Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Science

Submission + - How Maggots Heal Wounds (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Maggots have been used for centuries to heal wounds, but no one knew how they did this. Now scientists report that the fly larvae secrete compounds that suppress the immune system, reducing swelling and givng the body time to heal.
Bitcoin

Submission + - Bitcoin-Central begins operating as a Bank (Sort of) (mineforeman.com)

Submitted by
ASDFnz
ASDFnz writes: "In an announcement on BitcoinTalk earlier today Bitcoin-Central reviled that they have partnered with Aqoba and Credit Mutuel to begin operations as Payments Service Provider (or a PSP). While not quite exactly the same as a bank a PSP falls under all the regulatory restrictions and requirements as a bank except they are not able to issue credit.

They will fall under the European Union regulatory body but they are open to international clients so no matter where you live you can now open the equivalent of a European bank account (assuming your government allows it).

If you look at the story on BitcoinTalk you will find quite a few advantages to this move but a short list of advantages to this are;-

* Non bitcoin Deposits stored in individual Credit Mutuel accounts.
* An IBAN Number will be issued within the next few months.
* Non bitcoin deposits 100% guaranteed by the French Government.
* You will soon be able to get a Debit Card issued.
* You will be able to use your BTC with your Bitcoin-Central Debit Card.

As with any new service there are downsides, the one that I can see most bitcoin users borking at is to take full advantage of the service you must positively identify yourself with a scan of a government-issued photographic identification document (Passport, National ID Card, Driver’s License etc..). While this is not an issue for most bitcoiners quite a few value their anonymity and it also opens a new avenue for Identity Theft.

It seems to me that Bitcoin-Central has just gained a step ahead of the other bitcoin exchanges."

Submission + - How Yucca Mountain was Killed (thenewatlantis.com)

Submitted by ATKeiper
ATKeiper writes: The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which was selected by the U.S. government in the 1980s to be the nation’s permanent facility for storing nuclear waste, is essentially dead. A new article in The New Atlantis explains how the project was killed: 'In the end, the Obama administration succeeded, by a combination of legal authority and bureaucratic will, in blocking Congress’s plan for the Yucca Mountain repository — certainly for the foreseeable future, and perhaps permanently.... The saga of Yucca Mountain’s creation and apparent demise, and of the seeming inability of the courts to prevent the Obama administration from unilaterally nullifying the decades-old statutory framework for Yucca, illustrates how energy infrastructure is uniquely subject to the control of the executive branch, and so to the influence of presidential politics.' A report from the Government Accountability Office notes that the termination 'essentially restarts a time-consuming and costly process [that] has already cost nearly $15 billion through 2009.'
Graphics

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Best Laptop With Decent Linux Graphics Support? 4

Submitted by jcreus
jcreus writes: After struggling for some years with Nvidia cards (the laptop from which I am writing this has two graphic cards, an Intel one and Nvidia one, and is a holy mess [I still haven't been able to use the Nvidia card]) and, encouraged by Torvalds' middle finger speech, I've decided to ditch Nvidia for something better. I am expecting to buy another laptop and, this time, I'd like to get it right from the start. It would be interesting if it had decent graphics support and, in general, were Linux friendly. While I know Dell has released a Ubuntu laptop, it's way off-budget. My plan is to install Ubuntu, Kubuntu (or even Debian), with dual boot unfortunately required. Thanks in advance, Slashdot!

Comment stock market non-analogy is wrong (Score 1) 130

by Skewray (#42173883) Attached to: Even Capped Prediction Markets Can Be Manipulated
"The same kind of trick wouldn't normally work on the stock market -- if you're wealthy enough that you can increase the share price of a stock by buying enough of it to shift the market, then when you try to reap your profits by unloading the stock, the price will drift back down as you're selling it off."

-

This is incorrect. An investor could buy up the stock and take a profit by investing in options that expire at the value peak.

Comment Re:If it ain't broke don't fix it (Score 1) 823

by Skewray (#41771025) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Rectifying Nerd Arrogance?

Arrogance is never justified. This is why it's never seen as a positive trait in people. Arrogance puts yourself and all of what you are in front of EVERYONE else. Arrogance is NEVER confidence.

My beliefs: - Arrogance is not a virtue. Arrogance alienates you from people. - Humility is a virtue. Humility brings us closer to people.

Be confident yet humble, and people will follow you to the ends of the Earth...

Try hubris over arrogance. Why be the lesser evil?

Comment Re:Code versioning and deployment? (Score 1) 151

by Skewray (#41403597) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Taming a Wild, One-Man Codebase?

I don't understand how code versioning has to be coupled with deployment? You have no test environment, as you said... so just make releases and deploy them manually. Since you are going straight to production, you had better be there in person to roll it back if you screwed up. Right? So, SVN should be all you need...

I used to, as a single programmer, use SVN, but I found it nothing but a burden. It left files all over the place, and was really not convenient when no interlocking with another programmer is needed. Now I just make a tarball of everything at obvious breakpoints and store it away.

Comment Re:My take? (Score 5, Funny) 347

by Skewray (#41250537) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What's Your Take On Stand-Up Desks?

I've connected two monitors, two keyboards and two mice to my computer. One set is raised, for working standing up, and the other is on my desk. I stand at times and sit the rest of the time. This works great for me.

Clever. I have two mice, two monitors, and two keyboards as well, but I use one mouse+keyboard for each hand and one monitor for each eye. Then I can work and read Slashdot at the same time.

Comment Security Clearance (Score 1) 197

by Skewray (#41115181) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Explaining Role-Playing Games To the Uninitiated?
I did RPGs for a short time in graduate school, many years ago. I was interviewed for a friend's security clearance, and at some point RPGs came up. I tried my best to explain RPGs to the nice government lady. Afterward I heard that my friend got no end to grief because Ms. gov't lady came to the conclusion that playing Champions entailed dressing up as superheroes and running around Washington DC acting out comic book stories. This is not something a person with a clearance should be doing, apparently. He did get his clearance in the end, though.
Communications

Submission + - Satellite Uplinks for the Masses (ieee.org) 1

Submitted by kgeiger
kgeiger writes: Intellectual Ventures has spun out Kymeta to develop and mass-produce their mTenna product line. mTennas are based on metamaterials like the invisibility cloaks discussed on Slashdot and elsewhere. Metamaterials enable beam-steering that ensures an mTenna remains in contact with satellites even during motion. Kymeta will use 'established lithographic techniques' to make them.

IMHO, these antennas may be as big a leap for mobile computing and remote communications as the invention of fractal antennas was for mobile phones.
Science

Submission + - Why Cell Phone Bans Don't Work (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: You can take the driver away from the cell phone, but you can't take the risky behavior away from the driver. That's the conclusion of a new study, which finds that people who talk on their phones while driving may already be unsafe drivers who are nearly as prone to crash with or without the device. The findings may explain why laws banning cell phone use in motor vehicles have had little impact on accident rates.
Space

Submission + - Earth's Corner of the Galaxy Just Got a Little Lonelier

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Only 4 stars, including Barnard's Star, are within 6 light years of the Sun, and only 11 are within 10 light years. That's why Barnard's star, popularized in Robert Forward's hard-sf novel, "Flight of the Dragonfly," is often short-listed as a target for humanity's first interstellar probe. Astronomers have long hoped to find a habitable planet around it, an alien Earth that might someday bear the boot prints of a future Neil Armstrong, or the tire tracks of a souped-up 25th-century Curiosity rover. But now Ross Anderson reports that a group of researchers led by UC Berkeley's Jieun Choi have delivered the fatal blow to Barnard's Star when they revealed the results of 248 precise Doppler measurements that were designed to examine the star for wobbles indicative of planets around it. The measurements, taken over a period of 25 years, led to a depressing conclusion: "the habitable zone around Barnard's star appears to be devoid of roughly Earth-mass planets or larger . . . [p]revious claims of planets around the star by van de Kamp are strongly refuted." NASA's Kepler space telescope, which studies a group of distant Milky Way stars, has found more than 2,000 exoplanet candidates in just the past two years, leading many to suspect that our galaxy is home to billions of planets, a sizable portion of which could be habitable. "This non-detection of nearly Earth-mass planets around Barnard’s Star is surely unfortunate, as its distance of only 1.8 parsecs would render any Earth-size planets valuable targets for imaging and spectroscopy, as well as compelling destinations for robotic probes by the end of the century.""

Slashdot Top Deals

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. -- Plato

Close