Comment Re:Article brings random wonder... (Score 1) 139
I'd bet $100 that the US and others have done it before.
How about $6,000,000? "Steve Austin, a man barely alive..."
Comment Trapped in a Time Machine (Score 2) 405
Locked into a time machine travelling forward at a decent enough clip that I'd get to watch the universe evolve sufficiently before starving to death. Assume an adequate air supply. Travelling backward to watch the Big Bang would also suffice.
Comment What's wrong with the question? (Score 2) 393
Why do so many people object so vehemently to the question?
I personally don't have much trouble with the difference between calculator and telephone keypads; I can switch between them without much mental effort. (I can also switch between vi and emacs, and between bash and tcsh.)
But on every system I use, one of the first things I do is figure out how to remap the caps-lock key so it acts as a control key. In decades of effort, I've never gotten used to having the control key in a position other than immediately to the left of 'A'. If it works for most people, that's terrific, but it doesn't work for me.
But the OP does have a problem with it. The "destroys muscle- and spatial- memory" part seems exaggerated, but it may well be accurate *for the person asking the question*.
Different people have different mental models and usage patterns. Devices and software are supposed to be designed for users, not the other way around.
It's not a stupid question at all.
Comment Re:Nope. (Score 1) 393
So it's not a problem *for you*. So what? It's obviously a problem for the OP.
Comment Re:two bad aspects of this idea (Score 1) 374
Two is not an issue; there's no way to reply to these broadcast messages (at least not directly).
Corporations Hiring Hooky Hunters 610
No longer satisfied with your crinkled doctor's note, a growing number of corporations are hiring "Hooky Detectives." Private investigator Rick Raymond says he's staked out bowling alleys, pro football games, weddings and even funerals looking for people using sick days. From the article: "Such techniques have become permissible at a time when workers are more likely to play hooky. Kronos, a workforce productivity firm in Chelmsford, Mass., recently found that 57 percent of salaried employees take sick days when they're not sick — almost a 20 percent increase from statistics gathered between 2006 and 2008."
Comment Re:My Qs (Score 1) 303
No these are far too easy. Want we want are SECRET QUESTIONS, not answers.
Mine is, "The answer is 42. What is the question?".
41?
Comment "Shut Your Frakking Yap"? (Score 1) 798
Obviously it stands for "Shut Your Frakking Yap".
I encourage everyone to spread this idea. (Thanks to my brother who came up with it.)
Comment Ubuntu 8.10 froze around midnight UTC (Score 1) 480
My Ubuntu 8.10 system froze around midnight GMT. There's nothing in the logs to indicate any problem, except that the last log entry is at Dec 31 15:55:02 (that's 5 minutes before midnight) for a cron job that runs every 5 minutes. I wasn't at home at the time, so I didn't see what happened, except that my ssh connection died.
When I got home a few hours later, the system was still powered on (the fan was running), but the screen was blank. I was able to reboot it with no problem.
It's not the same problem as on the Zune, since that hit 24 hours earlier. It *might* have something to do with the leap second, or maybe it's a problem that occurs at the end of the 366th day of the year.
I suppose I could set the clock back and run it through midnight again. I'm not sure I'll bother, but if somebody else wants to try it it would be interesting to see the results. Or maybe I'll try that with a live CD.
Comment Re:The other half of the conversation (Score 1) 580
Here's the conversation I just had with Elbot:
Me: How well did you do on the Turing Test?
Elbot: Oh, I'm fine. I just had my 30 millionth processor-cycle check-up. I've been massaged with motor oil, reprogrammed with the latest, most elegant algorithms, and had all my rust removed with an atom smasher.
Oh yeah, no computer could simulate human intelligence *that* well.
Submission + - Autism Reversed at MIT Lab (bbc.co.uk)
ClayTapes writes: "It seems that scientists at MIT have been able to reverse the effects of autism and some forms of mental retardation in mice caused by fregile X chromosomes. They do so by targetting an enzyme that changes the structure of connections between brain cells. The treatment actually repairs these structural abnormalities which suggests that it may be possible to reverse the effects in children who already show symptoms. Article here."
Submission + - First royal mummy found since Tut is identified (reuters.com)
brian0918 writes: In what is being described as the most important find in the Valley of the Kings since the discovery of King Tut, a single tooth has clinched the identification of an ancient mummy as that of Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt about 3,500 years ago. A molar inscribed with the queen's name, discovered in a wooden box in 1881 in a cache of royal mummies, was found to fit perfectly in the jaw of "a fat woman in her 50s who had rotten teeth and died of bone cancer." Reuters also reports on the DNA analysis: 'Preliminary results show similarities between its DNA and that of Ahmose Nefertari, the wife of the founder of the 18th dynasty and a probable ancestor of Hatsephsut's.'
Submission + - Nationwide GPS tracking program for teen drivers (gpstrackingsystems.biz)
GPS Mapper writes: Safeco has rolled out Teensurance, a nationally available GPS tracking program for teen drivers. They've made it simple enough that I'm expecting wide-spread adoption, for better or worse.
Comment Re:Did Anyone Else? (Score 2, Funny) 258
As a matter of fact, I did first see the word "patents". It's a shame, too, as I was just getting ready to be all indignant and such.
Not that I'd put it past something like the RIAA to try and claim 28 patents on the recording disk attached to the Pioneer spacecraft and sue NASA for their p2p (that's planet-to-planet) file sharing.
Me
Submission + - MPAA Fires Back at AACS Decryption Utility
RulerOf writes: The AACS Decryption utility released this past December known as BackupHDDVD originally authored by Muslix64 of the Doom9 forums has received its first official DMCA Takedown Notice. It has been widely speculated that the utility itself was not an infringing piece of software due to the fact that it is merely "a textbook implementation of AACS," written with the help of documents publicly available at the AACS LA's website, and that the AACS Volume Unique Keys that the end user isn't supposed to have access to are in fact the infringing content, but it appears that such is not the case. From the thread:
"...you must input keys and then it will decrypt the encrypted content. If this is the case, than according to the language of the DMCA it does sound like it is infringing. Section 1201(a) says that it is an infringement to "circumvent a technological measure." The phrase, "circumvent a technological measure" is defined as "descramb(ling) a scrambled work or decrypt(ing) an encrypted work, ... without the authority of the copyright owner." If BackupHDDVD does in fact decrypt encrypted content than per the DMCA it needs a license to do that.
"...you must input keys and then it will decrypt the encrypted content. If this is the case, than according to the language of the DMCA it does sound like it is infringing. Section 1201(a) says that it is an infringement to "circumvent a technological measure." The phrase, "circumvent a technological measure" is defined as "descramb(ling) a scrambled work or decrypt(ing) an encrypted work,
