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Comment Re:This isn't going to do much (Score 1) 68

by stoborrobots (#47358205) Attached to: Reading Rainbow Kickstarter Heads Into Home Stretch

http://www.jstor.org/stable/41...

http://jlr.sagepub.com/content...

http://works.bepress.com/leah_...

http://www.npr.org/2009/08/28/...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03...

http://www.literacytrust.org.u...:

Educational programming has also aimed to elevate knowledge of texts and literacy as in the programmes Barney and Friends (Guofang, 1999) and Reading Rainbow (Wood and Duke, 1997), which offer content on reading books and raising childrenâ(TM)s knowledge of books. This is important since researchers at the University of Sheffield have also suggested that pre-schoolers who develop an ability to talk about texts become familiar with literacy and have greater success with learning to read once they enter school (Hannon, 2000; Hannon, Weinberger and Nutbrown, 1991). "

Submission + - So, NVIDIA Used Open Source to Put Portal, Half-Life 2 On SHIELD, Hmmmmmm (nvidia.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: To put Valve’s games on Android, NVIDIA relied on an open-source project spearheaded by NVIDIA's engineers — REGAL – that lets developers move code built for PCs using OpenGL – a standard that helps developers quickly add cutting-edge graphics to their game — to mobile devices that rely on a special version of OpenGL known as OpenGL ES 2. So, anyone else thinking what I'm thinking? Maybe it's time to put Portal, Half-Life 2 on some more mobile devices.

Submission + - Should Billionaire-Backed Code.org Pay Its Interns?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Code.org's Corporate and Founding Donors page reads like a Who's Who of the world's wealthiest corporations and individuals. But a job posting entitled Marketing / Communications Intern (Seattle only, part-time, unpaid, Sept-Dec) (screenshot) makes it clear that no portion of the tax-deductible donations will trickle down to the successful candidate, who will be required to put in an unpaid 10-20 hours/week "under pressure" in a "fast-paced environment" for four months "assisting marketing efforts for December’s global Hour of Code campaign, coordinating prize packages, managing partner commitments and events in databases and researching media prospects." So, does this count as one of the "high-paying jobs" provided by the computing revolution that Code.org supporters told California Governor Jerry Brown about last May in a letter touting the Hour of Code? Perhaps Code.org is just trying to be frugal — after all, it's requiring K-12 teachers from school districts in Chicago, New York City, Boston, and Seattle to report to the presumably rent-free offices of Corporate Donors Google, Microsoft, and Amazon to be re-educated on how Computer Science should be taught.

Submission + - $500k "Energy-Harvesting" Kickstarter scam unfolding right now. (drop-kicker.com)

Submitted by FryingLizard
FryingLizard writes: For a while I've been following the saga of the Kickstarter "iFind" Bluetooth 4.0 tracking tag. Nothing new about such tags (there are many crowdfunded examples; some have delivered, some have disappointed), but this one claims it doesn't require any batteries — it harvests its energy from electromagnetic emissions (wifi, cell towers, TV signals, etc). The creators have posted no evidence other than some slick photoshop work, an obviously faked video, and some easily disproven data and classic bad science.
So far they've picked up half a million in pledges. With six days to go until they walk off with the money, skeptics abound (10min in) including some excellent dissections of their claims. The creators have yet to post even a single photo of the magical device, instead posting empty platitudes and claims that such secrecy is necessary to protect their IP.

Using just their published figures, their claims are readily refuted, yet still backers flock in. Kickstarter appear uninterested in what can only be described as a slow-motion bank robbery, despite their basic requirement to demonstrate a prototype.
It seems self-evident that such scams should not be allowed to propagate on Kickstarter, for the good of other genuine projects and the community at large.
Skeptics are maintaining a google doc with many of the highlights of the action.

Bring your own popcorn and enjoy the show.

Comment Re:Two things (Score 2) 85

by stoborrobots (#47270097) Attached to: The Game Theory of Life

When you have two distinct things, which you understand to different extents, proving that they're identical allows you to learn about one thing from the knowledge of the other thing.

To use your example:

Prior to today, we knew that cats lapped up milk with their tongues, and also preen their fur with their tongues. Also prior to today, we knew that a Japanese animal called neko coughs up balls of stuff.

Today we found out that cats are identical to neko.

We now know that cats cough up balls of stuff, and that neko preen their fur with their tongue. We might now use this new-found knowledge to identify that the coughed up balls of stuff were probably derived from fur and/or milk.

Submission + - AOL hacked; security questions/answers, contact info compromised (aolcdn.com)

Submitted by Ccmods
Ccmods writes: Users of the AOL instant messenger product are receiving messages from the AOL system account indicating that a security breach has occurred within AOL's systems, and the following information may have been compromised: email addresses, postal addresses, contact information (as stored in the AOL Mail "address book"), encrypted account passwords, and the encrypted answers to account security questions. AOL is advising users to change their password if it was reused on other sites.

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I've noticed several design suggestions in your code.

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