Comment Re:Fashionable Fire Extinguishers? (Score 1) 170
Pretty certain the extinguishers are a sculpture.
Comment Yeah, so far... (Score 1) 441
A king who's been dead for 5000 years from Egypt is out in front in this race. We still know THAT guy's name! This guy, I have to scroll back up to the top of the article to remember this one. Sounds like he wouldn't mind having 10000 slaves build him a pyramid, but might be having some trouble motivating them to. His efforts, of course, will be as useless as that dead king's. People have been trying to cheat death as long as there have been people, and all those people are dead. At each point along that time line, they've always used the most modern technologies money could buy. Didn't matter. Dead, every one of 'em. I'm not a bettin' man. Well, actually, I am. And I'll put my chips on Death every time. Will this time be any different? Obviously HGH and The Paleo Diet are WAY more advanced than the humors and mercury the last guy shot himself full of. Oh... heh heh heh, sorry, sometimes I kill myself...
Here's an idea, why not try actually living for a while instead of cowering in fear of the reaper? Why waste your entire life living in fear of something you can't do anything about? Just take what you have, squeeze everything you can out of it and laugh in Death's face when he comes for you.
Meet the Doctor Trying To Use the Blood of Ebola Survivors To Create a Cure 33
An anonymous reader points out this article about Dr. James Crowe, who is trying to use the blood of Ebola survivors to develop a cure. "For months, Vanderbilt University researcher Dr. James Crowe has been desperately seeking access to the blood of U.S. Ebola survivors, hoping to extract the proteins that helped them overcome the deadly virus for use in new, potent drugs. His efforts finally paid off in mid-November with a donation from Dr. Rick Sacra, a University of Massachusetts physician who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia. The donation puts Crowe at the forefront of a new model for fighting the virus, now responsible for the worst known outbreak in West Africa that has killed nearly 7,000 people. Crowe is working with privately-held drugmaker Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, which he said will manufacture the antibodies for further testing under a National Institutes of Health grant. Mapp is currently testing its own drug ZMapp, a cocktail of three antibodies that has shown promise in treating a handful of Ebola patients."
Comment Poor Alek (Score 1) 21
Everyone's going to shake their head and go "Tsk tsk, glutin finally got him." Especially once we start the rumor that he accidentally ate some glutin and died, and that's why there's not a display anymore. Right? Who's with me here?
Heh heh heh
Comment Re:Who will get (Score 1) 360
There will be fallout.
Hopefully not nuclear...
Google Unveils New Self-Driving Car Prototype 90
colinneagle writes In May, Google released a teaser image showing a mock-up of the autonomous vehicle it planned to build. Today, the company followed up with an image showing the finished product. Google says the first edition of its self-made self-driving car will feature "temporary manual controls as needed while we continue to test and learn." When Google introduced its prototype back in May, the company claimed its self-driving cars "won't have a steering wheel, accelerator pad, or brake pedal because they don't need them." Apparently, it still has yet to reach that point. The development is an important step forward for Google's driverless car efforts, which have been deemed impractical by many of late. Last year, the Financial Times reported that Google had difficulty finding manufacturing partners that would build vehicles featuring the self-driving capabilities used in its Prius. In that light, maybe Google's willingness to build its own hardware just to get the technology on the road means that its self-driving car team knows something the rest of the industry doesn't."
Minecraft Creator Notch's $70 Million Mansion Recreated In Minecraft 170
theodp writes In case you've fallen behind on your TMZ reading, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson used his Microsoft money to outbid Beyonce and Jay Z for the most expensive mansion in Beverly Hills. Now, the Minecraft mogul's new $70 million mega-mansion has been recreated inside the game that made him rich.
Comment oops! (Score 1) 360
It's so hard to keep those C64s running these days!
Submission + - Meet The Doctor Trying To Use The Blood Of Ebola Survivors To Create A Cure
An anonymous reader writes: For months, Vanderbilt University researcher Dr. James Crowe has been desperately seeking access to the blood of U.S. Ebola survivors, hoping to extract the proteins that helped them overcome the deadly virus for use in new, potent drugs. His efforts finally paid off in mid-November with a donation from Dr. Rick Sacra, a University of Massachusetts physician who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia. The donation puts Crowe at the forefront of a new model for fighting the virus, now responsible for the worst known outbreak in West Africa that has killed nearly 7,000 people. Crowe is working with privately-held drugmaker Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, which he said will manufacture the antibodies for further testing under a National Institutes of Health grant. Mapp is currently testing its own drug ZMapp, a cocktail of three antibodies that has shown promise in treating a handful of Ebola patients.
North Korean Internet Is Down 360
First time accepted submitter opentunings writes "Engadget and many others are reporting that North Korea's external Internet access is down. No information yet regrading whether anyone's taking responsibility. From the NYT: "Doug Madory, the director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, an Internet performance management company, said that North Korean Internet access first became unstable late Friday. The situation worsened over the weekend, and by Monday, North Korea’s Internet was completely offline. 'Their networks are under duress,' Mr. Madory said. 'This is consistent with a DDoS attack on their routers,' he said, referring to a distributed denial of service attack, in which attackers flood a network with traffic until it collapses under the load."
Comment Re:That seems strange (Score 4, Insightful) 187
I think there's probably a reasonable argument to be made that a move to a foreign location, even one nominally more "native" than a zoo, is a definite hardship on an animal who has become habituated to a specific environment.
Now, if the "zoo" in question is a 10x10 concrete room with bars, then maybe the quality of life in a larger and more natural (in the sense of less confinement and concrete) environment is worth a temporary disruption.
But what about zoos that give primates large, outdoor spaces with natural accommodations like ponds, trees, shelter and primate experts who ensure their physical health and mental stimulation? A "natural" environment may be at best an equal trade and in some instances worse if it comes with a change in the fellow-species population (change in social status, loss of familiar animals or mates, etc).
I'm not always sure that "natural" spaces really are as natural as their made out to be unless it means putting the animal back in its native environment -- sure, their animals but they can become as habituated to a captive lifestyle as any animal. My dog may love to run free outside, but he seems pretty well adapted to sleeping on the couch and probably wouldn't like being made to live outdoors 24x7 after living his life indoors.
How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years 441
HughPickens.com writes Bloomberg News reports that venture capitalist and paypal co-founder Peter Thiel has a plan to reach 120 years of age. His secret — taking human growth hormone (HGH) every day, a special Paleo diet, and a cure for cancer within ten years. "[HGH] helps maintain muscle mass, so you're much less likely to get bone injuries, arthritis," says Thiel. "There's always a worry that it increases your cancer risk but — I'm hopeful that we'll get cancer cured in the next decade." Human growth hormone also known as somatotropin or somatropin, is a peptide hormone that stimulates growth, cell reproduction and regeneration in humans and other animals. Thiel says he also follows a Paleo diet, doesn't eat sugar, drinks red wine and runs regularly. The Paleolithic diet, also popularly referred to as the caveman diet, Stone Age diet and hunter-gatherer diet, is a modern nutritional diet designed to emulate, insofar as possible using modern foods, the diet of wild plants and animals eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era. Thiel's Founders Fund is also investing in a number of biotechnology companies to extend human lifespans, including Stem CentRx Inc., which uses stem cell technology for cancer therapy. With the 70 plus years remaining him and inspired by "Atlas Shrugged," Thiel also plans to launch a floating sovereign nation in international waters, freeing him and like-minded thinkers to live by libertarian ideals with no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons.
Argentine Court Rules Orangutan Is a "Non-Human Person" 187
First time accepted submitter Andrio writes In an unprecedented decision, an Argentine court has ruled that the Sumatran orangutan 'Sandra', who has spent 20 years at the zoo in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires, should be recognized as a person with a right to freedom. The ruling, signed by the judges unanimously, would see Sandra freed from captivity and transferred to a nature sanctuary in Brazil after a court recognized the primate as a "non-human person" which has some basic human rights. The Buenos Aires zoo has 10 working days to seek an appeal." A similar case involving chimpanzees failed to provide "non-human person" status here in the U.S. earlier this month.
Comment Re:However... (Score 1) 83
My dad had zero engineering or technical ability, which I can attest to through the two lawn mowers "inspected" for problems that ended up being thrown away after too many parts were removed for inspection to reassemble, and all the shit that never got fixed around the house.
But that man could level a parked motorhome like he was Apollodorus of Damascus so we could run the refrigerator. I was always impressed with the newer motorhomes we saw on our trips that had hydraulic jacking systems built-in and could self-level, but dad always felt all you needed were a stack of 2x scraps and a fine accelerator touch. I'd swear he would occasionally use stacks of 2x4s and I'm not quite sure how he managed to get a 26' Winnebago on a stack of 2x4s.
Comment Re:Disingenuous at best. (Score 1) 153
I think they definitely get mileage out of it, but China has some of their own inbuilt paranoia about NK. The last thing the Chinese want is a war on their border. The refugee crisis would be completely destabilizing on its own let alone the risk of war with the United States.
