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China

China Bans Government Purchases of Windows 8 200

Posted by timothy from the everybody's-got-priorities dept.
itwbennett (1594911) writes "Last week, China's Central Government Procurement Center posted a notice on new requirements for government tender, that included, among other things, the mysterious request that Windows 8 be excluded from the bidding process on computer purchases. The agency could not be reached Tuesday, but China's state-controlled Xinhua News Agency said that the government was forbidding the use of Windows 8 after Microsoft recently ended official support for Windows XP."

Comment Can someone answer a few questions... (Score 1) 225

by steveb3210 (#44750745) Attached to: Japanese Ice Wall To Stop Reactor Leaks

1 - How long will the melted down core remnants needs to water to be applied? Can the corium still sustain a nuclear chain reaction if it were exposed?

2 - Whats would occur if water were interrupted at this point? (They called it cold shutdown a year ago but sources seem to conflict)

3 - How long will water need to be applied to the spent fuel ponds? From my understanding the fuel above reactor 4 is somewhat precarious since the building was compromised during the original explosions. Would these fuel rods ignite without water? Is there a real criticality danger if removal does not go exactly as planned? (Wikipedia seems to say criticality in fuel pools is a low-probability event under normal conditions)

4 - Whats your worst case scenario?

Just trying to find some basic scientific answers here, hoping someone can provide insight.

Comment Re:Discouraging underage use? (Score 1) 526

They found that people who began using pot earlier in life and used it most frequently over the years experienced an average decline of eight IQ points by the time they turned 38.

I'm betting most people lose at least eight IQ points by the time they turn 38.

That's why the mathematicians who do the groundbreaking work mostly are younger than 38. There are still brilliant mathematicians older than that, but they're not the ones who are doing the most important new work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitang_Zhang

Born in 1955 - recently had a breakthrough paper showing that there are infintely many primes with a gap at most 70million

Comment Re:RSA is outdated, but... (Score 1) 282

by steveb3210 (#44492043) Attached to: Math Advance Suggest RSA Encryption Could Fall Within 5 Years

Actually in some ways it would be really really exciting and almost certainly a really good thing in the long run, because there are a lot of important, currently-intractable problems that become tractable if P=NP.

Proving that P=NP doesn't make anything tractable, unless you use the ridiculous definition where tractable is the same as polynomial time. What would have practical applications is if someone finds a very fast algorithm for solving all the NP problems. Whether P=NP is not really very much related to the question of whether such an algorithm exists. ML has exponential-time type checking, yet ML compiles don't take that long. Polynomial time is not the same as practical - it fails in both directions.

Factoring is in NP... If P=NP, factoring is in P...

Factoring could be in P anyways as well...

Submission + - UK Met Office To Use MongoDB To Predict Nasty Space Weather

Submitted by twoheadedboy
twoheadedboy writes: The UK's Met Office is going the NoSQL route in a bid to predict when potentially catastrophic space weather might hit. The organisation is to use MongoDB, the popular open source database, to process the huge amounts of data it receives from outer space and turn it into useful forecasts. It is looking out for things like solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), which could, if particularly powerful, could knock out satellites or even power supplies. The hope is that real-time space weather information and predictions will be accessible for the general public soon.

Submission + - MMO Fan Site Removes Character Stats over Trademark Claim (eq2wire.com)

Submitted by steveb3210
steveb3210 writes: EQ2Wire.com is a fan site for the MMO Everquest 2. One feature of their site is a searchable portal for all game-related stats such as characters, equipment, items, and mobs which they generate from an XML feed provided by the game's publisher. Recently, the owner of a trademark has been threatening them over the name of a character and in the face of possible legal bills, they were forced to remove the character's profile from their site. Adding further insult to injury, the character seems to have been created prior to the trademark in question.

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