Jees, does no one READ anymore? This is why I gave up on Slashdot. Nokia alleged to say no backdoors in their hardware, someone claims data being sent to MSFT from handsets regardless. No shit,Sherlock. In the absence of any details, let alone evidence or proof, this looks bloody spurious to me. I would expect the MS services on the phone to talk to Redmond exactly as they tell you they will when you agree to it for basic services e.g. location services. The article itself is classic FUD with zero content. Read it again. And don't post AC.

It's mandatory to have a Microsoft account with Windows Phone, much like it's mandatory to have a Gmail account for Android and an Apple ID for iOS. You don't have to use the services though, and WP8 is pretty good at explicitly telling you what data it would like and giving you the option of opting out.

Because it happens all the time - people like to read sensationalist news, people like to be outraged and site owners love page clicks. Go and read TFA. There is zero content in it. It's not even a theory, it's a vague bit of sensationalism and until it's backed up with data it should be treated as such.

Full disclosure: I do work for MS, but miles and miles away from any of this kind of thing so I don't have any insight other than Occam's Razor. When you read TFA, there isn't any data in there. It doesn't actually SAY anything.

This looks like a mountain being made out of a molehill. From TFA: "Lumia phones do not ensure the user’s privacy – at least no better than the phones of other big manufacturers"
When you use a WP8 device, you are signed in using a Microsoft Account. Features like SMS backup, location services such as "Find My Phone" etc need to send data back to MS in order to work. In fact when you first sign into a phone this is made explicitly clear, as it is during the install of any apps on the phone that require, say, location based services. So whilst the implication of this article appears to be that there's something shady and underhand going on, until someone shows me a wireshark trace that shows it, I'm calling BS.

Usenet is nice. I can recomment comp.misc, a nice, active group with some activity there :-) (For Slashdot and Soylentnews I'm actually only guessing. An nmap probe reveals an F5 load balancer for slashdot and a probably a Linux-Box for soylentnews.org.) BTW: I hope slashdot will keep it's classic forum software, would like to remain a regular here :-)

Dead all day, it seems... Slashdotted again?

Thanks for info! Lets see... I'm curious as well, but will probably stick around here as well. If they reach functional parity with their new software before making it default, I won't see a reason to abandon ship.

I can sign up for wiki and phpbb account, but don't see any slashdot-like account which could be used, nor do I find an appropriate link in the wiki. Can you give a link, please?

Suit yourself :-) I spend 40h a week on my job, and if someone proposes a job doubling my salary, I will take that offer. But while I'm in this office, my performance depends heavily on feeling comfortable in my current environment. If you find all the time you need to master new subjects in your spare time, good for you. My spare time is mainly for my family, and I'm very happy I find enough challenges in my job so I don't need extensive hobbies for that.

For motivation while working on one position, this may be true, but salary and bonus are a high motivation to switch to another employer altogether.

They are speaking about healthy aged people, which probably excludes most physical damages or degenerating diseases. And no, intelligence can not be measured in a reasonable way. Practicing typical IQ test tasks will increase your achievements there while this "brain-jogging" does not improve your capabilities to solve differently structured problems.

I accept there is a correlation between test results and perceived IQ, but since the very definition of intelligence is already controversial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence#Definitions) and tests are probably applied most of the time to measure younger people (career planning etc.), and also the time spent on a single test is very limited, it seems quite conceivable to me that some people might be good at solving more complex real live (common sense: display higher intelligence) while they suck at short tasks. From personal experience (older colleagues) I'd say there is a bias towards this type of people in older people.

Why was this modded down? Science of a Discworld is a book mainly dealing with the real science of our world from a fresh perspective, a book I would recommend to anyone interested in science on a bit broader scale, although it obviously can't go into the same depth as pure science books focused on single topics.

BTW: Not exactly the link I was looking for, but same topic: http://www.genetic-programming...

This article is from 1996, so I guess the same algorithm would be even faster now.

Old joke: What's the most dangerous hazard in a lab? A software developer who got hands on a soldering iron

Typical reply: What's the most dangerous hazard in SW development? An electrical engineer who gained access to the compiler.

(Both somewhat true, although both with exceptions.)

Not always true. I can't find the link right now, but in Science of the Discworld, Terry Pratchett references a work where a bandpass filter was designed using genetic algorithms, and used less elements while working better than straight forward designed circuits. What's more, there are some apparently void elements in the circuit, but still the circuit stops working when these elements are removed. I wasn't able to find the work in a hurry, but while looking for it I got the impression there seems to be a lot of work ongoing related to frequency filters and GA.