Comment Helium cost (Score 1) 76
What with the rising cost of helium... what a terrible waste of a resource we're running out of ! It also must've cost a fortune.
Comment Sigh... again ? (Score 1) 299
When will the mathematicians give up on Pi as some sort of grand benchmark.... couldn't they do better things to benchmark their systems... like running a folding@home client, or some such thing?
Honestly.. the first thing I thought when I saw this was... wow.. how.. uncreative...
How is this going to help them beat out Google and MS again ?
Not to bash on Yahoo.. they were once a great service/company... but they're quickly becoming a has-been. What they desperately need, and what everyone in this sector needs, is creativity. This sort of horn tooting doesn't really impress me, so much as it depresses me that people are benchmarking their systems on the same old problem again and again.
Comment Re:How Does the Same Company Make iPods and iTunes (Score 4, Informative) 390
There's no auto-opt-in for ping.. you have to turn it on manually.
The Race To Beer With 50% Alcohol By Volume 297
ElectricSteve writes "Most of the world's beer has between 4% and 6% alcohol by volume (ABV). The strength of beer achieved by traditional fermentation brewing methods has limits, but a well-crafted beer that is repeatedly 'freeze distilled' can achieve exquisite qualities and much higher alcohol concentrations. An escalation in the use of this relatively new methodology over the last 12 months has seen man's favorite beverage suddenly move into the 40+% ABV realm of spirits such as gin, rum, brandy, whiskey, and vodka, creating a new category of extreme beer. The world's strongest beer was 27% ABV, but amidst an informal contest to claim the title of the world's strongest beer, the top beer has jumped in strength dramatically. This week Gizmag spoke to the brewers at the center of the escalating competition. New contestants are gathering, and the race is now on to break 50% alcohol by volume."
Comment Re:Raw Data Video (Score 3, Informative) 133
Warning.. movies appear to be in crap-tastic Indeo 5 format
Comment Raw Data Video (Score 4, Informative) 133
Available here free of charge:
Comment Sounds like.. (Score 3, Funny) 633
That's funny.. working at R* sounds just like being a grad student.
Comment Misleading title and summary ! (Score 3, Insightful) 766
If you actually read the journal article, all you will find is a LOT of criticism of Monsanto's statistical methodology (which may be valid), but very little (if any) of any actual evidence of toxicity.
Basically , they claim (which may be correct): Monsanto didn't do their studies properly! They should've used more rats, for longer, and with more measured parameters !
And THEN they turn around and claim... even though the study is statistically unsound (according to their own argument), we're going to draw some conclusions that are weak to begin with, even within the weak frame of this supposedly faulty study !
It just doesn't make much sense.... from a professional scientists' standpoint (mine), this amounts to a lot of hemming and hawing about experimental methods, but absolutely nothing in the way of conclusions !
Comment Re:Hints (Score 1) 337
On the Mac OS X version I dont actually see a home button in the Customize Toolbar dialog. Furthermore, switching small icons on/off appears to do nothing on OS X.
Submission + - RIAA attacks Fair use (washingtonpost.com)
cyberfunk2 writes: It seems the RIAA has finally decided to drink their own koolaid. It seems the aforementioned entity is attacking the what most people believe to be holy ground in a case against Jeffrey Howell. The Washington Post reports In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer. For his part, RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said in a statement that the industry "will continue to bring lawsuits" against those who "ignore years of warnings,". "It's not our first choice, but it's a necessary part of the equation. There are consequences for breaking the law." Fair use anyone ?
Judge — "Making Available" Is Stealing Music 489
JonathanF writes "If you were hoping judges would see reason and realize that just using a program that could violate copyright law is about as illegal as leaving your back door unlocked, think again. An Arizona district judge has ruled that a couple who hosted files in KaZaA is liable for over $40K in damages just because they 'made available' songs that could have been pirated by someone, somewhere. There's legal precedent, but how long do we have before the BitTorrent crew is sued?" The New York case testing the same theory is still pending.
Free Tuition for Math, Science, and Engineering? 766
Gibbs-Duhem writes "Montana Democratic Senator Max Baucus wants free college tuition for US math, science, and engineering majors conditional upon working or teaching in the field for at least four years. From the article: 'The goal, he said in an interview last week, is to better prepare children for school and get more of them into college to make the United States more globally competitive, particularly with countries like China and India. "I think the challenge is fierce, and I think we have a real obligation to go the extra mile and redo things a bit differently, so we leave this place in better shape than we found it," Baucus said.' Do you think this would help with the US's lackluster performance in these fields?"
Comment Re:Ask yourself this... (Score 1) 1583
You mean the one gesturing wildly and acting in a threatening manner? He was being an idiot, I'm surprised they didn't tell him to back off sooner.
Not that what these zap-happy fools did was right, but after seeing what they're willing to do it's really stupid to get up in their faces. Take their names and badge numbers, report them. Don't pace back and forth trying to talk shit to people who are obviously unreasonable and armed. The guy's lucky he was only threatened with the tazer.
Not that what these zap-happy fools did was right, but after seeing what they're willing to do it's really stupid to get up in their faces. Take their names and badge numbers, report them. Don't pace back and forth trying to talk shit to people who are obviously unreasonable and armed. The guy's lucky he was only threatened with the tazer.
Spam That Delivers a Pink Slip 160
alphadogg wrote in with a Network World story that begins: "Last week, a handful of employees at Dekalb Medical Center in Decatur, Ga., received e-mails saying they were being laid off. The subject line read 'Urgent — employment issue,' and the sender listed on the message was at dekalb.org, which is the domain the medical center uses. The e-mail contained a link to a Web site that claimed to offer career-counseling information. And so a few employees, concerned about their employment status and no doubt miffed about being laid off via e-mail, clicked on the link to learn more and unwittingly downloaded a keylogger program that was lurking at the site. Score another one for spammers."
What a Vista Upgrade Will Really Cost You 482
narramissic writes, "James Gaskin wrote an interesting article this week about what he recons it will really cost organizations to upgrade to Vista. Gaskin estimates that each Vista user will 'cost your company between $3,250 and $5,000. That's each and every Vista user. Money will go to Microsoft for Vista and Office 2007, to hardware vendors for new PCs and components, and possibly a few bucks to Apple for those users jumping to a Mac.'" Any sense of how realistic those figures are?
