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Comment Re:only works in certain cities? (Score 1) 629

by Bamafan77 (#21786912) Attached to: Mathematicians Solve the Mystery of Traffic Jams

"When I moved to Cali we started visiting my wife's parents every Sunday, like an hour away. I lived 1:30 from my parents (in Cincy) when I was in Columbus and going home was a huge weekend affair, not a afternoon trip. Strange how that all works out."
I too moved out to SoCal from a smaller city and have noticed the same thing. Once upon a time a 1 hour car drive was a Big Deal. Out here? Pfft, that counts as an OK (but not great) daily commute. SoCal warps the mind. And don't get me started on real estate prices...
Sci-Fi

Does Active SETI Put Earth in Danger? 647

Posted by Zonk from the omg-greys dept.
Ponca City, We Love You writes "There is an interesting story in Seed Magazine on active SETI — sending out signals to try to contact other civilizations in nearby star systems. Alexander Zaitsev, Chief Scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, has access to one of the most powerful radio transmitters on Earth and has already sent several messages to nearby, sun-like stars. But some scientists think that Zaitsev is not only acting out of turn by independently speaking for everyone on the entire planet but believe there are possible dangers we may unleash by announcing ourselves to the unknown darkness. This ground has been explored before in countless works of science fiction most notably "The Killing Star," a 1995 novel that paints a frightening picture of interstellar civilizations exterminating their neighbors with relativistic bombardments, not from malice, but simply because it is the most logical action."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - German physicists claim to break light speed (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by
5cary
5cary writes: "The Telegraph is reporting that a pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light — "an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time." By making microwave photons travel instantly between two prisms. The prisms were apparently about 3 feet apart. How do you discern "instantaneously" from 186,000 miles per second in just 3 feet?"
Businesses

Submission + - The Greening of Wal-Mart's Supply Chain

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Titan of retail outlets has been Greening their entire process for almost two years with surprising results. As a critic of Wal-Mart I never expected to see them positioning themselves to not only take advantage of easy Green cost savings but to win the Green argument versus other major retailer outlets. The depth of these efforts has even made it part of the daily jobs of their EVPs and many of their SVPs. This article by Standford Associate Professor Erica Plambeck lays out how it started, where they're at, and where they're going with their effort to become Green.
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - 4th Edition Dungons and Dragons Announced

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wizards of the coast has announced that the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons will be released in May 2008 for the Player's Handbook, June 2008 for the Dungeon Master's Guide, and July 2008 Monster Manual. Check out enworld and Wizard Universe if you cannot reach the Wizards site..
Networking

Submission + - Skype is down

Submitted by szo
szo writes: The whole skype network is down, according to the announcement it will take 12-24 hours to come back online.
OS X

Submission + - Electronic Arts abandons OS X release schedule (vnunet.com)

Submitted by
pete314
pete314 writes: "Electronic Arts promised at June's WWDC that it would launch OS X games on the same day as its Windows versions, but the gaming developer has now come back from promise. Instead the company will be looking to launch OS X versions "as close as possible". Games released for Windows in July will have their OS X versions on store shelves "soon". August launches including Madden 2008 won't be available for OS X until October."
Unix

Submission + - Linus Torvalds Writes "Good Code" (kerneltrap.org)

Submitted by PupScup
PupScup writes: KernelTrap is reviewing the Linux process scheduler code over the years. The original code was written by none other than Linus Torvalds who described it in a 1993 email, 'the linux scheduling algorithm is one of the simplest ones possible'. An entertaining (and historically prescient) comment in the code proclaimed, 'this is GOOD CODE! There probably won't be any reason to change this, as it should work well in all circumstances (ie gives IO-bound processes good response etc).' The simple algorithm was evidently good code as advertised, judged by the fact that it took over a decode for another developer to come along with something better.
The Internet

Submission + - Travelocity Fined $182K for Allowing Trips to Cuba

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "For the first time, an online travel agency has been fined for booking trips between the U.S. and Cuba, in violation of a United States embargo. Travelocity paid federal regulators $182,750 this month to settle a complaint brought by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which said the company violated the prohibition nearly 1,500 times between January 1998 and April 2004. The complaint alleged that Travelocity "provided travel-related services in which Cuba or Cuban nationals had an interest by arranging air travel and hotel reservations to, from, with or within Cuba without an OFAC license.""

Feed Techdirt: US Patent Office Making Some Changes To The Rules (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
With Congress debating patent reform and the Supreme Court correcting the mistakes of lower courts when it comes to patent laws, it seems that the US Patent and Trademark Office is finally starting to realize that there's widespread dissatisfaction with how it's going about things. Perhaps it's starting to realize that the purpose of the USPTO isn't to grant patents, but to promote innovation. To that end, it's making some minor, but still important, changes to the rules for patent examiners, hoping to improve the quality of patents being approved. The latest change is to try to cut down on overly broad patents and patents where the actual invention isn't entirely clear, by forcing applicants to only include a single invention in a claim. This way the examiners know what the invention is that they're actually supposed to be examining. The fact that this wasn't in place before (along with the suggestion that patent examiners weren't entirely sure what they were examining) should say something about the state of our patent system.
Operating Systems

Submission + - Kernel devs say VMware violates Linux copyrights (venturecake.com)

Submitted by Nailer
Nailer writes: Bloomberg believe VMware's IPO today may the largest technology offering since Google. But doubts have been cast over the company's supposedly proprietary ESX product, as top 10 Linux contributor Christopher Hellwig claims the software violates Linux kernel copyrights.
Security

Submission + - Facebook Source Code Leaked (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Hypercoyote
Hypercoyote writes: Facebook users on Monday were left contemplating the security of private details stored on the social-networking site after part of its source code was leaked onto the Internet. The site on Monday acknowledged that a section of its code had been copied and published on a blog, but stressed that none of the personal details of its 52 million users had been compromised. Over the weekend, a blog called Facebook Secrets published details of part of Facebook's source code, the set of commands which determine the way the site appears when it is viewed by users.
Editorial

Submission + - Study Shows IQ Doesn't Equal Wealth: Is I.Q Valid? (typepad.com)

Submitted by
MeMyOwnBoss
MeMyOwnBoss writes: "According to Jay Zagorsky's study published in the journal Intelligence, it's not likely. Not only was there a little-to-insignificant correlation between higher earning and a higher I.Q, but there appears to be an increase in debt and bankruptcy among those with above average intelligence quotients. The finding comes as an interesting surprise in a culture where bespectacled Bill Gates is the supreme beacon of cash, and college = success. The study is by no means conclusive, and my main beef with the outcome is the fact that all statistics were formed based on the use of Intelligence Quotient numbers (I.Q). More and more people are realizing that standardized tests fail to capture the true intelligence of many people who harbor smarts other than the bookish variety. Even the founder of the test, frenchman Alfred Binet , protests that the quiz does not adequately and permanently determine a person's intelligence: "The scale, properly speaking, does not permit the measure of intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured" While the I.Q test attempts to fix a number to a thing that we have not yet been able to concretely measure, and may be perhaps the best resource for a study of this kind, it's my suspicion that the I.Q test is outdated and in many cases unfair, as well as a poor reflection of actual intelligence in all people. Maybe the measure of intelligence is the reason for the lack of correlation, not the actual smarts themselves? I wouldn't doubt it."

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