Comment Re:YAY! (Score 1) 71
They have been trying to throw in the usability of MS Office for a while now! Thank goodness the ribbon thing is a little too hard...
Comment Re:The full story (Score 1) 1198
No.
its clear to all that what you describe ends with a bullet through your head.
Comment Re:The Inside Scoop (Score 2) 257
With all the "bad", this post is one of those things that remind me why I've been lurking around here for so many years.
Thanks
Comment Re:Typical Italian sense of time (Score 4, Funny) 442
As an italian I can testify you are wrong.
You don't arrive late thinking you are in time.
You arrive late and blame traffic, war, biblical plagues; and share simpaty with other meeting partecipants.
I hope the neutrinos were early (for the sake of new physics), but still, they were behaving terribly rude!
Comment Re:Aging is probably NOT in the telomeres (Score 1) 371
germ cells.
AND
cancer cells.
Which is a good sign for the usefulness of telomerase for single cells.
And an obvious problem if instead you want to use it for whole organisms.
Most of the stuff we know helps cells live longer, cancer already knew. And its using it.
which makes it a little complicated to go from the lab to a pill that makes you live longer.
Comment Re:Data transfers (Score 1) 245
Vodafone charges more than that for an sms in roaming, (for some european plans.)
Besides most sms are much shorter than the limit. so 600 bits looks more that average. that would be 0.80 $
So there you have it.
Vodafone is more expensive.
Comment Re:Why omit Newton? (Score 1) 1238
so you are saying Newton deserved a Darwin Award?
200 years before actual Darwin??
that is real testament to genius.
Sheer Pure Genius, I say!
Italy Floats Official Permission Requirement for Web Video Uploads 131
An anonymous reader writes with some bad news from Italy, noting that new rules proposed there would "require people who upload videos onto the Internet to obtain authorization from the Communications Ministry similar to that required by television broadcasters, drastically reducing freedom to communicate over the Web." Understandably, some say such controls represent a conflict of interest for Silvio Berlusconi, "who exercises political control over the state broadcaster RAI in his role as prime minister and is also the owner of Italy's largest private broadcaster, Mediaset."
Submission + - Ants that Count (npr.org)
steveb3210 writes: NPR this morning ran a story about how ants in the desert use an internal pedometer to navigate. In the forest ants can rely on their scent trail to lead them back; in the desert wind makes this approach impractical.
It's already known that ants use celestial clues to establish the general direction home, but how do they know exactly the number of steps to take that will lead them right to the entrance of their nest?"
To find out, scientists allowed a group of ants to go off foraging for food; while they were out, they extended the legs of some using sheep hair while shortening the legs of others. After releasing them to return home, it turns out that they all attempted to take the same number of steps on the return journey that it took to arrive. The ants with longer legs overshot the nest while the ants with shorter legs stopped too soon.
After returning them all home and allowing for a good night's sleep, they were again allowed to go out and forage for food retaining their new legs for both the journey and the return. Every ant regardless of leg length managed to make it back to the nest successfully.
Submission + - Analytics at Twitter (tonybain.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Twitter, like many web 2.0 apps, started life as a MySQL based RBDMS application. Today, Twitter is still using MySQL for much of their online operational functionality (although this is likely to change in the near future – think distributed), but on the analytics side of things Twitter has spent the last 6 months moving away from running SQL queries against MySQL data marts. This was because their need for timely data was becoming a struggle with MySQL, particularly when dealing with very large data volumes and complicated queries. For Web 2.0 the ability to understand, quantify and make timely predictions from user behavior is very much their life blood. When Kevin arrived at Twitter 6 months ago he was tasked with changing the way Twitter analyzed their data. Now the bulk of their analytics is executed using a Hadoop platform with Pig as the “querying language”.
Comment Re:Rein, not reign! (Score 1) 100
nonono
it sounds like this
"And the rain in Spain falls mainly on the brane"
"No, he just recognizes that Spain is part of a separate plane of existence from ours."
no need for informal mysticism, string theoury is there for that!
Comment Tipping point (Score 5, Insightful) 770
This is the end
my feeling, in 30 years this moment will be viewed as the tipping point, the moment in which america stopped being the siphon of the worlds best minds.
For the first time in history the melting pot hasn't managed to retain the best.
Those people will bring a BIG BOOST in their respoective countries ruling intellighentia.
lots of sour grapes here, but have no one else to blame
Submission + - The 1 million pound laptop
An anonymous reader writes: The UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) has imposed a fine of nearly £1m on the Nationwide — the largest building society in the country — because of poor controls over data on a laptop that was stolen from an employee's home. The laptop contained data on 11 million customers, but the Nationwide didn't take any action for 3 weeks. There is no evidence that the confidential data was actually used to disadvantage customers.
According to the FSA, the Nationwide: failed adequately to assess the risks in relation to the security of customer information; had procedures in relation to information security which failed adequately and effectively to manage the risks it faced; failed to implement adequate training and monitoring to ensure that its information security procedures were disseminated and understood by staff; and failed to implement adequate controls to mitigate information security risks, to ensure that employees followed its procedures, and to ensure that it provided an appropriate level of information security.
How many other businesses meet the standards of information security excellence demanded by the FSA?
According to the FSA, the Nationwide: failed adequately to assess the risks in relation to the security of customer information; had procedures in relation to information security which failed adequately and effectively to manage the risks it faced; failed to implement adequate training and monitoring to ensure that its information security procedures were disseminated and understood by staff; and failed to implement adequate controls to mitigate information security risks, to ensure that employees followed its procedures, and to ensure that it provided an appropriate level of information security.
How many other businesses meet the standards of information security excellence demanded by the FSA?
Submission + - TGV breaks speed record
zeux writes: While testing the new Paris — Strasbourg line, the TGV broke a 17 years old speed record (babelfish translation), travelling at 553 km/h (343 mph). The last record, of 515 km/h (320 mph), was set on May, 18th 1990. According to the French National Railroad Company (SNCF) the testing campaign will continue and speeds up to 570 km/h (354 mph) could be atteigned by June of this year.
