + - Web of Trust sued for community ratings (mywot.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A group of 10 Florida companies have sued Web of Trust (myWOT) over community ratings of their companies. The lawsuit has been filed in Florida, although the company itself is based in Finland.

The companies involved include Career Network Inc, Three Stars Media and the Internet Company apparently owned by one Alec Difrawi who has attempted to sue several people in the past over critical comments on blogs.

It would seem that the suit would fall foul of CDA 230 immunity and the fact that Helsinki is a long way from Orlando, but it could shape up to be a significant test of community based rating systems.

Microsoft

Submission + - No Windows for Tablets Until Late 2012 (thinq.co.uk)

Stoobalou writes: Microsoft initially made some encouraging noises about breaking into the tablet market, and is known to be tweaking its Windows 7 operating system for use on proddable PCs, but some are suggesting that Microsoft won't be ready to make a move into the tablet market until the fourth quarter of 2012.

Submission + - Does GPS tracking violate the 4th amendment? (yahoo.com)

bradley13 writes: "Last year, college student Yasir Afifi discovered a GPS tracking device that had been attached to his car. After he discovered it, the FBi showed up and demanded that he hand it over. They told him that they would make his life difficult if he did not cooperate by giving the device back. The FBI had no warrant or court order allowing surveillance.

Now Yasar Afifi is filing suit, hoping to get a ruling that installing tracking devices without a warrant violates the fourth amendment. Unfortunately, his local federal district court is the 9th circuit, which has already decided two similar cases, coming down in favor of tracking.

The key part of the reasoning in the previous cases is this: "attaching the tracking device ... did not constitute a 'search' cognizable under the Fourth Amendment because '[t]he undercarriage is part of the car's exterior, and as such, is not afforded a reasonable expectation of privacy.'” Very strained reasoning indeed, since the point of the tracking device is not a search of the undercarriage, but rather a search of a person's movements."

Submission + - Suing Facebook Because You Didn't Get Elected (techdirt.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Facebook is showing up in lots of lawsuits these days, sometimes for entirely frivolous reasons. Take, for example, this latest lawsuit involving a politician who lost (by a wide wide margin) his attempt to get elected to Congress. He's now suing Facebook, blaming the company for his loss, because it shut down his Facebook account after it showed patterns similar to spamming. The guy, Majed Moughni, insists that he really would have won if only that Facebook page remained. Of course, if he actually knew the law he was hoping to have a part in making in Congress, he would know that Facebook is protected against such lawsuits by Section 230 of the CDA.

Comment Re:I seem to be in the minority. (Score 0) 505

There isn't much that can be done to prevent a determined child from going around the protection. However, the software should not be considered a panacea for Internet problems, but rather a reminder to the child to do right while using the Internet. The knowledge that somebody might be watching tends to prevent many problems before they occur.

Comment Nothing Wrong with This (Score 0) 505

A parent's job is to ensure that his child matures into a responsible adult. A parent has the responsibility to know what his child has been doing so that he can reward the child for doing right and punish the child for doing wrong. For a parent to supervise his child's Internet access is not different than for him to watch over his child while the child plays in the park. A child might bypass some of the dangers of the Internet, but a child is not able to discern many of the complicated dangers that abound in society. Therefore, a parent should use tools such as keyloggers to supervise a child's Internet access. This is not a breach of privacy, but another way for a parent to unobtrusively care and watch over his child.

Comment Re:What scientists... (Score 0) 726

The point I was trying to make is that unless a scientist is able to directly observe the beginning of the universe, there is no way for him to prove that the universe was or was not created. A scientist can only observe the current universe and extrapolate into the past. There is no way to know with absolute certainty that any any event occurred, unless we have data from an observer who was present at the event.

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