Comment Re:... and? (Score 3, Funny) 1601
google "2012 Polling statistics". http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/election.png
Submission + - hacking publishing with the Amazon Kindle (amazon.com)
Daniel Oran writes: "Before the Amazon Kindle, writers wrote books and readers read them. Period.
Now, with Kindle, readers can talk back — before a book is even finished.
Kindle appeared just as I was completing a second novel, so I decided to do with my novel what Web companies do with their new products: run an online beta test.
I published my first novel the old-fashioned way: agent, publisher, bookstores, etc. But this time, I wanted a more interactive experience.
As far as I'm aware, this is the first experiment of its kind on this new platform. And I suspect that it's just the beginning of a real revolution in the relationship between writers and readers."
Feed New York Times: In Blog, a Military Man Writes About His Own Death (nytimes.com)
“I died doing a job I loved,” U.S. Army Major Andrew Olmsted wrote in his final online piece.
Submission + - Who/what is more evil?
Submission + - Toll free numbers (get800today.com)
An anonymous reader writes: As a consultant, I travel frequently. I wanted a way for my clients and prospective clients to reach me toll free; but didn't want them to get stuck with a voice mail from my office every day that I'm on the road. Get800today.com was the solution — I just forward all calls to my 800 phone number to my cell phone and my clients can reach me toll free, no matter where in the country I happen to be at the time!
Submission + - Wikipedia to be licensed under Creative Commons
sla291 writes: Jimmy Wales made a very exciting announcement (video & transcript) yesterday night at a Wikipedia party in San Francisco : Creative Commons, Wikimedia and the FSF just agreed to make the current Wikipedia license (the GFDL) compatible with Creative Commons (CC BY-SA). As Jimbo puts it, "This is the party to celebrate the liberation of Wikipedia".
Submission + - Ever wondered how it feels to be a billionare?
WindBourne writes: Here is an excellent story about Elon Musk and watching his 2'nd launch. Elon Musk is betting his 2x fortunes for the chance to put mankind into orbit CHEAP. Even now, his timing could not be better. It appears that America will be without a man-rated launcher (again) for at least several years. Spacex could be the only American player during that time. If so, then he will be launching not just people to the ISS, but to multiple Bigelow space ships and doing cargo. But then again, with another failure or 2, he may end up broker than he was at age 12. Now the question is, will he also be able to build a launcher that is cheaper and bigger than the planned ares V due out in a decade?
Submission + - Nightmare web design clients
Mathew Browne writes: "I recently wrote an article about web design clients who have proved a little troublesome — see http://www.mbwebdesign.co.uk/blog/nightmare-web-de sign-clients/
You know the kind — "we can't afford to pay you but we'll let you have a link back to your site", "I want to be #1 on Google for [insert generic term here]", "let's use Comic Sans as the font", et cetera. This article lists 10 clients I've encountered who you want to avoid."
Feed Century-Old Chemistry Problem Solved (sciencedaily.com)
Chemists have found a solution to a problem that is more than 100 years old --- how to couple two unactivated carbon atoms together with the help of a catalyst. The molecules formed --- called biaryl molecules --- are the building blocks of light emitting diodes (LEDs), electron transport devices and liquid crystals found in modern LCD screens, and are found in approximately one in 20 medicines on the market today, such as Vancomycin, a last resort antibiotic and Glivec, an anti-cancer agent.
Submission + - Identification through Reverse DNS?
An anonymous reader writes: I've recently noticed that the reverse DNS name given to my IP from my ISP contains my mac address. It seems to me that regardless of IP address/dhcp logs that this could serve as a permanent unique identifier for a person. How many other ISPs do this? Are we clearing our google cookies periodically for nothing? Is this a privacy hole that should be closed up? I can see the ISPs internally being able to recognize their clients uniquely, but to the rest of the Internet is it a security violation for people to be tracked by an unchanging hostname?
Submission + - Is 200kbps Broadband ?
ppadala writes: "Why is every thing above 200kbps considered Broadband ? Shouldn't there be more categories for defining some high-bandwidth video pipes ? From PCWorld,
Senator Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat and chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, introduced the Broadband Data Improvement Act Thursday, along with five Democratic cosponsors. The bill would require the FCC to re-evaluate whether 200K bps (bits per second) is sufficient bandwidth to justify being called broadband, and it would require the agency to create a new measurement known as second-generation broadband to identify networks capability of transmitting high-definition video.
The move is praised by Open Internet Coalition, which is arguing that US is behind other countries in Broadband deployment."
Submission + - Promissing cancer cure at University of Alberta
dsieme01 writes: "Human trials will start in the near future is the goal. It's exciting to see research that should provide for a low cost, simple method. Unfortunately big drug companies appear not to be interested.
Quoting from http://www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca/
DCA is an odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule. And researchers at the University of Alberta believe it may soon be used as an effective treatment for many forms of cancer.
Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor at the U of A Department of Medicine, has shown that dichloroacetate (DCA) causes regression in several cancers, including lung, breast, and brain tumors.
Michelakis and his colleagues, including post-doctoral fellow Dr. Sebastian Bonnet, have published the results of their research in the journal Cancer Cell.
Scientists and doctors have used DCA for decades to treat children with inborn errors of metabolism due to mitochondrial diseases. Mitochondria, the energy producing units in cells, have been connected with cancer since the 1930s, when researchers first noticed that these organelles dysfunction when cancer is present.
Until recently, researchers believed that cancer-affected mitochondria are permanently damaged and that this damage is the result, not the cause, of the cancer. But Michelakis, a cardiologist, questioned this belief and began testing DCA, which activates a critical mitochondrial enzyme, as a way to "revive" cancer-affected mitochondria.
The results astounded him.
Michelakis and his colleagues found that DCA normalized the mitochondrial function in many cancers, showing that their function was actively suppressed by the cancer but was not permanently damaged by it.
More importantly, they found that the normalization of mitochondrial function resulted in a significant decrease in tumor growth both in test tubes and in animal models. Also, they noted that DCA, unlike most currently used chemotherapies, did not have any effects on normal, non-cancerous tissues.
"I think DCA can be selective for cancer because it attacks a fundamental process in cancer development that is unique to cancer cells," Michelakis said. "One of the really exciting things about this compound is that it might be able to treat many different forms of cancer".
Another encouraging thing about DCA is that, being so small, it is easily absorbed in the body, and, after oral intake, it can reach areas in the body that other drugs cannot, making it possible to treat brain cancers, for example.
Also, because DCA has been used in both healthy people and sick patients with mitochondrial diseases, researchers already know that it is a relatively non-toxic molecule that can be immediately tested patients with cancer."
Quoting from http://www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca/
DCA is an odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule. And researchers at the University of Alberta believe it may soon be used as an effective treatment for many forms of cancer.
Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor at the U of A Department of Medicine, has shown that dichloroacetate (DCA) causes regression in several cancers, including lung, breast, and brain tumors.
Michelakis and his colleagues, including post-doctoral fellow Dr. Sebastian Bonnet, have published the results of their research in the journal Cancer Cell.
Scientists and doctors have used DCA for decades to treat children with inborn errors of metabolism due to mitochondrial diseases. Mitochondria, the energy producing units in cells, have been connected with cancer since the 1930s, when researchers first noticed that these organelles dysfunction when cancer is present.
Until recently, researchers believed that cancer-affected mitochondria are permanently damaged and that this damage is the result, not the cause, of the cancer. But Michelakis, a cardiologist, questioned this belief and began testing DCA, which activates a critical mitochondrial enzyme, as a way to "revive" cancer-affected mitochondria.
The results astounded him.
Michelakis and his colleagues found that DCA normalized the mitochondrial function in many cancers, showing that their function was actively suppressed by the cancer but was not permanently damaged by it.
More importantly, they found that the normalization of mitochondrial function resulted in a significant decrease in tumor growth both in test tubes and in animal models. Also, they noted that DCA, unlike most currently used chemotherapies, did not have any effects on normal, non-cancerous tissues.
"I think DCA can be selective for cancer because it attacks a fundamental process in cancer development that is unique to cancer cells," Michelakis said. "One of the really exciting things about this compound is that it might be able to treat many different forms of cancer".
Another encouraging thing about DCA is that, being so small, it is easily absorbed in the body, and, after oral intake, it can reach areas in the body that other drugs cannot, making it possible to treat brain cancers, for example.
Also, because DCA has been used in both healthy people and sick patients with mitochondrial diseases, researchers already know that it is a relatively non-toxic molecule that can be immediately tested patients with cancer."
Submission + - An Introduction to Haskell
blackbearnh writes: "Over at O'Reilly's ONLamp site, a two part series is running that introduces the Haskell functional programming language. From the article:
"
Of course, it's not necessary to use a functional programming language to use these techniques. Because ideas from the functional programming world are appearing in mainstream languages, it is more important than ever to understand these techniques. Tom Christiansen said it best:
A programmer who hasn't been exposed to all four of the imperative, functional, objective, and logical programming styles has one or more conceptual blindspots. It's like knowing how to boil but not fry. Programming is not a skill one develops in five easy lessons.
Many programming languages offer a mixture of styles. Most object oriented languages have an imperative core, where classes, objects and methods provide a thin veneer over a language that is little more than a slightly improved version of C. Many functional programming languages mix functional, imperative, and object-oriented styles together in a manner that makes it difficult to tell them apart.
Haskell, on the other hand, is a purely functional language that restricts itself to the functional style of programming. Learning and using Haskell makes it easy to see the power and benefits of lambda calculus and functional programming.
Journal Journal: Joan of Arc's relics exposed as forgery
Perfume experts help unmask remains as Egyptian mummy.
The relics of St Joan of Arc are not the remains of the fifteenth-century French heroine after all, according to European experts who have analysed the sacred scraps. Instead, they say the relics are a forgery, made from the remains of an Egyptian mummy.
Submission + - A good technology to use to write an AJAX app
orderb13 writes: My friend and I are developing a new website as a fun little side project. We are wanting part of it to be an AJAX application and part of it to be standard HTML/XHTML. We are both versed in standard web-development (he uses Java, I use .Net) but have no experience with AJAX. Neither of us is opposed to learning a new language if one present compelling reasons to switch, as we are firm believers in the right tool for the right job. We were wondering what the slashdot community's experience has been. Is there a programming language/platform that is head and shoulders above the other in terms of ease of programming an AJAX app? Is there a particular toolkit you find useful? Any books or web resources that you used to learn? Are there any pitfalls that we should avoid?
