Comment How to get a million dollars and not pay taxes (Score 1) 348
First, get a million dollars...
If you can get the user to download and open your attachment it doesn't matter which platform is involved, you've got them.
Comment Re:ATT: Mathbots (Score 1) 322
<snip>
It turns it out it's not much of an indicator of anything. Since first hearing about the study, I embarked on a study of my own, starting with guitarists, and then extending to just about everyone I met or saw.
</snip>
The trouble with your study, and theirs, isn't with the size of the finger but the size of the sample. I'd love to see the results of yours get press though. There would be something oddly satisfying about a headline which read Study Finds No Particular Correlation Between Finger Sizes and Skill Sets. More satisfying, though, would be one that read Study Finds Researchers and Reporters Unduly Influenced by Statistical Anomalies. And neither would be a good name for a band.
The trouble with your study, and theirs, isn't with the size of the finger but the size of the sample. I'd love to see the results of yours get press though. There would be something oddly satisfying about a headline which read Study Finds No Particular Correlation Between Finger Sizes and Skill Sets. More satisfying, though, would be one that read Study Finds Researchers and Reporters Unduly Influenced by Statistical Anomalies. And neither would be a good name for a band.
Submission + - The Unravelling of the Global Warming Crisis
An anonymous reader writes: The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of government agencies and environmental groups around the world claim that the science is settled and the time for debate is over. But the list of distinguished scientists who question the IPCC
grows daily.
Submission + - Interview: how Google tweaks rank algorithm (nytimes.com)
nbauman writes: "New York Times interview with Amit Singhal, who is in charge of Google's ranking algorithm. They use 200 "signals" and "classifiers," of which PageRank is only one. "Freshness" defines how many recently changed pages appear in a result. They assumed old pages were better, but when they first introduced Google Finance, the algorithm couldn't find it because it was too new. Some topics are "hot". "When there is a blackout in New York, the first articles appear in 15 minutes; we get queries in two seconds," said Singhal. Classifiers infer information about the type of search, whether it is a product to buy, a place, company or person. One classifier identifies people who aren't famous. Another identifies brand names. A final check encourages "diversity" in the results, for example, a manufacturer's page, a blog review, and a comparision shopping site. If the user has signed in to Google, they can tell whether a search for "dolphins" is by a football fan or marine biologist. Examples of problems that Google identified and tweaked the algorithm to avoid: a search for "french revolution" returned too many results about the French presidential elections. A search for "teak patio palo alto" didn't return a store called the Teak Patio. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmon ey/03google.html Inside the Black Box By SAUL HANSELL, June 3, 2007"
Submission + - NASA Administrator: Don't fight Global Warming
mdsolar writes: "Engineer and NASA Administrator Michael Griffin revealed in an NPR interview that he was unsure there was any need to take steps to make sure that the climate remain stable. Now the NYT has editorialized that his lack of vision may help explain NASA's back peddling on its planet protection mission.
The post of NASA Administrator is a tough one, with the last one being chased out of office for being too cautious. Is Griffin stepping into a meat grinder on this one?"
Submission + - Firefox Usage Hits 25% (www.kbox.cc)
googtube writes: "According to W3counter.com, The website statistics provider, Firefox usage has reached an all time high of almost 25%. For those of you who suck at maths, that is nearly one in four internet users using Firefox. Go Firefox!
W3counter.com have based these numbers on the last 31,612,302 unique visits to 4,511 websites, So it should be a fairly accurate representation of the internet as a whole, Even though figures may be skewed on industry specific sites, Such as slashdot."
W3counter.com have based these numbers on the last 31,612,302 unique visits to 4,511 websites, So it should be a fairly accurate representation of the internet as a whole, Even though figures may be skewed on industry specific sites, Such as slashdot."
Submission + - nut-container format specs almost finalized
nutzington writes: The nut-container is a project by the ffmpeg/mplayer-teams to build a "simple, flexible, extensible, compact and error resistant" container-format for a wide variety of usage.
The team started developing it, because they were "dissatisfied with the limitations of all currently available multimedia container formats such as AVI, Ogg or Matroska."
Talking to a lead-developer on LinuxTag in Berlin I have been tought, that most of it is working, and there are only some minor things to fix and decide on, like the FourCC-tag. There is a libnut available already in their SVN-repo, so go and check it out if you want.
So fasten your seatbelts everybody, because this baby is to become the standard when it comes to boxing audio and video data. For more information see: http://www.nut-container.org/
The team started developing it, because they were "dissatisfied with the limitations of all currently available multimedia container formats such as AVI, Ogg or Matroska."
Talking to a lead-developer on LinuxTag in Berlin I have been tought, that most of it is working, and there are only some minor things to fix and decide on, like the FourCC-tag. There is a libnut available already in their SVN-repo, so go and check it out if you want.
So fasten your seatbelts everybody, because this baby is to become the standard when it comes to boxing audio and video data. For more information see: http://www.nut-container.org/
Submission + - IBM on its way to cutting 12,000 US jobs
threc writes: "July 22nd of last year a rumor started that IBM was planning to move jobs overseas. On May 4th, 7th and the 13th of this year, Slashdot mused about the possible exodus of 12,000 IBM US jobs. On May 30th the rumors, more or less, came true.
"International Business Machines Corp., the world's largest computer-services company, cut about 1,570 jobs mainly in its technology services unit..."
According to Lee Conrad, head of AllianceIBM, this is the low number.
"Information from within the company, retrieved by Conrad and others, points to 1,000 layoffs in IBM's Server Division, 700 in its Software Group, 100 in its Global Financing unit, 360 at corporate headquarters, 300 in its Storage division and more than 2,000 in the company's largest single unit, IBM Global Services."
Tallied up, in May alone, IBM fired nearly 5000 US workers and industry experts expect more layoffs."
"International Business Machines Corp., the world's largest computer-services company, cut about 1,570 jobs mainly in its technology services unit..."
According to Lee Conrad, head of AllianceIBM, this is the low number.
"Information from within the company, retrieved by Conrad and others, points to 1,000 layoffs in IBM's Server Division, 700 in its Software Group, 100 in its Global Financing unit, 360 at corporate headquarters, 300 in its Storage division and more than 2,000 in the company's largest single unit, IBM Global Services."
Tallied up, in May alone, IBM fired nearly 5000 US workers and industry experts expect more layoffs."
Submission + - Google Wants to Play in 700MHz Band
scubacuda writes: "The FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau is soliciting feedback on Google's proposal for the 700 MHz band spectrum (Word ver), which currently is occupied by broadcasters in TV channels 52-69 and is being made available for wireless services. Google wants (a) the band to allow licensees to utilize "dynamic auction mechanisms", such as real-time auctions and per-device registration fees; (b) to "posit at least whether it would be in the public interest to mandate for some, or even all, of the commercial spectrum to be auctioned in the 700 MHz bands"; and (c) the unpaired 6 megahertz E Block (722-728 MHz) in the current lower 700 MHz band plan to be designated, "primarily or exclusively, for the deployment of broadband
communications platforms." (More on the fight for the 700 MHz band here and )"
Submission + - Dateline NBC sting charges dropped against 24 men. (chatmag.com)
Chatmag writes: "In what was the most controversial sting conducted in online chat rooms, and involving a suicide, no charges will be filed in the Murphy, Texas Dateline NBC "To Catch a Predator"
series, leaving the door open for 24 civil suits against Dateline NBC."
Submission + - Yoper 3.0 RC2 Released (yoper.com)
Tobias Gerschner writes: "Hi,
The Yoper team, together with lead-developer Tobias Gerschner, are
proud to announce the second release candidate of Yoper GNU/Linux 3.0,
codename 'Ilmenite MKII'.
This release candidate is available in 3 fashions as a slim CD of
approx 143 MB. A regular CD version ( 665 MB ) and a live CD of 680
MB. A DVD version will not be released at this point, but will be
available for the final release. The final release date depends on the
feedback we get from this release candidate.
Major changes to the rc1 are upgrades to qt 3.3.8 and kde 3.5.7. The
full announcement can be found here :
http://www.yoper.com/announcements/yoper-3.0-rc2 together with a
summarized changelog.
The release can be downloaded from the following locations :
* ftp://ftp.yoper.com/pub/yoper/YOS-3.0-Ilmenite-MKI I-slim.iso
* ftp://ftp.yoper.com/pub/yoper/YOS-3.0-Ilmenite-MKI I.iso
* ftp://ftp.yoper.com/pub/yoper/YOS-3.0-Ilmenite-MKI I-live.iso
* http://development.yoper.com/pub//yoper/YOS-3.0-Il menite-MKII-slim.iso
* http://development.yoper.com/pub//yoper/YOS-3.0-Il menite-MKII.iso
* http://development.yoper.com/pub//yoper/YOS-3.0-Il menite-MKII-live.iso
* http://www.yoper.com/download.php
We spent a lot of time putting an infrastructure into place to handle contributions far more efficiently and satisfying than ever. We're now on a contributor and feedback hunt to once more provide together with and for the linux community the fastest linux ever.
regards
Tobias Gerschner"
The Yoper team, together with lead-developer Tobias Gerschner, are
proud to announce the second release candidate of Yoper GNU/Linux 3.0,
codename 'Ilmenite MKII'.
This release candidate is available in 3 fashions as a slim CD of
approx 143 MB. A regular CD version ( 665 MB ) and a live CD of 680
MB. A DVD version will not be released at this point, but will be
available for the final release. The final release date depends on the
feedback we get from this release candidate.
Major changes to the rc1 are upgrades to qt 3.3.8 and kde 3.5.7. The
full announcement can be found here :
http://www.yoper.com/announcements/yoper-3.0-rc2 together with a
summarized changelog.
The release can be downloaded from the following locations :
* ftp://ftp.yoper.com/pub/yoper/YOS-3.0-Ilmenite-MK
* ftp://ftp.yoper.com/pub/yoper/YOS-3.0-Ilmenite-MK
* ftp://ftp.yoper.com/pub/yoper/YOS-3.0-Ilmenite-MK
* http://development.yoper.com/pub//yoper/YOS-3.0-I
* http://development.yoper.com/pub//yoper/YOS-3.0-I
* http://development.yoper.com/pub//yoper/YOS-3.0-I
* http://www.yoper.com/download.php
We spent a lot of time putting an infrastructure into place to handle contributions far more efficiently and satisfying than ever. We're now on a contributor and feedback hunt to once more provide together with and for the linux community the fastest linux ever.
regards
Tobias Gerschner"
Submission + - Are they really "making waves"? (warcraftrealms.com)
FoxNSox writes: "As an article from the 26th of May mentioned, Blizzard has announced they are "suing one of the heavily spamming gold sellers, Peons4hire". This came as a result of a post on the World of Warcraft Forums, which outlined Blizzards reasons for this federal lawsuit.
A subsequent post on the same thread reads:
"Our efforts to combat this type abuse will be ongoing, I assure you. Also, keep in mind that Peons4hire was one of the larger organizations focused on in-game spam abuse. Do not underestimate the value of the message this action will send to to others who participate in similar abuse.
In short, we're making waves. :P".
Well, my answer to this (as a frequent WoW player), is that Blizzard does not seem to be "making waves", as they so mention.
Although Peons4Hire has seemed to 'cease and desist' sending spam messages and mail to World of Warcraft players, the volume of spam messages from other 'Gold Sellers' and 'Power Levellers' does not seem to have been hindered.
What is your opinion on this? Are there any other games out there that have a similar issue with spammers?"
A subsequent post on the same thread reads:
"Our efforts to combat this type abuse will be ongoing, I assure you. Also, keep in mind that Peons4hire was one of the larger organizations focused on in-game spam abuse. Do not underestimate the value of the message this action will send to to others who participate in similar abuse.
In short, we're making waves.
Well, my answer to this (as a frequent WoW player), is that Blizzard does not seem to be "making waves", as they so mention.
Although Peons4Hire has seemed to 'cease and desist' sending spam messages and mail to World of Warcraft players, the volume of spam messages from other 'Gold Sellers' and 'Power Levellers' does not seem to have been hindered.
What is your opinion on this? Are there any other games out there that have a similar issue with spammers?"
