Comment Re:Defense vs offense (Score 2) 381
My line of thought would be along the lines of big sunglasses and a fake beard.
I have a beard and wear sunglasses outside
Comment Re:wait a sec... (Score 1) 488
Easy. Use fertilizers 2, 4, 6, and 8. Find the one that performed best, and put the two fertilizers on either side of it on the next to trays. Either that one, of one of the last two will be the best.
This only works if the performance is convex.
If the test creators didn't specify that in some way, then there's a problem with the test.
The report does not contain the string "fertilizer" so it's a bit hard to tell what the question said.
Lego Robot Solves Bigger and Harder Rubik's Cubes 63
kkleiner writes "It was only two months ago that we saw Mike Dobson's Cube Stormer Lego robot that could solve any 3x3 Rubik's cube in less than 12 seconds. You would think that there was only one person in the world crazy enough and talented enough to pull this off, but now we have found someone else that is just as amazing. The latest Rubik's cube-solving Lego monstrosity is called the MultiCuber, and although it's constructed out of nothing but Mindstorms components and a laptop, it can solve 2×2, 3×3, 4×4, and 5×5 cubes all in the same build! As if that weren't enough, a larger version solves the dreaded 6×6 Rubik's. We discovered the MultiCuber when its creator, David Gilday (IAssemble), wrote us an email to brag about its puzzle-solving might. Consider us impressed, sir."
Patent Markings May Spell Trouble For Activision 82
eldavojohn writes "If you pick up your copy of Guitar Hero and read the literature, you'll notice it says 'patent pending' and cites a number of patents. A group alleges no such patent pends nor are some of the patents applicable. If a judge finds Activision guilty of misleading the public in this manner, they could become liable for up to $500 per product sold under false patent marking. The patents in question seem to be legitimately Guitar Hero-oriented, and little is to be found about the mysterious group. The final piece of the puzzle puts the filing in Texas Northern District Court, which might be close enough to Texas Eastern District Court to write this off as a new kind of 'false patent marking troll' targeting big fish with deep coffers."
Submission + - Supercomputer Visualization Without Graphics Chips (technologyreview.com)
Al writes: "While the speed at which supercomputers can process data is growing rapidly, the same can't be said of the speed at which they can input and output that data. The result, is that some research teams are doing away with graphics-processing clusters altogether, and using the regular hardware for visualization instead. Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and the University of California at Davis created software for Intrepid, an IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer at ANL, that allows it to bypasses the graphics-processing cluster entirely, while producing spectacular supernova visualizations. "It allows us to [visualize experiments] in a place that's closer to where data reside--on the same machine," says lead researcher Tom Peterka. His team's solution obviates the need to take the time-consuming step of moving the data from where it was generated to a secondary computer cluster. This may be part of a broader trend, that is blurring the line between the CUP and the GPU. Only last week, AMD recently released software that allows GPU code to run on X86 CPUs."
AMD Launches New Processor Socket Despite Poor Economy 215
arcticstoat writes to tell us that despite a poor economic climate, AMD is moving forward with a new processor socket launch, although they are trying to make it as upgrade-friendly as possible. "As you probably already know from the AM3 motherboards that have already been announced, AM3 is AMD's first foray into DDR3 memory support. As Phenom CPUs have integrated memory controllers, it's more accurate to say that it's the new range of Phenom II CPUs (see below) that are DDR3-compatible. However, the new DDR3-compatible Phenom II range is also compatible with DDR2 memory. As the new CPUs and the new AM3 socket are pin-compatible with the current AM2+ socket, you can put a new AM3-compatible CPU into an existing AM2+ motherboard. This means that you can upgrade your CPU now without needing to change your motherboard or buy pricey new DDR3 memory."
Comment Re:I wonder what level they are blocking? (Score 1) 425
Oops, I guess the bad spelling is evidence that I shouldn't reply passed my bedtime.
Ohio University's network staff have had the ability to turn off the Ethernet ports to individual computers for some time. They have been using this to disable all Internet access for computers that have been infected by malicious software.
It sounds to me like they will use the same method to stop file sharing. So internal file sharing will not work. When a computer is blocked it is completely removed from the Ethernet or wireless network.
Ohio University's network staff have had the ability to turn off the Ethernet ports to individual computers for some time. They have been using this to disable all Internet access for computers that have been infected by malicious software.
It sounds to me like they will use the same method to stop file sharing. So internal file sharing will not work. When a computer is blocked it is completely removed from the Ethernet or wireless network.
