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Comment Re:Logical positivism to the rescue... (Score 1) 798

by anarchyboy (#23212164) Attached to: Is Mathematics Discovered Or Invented?
c = 3x10^8 m/s yes but the thing is we have defined both what a meter and a second are. (actually we define c and a second exactly which then sets the length of a meter)

If I decide to measure time in seconds but length in some new unit that just happens to be 3x10^8 meters long then if i measure the speed of light in these units i find it travels exactly 1 unit of length in 1 unit of time. Hence c = 1.

I think where your going wrong is thinking that setting c to 1 means 1m/s which it doesn't. Also in these units you can measure energy and mass in the same units since the conversion factor c^2 becomes 1. This makes a lot of the maths in relativity easier since you don't have lots of factors of c everywhere to keep track of
Security

Submission + - A Look at BSD Rootkits (onlamp.com)

Submitted by
blackbearnh
blackbearnh writes: "Windows is well known for being easily exploited by rootkits, but just because you're using Linux or BSD doesn't mean you're safe from infection. In this interview on O'Reilly's ONLamp site, Joseph Kong (author of Designing BSD Rootkits, talks about how to build and defend against Rootkits. From TFA:

I know a lot of people who refer to rootkits and rootkit-detectors as being in a big game of cat and mouse. However, it's really more like follow the leader — with rootkit authors always being the leader. Kind of grim, but that's really how it is. Until someone reveals how a specific (or certain class of) rootkit works, nobody thinks about protecting that part of the system. And when they do, the rootkit authors just find a way around it. This is what I meant earlier when I said rootkit hunting is hard — as you really have to validate the integrity of the entire system.
"
Wii

Submission + - Rejected WiiPlay Games - Comedy Video

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Short comedy video about the games Nintendo decided not to include in WiiPlay, complete with 3D Miis doing a variety of silly things.
Businesses

Submission + - How Much Can $344 Billion Buy?

Submitted by
dasButcher
dasButcher writes: "How much is $344 billion? In physical terms, it's enough to stretch dollar bills to Saturn and back with plenty to spare. In real world terms, it's the combined revenue of North America's largest IT resellers, solution providers, integrators, consultants and services companies. The editors of VARBusiness took this extraordinary figure and compared it to other familiar economic measures. You'd be amazed at the revenue-producing power of these elite resellers. http://www.crn.com/it-channel/199701948;jsessionid =FMMVYP5H4LTICQSNDLPSKHSCJUNN2JVN"
Music

Submission + - AllofMP3.com talks to p2pnet

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "p2pnet talks to AllofMP3.com about problems it's having with the US administration, and plans for the future. In spite of criticism of AllofMP3.com, and the way it runs its business, no one from either the United States Trade Representative Office, which is behind much of the US-mounted pressure on Russian downloads site, nor music industry 'trade' organizations, has tried to talk with AllofMP3.com to find a way to reach an accord, it says."
Windows

Submission + - Longhorn resurrects

Submitted by
javipas
javipas writes: "On August 2004 Microsoft announced at WinHEC that they would abandon their Longhorn project line in order to accomplish the estimated release date of 2006 for what we know now as Vista. That day the original Longhorn — with capabilities such as WinFS — died, but a recent initiative called The Longhorn Reloaded Project has resurrected this operating system. A modified build called "Longhorn Reloaded M1" is available through torrent clients, and the developers even offer the serial key to proceed with the installation. At the moment Microsoft has not decided to stop this, and the people behind the project are working hard to move to the next iteration, LRM2."
Netscape

Submission + - Netscape's Hypocrisy

Submitted by
hotgist
hotgist writes: "Netscape.com bans sites and users from their systems that are doing exactly what they do. News is not posted on netscape.com but links to other sites where the full story is. The summary is provided on Netscape's web site. Now,this is what they do. When you click on the story's Link, you are redirected to another page repeating the story's summary including comments, who voted for the story, who sunk the story, links and summaries of other stories.Sites with related activities receive ban on user and/or domain when they make submissions to netscape and begin to receive good traffic."
Security

Submission + - What caused PlusNet's security flaw

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Last weekend we learned that British ISP PlusNet had been forced to close its webmail service after it was compromised and addresses were made available to spammers.

In an encouragingly open response to their customers, they have reported their findings and a timeline of the incident on the community section of their website.

They've confirmed the problem as having been a webmail code vulnerability (they have since closed down that webmail platform and replaced it with Squirrelmail), and that a copy of their Webmail database was compromised — with code installed on their platform including a trojan payload.

Among other things in their report, one piece of information would surprise you for an ISP part of the BT Group (biggest ISP in the UK with 3.66m subscribers in total):

"[We have] Created a dedicated PlusNet security team which is formally responsible for all aspects of data and software security on our platform."


You'd have thought they'd have had that before. PlusNet e-mailed their customers last week to apologise, but are to be commended for the subsequent and detailed update.
Real Time Strategy (Games)

Submission + - The Secrets to Desktop Tower Defense's Success

Submitted by
wjamesau
wjamesau writes: "Paul Preece is just a Visual Basic programmer with no professional game development experience, but his amazingly viral Flash-based RTS Desktop Tower Defense generated 20 million pageviews in April alone, earning him monthly ad revenue that easily surpasses the salary of most 'real' game designers. His success story is an ideal case study in an often-overlooked revenue model for online games, one that indy developers would do well to consider. Why deal with fickle publishers and long development cycles when you can make a good living creating cool games at a fraction of the time and cost?"
Bug

Submission + - U.S. cellphones can disable car keys, Nissan warns

Submitted by dosboss
dosboss writes: This article from Reuters warns not to keep your Nissan I-Key near your cell phone. From the article: 'The automaker is asking customers driving new models of two of its flagship sedans to keep their car keys and cellphones at least an inch apart to avoid disabling the "intelligent keys."' There is no description of which cellphone technology they are warning about.
Privacy

Submission + - No charges for chatroom suicide observers

Submitted by
Benjamin Fox
Benjamin Fox writes: "The BBC reports that chatroom participants who apparently "watched" a man commit kill himself will not face charges for the comments made up to and during the suicide. A crown prosecution spokesman said, "We examined all the evidence passed to us by the police and have concluded that none of the comments made in the chatroom amounted to a criminal offense." What could this mean for electronic witnesses of other meatspace crimes and tragedies in the UK?"
Biotech

Submission + - Finger Length Predicts SAT Math and Literacy Score

Submitted by LinkRJH
LinkRJH writes: A quick look at the lengths of children's index and ring fingers can be used to predict how well students will perform on SATs, new research claims.

Kids with longer ring fingers compared to index fingers are likely to have higher math scores than literacy or verbal scores on the college entrance exam, while children with the reverse finger-length ratio are likely to have higher reading and writing, or verbal, scores versus math scores.

Exposure to testosterone in the womb is said to promote development of areas of the brain often associated with spatial and mathematical skills, he said. That hormone makes the ring finger longer. Estrogen exposure does the same for areas of the brain associated with verbal ability and tends to lengthen the index finger relative to the ring finger.

http://www.livescience.com/health/070522_finger_sa ts.html
Microsoft

Submission + - "Nude" scene forces Microsoft to delay Hal

Submitted by
Mike
Mike writes: "Microsoft on Friday revealed that it has delayed release of Halo 2 for Vista in the U.S. due to the appearance of partial nudity in some of the game's content. A 2MB update was posted on the Halo 2 site Tuesday. The update, said the Microsoft spokesman, "removes the content error" and thus the nudity. "It's optional," he added. This delay comes right on top of the recent announcement that the Halo 2 for Windows Vista would be delayed until May 31st, the second delay for the title in only one month."
Quickies

Submission + - The 11 Worst Trends in Video Games (2007 Edition)

Submitted by
Ant
Ant writes: "This GamePro.com feature on eleven worst trends in video games for 2007: "So why do trends exist? Because they are familiar, they enable standards, and they just make life easier. In the case of video games, trends help companies maximize sales while reducing costs because gamers will purchase what they are accustomed to. But easier isn't always better. Here are eleven reasons why..." Seen on Digg."

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