Comment Re:The invisible man would be blind (Score 4, Insightful) 96
the question is, transparent to what, really. If it's opaque to everything _except_ human-visible light, that's still a pile of the spectrum and of energy.
Top Facebook Apps Violate Privacy Terms 95
cgriffin21 writes "No stranger to privacy concerns, Facebook is once again in the privacy spotlight, following a Wall Street Journal report that some popular Facebook applications leak personal information to advertisers. 'Many of the popular applications, or 'apps,' on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information — in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names — to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies,' according to The Wall Street Journal, which wrote about Facebook Sunday in the latest installment of its recent 'What They Know' series about advertising and the Internet."
Comment BMWs, Minis (Score 3, Interesting) 317
Apparently, BMWs and Minis (and probably other sport-ish cars) are negative cambered because it helps with handling. I found this out replacing the tires on my mini... the ones that I burned through in 1.5 years because I drive it like a sport-ish car
When the US Government Built Ultra-Safe Cars 520
Jalopnik has a piece on a mostly forgotten piece of automotive history: the US government built a fleet of ultra-safe cars in the 1970s. The "RSV" cars were designed to keep four passengers safe in a front or side collision at 50 mph (80 kph) — without seat belts — and they got 32 miles to the gallon. They had front and side airbags, anti-lock brakes, and gull-wing doors. Lorne Greene was hired to flack for the program. All this was quickly dismantled in the Reagan years, and in 1990 the mothballed cars were all destroyed, though two prototypes survived in private hands. "Then-NHTSA chief Jerry Curry [in 1990] contended the vehicles were obsolete, and that anyone who could have learned something from them had done so by then. Claybrook, the NHTSA chief who'd overseen the RSV cars through 1980, told Congress the destruction compared to the Nazis burning books. ... 'I thought they were intentionally destroying the evidence that you could do much better,' said [the manager of one of the vehicles' manufacturers]."
Comment No (Score 5, Insightful) 375
Sorry, you distributed content, we can throw it in the trash if we like
Duke Nukem Forever Not Dead? (Yes, This Again) 195
kaychoro writes "There may be hope for Duke Nukem Forever (again). 'Jon St. John, better known as the voice of Duke Nukem, said some interesting words during a panel discussion at the Music and Games Festival (MAGFest) that took place January 1 – 4 in Alexandria, Virginia, according to Pixel Enemy. Answering a question from the crowd regarding DNF, St. John said: "... let me go ahead and tell you right now that I'm not allowed to talk about Duke Nukem Forever. No, no, don't be disappointed, read between the lines — why am I not allowed to talk about it?"'"
Comment Re:Calling BS (Score 2, Informative) 206
My guess is it's more about the weight. carbon nanotubes are about 1/7th the density.
Attractive Women Make Men Temporarily Stupid 652
Ponca City, We love you writes "The Telegraph reports that men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function than those who chat to someone they do not find attractive. This leads to speculation that men use up so much of their brain function or 'cognitive resources' trying to impress beautiful women, they have little left for other tasks. Psychologists at Radboud University in The Netherlands carried out the study after one of them was so struck on impressing an attractive woman he had never met before, that he could not remember his address when she asked him where he lived. Researchers recruited 40 male heterosexual students and had each one perform a standard memory test. The volunteers then spent seven minutes chatting to male or female members of the research team before repeating the test. The results showed that men were slower and less accurate after trying to impress the women. The more they fancied them, the worse their score."
Depression May Provide Cognitive Advantages 512
Hugh Pickens writes "Paul W. Andrews and J. Anderson Thomson, Jr. argue in Scientific American that although depression is considered a mental disorder, depression may in fact be a mental adaptation which provides real benefits. This is not to say that depression is not a problem. Depressed people often have trouble performing everyday activities, they can't concentrate on their work, they tend to socially isolate themselves, they are lethargic, and they often lose the ability to take pleasure from such activities such as eating and sex. So what could be so useful about depression? 'Depressed people often think intensely about their problems,' write the authors. 'These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking it down into smaller components, which are considered one at a time.' Various studies have found that people in depressed mood states are better at solving social dilemmas and there is evidence that people who get more depressed while they are working on complex problems in an intelligence test tend to score higher on the test (PDF). 'When one considers all the evidence, depression seems less like a disorder where the brain is operating in a haphazard way, or malfunctioning. Instead, depression seems more like the vertebrate eye — an intricate, highly organized piece of machinery that performs a specific function.'"
Comment why isn't this the default during user setup? (Score 5, Insightful) 500
I've often wondered why when you are setting up your user account on a box, and it gets to the part with setting up email, it didn't give you a chance to generate or import public/private keys right there and them upload the public to a server. Particularly on linux boxes, this seems like a completely feasible option.
One might also envision having a secret key storage mechanism, either by local external media or via remote storage where it could go look.
OnLive and Gaikai — How To Stop a Gaming Revolution 125
happierr writes "The gaming industry has been struggling in the last few months, and it is about to struggle even more when OnLive and Gaikai launch later this year. The new services are both a step in the right direction to counter piracy and provide easily-accessible gaming to people with low-end PCs. They might even do for PC gaming what the Wii did for casual gaming; greatly expand the market and draw interest from people who would not ordinarily play games. The services are a real threat for the Big Three video game companies (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo). How will they combat these revolutionary services? There are a few steps that the Big Three are taking to combat the New Two, such as an increased reliance on peripherals and vision cameras, exclusivity deals, and more online multiplayer features, which OnLive and Gaikai will have a hard time matching."
Comment Re:The Dilemma (Score 2, Interesting) 360
go read the abstract. I understood that and was thinking the same thing. also along with an obligatory holy shit that's awesome.
Comment Re:Not completely outrageous (Score 2, Insightful) 367
I can agree with this logic. I do wonder when they will start charging a "feed your extra power back into the grid" fee will begin and any number of other fees that might arise out of this.
Comment simple things can be done... (Score 2, Informative) 63
I have seen a lot of places that insist on buying a "solution" to the problem, when in fact the solution barely touches the problem. it works around a lot of things, but never really hits right on it. So you've spent a lot of money on something that doesn't really do the job of a person in that role.
The funny part about security is that for all it's sex appeal, real security is actually pretty boring. Oh the hotness of configuration management using tools that are already available on the windows or linux box. How your endorphins get moving at the sight of a patched on patch day. Or the sheer porn of being able to look at your log files and know that all is good.
We all love honeypots and whatnot, but those things need to come well after patching, configuration management, removing/pruning user administrative permissions, and controlling which software you allow, and strong authentication enforcement. This doesn't have to cost a lot of money.
Comment the money line that I'm sure we can pick apart (Score 1) 345
from TFA:
Cars emitted more than any other form of transport with the notable exception of off-peak buses, which often carry few passengers. Passengers on the Boston light rail, an electric commuter train, were found to emit as much or marginally more than those on mid-size and large aircraft. This is because 82 per cent of electricity in Massachusetts is generated by burning fossil fuels.
So, if you are burning lots of fossil fuels to run your light rail, then yes, it is like a coal fired plane
TFA also talks about building trains into major population centers to eliminate the need for infrastructure for cars to _get_ to the train. It also talks about how trains have a different power problem than air/car/bus, and one that, honestly, I think we're a lot closer to solving.
