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Comment No policing neologisms (Score 5, Insightful) 775

It is not a search engine's responsibility to police our neologisms. Santorum is a word now used by the common public, and it requires no editorializing by third parties. As the original article points out:

The news is better for searches for Rick Santorum's full name, rather than just the word "santorum." In that case, his official site ranks tops.

So in other words, if I'm looking for a person, I write the person's name in and find the person. If I'm looking for a thing, I type said thing in and find it.

For example, would anybody be annoyed if a google search of the word "houston" showed Houston, TX as the first hit, instead of Whitney Houston?

Now as to why Santorum and santorum came to be connected is another matter. But that's something for a different conversation, which the columnist fails to grasp.

Comment Re:Hadn't expected this on /. so quickly (Score 1) 50

The bat researchers (I'm a controls researcher, so I have to ask their advice about things like this) say that the bat should carry a load weighing no more than 5% of its weight. On a 10g bat, and these bats are among the bigger species, you can see that this leads to a very small package, indeed.

As for your second question, there were IR cameras recording from many different angles, all of them ground-based. The purpose of the experiment was not to record bat flight with a GoPro; that was just a nice feature that we added since we were already there. The experiment was about perturbing the bats by entering into their clutter and seeing how they respond. Do they flee? Do they ignore? Do they act the same way they do when a hawk attacks? What rules are they following when they fly in a swarm?

Comment Re:Parts from the hardware store? (Score 5, Informative) 50

The carbon fiber parts where from hobby-lobby. Although we'll be getting them from HobbyKing in the future because it's something like $5/rod.

The only specialty part was the OpenPilot CopterControl module. That was indeed all of $100. Appropriately sized BLDCs can be bought for $7/ea., a radio is $50, the props are $1.50/ea., the battery was $20, the charger was not high output, and there are a few other components that you didn't list which I won't either in the interests of conciseness. Suffice to say that you can build a complete, functioning quadcopter with a CopterControl for all of $250, incl. the transmitter/receiver combo.

Comment Hadn't expected this on /. so quickly (Score 3, Informative) 50

I realize that most of the comments here will probably be poking fun at the batcopter, and I can't wait to read what the /. audience is going to come up with. I guess I underestimated the coolness factor of flying towel racks. However, if you want to discuss the science behind it, I'll be more than happy.

It was a neat project, and we're only just starting, although that's probably the first and the last time that I'll go into the field. Apparently, we have some 30TB of data to wade through, so there's enough there for any dozen PhDs. The next task is to figure out what we actually recorded and to see what we can do with it.

Dr. Kenneth Sebesta

Comment Re:Was Microsoft Riight? (Score 1) 716

Re point #1:

I'm a longtime and continuing user of Windows, Linux, and Mac, in that chronological order. 6 months ago, a friend gave me his old iPhone 3G. Now I've got a Nook Color running CM7 and an Atrix on order. After the experience with the Nook Color, I'm petrified of getting the Atrix. It's simply amazing how you can go forward in hardware, but backwards in usability. What does that have to do with point #1?

Simple. Apple has a focused, single-minded user experience. Everything they sell can use almost everything that is made. No Motoblur/HTC Sense/Android/Gingerbread/Honeycomb/FroYo/etc... How do you expect a salesperson to be able to tell you what a tablet is good for, when s/he doesn't even know what the tablet can do, because Android is... what?

To be honest, I don't regret my Nook Color, not for the price, but I could not articulate why someone else should buy one, not even at $250. Yet I could easily do that for an iPad at $600+. I don't own an iPad, and probably never will, but after having seen the software ecosystem, and the relative quality of the user experience (Android is too many, too many options. For simple stuff. Like deleting a program.), I can easily talk to someone and figure out what an iPad could do for them.

XBox (Games)

Submission + - New Kinect Acheivement: Ring of Death (kitguru.net)

otter42 writes: It seems that the XBox 360's Kinect will manage to scratch 100% of games. Okay, hyperbole aside, it really does seem that playing a kinect game becomes a question of when the disc will be fatally scratched, rather than if. The problem is that, in order to save $0.25/ea., Microsoft decided to forgo rubber bumpers that protect the spinning disc from vibration. As the Kinect virtually ensures there will be lots of humans jumping, bumping, hopping, and grinding, it's difficult to imagine when vibrations won't be present.

Comment Yeah, I can kind of understand that (Score 1) 484

Being one of these "younger" workers I think the article is referring to, I can definitely relate. I don't enjoy working in a solitary office, find that having a colleague in close proximity helps me out when I'm stuck, etc... I recently had a 10m^2 office, shared with one other researcher, and I definitely miss it. My wife has the ability to have a decent sized office with a window view, but she prefers to share a 50% bigger office with a second colleague. They get more done that way.

Of course, others would prefer anything but, and I respect that, too, but this isn't necessarily as Orwellian a quote as that.

Google

Submission + - "My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement" (nytimes.com) 3

otter42 writes: It's a bit of a moral dilema to post this to slashdot, giving the bastard what he wants, but even if DecorMyEyes is right and it's true that all bad publicity is good publicity in Google land, the story still needs to come out. The NYTimes has an 8-page exposé on how an online business is thriving because of giant amounts of negative reviews. It seems that if you directly google the company you have no problem discerning the true nature; but if you instead only google the brand names it sells, the company is at the top of the rankings. Turns out that all the negative advertisement he generates from reputable sites gives him countless links that inflate his pagerank.

Submission + - Best CMS solution for non-technical business? 3

amarkham writes: I'm working with a non-profit organization that would like to consider expanding their site from their fairly basic "HTML + minimal PHP" site. I'm an accomplished engineer and could build them a nice database-backed site, but don't like that approach as I realize I won't always be around to support them. I've also considered helping them get set up on Drupal or Joomla, but am concerned they'd still have trouble supporting it without reasonably technical support.

I haven't had much luck finding hosted CMS solutions (Refinery HQ?), but in theory, that'd be the way to go.

Any good suggestions?

Submission + - USCG Sues Copyright Defense Lawyer (escapistmagazine.com)

ESRB writes: The US Copyright Group has sued Graham Syfert, an attorney that created a packet of self-representation paperwork for individuals sued for P2P sharing of certain movies and moved to have sanctions placed against the defense attorney. Syfert sells these packets for $20, and the USCG claims the 19 individuals that have used it have costed them over $5000.

Submission + - Darth Vader Endorsement (wsj.com)

NicknamesAreStupid writes: DoCoMo, the mobile unit of the venerable NTT phone company of Japan, is using Darth Vader to promote the Samsung Galaxy smart phone, according to the Wall Street Journal. Proof again that I do not understand the Japanese market. Of course, these were the guys providing video calls and streaming movies to their users before the iPhone was even an idea.
Facebook

Submission + - The Luck of the Irish Runs Out

theodp writes: Looks like threatening to take their ball and leave paid off for U.S. tech firms. The Irish government announced plans this week to tap the welfare state and working class for much of the $20B in savings they've pledged to find over the next four years, but the austerity measures will not touch large businesses like Microsoft, Intel, Google, HP, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pfizer, which created jobs and fueled exports in Ireland after being lured by low corporate tax rates. More than 100,000 Dubliners took to the streets to protest the bailout plan, calling for the Irish government to default on the country's debts, and demanding an immediate election. 'We should default, said a retired union worker, 'the idea that the workers of this country should pay for the gambling of the billionaires is disgusting.'
Power

Submission + - First Electric Cars Have Power Industry Worried 1

Hugh Pickens writes: "Jonathan Fahey writes for AP that as the first mass-market electric cars go on sale next month, the power industry faces a huge growth opportunity, with SoCal Edison expecting to be charging 100,000 cars by 2015 and California setting a goal of 1 million electric vehicles by 2020. But utility executives are worried that the difficulty of keeping the lights on for the first crop of buyers — and their neighbors — could slow the growth of this new growth industry because it's inevitable that electric utilities will suffer some difficulties early on. "We are all going to be a lot smarter two years from now," says Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan North America. When plugged into a home charging station the first Leafs and Volts will draw 3,300 watts and take about 8 hours to deliver a full charge, but both carmakers may soon boost that to 6,600 watts while the Tesla Roadster, an electric sports car with a huge battery, can draw 16,800 watts. That means that adding an electric vehicle or two to a neighborhood can be like adding another house, and it can stress the equipment that services those houses. The problem is that transformers that distribute power from the electrical grid to homes are often designed to handle less than about 12,000 watts so the extra stress on a transformer from one or two electric vehicles could cause it to overheat and fail, knocking out power to the block. "We're talking about doubling the load of a conventional home," says Karl Rabago, who leads Austin Energy's electric vehicle-readiness program. "It's big.""

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