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Comment: Why bother commenting at all (Score 1) 763

by Brumdail (#37632640) Attached to: Help Shape the Future of Slashdot

It feels like there is little reason for me to actively participate in the discussions. Even though I have been reading for years, I don't feel any reason to comment unless I have something really important to say. It can take a lot of effort to put together a good post, only to have it ignored because it was not within the first group of comments or down-modded anyway. I don't want to spout of some mindless meme or bad joke (most of the time), and I don't have time to waste just to build up enough karma so people will pay attention.

Without a reason to post, I won't get mod points. Without any mod points, I won't really be able to be part of the discussion. So, until then, Slashdot won't have my contribution and will be worse off for it (imo).

What I would like to see is a way of better including the many readers who do not comment. How about randomly picking people who are reading an article (and haven't commented in a while), and ask what they think. The community will see more than just the usual voices. An automatic moderation added to one of the randomly picked representatives will get the voice of the average Slashdot reader included.

Robotics

US Senator Slams Robots->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Tom Coburn, Republican senator from Oklahoma, has recently put out a report accusing the National Science Foundation of mismanagement and abuse, including wasting millions of dollars on "dumb projects," several of which involve robots. Now the roboticists are standing up to the senator [http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-software/us-senator-calls-robot-projects-wasteful]. The researchers defend their projects and claim that the senator's assessment of science was "unscientific.""
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Science

US pays $2B for for 500MW of solar power->

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes "The US Department of Energy today said it was conditionally committing $2 billion to develop two concentrating solar power projects that it says will offer 500 megawatts of power combined, effectively doubling the nation's currently installed capacity of that type of power. Concentrated solar systems typically use parabolic mirrors to collect solar energy."
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Microsoft

Microsoft and Nvidia Have Acquisition Pact->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Infoweek is reporting that Microsoft has obtained the exclusive right to match any buyout offers for Nvidia. The obscure pact was uncovered in SEC documents, and apparently stems from Microsoft's licensing of Nvidia chips for the Xbox. But its real value now lies in the fact that Nvidia has become a major player in tablet chips, including chips for Windows 8 slates."
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Graphics

What Makes a Photograph Memorable?

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Anne Trafton writes in MIT News that next time you go on vacation, you may want to think twice before shooting hundreds of photos of that scenic mountain or lake because researchers have developed a computer algorithm that can rank images based on memorability and found that in general, images with people in them are the most memorable, followed by images of human-scale space — such as the produce aisle of a grocery store — and close-ups of objects. Least memorable are natural landscapes. Researchers built a collection of about 10,000 images of all kinds for the study — interior-design photos, nature scenes, streetscapes and others and human subjects who participated through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program were told to indicate, by pressing a key on their keyboard, when an image appeared that they had already seen. The researchers then used machine-learning techniques to create a computational model that analyzed the images and their memorability as rated by humans by analyzing various statistics — such as color, or the distribution of edges — and correlated them with the image’s memorability. “There has been a lot of work in trying to understand what makes an image interesting, or appealing, or what makes people like a particular image," says Alexei Efros at Carnegie Mellon University. “What [the MIT researchers] did was basically approach the problem from a very scientific point of view and say that one thing we can measure is memorability.” Researchers believe the algorithm may be useful to graphic designers, photo editors, or anyone trying to decide which of their vacation photos to post on Facebook (PDF)."
The Internet

Syria Drops Off The Internet As Turmoil Spikes->

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes "In what appears to be the latest bid by a government to throttle access to news and information amid growing civil unrest, the Syrian government Friday shut down all Internet services. Internet monitoring firm Renesys reported that starting around 7 a.m. EDT today, close to two-thirds of all Syrian networks were suddenly unreachable from the global Internet. In just 30 minutes, routes to 40 of 59 Syrian networks were withdrawn from the global routing table, Reneys' chief technology officer James Cowie said in a blog post. The shutdown has affected all of SyriaTel's 3G mobile data networks as well as several of the country's ISPs' such as Sawa, INET and Runnet. Also down are the Damascus city government page and the customs web site. The only networks that appear to be somewhat reachable are a handful of government-owned networks such as one belonging to Syria's Oil Ministry, Cowie noted. 'We don't know yet how the outage was coordinated, or what specific regions or cities may be affected more than others,' Cowie wrote. 'If Egypt and Libya are any guide, one might conclude that events on the street in Syria are reaching a tipping point.'"
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Businesses

SPAM: 10 Most Innovative Viral Ads

Submitted by
liqs8143
liqs8143 writes "Viral Ads are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques used for brand awareness through video advertising. Ad agencies have been trying to produce successful viral videos in order to increases brand awareness and get new fans.

10. Master of Business Card Throwing (Samsung)
This execution for Samsung’s new digital camcorder makes you want to toss business cards for a living. You can’t watch it without trying to do it yourself, or at least film it. Hopefully with a Samsung Digital Camcorder H205.

Ad Agency: The Viral Factory"
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Idle

Whales have accents and regional dialects-> 1

Submitted by fangmcgee
fangmcgee writes "When they dive together, sperm whales make patterns of clicks to each other known as "codas." Recent findings suggest that not only do different codas mean different things, but that whales can also tell which member of their community is speaking based on the sound properties of the codas. Just as we can tell our friends apart by the sounds of their voices and the way they pronounce their words, different sperm whales make the same pattern of clicks, but with different accents."
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Indiana Supreme Court Rules Warrants Unnecessary ->

Submitted by SpuriousLogic
SpuriousLogic writes "The Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that people cannot keep police from entering their homes, even if the entry is "unlawful."

In a 3-2 decision, the court held there are valid reasons for police officers to enter homes without a warrant and without knocking , including concerns for an officer's safety or that a suspect may escape or that evidence may be destroyed.

"We believe. . .a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," wrote Justice Steven David. "We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest."

David said a person arrested following an unlawful entry by police can still be released on bail and has other opportunities to protest the entry through the court system."
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Its official cell phones killing bees->

Submitted by
rossendryv
rossendryv writes "Scientists may have found the cause of the world’s sudden dwindling population of bees – and cell phones may be to blame. Research conducted in Lausanne, Switzerland has shown that the signal from cell phones not only confuses bees, but also may lead to their death. Over 83 experiments have yielded the same results. With virtually most of the population of the United States (and the rest of the world) owning cell phones, the impact has been greatly noticeable."
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Idle

IT pro pulls off rarest Putt-Putt feat->

Submitted by netbuzz
netbuzz writes "Rick Baird, a 53-year-old IT manager from North Carolina, recently accomplished a feat seen only twice in half a century and not once since 1979: a perfect round of Putt-Putt golf — 18 holes, 18 shots. He tells Network World: “When I got ready to play 18 everybody was still gathering around to watch. I had to back off once since people were moving and I did not want there to be any distractions, and I needed a deep breath to calm down.”"
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Power

Solar Impulse took off for its first intl. flight->

Submitted by piripiri
piripiri writes "The prototype plane Solar Impulse, which draws its power from the sun, has took off today at 06:40 GMT from Payerne, Switzerland and is expected to pass over Luxembourg and land at Brussels airport at approximately 9pm (GMT+2). Once again, the plane will be piloted by André Borschberg, who achieved the world's first manned 26 hour solar flight in 2010. The event can be tracked via the official iOS and Android smart phone applications or online via the Solar Impulse website or follow the project on twitter or YouTube."
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Security

Baby's First TSA Patdown 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes "Is there anything cuter than baby milestones? Baby's first steps. Baby's first word. And now, baby's first TSA patdown. 'Well,' writes Anna North, 'it finally happened. Airport security officers gave a pat-down to a baby.' A post on the TSA blog defended the move: 'The child's stroller alarmed during explosives screening. Our officers followed proper current screening procedures by screening the family after the alarm...The [8-month-old] child in the photo was simply receiving a modified pat-down.' Hey, at least they didn't make a federal case of the 4 oz. of liquid found in the little tyke's Pampers."

Murray's Rule: Any country with "democratic" in the title isn't.