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Comment Re:Button down the hatches (Score 1) 658

by WasteOfAmmo (#25559277) Attached to: Hallowe'en means to me primarily ...

I absolutely agree. Halloween is great and so far as I'm concerned it is the one holiday that society can feel free to commercialize the hell out of it.

We dress up the front yard every year also. To date it has been things like a grave yard and spooky lighting. As of a couple of years ago my two oldest were getting to the point where going out trick-or-treating was not appropriate for them so the started "helping out" in the yard on Halloween night. They typically dress up as a ghoul or zombie in a head to toe costume including gloves, etc. so nothing gives them straight away. Then they either crouch down somewhere or lay out on the lawn amongst leaves and stuff, generally trying to look like a bought Halloween decoration. The object of course is to scare the hell out of kids (and parents) who walk by. They usually wait until the kids get their candy at the door and then sit up, groan loudly, shudder, or reach out as the group goes by on the way out of the yard. The kids (and parents) then proceed to break their legs attempting to run down the block.

We have always gotten a good response and my boys are sensitive to wee ones (even to the point of removing masks and taking candy out to those who won't come into the yard).

This year I have added a fake fire with a spit and skeleton torso along with a smoke machine to the setup. Should be fun!
Image

Dallas Schools Extend Homework Due Dates Indefinitely Screenshot-sm 8

Posted by samzenpus from the making-idiocracy-seem-more-likely-one-day-at-a-time dept.
New classroom grading rules in Dallas are drawing fire from teachers and parents as being too lenient on lazy students. The new rules would require teachers to accept late work, give retests to students who fail and force teachers to drop homework grades that would drag down a student's class average. Nancy Bingham, a former teacher, said that she didn't think the rules would help really lazy students adding, "If the kid is hell-bent on failing, they're going to fail anyway." Dallas school superintendent Michael Hinojosa disagrees, saying, "Our mission is not to fail kids. Our mission is to make sure they get it, and we believe that effort creates ability." It's a lot easier to reach for the stars if you lower the sky.
Classic Games (Games)

Old Computer Game Covers - Collectible, Or Just Nostalgia? 152

Posted by Soulskill from the trip-down-read-only-memory-lane dept.
zentechno writes "While cleaning out some very old boxes in a long-untouched closet, I discovered my first supply of PC games, some of which came out when 386s were new. While there's almost zero use for these, I still think the cover art is quite cool. I found the original Zork, its sequels, Enchanter, and Sorcerer from InfoCom, Star Trek: 'The Kobayashi Alternative' from Simon & Schuster, Pool of Radiance and Eye of the Beholder from SSI, Loom by Lucas Games, Nuclear War from New World, Annals of Rome and FireZone from PSS, Sidewinder from EA, and Defender of the Crown from Mindscape, to name many. I loved these games, and wonder if there's any sort of serious collector's market out there as exists for vinyl album art — or is it just a personal thing?" I know I'll always hang on to my copies of Star Control II and Think Quick! from when I was a wee PC gamer. What's still rattling around in your closet?
Robotics

Submission + - Win a Robot

Submitted by
dougblank
dougblank writes: "Now that RoboCup is over, you may be looking for other robot challenges. This summer there are at least two competitions and a couple of sweepstakes to give away robots. The easy way: you can enter to win robots by taking a survey on Robots and Education, or answer a 1-question quiz on dinosaurs to win a Pleo (hint: the devil did NOT bury fossilized dinos to test your faith). The harder way: you can win $5k or some Creates from iRobot by designing and building your own creation. Finally, you can enter the premier research robotics competition and exhibition at AAAI. Do you know of other robot competitions or giveaways this summer?"
Editorial

Submission + - Car-2-Car technologies to help make driving safer 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Car manufacturers around the world are working on vehicle-to-vehicle technologies to help make driving safer. The Car-2-Car Consortium's system, which includes GM's Vehicle-to-Vehicle project, combines three technologies — a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) antenna, a wireless data system and a computer that interprets the information it receives. GPS tracks the position of the car while sensor data from the car — such as speed, direction, road conditions and if the windscreen wipers are on and if the brakes have been stamped on — is monitored by the on-board computer. A wireless system similar to existing wi-fi technology — based on the 802.11p protocol — transmits and receives data to and from nearby cars, creating an ad-hoc network. Data hops from car to car and the on-board computers can build a picture of road and traffic conditions based on information from multiple vehicles across a great distance. Cars travelling in opposite directions can share information about where they have been and so informing each other about where they are going. Vehicle to vehicle technology Traffic information about roadworks and speed limits can be displayed "The wireless system has a range of 500m outside the city and 100m in the city," said Prof Wieker. He said the consortium had opted for wireless rather than a mobile network because it was faster. "The data moves between cars in milliseconds," he said. Drivers receive warnings through messages on an in-car display, audio alerts and even seat vibrations. The system works through "data fusion and logical combination of information", said Prof Wieker. For example, if one driver switches on his fog lamp and slows down, the computer could interpret it as an anomaly. But if three or four cars follow suit, the computer could reasonably assume that there is a fog problem. The system stores this information and passes it on to cars several kilometres down the road which are travelling in the opposite direction, heading towards the fog problem. "It is useful not only as a safety system but could also be used to improve traffic efficiency," said Prof Wieker. The backers envisage the technology being embedded into traffic lights and road signs so that real-time traffic information can be passed to cars, potentially funnelling motorists to alternative routes.
Space

Submission + - Armadillo Aerospace Demonstrates LLC Stage 1 (armadilloaerospace.com)

Submitted by
QuantumG
QuantumG writes: "John Carmack (of Doom fame) and his rocket company Armadillo Aerospace have demonstrated their entry into the X-Prize/NASA Lunar Lander Challenge, first stage, at the Oklahoma Spaceport. Representatives from AST and the X-Prize Cup were present. A 3 minute, 41 second video of the feat has been posted by Carmack to the company's web site in a recent update, where he complains that were the competition not tied to a promotional event later this year, his company could have already claimed the $500,000 prize. The challenge venue will be hosted at this year's X-Prize Cup on October 26-28, 2007, at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico."
Displays

Submission + - Thin flourescent-like foil lamps (photonics.com)

Submitted by ookabooka
ookabooka writes: "Lamps the diameter of a human hair, made with foil and tiny plasma arrays, are being developed for use in residential and commercial lighting and some biomedical applications.
'Built of aluminum foil, sapphire and small amounts of gas, the panels are less than 1 millimeter thick, and can hang on a wall like picture frames,' said Gary Eden, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, and corresponding author of a paper describing the microcavity plasma lamps."

Article goes on to explain that the efficiency is higher than incandescents (10-17 lpW) at 15 lpw, and are expected to reach about 30 lpw. Conventional fluorescent lighting ranges from 50-100 lpW. Still the dimensions ("the diameter of a human hair") allow the device to replace cold cathodes in LCDs or any number of interesting applications.
Privacy

Lip-Reading Surveillance Cameras 271

Posted by kdawson from the open-the-pod-bay-doors dept.
mrogers sends us to Infowars for the following news from the UK, "which is fast becoming the front line of the war on privacy": "'Read my lips..."' used to be a figurative saying. Now the British government is considering taking it literally by adding lip reading technology to some of the four million or so surveillance cameras in order identify terrorists and criminals by watching what everyone says. Perhaps the lip-reading cameras and the shouting cameras will find something to talk about."
IBM

Submission + - IBM to demonstrate high-speed chip

Submitted by
Hedbonker
Hedbonker writes: "http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_5523978 IBM will demonstrate a new chipset today that can download a high-definition movie in a single second, compared to the current time of 30 minutes or more. The company said its optical transceiver chipset transfers information eight times as fast as currently available components. Such high speeds would have a significant impact on the way people share and access media and informmation, from video to music to corporate financial data."
Power

Submission + - Power Use in Data Centers To Exceed All US TVs

Submitted by roj3
roj3 writes: eWeek is covering a recent report (PDF), showing data centers will soon be drawing more power than all the televisions in the United States. The report "Estimating Total Power Consumption By Servers In The U.S. And The World" was completed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at Stanford. Will widespread use of data center advancements like virtual servers and booting diskless servers from a SAN keep power use in check? Or, like Google and Yahoo, will we all need our own hydro dams to power our file servers?
Corel

Submission + - Corel Goes 2.0 With Free WordPerfect Lightning

Submitted by
Diggercoops
Diggercoops writes: "With Microsoft still counting their money on the desktop and Google moving everything online, Corel is trying to slip up the middle with what being called a 'hybrid' approach to office productivity — putting a free light client on the desktop and a series of Online Services on the Web, all under the name "WordPerfect Lightning." Microsoft Watch and CNET both have stories."
Space

Submission + - Hubble Telescope's Main Camera Shuts Down

Submitted by anthemaniac
anthemaniac writes: Space.com is reporting that the aging observatory's primary camera, the ACS, has been in safe mode since the weekend. From the article: 'An initial investigation indicates the camera has stopped functioning, and the input power feed to its Side B electronics package has failed.' The camera has shut down before and been revived.

DARPA Starts Ultimate Language Translation Project 123

Posted by CmdrTaco from the teach-it-klingon-first-please dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched the ultimate speech translation engine project that would be capable of real-time interpretation of television and radio programs as well as printed or online textual information in order to be summarized, abstracted, and presented to human analysts emphasizing points of particular interest." If combined with the tower of babel project we discussed earlier, it could only lead to awesomeness.

Most Search Engine Users Stop at Page 3 190

Posted by Zonk from the keep-going-there-is-more-there dept.
ambient12 writes "The BBC reports on a study saying that, despite the depth of content internet search providers offer, most people stop at page 3 or earlier." From the article: "It also found that a third of users linked companies in the first page of results with top brands. The study surveyed 2,369 people from a US online consumer panel. It also found 62% of those surveyed clicked on a result on the first page, up from 48% in 2002. Some 90% of consumers clicked on a link in these pages, up from 81% in 2002. "

Pentium Computers Vulnerable to Attack? 227

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the sounds-like-more-work-than-it's-worth dept.
An anonymous reader writes "One of the latest security scares is coming from security experts at CanSecWest/core '06 in the form of a possible hardware-specific attack. The attack is based on the built-in procedure that Pentium based chips use when they overheat. From the article: 'When the processor begins to overheat or encounters other conditions that could threaten the motherboard, the computer interrupts its normal operation, momentarily freezes and stores its activity, said Loïc Duflot, a computer security specialist for the French government's Secretary General for National Defense information technology laboratory. Cyberattackers can take over a computer by appropriating that safeguard to make the machine interrupt operations and enter System Management Mode, Duflot said. Attackers then enter the System Management RAM and replace the default emergency-response software with custom software that, when run, will give them full administrative privileges.'"

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