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Comment Sigh... again ? (Score 1) 299

by cyberfunk2 (#33606652) Attached to: Nicholas Sze of Yahoo Finds Two-Quadrillionth Digit of Pi

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 Misleading title and summary ! (Score 3, Insightful) 766

by cyberfunk2 (#30750582) Attached to: Organ Damage In Rats From Monsanto GMO Corn

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 !
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA attacks Fair use (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by cyberfunk2
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 ?
The Courts

Judge — "Making Available" Is Stealing Music 489

Posted by kdawson from the if-i-can-hack-into-your-computer-are-you-liable dept.
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.
Education

Free Tuition for Math, Science, and Engineering? 766

Posted by Zonk from the sign-me-up dept.
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?"

The Sharpest Object Ever Made 304

Posted by CmdrTaco from the not-as-sharp-as-my-wit dept.
ultracool writes "Forget the phrase 'sharp as a tack.' Now, thanks to new University of Alberta research, the popular expression might become, 'sharp as a single atom tip formed by chemically assisted spatially controlled field evaporation.' Maybe it doesn't roll off the tongue as easily, but considering the researchers have created the sharpest object ever made, it would be accurate."

Microsoft's IE7 Search Box Bugs Google 803

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-wait-a-minute dept.
tessaiga writes "The New York Times reports that Google is crying foul over a new IE7 search box feature that defaults to MSN Search. Although the feature can be modified to use Google or other search engines, Google asserts that "The best way to handle the search box [...] would be to give users a choice when they first start up Internet Explorer 7." Google goes on to assert that the move "limits consumer choice and is reminiscent of the tactics that got Microsoft into antitrust trouble in the late 1990s". I notice that in my version of Firefox the search box defaults to Google, and that the pulldown menu of pre-entered options doesn't even include MSN Search, but Google seems to have been oddly quiet on that front for the many years prior to IE7 that Firefox has made this feature available."

IBM Says SCO Willfully Failed To Detail Evidence 188

Posted by Zonk from the suspiciously-vague dept.
Robert wrote to mention a piece on CBR Online where the latest volley in the SCO case is covered. IBM is now accusing SCO of having acted in bad faith when they opened the trial against IBM, by being purposefully vague in their evidence. From the article: "All in all, according to IBM, SCO's evidence filing makes it impossible for the company to defend itself. 'By failing to provide adequate reference points, SCO has left IBM no way to evaluate its claims without surveying the entire universe of potentially relevant code and guessing ... Since only SCO knows what its claims are, requiring such an exercise of IBM would be as senseless and unfair as it would be Herculean.'"

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