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Comment Re:Stupid summary (Score 1) 179

by zyl0x (#25318777) Attached to: Boston University Working On LED Wireless Networks
Obviously not speaking for the majority of horrendous drivers on the roads today, but as an excellent and safe driver, I don't trust anyone or anything other than myself driving my car. No matter how fast a computer works, it has nothing on a human brain in a life-or-death situation. Our brains are much more capable of taking in way more information into consideration than a computer. As a programmer, I just don't trust computers enough to make life-or-death decisions for me. Unintended side-effects, buggy code.. what happens if the computer is damaged in the accident or pre-accident situation, but the car isn't done moving yet? Am I supposed to now rely on damaged equipment to save my life? Seems a little shady to me.
Google

Google's Floating Datahaven 450

Posted by CmdrTaco from the don't-spring-a-leak dept.
PDG writes "Google has pending plans to take its data centers off-shore, literally. By moving their data centers to floating barges in international waters, they are able to save money on taxes and electricity (using wave based power) as well as reside their operations outside the jurisdiction of governments. There is mention of hurricane and other caveats, but I wonder how they plan to get a bandwidth pipe large enough and still be reliable. Seems like a chapter out of a Neal Stephenson novel." You might recall earlier discussions on the same subject.
Science

LHC Success! 1007

Posted by CmdrTaco from the good-news-everybody dept.
Tomahawk writes "It worked! The LHC was turned on this morning and has been shown to have worked. Engineers cheered as the proton particles completed their first circuit of the underground ring which houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). (And we're all still alive, too!)" Here is a picture from the control room which I'm sure makes sense to someone that isn't me.
Power

The Power Grid Can't Handle Wind Farms 681

Posted by samzenpus from the gone-with-the-wind dept.
DesScorp writes "The Times reports on the problems of adding wind farms to the power grid. Because of the grid's old design, it can't handle the various spikes that wind farms sometimes have, and there's no efficient way to currently move massive amounts of that power from one section of the country to the other. Further complicating things is the fact that under current laws, power grid regulation is a state matter, and the Federal government has comparatively little authority over it right now. Critics are calling for federal authority over the grid, and massive new construction of 'superhighways' to share the wind power wealth nationally. Quoting the article, 'The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.'"
Communications

US Warns Olympic Visitors of Chinese Cyber-Spying 231

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the these-concerns-aren't-chinese-specific dept.
An anonymous reader writes to tell us the US Government has issued a strong warning to travelers headed to the Beijing Olympics (PDF) with respect to electronic data. Part FUD, part awareness, the CBS article reads like 1984, urging travelers to treat all electronic devices (from fax to cellphone and back) as compromised, and proceeds to talk about China's aggressive cyber-espionage programs. "China is one of a number of countries pushing active cyber-espionage programs aimed primarily at cracking U.S. national security computers and stealing corporate trade secrets. Billions have already been lost. In addition, cyber-gangs and criminals, many based in Asia, have stolen bank accounts and credit card numbers from an untold number of Americans."
Software

Has Open Source Jumped the Shark? 250

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the 100-yard-shark-hurdles dept.
AlexGr writes to tell us that Jeff Gould has a somewhat jaded look at the commercial push of Open Source and what that may be doing to the overall Open Source movement. "I've been a Linux fan for years, but lately I wonder if the drum beating from the big IT vendors in favor of open source hasn't finally slipped over the edge from sincere enthusiasm to meaningless — or in some cases downright hypocritical — sloganeering. The example that brought this gloomy thought to mind was a recent IBM press release touting a 'new open client solution' as an 'alternative to vendor lock-in'. Wow. Imagine that. An alternative to vendor lock-in."
Biotech

Human Blood May Contain A Cure For AIDS 309

Posted by Zonk from the that-would-be-quite-convenient dept.
Lisandro writes "German scientists at the University of Ulm have identified a natural ingredient of human blood that prevents the HIV-1 virus from from infecting immune cells and multiplying. The molecule, which they call virus-inhibitory peptide (VIRIP), promises new types of effective treatment for HIV in the future. 'Tweaks to its amino acid components boosted its anti-HIV potency by two orders of magnitude. Tests also showed that some derivatives of the molecule are highly stable in human blood plasma, and non-toxic even at very high concentrations. A synthetic version of VIRIP also proved effective at blocking HIV, excluding the possibility that some other factor was responsible. VIRIP targets a sugar molecule which HIV uses to infect a host cell. '"
The Courts

Anti-Spam Suits and Booby-Trapped Motions 397

Posted by CmdrTaco from the yeah-i-said-it dept.
Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes in to say "The last few times that I sued a spammer in Washington Small Claims Court, I filed a "booby-trapped" written legal brief with the judge, about four pages long, with the second and third pages stuck together in the middle. I made these by poking through those two pages with a thumbtack, then running a tiny sliver of paper through the holes and gluing it to either page with white-out. The idea was that after the judge made their decision, I could go to the courthouse and look at the file to see if the judge read the brief or not, since if they turned the pages to read it, the tiny sliver of paper would break. To make a long story short, I tried this with 6 different judges, and in 3 out of 6 cases, the judge rejected the motion without reading it." The rest of this bizarre story follows. It's worth the read.
Windows

Only 244 Genuine Windows Vista's Sold in China 457

Posted by CmdrTaco from the not-good-odds dept.
morpheus83 writes "Whilst Microsoft was bragging about the sales number of their latest OS Windows Vista, few would actually know that they have only managed to sell 244 copies in the whole of China in the first 2 weeks. You heard that right, and that's the number quoted from the headquarters of the Windows Vista chief (90% national volume) distributor in Beijing."
Communications

Record High Frequency Achieved 141

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the music-to-their-ears dept.
eldavojohn writes "Researchers at UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science managed to push our control of frequencies to another level when they hit a submillimeter 324 gigahertz frequency. As any signal geek out there might tell you, this is a non-trivial task. 'With traditional 90-nanometer CMOS circuit approaches, it is virtually impossible to generate usable submillimeter signals with a frequency higher than about 190 GHz. That's because conventional oscillator circuits are nonlinear systems in which increases in frequency are accompanied by a corresponding loss in gain or efficiency and an increase in noise, making them unsuitable for practical applications.' The article also talks about the surprising applications this new technology may evolve into."
Democrats

Democrats Appoint RIAA Shill For Convention 698

Posted by kdawson from the what-were-they-thinking dept.
An anonymous reader sends us to Boing Boing for a report that "the Director of Communications for the RIAA, Jenni Engebretsen, has been appointed Deputy CEO for Public Affairs for the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Denver." The DNC site has the official press release. Cory Doctorow notes that the RIAA is the most hated "corporation" in America, having beaten out Halliburton and Wal-Mart for the honor, and writes for the DNC's attention, "This represents a potential shear with the left-wing blogosphere."
Software

Submission + - New P2P protocol faster than BitTorrent?

Submitted by
Jared
Jared writes: "New P2P system to be unveiled tomorrow configured to share not only identical files, but also similar ones. Called Similarity-Enhanced Transfer (SET), David G Andersen, assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, and Michael Kaminsky of Intel Research Pittsburgh, have designed a new P2P protocol they claim could significantly increase download speeds because it is configured to share not only identical files, but also similar ones. The two researchers behind SET, along with graduate student Himabindu Pucha of Purdue University, will present a paper describing SET and release the system code at the 4th Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, on April 11th in Cambridge, Mass. http://www.zeropaid.com/news/8620/Faster+than+BitT orrent%3F"
Enlightenment

Submission + - Google Earth now shows atrocities in Darfur

Submitted by
Josh Fruhlinger
Josh Fruhlinger writes: "http://www.switched.com/2007/04/10/darfur-crisis-s hown-in-google-earth/

Google Earth is a fascinating program that allows you to zoom in on virtually any location on earth using satellite imagery. As of today, however, when you search for Darfur, you are shown a large red region titled "Crisis in Darfur." This is one of the first times a search engine of this scale has become involved in international politics. Google looks at it as a way to educate its users to the atrocities occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Sudan.

"At Google, we believe technology can be a catalyst for education and action," Elliot Schrage, Google's vice president of global communications and public affairs told CNN. "'Crisis in Darfur' will enable Google Earth users to visualize and learn about the destruction in Darfur as never before and join the museum's efforts in responding to this continuing international catastrophe."

Crisis hot-spots are shown in red flames. When users zoom in on them, they are shown damaged and destroyed villages with photographic evidence. Also involved is the Holocaust museum which provided much of the content."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Vista Expert: Why I Don't Like Vista

Submitted by jammag
jammag writes: This is the funniest negative review of the Vista release I've seen. Andy Rathbone, who wrote the "Dummies Guide to Vista" book, actually admits he doesn't use Vista — because he doesn't like it. He provides a list (written in clear, Dummies-style prose) of why the OS is kind of a drag: 1) Security problems, 2) Aero display confusion, 3) Hidden display settings...

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