Comment Re:Are You Kidding? (Score 1) 541
I thought I made it quite clear that I was not ignoring that.
Comment Re:Are You Kidding? (Score 1) 541
Or it indicates that you or the source of that information is utterly full of shit. Sounds like an urban myth, to me.
Jerry Levey, a 6-foot-6, balding, mustachioed New Jersey volunteer fireman who wears his keys jingling on his belt, drinks Budweiser and crushes the cans when he finishes, stared dumbstruck at Mark Newman.
Mark Newman, a 6-foot-6, balding, mustachioed New Jersey volunteer fireman who wears his keys jingling on his belt, drinks Budweiser and crushes the cans when he finishes, stared dumbstruck at Jerry Levey.
The men were identical in almost every visible respect. [...]
For example, why do Newman and Levey have similar styles of dress, opinions and IQs? Is their shared taste for Budweiser inborn, the result of upbringing or mere coincidence? Was their passion for 3 a.m. takeout Chinese food determined in their childhood homes, or by chromosomes? [...]
Both men remember that, growing up in different households, in towns 65 miles apart, they were fascinated by fire trucks and firefighters.
Both became volunteer firemen but say they still yearn to be full-time firefighters.
When they met, Levey made his living installing fire-suppression equipment, such as sprinklers.
Newman made his living installing fire alarms.
Previously, Levey had worked for a lawn-chemical company; Newman installed lawn sprinklers.
"Before that," Newman said, "we both worked for supermarkets, both worked at gas stations, and he went to college for forestry, and I worked directly in the field, as a tree surgeon." [...]
People are often astonished to hear about the New Jersey twins' almost eerie similarities - and more astonished to learn that such striking similarities are the rule, not the exception, among the 100 sets of twins in the Minnesota study.
Comment Re:Are You Kidding? (Score 4, Interesting) 541
There is no gene which makes you "good at business".
And how do you know that? Studies of identical twins separated at birth and raised apart have found remarkable things: I remember an account of one case where as adults, both men had (among other similarities) chosen identical belt buckles, smoked the same brand of cigarettes, and held the packs in rolled up sleeves of their T-shirts in the same way. Of course, nobody says that proves there's a "belt-buckle choice gene," but it seems to indicate that genes can influence behavior in complex ways we do not understand. The idea that some genetic patterns might make you (on average) better at business is not outlandish at all.
Google Spots Explicit Images of a Child In Man's Email, Tips Off Police 790
mrspoonsi writes with this story about a tip sent to police by Google after scanning a users email. A Houston man has been arrested after Google sent a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children saying the man had explicit images of a child in his email, according to Houston police. The man was a registered sex offender, convicted of sexually assaulting a child in 1994, reports Tim Wetzel at KHOU Channel 11 News in Houston. "He was keeping it inside of his email. I can't see that information, I can't see that photo, but Google can," Detective David Nettles of the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce told Channel 11. After Google reportedly tipped off the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Center alerted police, which used the information to get a warrant.
Comment Re:Monorail (Score 1) 79
Google's been pissing away cash on monorail projects ever since the IPO.
Robert X. Cringely's opinion is that many Google research projects are Larry Page's way to keep Sergey Brin out of his hair.
US Army To Transport American Ebola Victim To Atlanta Hospital From Liberia 409
acidradio (659704) writes American air charter specialist Phoenix Air has been contracted by the U.S. Army to haul an American physician afflicted with Ebola from Liberia to the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. This will be the first 'purposeful' transport of an Ebola victim to the U.S. The patient will be flown in a special Gulfstream III (formerly owned by the Danish Air Force) outfitted for very specialized medical transports such as this. I dunno. I know there are brilliant doctors and scientists in Atlanta who handle highly-communicable diseases, but is this such a brilliant idea?
theodp (442580) writes with related news In response to the Ebola outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued Interim Guidance about Ebola Virus Infection for Airline Flight Crews, Cleaning Personnel, and Cargo Personnel. "Ebola virus is transmitted by close contact with a person who has symptoms of Ebola," the CDC explains. "Close contact is defined as having cared for or lived with a person with Ebola or having a high likelihood of direct contact with blood or body fluids of an Ebola patient. Examples of close contact include kissing or embracing, sharing eating or drinking utensils, close conversation (3 feet), physical examination, and any other direct physical contact between people. Close contact does not include walking by a person or briefly sitting across a room from a person."
Comment Re:im happy google took this on (Score 1) 46
I said it last month, but will say it again:
Size matters. Desktop PCs are easy to make modular (unless you want an iMac). Laptops are harder, and besides removable batteries, only a few had any modular components (like a DVD drive swappable for an extra battery). Phones are much more space-constrained. Every millimeter counts, and modularity takes up quite a bit of space at that scale, because each part needs to be enclosed, securely attach to the others, etc.
In short, a modular phone is possible, but the trade-offs will be severe, and you'll be able to pick one or two things (e.g. speed, battery life, extra features, small size, etc.) but not all at the same time. And the prices won't be good, because manufacturer(s) will lose economies of scale: it'll be hard to compete with Apple and Samsung making millions and tens of millions of identical units.
Old Apache Code At Root of Android FakeID Mess 127
chicksdaddy writes: A four-year-old vulnerability in an open source component that is a critical part of Android leaves hundreds of millions of mobile devices susceptible to silent malware infections. The vulnerability affects devices running Android versions 2.1 to 4.4 ("KitKat"), according to a statement released by Bluebox. The vulnerability was found in a package installer in affected versions of Android. The installer doesn't attempt to determine the authenticity of certificate chains that are used to vouch for new digital identity certificates. In short, Bluebox writes, "an identity can claim to be issued by another identity, and the Android cryptographic code will not verify the claim."
The security implications of this are vast. Malicious actors could create a malicious mobile application with a digital identity certificate that claims to be issued by Adobe Systems. Once installed, vulnerable versions of Android will treat the application as if it was actually signed by Adobe and give it access to local resources, like the special webview plugin privilege, that can be used to sidestep security controls and virtual 'sandbox' environments that keep malicious programs from accessing sensitive data and other applications running on the Android device. The flaw appears to have been introduced to Android through an open source component, Apache Harmony. Google turned to Harmony as an alternative means of supporting Java in the absence of a deal with Oracle to license Java directly.
Work on Harmony was discontinued in November, 2011. However, Google has continued using native Android libraries that are based on Harmony code. The vulnerability concerning certificate validation in the package installer module persisted even as the two codebases diverged.
The security implications of this are vast. Malicious actors could create a malicious mobile application with a digital identity certificate that claims to be issued by Adobe Systems. Once installed, vulnerable versions of Android will treat the application as if it was actually signed by Adobe and give it access to local resources, like the special webview plugin privilege, that can be used to sidestep security controls and virtual 'sandbox' environments that keep malicious programs from accessing sensitive data and other applications running on the Android device. The flaw appears to have been introduced to Android through an open source component, Apache Harmony. Google turned to Harmony as an alternative means of supporting Java in the absence of a deal with Oracle to license Java directly.
Work on Harmony was discontinued in November, 2011. However, Google has continued using native Android libraries that are based on Harmony code. The vulnerability concerning certificate validation in the package installer module persisted even as the two codebases diverged.
How a Solar Storm Two Years Ago Nearly Caused a Catastrophe On Earth 212
schwit1 writes: On July 23, 2012, the sun unleashed two massive clouds of plasma that barely missed a catastrophic encounter with the Earth's atmosphere. These plasma clouds, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), comprised a solar storm thought to be the most powerful in at least 150 years.
"If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces," physicist Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado tells NASA. Fortunately, the blast site of the CMEs was not directed at Earth. Had this event occurred a week earlier when the point of eruption was Earth-facing, a potentially disastrous outcome would have unfolded.
"Analysts believe that a direct hit could cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket. Most people wouldn't even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps. ... According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion, or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina. Multi-ton transformers damaged by such a storm might take years to repair." Steve Tracton put it this way in his frightening overview of the risks of a severe solar storm: "The consequences could be devastating for commerce, transportation, agriculture and food stocks, fuel and water supplies, human health and medical facilities, national security, and daily life in general."
"Analysts believe that a direct hit could cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket. Most people wouldn't even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps. ... According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion, or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina. Multi-ton transformers damaged by such a storm might take years to repair." Steve Tracton put it this way in his frightening overview of the risks of a severe solar storm: "The consequences could be devastating for commerce, transportation, agriculture and food stocks, fuel and water supplies, human health and medical facilities, national security, and daily life in general."
Experiment Shows People Exposed To East German Socialism Cheat More 619
An anonymous reader writes The Economist reports, "'UNDER capitalism', ran the old Soviet-era joke, 'man exploits man. Under communism it is just the opposite.' In fact new research suggests that the Soviet system inspired not just sarcasm but cheating too: in East Germany, at least, communism appears to have inculcated moral laxity. Lars Hornuf of the University of Munich and Dan Ariely, Ximena García-Rada and Heather Mann of Duke University ran an experiment last year to test Germans' willingness to lie for personal gain. Some 250 Berliners were randomly selected to take part in a game where they could win up to €6 ($8). ... The authors found that, on average, those who had East German roots cheated twice as much as those who had grown up in West Germany under capitalism. They also looked at how much time people had spent in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The longer the participants had been exposed to socialism, the greater the likelihood that they would claim improbable numbers ... when it comes to ethics, a capitalist upbringing appears to trump a socialist one."
Comment Re:...The hell? (Score 1) 291
"I bought a cheap-ass phone and it sucks"
It's worse than that. It's more: "I bought a cheap-ass phone and it sucks and thus the free market has failed."
Comment Re:When "free" isn't free (Score 1) 418
I'll admit micropayments don't remove the problem of click-bait, which already exists. And there could be fraud, e.g. claiming something is 1 cent to read, but charging $1. But I think a lot of that can be solved be reputation and common sense, i.e. you might not want to click on that
Comment When "free" isn't free (Score 3, Interesting) 418
This is because most or all website revenue comes from advertising. CBS has ads, but Netflix doesn't. Books don't, and newspapers and magazines have a limited amount, because part of their revenue comes from selling their publications to consumers. (Without ads, a copy of something like National Geographic or Playboy would cost $20 or more.)
The problem is that we don't have a good way of buying small amounts of content online. You can subscribe to some sites by the month or year, or perhaps buy limited access via PayPal, but the cost tends to be $ or $$ or $$$, and nobody wants to subscribe to CNN or YouTube. They want to see that video now, with no registration and commitment. The answer is the great lost Internet opportunity of 15 years ago: micropayments. If there was an easy and universal system for paying (say) a few cents to watch a video, why not? It'd be trivial for viewers, but could add up to real money for sites.
If I were a huge content provider, I'd figure out a way to make it happen, perhaps through ISPs. Subsidize them to give every user maybe $10/month credit. Offer content providers a great deal to install a one-click "Read/Watch Now for 1 cent" buttons. Get people used to paying tiny amounts of money to view content. If something like this could get going, it'd benefit content providers of all sizes. E.g. a comedian who writes one joke a day could make a living with 10,000 readers paying 1 cent per day ($100/day = $36,500/year).
New York State Proposes Sweeping Bitcoin Regulations 121
An anonymous reader writes On Thursday, Benjamin M. Lawsky, the superintendent of financial services, announced proposed regulations for virtual currency companies operating in New York. The "BitLicense" plan, which includes rules on consumer protection, the prevention of money laundering and cybersecurity, is the first proposal by a state to create guidelines specifically for virtual currency. "We have sought to strike an appropriate balance that helps protect consumers and root out illegal activity—without stifling beneficial innovation," he said in a statement.
