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Communications

How an Android Phone and Facebook Helped Route Haiti Rescuers 114

One intrepid Android fan is extolling the virtues of the open smartphone platform that helped him to route SOS messages in the recent Haiti disaster. "Well, when you are in such a situation, you don't really think about going to Facebook, but it happens that I have a Facebook widget on my Android home screen that regularly displays status updates from my friends. All of a sudden, an SOS message appeared on my home screen as a status update of a friend on my network. Not all smartphones allow you to customize your home screen, let alone letting you put widgets on it. So, I texted Steven about it. As Steven had already been working with the US State Department on Internet development activities in Haiti, he quickly called a senior staff member at the State Department and asked how to get help to the people requesting it from Haiti. State Department personnel requested a short description and a physical street address or GPS coordinates. Via email and text messaging, I was able to relay this information from Port-au-Prince to Steven in Oregon, who relayed it to the State Department in Washington DC, and it was quickly forwarded to the US military at the Port-au-Prince airport and dispatched to the search-and-rescue (SAR) teams being assembled. So the data went from my Android phone to Oregon to Washington DC and then back to the US military command center at the Port-au-Prince airport. I was at first a little skeptical about their reaction: there was so much destruction; they probably already had their hands full. Unexpectedly, they replied back saying: 'We found them, and they are alive! Keep it coming.'"

Comment Nice idea, but... (Score 1) 458

This is a nice idea, but it seems lacking. No DVI port? That one is pretty important to me. Also is highly priced, although maybe not for being mini ITX.

I would have been a lot more impressed if the specifications page was more in depth and it actually came with Coreboot and a DVI port. I've heard lots of bad things about Atom processors, too.

Nice job to them though.

Comment Dumb (Score 1) 360

This is just dumb. Obviously, different headphones have different impedance levels and different dB to power ratio, so your tinny and tiny Ipod junkphones may be around 90dB when your cans are around 70dB.

The thing is, why can't governments let people think for themselves anymore? At most, make a public disclaimer, just always let people do what they want since it isn't their responsibility.

In general most regulations are fail.

Comment Not surprised... (Score 1) 99

Mod me down, but seriously, SSL, DNSSEC, and so many things for "security" are just junkware, introducing their own bugs and problems while making things excessively bloaty. Noticed how many vulnerabilities there have been in SSL alone lately? It's scary and this really needs to be rethought.

Comment Why? Because calorie restriction is stupid (Score 1) 978

Yes, calorie restriction *works*, but everyone who promotes it is putting a million issues into the bubble of dietary restriction. Why are some competitive eaters so darn thin?

Sonya Thomas *lost* weight eating tons of food, she's tiny!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonya_Thomas

I'd reference more, but I won't spend too much time on this. Yes, overeating in many cases will cause you to gain weight. Ever noticed why some people can eat 1k Calories per day and never have their weight change, even with lots of exercise? It's because their metabolism slows down to that rate. Diabetics of a certain kind (I think type 1, but I don't recall exactly) can't gain weight no matter what, strictly because they've got little ability with insulin.

You can lose weight restricting calories, but all you do in the long run is put up hormonal and physiological red flags saying that the body is in starvation mode. There have been studies with prison subjects being force fed 10,000 Calories a day of I think mostly fructose. They gained weight, (no wonder, since it was mostly fructose) but many peaked around 4 pounds, even after weeks! This should be a weight gain of 2lbs a day, even if their basal rate burns 3k Calories. Something's up.

Some people can eat themselves over and lose weight without exercise, while feeling a huge desire to exercise but fighting it. Some people gain weight with a few green peas. Why? It's far more complex than I can answer here, or even know myself. I will say that the body, when eating good healthy food, will have it's metabolism "unlocked" at a certain point. For some people, it takes eating a lot. They gain weight initially, have a number of health problems taken away, plateau, and then lose weight super easily. Some need thyroid supplementation. Some people don't gain weight at all. In the end, you feel better, you have tons of energy, and can eat as much butter and mashed potatoes as you've ever seen, without gaining weight. Now, that doesn't work for everyone. Some people will have gluten intolerance, hiatal hernia, and so much in the way. Just, Calories in - Calories out = Weight change is a nice formula for you /.'ers, but it's downright stupid. It may work 70% of the time, but it's not meant to be that way, and it's missing 99.99% of the picture.

The best answers I've seen to this are on http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/ , where I learned about most of this. I had suspected it for a while myself, but this guy really puts it into perspective.

Thoughts?

Comment People need to reconsider if... (Score 1) 418

Global Warming is caused by humans, and if it does harm in the first place. I'm not saying that it's not caused by humans and isn't harmful, but please think for yourself and read rather than taking the mainstream, approved view. This is a good read; just try to find the truth rather than assuming what you've been taught (or what that site says). Either way, Toyota is a bad measure of cost. Is that my $800 1986 Toyota Celica GT-S, or a newer luxury sedan?

Comment Re:Can someone else honestly tag this... (Score 1) 227

You are right, I missed that part. Either way, 813 r/s is kind of useless until you stumble upon the basic hardware information, unless it is compared to other data. It also (maybe I'm wrong about this, too) does not say the operating system used, which could be the sole reason the caching is working well. In my opinion, the article is a bit much over excitement combined with too little exposed technical knowledge on behalf of the author. I'm sure Opera Unite has some use potential in many areas, but the article is simply not Slashdot quality.

Comment Can someone else honestly tag this... (Score 1) 227

as worstofslashdot? This article is only mildly interesting because I had never heard of Opera Unite before. But what is with such a low quality article getting on Slashdot? Slashdot is for people with half a brain. I don't care about "813 r/s"; saying that figure means nothing. And what hardware exactly? Reminds me of this post on reiserfs-devel (just the first two posts). At least he gives some comparisions later on, but a Slashdot article pointing to a witty comment in another article would probably make for a better read. Seriously though, what is happening to Slashdot? Digg sometimes is more consistent with good articles, and that is just sad. Slashdot is a great site overall and has its own unique taste, but it needs to stop pushing articles like this. Cheers! Yeah, I debated posting this as anonymous. Troll me down if you disagree.

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