Comment LIDAR precision (Score 1) 65
I don't know what the precision is on this, but I've seen LIDAR that was used in the civil engineering arena that was precise enough to pick up skid marks on the road. Pretty cool stuff.
Comment Re:Decline of the American Empire? (Score 1, Interesting) 745
"oligarchs used to look after their people...".
This is not exactly true. School teachers used to be paid by the parents and were directly answerable to them. And parents cared that their children were taught properly. Now we have neither. Lack of family structure and teacher unions that don't care about good teachers don't exactly make for good education.
Transferring education completely to the control of the government results in the education system equivalent of the U.S. Postal System.
Comment Re:I expected China, but here in the US? (Score 2) 243
Then you would have to close off the southwest United States. While the San Joaquin Valley has the most cases, I live in much farther south in CA and know two people who had valley fever serious enough to end up in the hospital. So it is not uncommon elsewhere in the southwest as well.
United States Begins Flying Stealth Bombers Over South Korea 567
skade88 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the United States has started flying B-2 stealth bomber runs over South Korea as a show of force to North Korea. The bombers flew 6,500 miles to bomb a South Korean island with mock explosives. Earlier this month the U.S. Military ran mock B-52 bombing runs over the same South Korean island. The U.S. military says it shows that it can execute precision bombing runs at will with little notice needed. The U.S. also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting its allies in the region. The North Koreans have been making threats to turn South Korea into a sea of fire. North Korea has also made threats claiming they will nuke the United States' mainland."
Comment Re:Great (Score 1) 303
...do things that make them fulfilled...
Right. That's the hard part. Most people end up doing things that contribute more to the destruction of themselves and society as a whole when given all this 'free' time and endless pursuit of pleasure. It's human nature to do so. In the end, it's hard to say there's a net gain.
Comment Appropriate Story Placement (Score 2) 823
Appropriate that this story shows right above the placement of the Richard Dawkins story.
Comment Dust? (Score 2) 41
Just out of curiosity, how is the soldier in the field supposed to deal with dust issues in contacts? Being a long-time wearer of contacts myself, and having experienced issues with wearing them in construction zones, I have a hard time seeing how these could be more of a liability in a combat arena.
Submission + - Passwords: Root of all Evil in the Enterprise? (securityweek.com)
wiredmikey writes: According a recent study, passwords are still a problem in the enterprise, including apathy from senior management, and password related chaos from IT staff.
The results of the study, released this week, reveals a fundamental lack of IT security awareness in enterprises, particularly in the arena of password control and privileged logins. For example, 42-percent of the 300 IT professionals surveyed said that their organization share passwords and 51-percent said they needed to remember ten or more passwords for work alone.
Moreover, 50-percent of the passwords in use remain unchanged, despite password rotation being a basic security practice. This is in addition to the respondents admitting that they were aware of some users abusing shared privileges, in order to access information they shouldn't.
The results of the study, released this week, reveals a fundamental lack of IT security awareness in enterprises, particularly in the arena of password control and privileged logins. For example, 42-percent of the 300 IT professionals surveyed said that their organization share passwords and 51-percent said they needed to remember ten or more passwords for work alone.
Moreover, 50-percent of the passwords in use remain unchanged, despite password rotation being a basic security practice. This is in addition to the respondents admitting that they were aware of some users abusing shared privileges, in order to access information they shouldn't.
Submission + - Zend Debuts PHPcloud (serverwatch.com)
An anonymous reader writes: New cloud service for PHP developers takes flight with tools to help build and test cloud applications.
Comment 3rd Edition is out (Score 1) 49
Note that the 3rd edition is already out also (The Amazon link and picture is to the second edition):
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Digital-Evidence-and-Computer-Crime/Eoghan-Casey/e/9780123742681?itm=1&usri=Digital%2BEvidence%2Band%2BComputer%2BCrime
Submission + - Building A Sub-$200 Computer
adeelarshad82 writes: When you're building computers, almost anything is possible at any price thanks to some great research, careful thinking and much needed sacrafice. Infact a recent attempt was made to see if a decent PC could put together for less than $200. Turns out that between some great deals, an AMD processor and Linux OS it can actually be done.
Comment Re:Transparent... (Score 2) 518
Here's a citation to help:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/transparency-obama-denies-significantly-more-foia-requests-bush
A Google search provides other locations.
I wouldn't count on anything coming out.
A Google search provides other locations.
I wouldn't count on anything coming out.
Submission + - Nook Color Updates To Android Tablet (barnesandnoble.com)
jcdenhartog writes: Barnes & Noble pushed out an update to the OS for their Nook Color today which turns the Nook Color into much more of an Android tablet, complete with email application, Flash support, and app store. It looks like development for the app store will be fairly open as well.
String Quartets On the Web? 228
rueger writes "Lots of people love iTunes. I'm partial to emusic.com. Ubuntu comes pre-equipped for Jamendo and Magnatune. These are great for those of us hunting popular music — but where do lovers of classical music go to find new artists and albums, download music, and generally keep informed, up to date, and satisfied? As my girlfriend put it, 'I used to go to the big classical record stores downtown, but they're gone.' Where do people go to find the newest Ligeti String Quartet recording?"
Comment Re:Contradiction (Score 1) 1324
...it's about withdrawing from an evil society so their kids can get baked in their own oven. Christian fundamentalists, right wing militia types, granola crunching hippies--these are the face of the home school movement, and it's justifiable to wonder whether it's in the kids best interest to home school the kids for political rather than educational reasons.
I'd like to see some statistical basis for this, rather than a couple of anecdotes and what the media portrays. In addition, my experience with opponents of home-schoolers is that they are more worried about people being raised with political viewpoints contrary to theirs. Their concern for the kids and a quality education is minimal. But our country thrives on the variety of political viewpoints, not a hive-mind developed by a government education system.
...typically, they're weird kids who've obviously spent too much time in a weird home environment and lack enough socialization to get along well once they're back in the public sphere. That's the danger of home schooling.
Again, this is anecdotal, and not universal. Besides, it appears that Slashdot thrives on these type of people, so shouldn't we work to create more of them? There are plenty of these types of people in the public school system as well, and there are other ways to address these types of issues.
For the record, I was not home-schooled. I spent the middle half of my elementary education in a private school, and the rest in public schools. I have many friends who home-school, so I have seen the benefits compared to the alternatives.
