Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Its the phone company that caused the problem (Score 1) 393

by cpuffer_hammer (#37503484) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Calculators With 1-2-3 Number Pads?

Part of the problem was part of the testing was done a the World's Fair. AT&T had many layouts on display and asked people to rate them. Good idea except that most people when trying keying in numbers for the first time on anything pick 123 as it is easy. But long term, it would have been better to settle on the initially harder to use 789 pattern. (or this could be just as apocryphal as all the other stories)

Comment Maybe there are other reasons for the sale? (Score 1) 445

by cpuffer_hammer (#33922398) Attached to: How to Heartlessly Arbitrage Used Books With a PDA

There could also be other aspects of the sale that are damaged by people scanning.
          The sale could be a loss leader for the organization, a way to get book buyers down to see the library. (or stop by the charity shop)
          The mixture of books could be part of the entertainment value of the sale, with a few gold nuggets mix into a lot of sand, it is the searching and looking, and reading a bit that is part of the fun.
Having someone scan and remove all the gems is not going to get the buyer and therefore the seller what they are looking for.

Maybe this person should offer to scan and price books for a fee. He I suspect he could make more money in the same time, and have the library staff help help him do it.
Transportation

Denver Airport Overrun by Car-Eating Rabbits 278

Posted by samzenpus from the night-of-the-lepus dept.
It turns out the soy-based wire covering on cars built after 2002 is irresistible to rodents. Nobody knows this better than those unlucky enough to park at DIA's Pikes Peak lot. The rabbits surrounding the area have been using the lot as an all-you-can-eat wiring buffet. Looks like it's time to break out The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
Robotics

Robot Drawn Caricatures 29

Posted by samzenpus from the vincent-van-gort dept.
ptresset writes "From Singularity Hub: 'Artists and programmers in the UK have decided to improve upon the male and female symbols outside many toilet facilities. They’ve developed a set of robotic arms that take pictures of people entering into a bathroom and then use that image to create a unique drawing to place outside the door. It then wipes away this art to make room for the next person’s caricature.'"
Privacy

Blizzard Rolls Out Real ID Privacy Options 145

Posted by Soulskill from the step-in-the-right-direction dept.
tacarat writes "The last time Blizzard mentioned their new Real ID system, there was a strong backlash from users over privacy issues. Blizzard reconsidered their plans to require real names for forums, and little has been heard about it since. Now, they've announced new privacy settings, allowing users to limit how their name gets shared or to disable the system entirely. Quoting: 'These options provide Real ID users with additional tools for customizing the service based on their preferences, enabling the ability to opt in or out of the Real ID "Friends of Friends" and "Add Facebook Friends" features or to turn off Real ID altogether.'"
Image

Study Finds the Perfect Ratio of Attractiveness 176

Posted by samzenpus from the hey-there-big-arms dept.
Gksksla writes "Scientists in Australia and Hong Kong have conducted a comprehensive study to discover how different body measurements correspond with ratings of female attractiveness. The study, published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, found that across cultural divides young, tall and long armed women were considered the most attractive."
Image

Frustrated Reporter Quits After Slow News Day 178

Posted by samzenpus from the take-this-job-and-shove-it dept.
Norwegian radio journalist Pia Beathe Pedersen quit on the air complaining that her bosses were making her read news on a day when "nothing important has happened." Pedersen claimed that broadcaster NRK put too much pressure on the staff and that she "wanted to be able to eat properly again and be able to breathe," during her nearly two-minute on-air resignation.
Google

Google Caffeine Drops MapReduce, Adds "Colossus" 65

Posted by samzenpus from the time-to-upgrade dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With its new Caffeine search indexing system, Google has moved away from its MapReduce distributed number crunching platform in favor of a setup that mirrors database programming. The index is stored in Google's BigTable distributed database, and Caffeine allows for incremental changes to the database itself. The system also uses an update to the Google File System codenamed 'Colossus.'"
Image

World's First Transcontinental Anesthesia 83

Posted by samzenpus from the ping-me-when-the-patient-is-asleep dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Medical Daily reports: 'Video conferences may be known for putting people to sleep, but never like this. Dr. Thomas Hemmerling and his team of McGill's Department of Anesthesia achieved a world first on August 30, 2010, when they treated patients undergoing thyroid gland surgery in Italy remotely from Montreal. The approach is part of new technological advancements, known as 'Teleanesthesia', and it involves a team of engineers, researchers and anesthesiologists who will ultimately apply the drugs intravenously which are then controlled remotely through an automated system.'"
Space

Arms Regulations Damaging US Space Industry 184

Posted by Soulskill from the law-of-unintended-consequences dept.
athe!st writes "International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) are a major headache for companies trying to put their satellites into space, so much so that some companies are using 'ITAR-free' (aka free of US technology) as a selling point. The European Space Agency is trying to reduce its dependence on ITAR components, and the regulations are also threatening the nascent space tourism industry."
Image

Digg In the Future 54

Posted by samzenpus from the I-thought-there-would-be-more-sparkles dept.
jamie writes "A new site called Digg In The Future - created by 17-year-old high-school student Raj Vir as a research project - says that its algorithm can predict with 63-percent accuracy what shared links are going to make it to the front page of the Digg website. (Does it allow for brigades?)"
Books

"Choose Your Own Adventure" On Your iPhone 135

Posted by samzenpus from the turn-to-page-14 dept.
If you spent a good portion of your childhood reading the classic "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, you'll be glad to know that you can soon waste countless hours at work turning to random pages on your iPhone. Edward Packard, one of the original authors of the series, has helped create an app called U-Ventures which uses special effects to create a story in the traditional Choose Your Own Adventure format. From the article: "The first U-Venture is a sort of a sequel to a classic title, The Cave of Time. In 'Return to the Cave of Time,' the U-Venture, 'you go back in the cave — you don't have a choice on that,' Packard tells NPR's Neal Conan. But from that point on, the reader chooses her own course."
Image

Man Takes Up Internal Farming 136

Posted by samzenpus from the cardiovascular-farming dept.
RockDoctor writes "'A Massachusetts man who was rushed to hospital with a collapsed lung came home with an unusual diagnosis: a pea plant was growing in his lung.' Just that summary should tell you enough to work out most of the rest of the details, but it does raise a number of questions unaddressed by the article: How did the pea roots deal with the patient's immune system? What would have happened if the situation had continued un-treated? I bet the guy has a career awaiting him in PR for a pea-growing company."
The Almighty Buck

EVE Player Loses $1,200 Worth of Game Time In-Game 620

Posted by Soulskill from the sorry-about-your-luck dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Massively.com has reported that an EVE Online player recently lost over $1,200 worth of in-game items during a pirate attack. The player in question was carrying 74 PLEX in their ship's cargo hold — in-game 'Pilot's License Extensions' that award 30 days of EVE Online time when used on your account. When the ship was blown up by another player, all 74 PLEX were destroyed in the resulting blast, costing $1,200 worth of damage, or over 6 years of EVE subscription time, however you prefer to count it. Ow."

Slashdot Top Deals

Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

Close