Comment Re:ob Canuck joke (Score 4, Funny) 110
PW308 "eh?"
Submission + - Is Nuclear a Viable Option for Our Energy Needs?
Prof. Goose writes: "Very interesting and detailed technical piece on the pros and cons on nuclear power.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2323"Technically, there appear to be no show stoppers for a considerable expansion of Nuclear Power throughout the world. It is a low carbon energy source with abundant fuel supplies. The technology works and has much potential for improvement. Whether or not a large scale expansion eventuates depends on how it competes with Coal on economic grounds and with the public on political grounds. This in turn will be determined by the performance of the nuclear industry over the next few years as these purportedly cheaper and safer plants are built.
Submission + - Virtual Reality Game Ties Depression To Brain Area
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists are using a virtual-reality, three-dimensional video game that challenges spatial memory as a new tool for assessing the link between depression and the hippocampus, the brain's memory hub, Science Daily reports. Spatial memory is the memory of how things are oriented in space and how to get to them. Researchers found that depressed people performed poorly on the video game compared with nondepressed people, suggesting that their hippocampi were not working properly.
Submission + - Second Life: Is Business Ready For Virtual Worlds?
lizzyben writes: Got avatar? Baseline is running a long piece on how big business is jumping on the Second Life bandwagon.
From the article: "Real-world companies such as Toyota and American Apparel are exploring whether this 3D world can be adapted to serve real business purposes, similar to the way the Web evolved from a medium for academics and hobbyists to one that supports corporate commerce and marketing. Already, your avatar can test-drive a Toyota Scion or buy clothes in a virtual American Apparel store. So far, however, it's not clear how much these efforts are doing to sell real-world cars, clothes or any other merchandise."
From the article: "Real-world companies such as Toyota and American Apparel are exploring whether this 3D world can be adapted to serve real business purposes, similar to the way the Web evolved from a medium for academics and hobbyists to one that supports corporate commerce and marketing. Already, your avatar can test-drive a Toyota Scion or buy clothes in a virtual American Apparel store. So far, however, it's not clear how much these efforts are doing to sell real-world cars, clothes or any other merchandise."
Submission + - Who wrote - and paid for - 2.6.20
Corbet writes: "LWN.net did some data mining through the kernel source repository and put together an analysis of where the patches came from. It turns out that most kernel code is contributed by people paid to do the work — but the list of companies sponsoring kernel development has a surprise or two."
Submission + - How to find a job?
boxxa writes: "My graduation is approaching soon and I have begun the job search that many students go into. Since I wish to get out of the area where I am currently in school, the job hunt has gone online. My question is what type of jobs are posted online? My resume is on Monster.com and I carry quite a background with expierence in networking which is the career path I have chosen, but all the calls I seem to get are low level tech and PC jobs. Has anyone else experienced this? Is Monster.com and other sites like Yahoo! Jobs mostly recruiters and other low level postings for the lazy person to find while the larger companies in the US are waiting for people to find their postings in different places? Lastly, what other alternatives are there to finding jobs around the US?"
Submission + - Wired News discusses gaming of Digg
indraneil writes: "Wired is running an article on how Annalee Newitz created a spurious blog and posted a story on the same at Digg.
She then hired a Digg-gaming service called User/Submitter and paid them $450 to digg the article up.She explains how you can buy a Digg vote (for $1 per vote) from User/Submitter which hires people to digg up your story (and pays them $0.5 per vote).After a few rigged vites, she ended up getting votes from people who did not get paid, and soon her story had been awarded the "became popular" tag and had 121 diggs.
She explained the phenomenon thus:
"There's a perverse incentive here: Diggers who vote early on stories that become wildly popular become more "reputable" in the Digg system. If you're trying to move up the Digg ranks, it's in your best interest to vote on anything that looks like it's gaining popularity. And my blog, with its flurry of paid votes, fit the pattern." While the story did eventually get buried, the article raises questions on whether someone can game sites like Digg to rise up the search engine ranks or even gain otherwise from ad revenues.
Diggers are themselves arguing it out here."
She then hired a Digg-gaming service called User/Submitter and paid them $450 to digg the article up.She explains how you can buy a Digg vote (for $1 per vote) from User/Submitter which hires people to digg up your story (and pays them $0.5 per vote).After a few rigged vites, she ended up getting votes from people who did not get paid, and soon her story had been awarded the "became popular" tag and had 121 diggs.
She explained the phenomenon thus:
"There's a perverse incentive here: Diggers who vote early on stories that become wildly popular become more "reputable" in the Digg system. If you're trying to move up the Digg ranks, it's in your best interest to vote on anything that looks like it's gaining popularity. And my blog, with its flurry of paid votes, fit the pattern." While the story did eventually get buried, the article raises questions on whether someone can game sites like Digg to rise up the search engine ranks or even gain otherwise from ad revenues.
Diggers are themselves arguing it out here."
Submission + - Amazon funds social-networking site
Anonymous Coward writes: ""Amazon.com was the lead investor in a funding round for Shelfari, a
social-networking site for people interested in books. The amount of the
funding was not disclosed, but published reports estimated the total
funding around $1 million.
Go to Article from the Puget Sound Business Journal:
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2007/02 /26/daily19.html?from_rss=1""
Submission + - England gets a case of bad gas
anubi writes: Motorists in England are having a bad gas day.
Numerous sources are reporting motorists are having their cars fail shortly after a fillup, and as of yet, no one knows why.
Numerous sources are reporting motorists are having their cars fail shortly after a fillup, and as of yet, no one knows why.
Submission + - Friendster For Proteins
An anonymous reader writes: Your body is an internet, according to this Forbes story. From the article: "he body-as-network is becoming a dominant metaphor for future drug research...A budding field called systems biology, which borrows techniques from engineering, physics and computer science to understand the body's complex web of cause and effect."
And later on: Notre Dame physicist Albert-László Barabási and others have shown that molecular networks inside our bodies share some basic similarities with the Internet. Typical proteins make relatively few links to other proteins, just as most Web sites link to only a few others. But a small handful of "hub" proteins are like the Google (nasdaq: GOOG — news — people ) of the protein world, connected to dozens of other proteins. "Disease is a breakdown of the network," he says.
This big-picture idea was posited in the first half of the century by mathematicians and engineers. But the notion was eclipsed by the 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA. Since then molecular biologists have adopted an atomistic focus, rushing to identify and understand one gene and protein at a time."
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0312/072.ht ml?partner=yahoomag
And later on: Notre Dame physicist Albert-László Barabási and others have shown that molecular networks inside our bodies share some basic similarities with the Internet. Typical proteins make relatively few links to other proteins, just as most Web sites link to only a few others. But a small handful of "hub" proteins are like the Google (nasdaq: GOOG — news — people ) of the protein world, connected to dozens of other proteins. "Disease is a breakdown of the network," he says.
This big-picture idea was posited in the first half of the century by mathematicians and engineers. But the notion was eclipsed by the 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA. Since then molecular biologists have adopted an atomistic focus, rushing to identify and understand one gene and protein at a time."
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0312/072.h
Submission + - Asus announce laptop made from Bamboo
An anonymous reader writes: It seems like Asus has recently been inspired by what nature has to offer judging by its latest laptop designs. The Asus EcoBook comes with real bamboo panelling and will be available early next year. "Making a laptop out of wood doesn't sound all that sane a project, but we should probably get accustomed to this sort of thing — Asus has already delivered the first leather-bound laptops, and Tulip does a range of crazy laptop skins for its Ego range." All I can say is watch out for pandas.
Submission + - Presidential hopeful's SL office attacked
Jabrwock writes: "Presidential hopeful and Democrat John Edwards is the first candidate in the '08 race to have a virtual campaign office in the MMO Second Life. Now he is also the first candidate to have an online office vandalised with pictures of him in blackface, a feces-spewing obscenity, and posters of communism. The virtual office was apparently overrun by SL players wearing Bush '08 tags, who harassed visitors with verbal abuse of Edwards in particular, and Democrats in general."
Submission + - Oracle Makes a Play for Hyperion
Anonymous writes: Oracle has put in a bid for rival Hyperion Solutions Corp. for $3.3 billion, to boost its position in the market for performance management software. From the story: "Oracle, which has a market value of over $80 billion, will pay $52 in cash for each Hyperion share, which represents a 21 percent premium over Wednesday's closing price of $42.84 on Nasdaq. Shares rose by virtually the same amount in early electronic trading. Meanwhile, Oracle's aggressive acquisition strategy has fueled speculation of possible deals it could pursue. In January, rumors that Oracle would target Walldorf, Germany-based SAP boosted the stock price of the world's biggest maker of business software."
Submission + - None
Lauryn writes: "What can I say?"
