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Music By Natural Selection 164

Posted by samzenpus from the survival-of-the-grooviest dept.
maccallr writes "The DarwinTunes experiment needs you! Using an evolutionary algorithm and the ears of you the general public, we've been evolving a four bar loop that started out as pretty dismal primordial auditory soup and now after >27k ratings and 200 generations is sounding pretty good. Given that the only ingredients are sine waves, we're impressed. We got some coverage in the New Scientist CultureLab blog but now things have gone quiet and we'd really appreciate some Slashdotter idle time. We recently upped the maximum 'genome size' and we think that the music is already benefiting from the change."
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Dad Delivers Baby Using Wiki 249

Posted by samzenpus from the 9cm-edited dept.
sonamchauhan writes "A Londoner helped his wife deliver their baby by Googling 'how to deliver a baby' on his mobile phone. From the article: 'Today proud Mr Smith said: "The midwife had checked Emma earlier in the day but contractions started up again at about 8pm so we called the midwife to come back. But then everything happened so quickly I realized Emma was going to give birth. I wasn't sure what I was going to do so I just looked up the instructions on the internet using my BlackBerry."'"
Space

Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242

Posted by Soulskill from the i-for-one dept.
likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."
Education

US Colleges Say Hiring US Students a Bad Deal 490

Posted by CmdrTaco from the talking-to-you-cliff dept.
theodp writes "Many US colleges and universities have notices posted on their websites informing US companies that they're tax chumps if they hire students who are US citizens. 'In fact, a company may save money by hiring international students because the majority of them are exempt from Social Security (FICA) and Medicare tax requirements,' advises the taxpayer-supported University of Pittsburgh (pdf) as it makes the case against hiring its own US students. You'll find identical pitches made by the University of Delaware, the University of Cincinnati, Kansas State University, the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, Iowa State University, and other public colleges and universities. The same message is also echoed by private schools, such as John Hopkins University, Brown University, Rollins College and Loyola University Chicago."

Comment Re:That's funny (Score 1) 749

by Dieppe (#28888083) Attached to: RIAA Says "Don't Expect DRMed Music To Work Forever"

"[T]his compact disk will, with proper care, last for a lifetime of listening pleasure."

They do, of course, mean the lifetime of the compact disk, not your lifetime. That could be 50 years, 10 years, or 1 day in the hands of an eager toddler. It's all in what you consider to be a "lifetime"... ;)

Comment Re:There's something very wrong here. (Score 1) 322

by Dieppe (#27262153) Attached to: Making Sense of Mismatched Certificates?

Their stock has dropped from 55 to 12 since September 2008. If you have any money in there above the FDIC insurance limits, get it out now..

If anyone reading /. has money in any bank above the FDIC insurance limits---what the hell are they doing wasting time reading /. when they could be off visiting the Bahamas or something?

Comment Well.... Be more protective of your tunes then! (Score 2, Interesting) 693

by Dieppe (#26429765) Attached to: iTunes DRM-Free Files Contain Personal Info

I don't see a problem with this. Apple is providing a file without DRM, and you can then load it on any of your personal devices. Heck, you could even share it with a friend.

But, it might make you a little more careful NOT to put music files you purchase from Apple on a P2P network. Sheesh. It might add a little value to those files you downloaded at a buck a piece. It'll be worth it to you to keep those files safe.

And why not? People should be safeguarding their personal data.

And think about it.. if your iPod were stolen, and all of your files had an email address on it. It could help with the recovery of stolen property, hm?
Security

Submission + - Twitter Hacker identified - Claimed Easy Hack

Submitted by Dieppe
Dieppe writes: According to an article on Wired.com: An 18-year-old hacker with a history of celebrity pranks has admitted to Monday's hijacking of multiple high-profile Twitter accounts, including President-Elect Barack Obama's, and the official feed for Fox News.

The hacker, who goes by the handle GMZ, told Threat Level on Tuesday he gained entry to Twitter's administrative control panel by pointing an automated password-guesser at a popular user's account. The user turned out to be a member of Twitter's support staff, who'd chosen the weak password "happiness."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Casino bans author of Word for being lucky

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "Running a gambling operation, whether you're a casino or government, means more than merely having a license to print money: It means you can be as arbitrary and hypocritical as you please. Feeling the sting of this reality recently is Richard "Quiet Lion" Brodie, best known as the original author of Microsoft Word, who has been banned from all Harrah's casinos for, he says, having the audacity to have gotten lucky at video poker. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1599 1"
Power

Submission + - MIT powers lightbulb wirelessly

Submitted by kcurtis
kcurtis writes: According to the Boston Globe, MIT Researchers lit a light bulb remotely. The successful experiment to lit a 60-watt light bulb from a power source two meters away, with no physical connection between the power source and the light bulb. Details about WiTricity, or wireless electricity, are scheduled to be reported today in Science Express, the advance online publication of the journal Science, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.
Announcements

Submission + - US Government Storming freedom fighter's House

Submitted by savage1r
savage1r writes: Everyone wake up! This is the biggest story not being covered by ANY mainstream media! New Hamshire couple Ed and Elane Brown are under siege by the US government. They fought against the tax laws and were sentanced to a rediculous amount of prison time. They refused to obey the order and have been holding out in their house since their sentencing. The Government forces are surrounding their house NOW this is their website: http://questforfairtrialinconcordnh.blogspot.com/ Everyone should know about this because these are the people on the front lines!
Television

Submission + - Jericho Saved by Nuts

Submitted by nicholasjay
nicholasjay writes: CNN has an article saying that the "Nuts!" trick has worked. CBS has decided to bring back the series, Jericho, for seven more episodes. Even the president of entertainment at CBS issued a letter to Jericho community.

From the article:

"The renewal of "Jericho" also underscores that there is more to TV viewership than what the Nielsen ratings tell us. As more and more people watch their favorite shows when they want thanks to TiVo (TIVO) and other digital video recorders as well as through sites like Apple's (AAPL) iTunes and the networks' own Web sites, looking just at the "live" Nielsen rating may not give networks a true impression of how popular a show is."

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