Comment Ciao! (Score 1) 1521
The most important question is: What happens to the poll questions?
Thanks & good luck Rob!
Comment ...because (Score 0) 602
...because sex and swearing are leading to the downfall of society. Not greed and corruption.
Comment Re:Yum (Score 4, Interesting) 277
Wonder what it tastes like?
[*Gets in line first*]
The Right Amount of "Challenge" In IT & Gaming 103
boyko.at.netqos writes "In an essay entitled 'An Epiphany I Had While Playing Pac-Man,' the author talks about how smart people need to find a certain amount of intellectual challenge from day to day. If they don't find it in their workplace, they'll end up playing complex, 'smart' games, like Civilization IV or Chess — and if they do find it in their workplace, they're more likely to sit down with a nice game of Pac-Man, Katamari Damacy, or Peggle. Quoting: 'When I look back on my life, and I compare the times in my life when I was playing simple games compared to the times in my life when I was playing complex ones, a pattern emerges. The more complexity and mental stimulation I was getting from other activities — usually my day job at the time — the less I needed mental stimulation in my free time. Conversely, in times when I was working boring jobs, I'd be playing games that required a lot of thinking and mental gymnastics.' The author then goes on to speculate that some IT workers might subconsciously be giving themselves more challenges by choosing to deal with difficult problems, rather than performing simple (but boring) preventative maintenance and proactive network management."
Submission + - Are the Pirates in the Vanguard of a New Politics? (computerworlduk.com)
E5Rebel writes: "The Swedish Pirate Party has secured a seat in the European Parliament. Its vote, 7.1% of the Swedish,suggests that there is something deeper going on here than a few bored voters choosing a joke party. The Pirate Party has just three basic policy areas. It wants to "fundamentally reform copyright law, get rid of the patent system, and ensure that citizens' rights to privacy are respected."
Whether it is software, pharmaceuticals or just the right to live your life as you please, this is a breakthrough."
Submission + - Microsoft Is Buying Their Way Into Spanish Schools (opensourcereleasefeed.com)
volume4 writes: "HispaLinux is up in arms about the Spanish Goverment's announcement that Microsoft will be powering computers in their education system instead of Open Source and Linux after a, seemingly successful, paid for experiment run in schools in Aragon. Paul Brown, editor-in-chief, speaks his mind about the situation and why he believes there is more to the deal then meets the eye."
Submission + - Company Produces THC Tomatoes (thecrit.com) 2
Corpuscavernosa writes: Scientists at Montsaint Genie Tech Inc. announced today that they have successfully transferred the gene segment that produces the psychotropic chemical THC in cannabis plants to many other common garden plants, including tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, and more.
But is it legal? "Actually, yes," says Vale. "Our research qualifies as GMO 'intellectual property', as does the process itself. Since tomatoes and other plants are not illegal, a person would be well within the law to grow them and use them as they please."
But is it legal? "Actually, yes," says Vale. "Our research qualifies as GMO 'intellectual property', as does the process itself. Since tomatoes and other plants are not illegal, a person would be well within the law to grow them and use them as they please."
CoS Bigwig Likens Wikipedia Ban to Nazis' Yellow Star Decree 567
We mentioned on Thursday that Wikipedia has banned edits originating from certain IP addresses belonging to the Church of Scientology; reader newtley writes now that Scientology leader (CEO and Chairman of the Board of the linked, but legally separate, Religious Technology Center) David Miscavige calls the ban "a 'despicable hate crime,' and asks, 'What's next, will Scientologists have to wear yellow, six-pointed stars on our clothing?' During World War II, Hitler forced Jewish men, women and children to wear a a yellow cloth star bearing the word Jude to brand them in the streets of Europe, and in the Nazi death camps."
Nanotech Memory Could Hold Data For 1 Billion Years 239
Hugh Pickens writes "Digital storage devices have become ubiquitous in our lives but the move to digital storage has raised concerns about the lifetime of the storage media. Now Alex Zettl and his group at the University of California, Berkeley report that they have developed an experimental memory device consisting of a crystalline iron nanoparticle enclosed in a multiwalled carbon nanotube that could have a storage capacity as high as 1 terabyte per square inch and temperature-stability in excess of one billion years. The nanoparticle can be moved through the nanotube by applying a low voltage, writing the device to a binary state represented by the position of the nanoparticle. The state of the device can then be subsequently read by a simple resistance measurement while reversing the nanoparticle's motion allows a memory 'bit' to be rewritten. This creates a programmable memory system that, like a silicon chip, can record digital information and play it back using conventional computer hardware storing data at a high density with a very long lifetime. Details of the process are available at the American Chemical Society for $30."
Google Earth As a Game Engine For Ship Simulation 84
dinther writes "Yesterday the program Ships was released. Ships is significant because it is the first serious application that uses Google Earth as a game engine. In Ships, you take control of a selection of ships and drive them around the world (if you have that much time). Building games around Google Earth is now viable, thanks to its ever-increasing level of detail. From a technical standpoint, the Google Earth browser plugin has proven to be quite a capable platform to work with. Further tech details about the application are available as well."
What Do You Call People Who "Do HTML"? 586
gilgongo writes "It's more than 10 years since people started making a living writing web page markup, yet the job title (and role) has yet to settle down. Not only that, but there are different types of people who write markup: those that approach the craft as essentially an integration task, and those that see it as part of UI design overall. The situation is further complicated by the existence of other roles in the workplace such as graphic designer and information architect. This is making recruitment for this role a real headache. So, how do you describe people who 'do HTML' (and CSS and maybe a bit of JavaScript and graphics manipulation)? Some job titles I've seen include: Design Technologist, Web Developer, Front-end Developer, HTML/CSS Developer, Client-side Developer and UI Engineer. Do you have any favourite job titles for this role?"
Submission + - How Do You Get To Carnegie Hall?
theodp writes: "Practice, practice, practice. Then audition on YouTube. When then 10-year-old Hannah Tarley asked to get her ears pierced, her mom told the aspiring violinist she could if she performed at Carnegie Hall. Seven years later, using a computer placed atop several volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 17-year-old Hannah filmed herself in her bedroom playing Brahms' Symphony No. 4 to audition by video for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. On April 15, Hannah will make her debut with others who made the cut at New York City's Carnegie Hall in a concert conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony."
Does Professional Gaming Have a Future? 116
mr_sifter writes "Three years ago, celebrity gamers such as Fatal1ty were bagging millions in prizes, and TV channels were queuing up to broadcast games on TV. Professional gaming looked set for the big time. It never happened, and in the current economic crisis, sponsors and media organizations are cutting costs, resulting in the closure of many pro gaming competitions (as we recently discussed) and a down-scaling in prize money. This feature looks at whether pro gaming can bounce back, and whether it will always be a PC sport, or if pro gaming on consoles is the future."
Submission + - Auditing paper trail without the paper
chthonicdaemon writes: "I am a engineering lecturer at a university, and to maintain our accreditation we are audited by a local engineering council. One of the things they require is a detailed audit trail or paper trail for our exam process. So far, this has involved a set of paper forms that are signed at various points along the process. When your external examiner lives far away, it is often impossible to get the physical form to them in time. Unfortunately, a scanned signature is not really very secure, and printing and scanning forms repeatedly is time-consuming and degrades document quality. PDF forms with electronic signatures seem like a good solution, but all the form-filling software I can find for Windows costs money, not to mention that some of the external examiners are still paper-bound and that the council requires hard-copy evidence of the audit trail. Our IT department is very difficult about allowing computers in the DMZ, and we don't have the manpower to maintain a custom web-solution (my first instinct), so the process will probably based around e-mail.
How do you approach process auditing and paper trail generation? Are there any solutions out there that can be handled using just basic tools like e-mail and doesn't involve training users about public key encryption or getting them to buy Acrobat Professional or CutePDF form filler?"
How do you approach process auditing and paper trail generation? Are there any solutions out there that can be handled using just basic tools like e-mail and doesn't involve training users about public key encryption or getting them to buy Acrobat Professional or CutePDF form filler?"
Submission + - Inhaled Chocolate: Crazy idea or boon to dieters? (boston.com) 1
Chienne Folle writes: Harvard professor David Edwards usually works on inhaled medicines, but his latest invention is a way to inhale something that, while regarded by many as a medicine, is technically a food: chocolate. That's right — a Harvard professor wants you to inhale chocolate. The chocolate pieces are too large to get into the lungs but too small to have much in the way of calories, so for those who want the taste without the substance, Dr. Edwards has an inhaler for you.
Read more at the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/04/10/for_those_who_live_and_breathe_chocolate_a_puff/
Read more at the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/04/10/for_those_who_live_and_breathe_chocolate_a_puff/
