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Comment Let's set the record straight (Score 2) 180

by jma34 (#36403162) Attached to: Data Review Brings Major Setback In Higgs Boson Hunt

Let's get things straightened out. About a month ago the CDF experiment at the Tevatron at Fermilab found a "bump" in their data. It was statistically significant and was unexplained. This "bump" cannot be the Higgs boson from The Standard Model because it has the completely wrong cross-section. This was a fully public result from the CDF experiment.

About the same time there was a "leaked" abstract from an internal note from the ATLAS experiment at the LHC which claimed to have a signal for a Higgs boson. This was never a public or published result.

Now today we have an announcement from the D0 experiment at the Tevatron that they looked into the CDF bump and see nothing. This isn't a set back for the Higgs since it was never about the Higgs. The ATLAS leaked abstract has never been confirmed even by ATLAS so lets not get our underpants in a knot. Lets also not conflate the two since they don't have anything to do with each other.
Education

Study Finds That Video Games Hinder Learning In Young Boys 278

Posted by Soulskill from the fun-activities-distract-from-studies,-film-at-11 dept.
dcollins writes "Researchers at Denison University in Ohio have shown that giving PlayStations to young boys leads to slower progress in reading and writing skills. Quoting: 'The study is the first controlled trial to look at the effects of playing video games on learning in young boys. That is to say, the findings aren't based on survey data of kids' game habits, but instead on a specific group of children that were randomly assigned to receive a PlayStation or not ... Those with PlayStations also spent less time engaged in educational activities after school and showed less advancement in their reading and writing skills over time than the control group, according to tests taken by the kids. While the game-system owners didn't show significant behavioral problems, their teachers did report delays in learning academic skills, including writing and spelling.'"
NASA

Gamma Ray Mystery Reestablished By Fermi Telescope 95

Posted by Soulskill from the back-to-the-drawing-board dept.
eldavojohn writes "New observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveal that our assumptions about the 'fog' of gamma rays in our universe are not entirely explained by black hole-powered jets emanating from active galaxies — as we previously hypothesized. For now, the researchers are representing the source of unaccounted gamma rays with a dragon (as in 'here be') symbol. A researcher explained that they are certain about this, given Fermi's observations: 'Active galaxies can explain less than 30 percent of the extragalactic gamma-ray background Fermi sees. That leaves a lot of room for scientific discovery as we puzzle out what else may be responsible.' And so we reopen the chapter on background gamma-rays in the science textbooks and hope this eventually sheds even more light on other mysteries of space — like star formation and dark matter."

Comment Re:Thinkpad (Lenovo) sucks my ass (Score 2, Interesting) 291

by jma34 (#27552271) Attached to: My laptop's battery generally lasts ...

I have an x200 and I absolutely love it. My previous laptop was an HP which got ~2.5 hours when it was brand new but was down to about 10 minutes after a year. My x200 gets about 10 hours of battery life with the wireless on. I have the solid state drive and the large battery. I use it all day in meetings for work without plugging it in. Granted its new right now, it's an portable type laptop while my HP wasn't so the comparison isn't completely fair, but I'm hoping that the battery keeps it up.
Medicine

Stimulus Avoids Serious Solutions For Health IT 184

Posted by kdawson from the add-just-one-sentence dept.
ivaldes3 writes in to note his post up on Linux Medical News, pointing out the severe shortcomings of the Health IT provisions of the just-passed stimulus bill. "The government has authorized enough money to purchase EMR freedom for the nation. Instead the government appears set to double down on proprietary lock-down. The government currently appears poised to purchase serfdom instead of freedom and performance for patients, practitioners and the nation. An intellectual and financial servitude to proprietary EMR companies for little or no gain. A truly bad bargain."
Censorship

Doctors Silencing Online Patient Reviews Via Contract 324

Posted by timothy from the that's-one-view-of-the-1st-amendment dept.
Condiment writes "Next time you're sick, take five and actually read the pile of contracts your doctor dumps on your lap, because it's becoming more and more likely that your doctors are banning patients from posting reviews on the Web. You heard that right: as a prerequisite to receiving medical care, patients are in many cases required to sign away their First Amendment rights!"
The Courts

Utah Trying To Restrict Keyword Advertising ... Again 257

Posted by CmdrTaco from the aren't-they-all-porn-junkies-in-utah dept.
Eric Goldman writes "The Utah legislature has tried to restrict keyword advertising twice before, with disastrous results. In 2004, Utah tried to ban keyword advertising in adware; that law was declared unconstitutional. In 2007, Utah tried to regulate competitive keyword advertising; after a firestorm of protests, Utah repealed the law in 2008. Despite this track record, Utah is trying to regulate keyword advertising a third time. HB 450 would allow trademark owners to block competitors from displaying certain types of keyword ads. In practice, this law is just another attempt by the Utah legislature to enact a law that doesn't help consumers at all but does help trademark owners suppress their online competition."

Comment Re:Other People Engage in Risky Financial Practice (Score 1) 729

by jma34 (#25205877) Attached to: With regard to the U.S. financial crisis, I'm mostly ...

I couldn't agree more.

I'm not so naive that I think it isn't going to affect me. If we let the markets work it out then it will affect me. I will have a hard time buying (not be able to buy) a home for many more years. The job market will dry up just as I am graduating. It will be tough. However I still think that the government should leave it all alone. They are welcome to try to stimulate the economy by spending money on things that the government ought to like infrastructure, education, etc, but they should stay out of the private financial markets. If it hits the regular people like myself hard then so be it. I think things will work their way out in the end.
User Journal

Journal Journal: $1/meal/person? I thought that was a NORMAL food budget! 17

Journal by Marxist Hacker 42
The Governor of Oregon and his wife have taken up The Food Stamp Challenge, a program for rich people here in Oregon to give them a taste (litterally) of how the other half lives. I think it's a good idea- but then I saw the budget: $42 for the week, or $1/person/meal. Well, I've got a 3 person family- and we try to stay under $60/week for our food, under $90 if you throw in food for t

Is It Time For .tel? 292

Posted by Hemos from the how-to-differentiate dept.
Vitaly Friedman writes "ICANN, the body responsible for creating top-level domains, is considering a new one. Conceived as a way to easily manage contact information in an age where many people have numerous contact numbers, the proposed .tel TLD would allow individuals and companies to keep all of their contact information in an easily accessible location. Companies would get companyname.tel while individuals would be able to register firstnamelastname.tel." This idea has been kicked around for quite a while; one of the question is the whole name-space collision issue. For instance, there's me and then there's other me. Lemme tell how strange it is getting fan mail for country music stars.

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