Dracil - Slashdot User

Visa to offer person-to-person payments-> 1

Submitted by

angry tapir

on Wednesday March 16 2011, @10:45PM

angry tapir writes "Visa has announced it is planning a new service that will let U.S. customers send money directly to one another, presenting new competition to PayPal. Visa already lets people send money to Visa accounts in many other countries, but this will be the first time it will offer the service in the U.S."
Link to Original Source

Evolution Of Virus 0

Submitted by adeelarshad82 on Wednesday March 16 2011, @03:15PM

adeelarshad82 writes "This month marks the 40th birthday for the computer virus. While understandably most of us won't be wishing the virus many happy returns, it's certainly interesting to see how the virus has evolved over the past few decades and become a much greater threat simply due to more connectivity. For instance the Creeper Virus, the very first one, ran in the restricted ARPANET and did little damage, the Stuxnet virus in 2010 infected nearly a hundred thousand computers across the globe."

Comment: Re:India isn't the only one, IDists think so too (Score 1) 478

by Dracil on Thursday February 03 2011, @02:37PM (#35093202) Attached to: Bombay High Court Rules Astrology To Be a Science

And that was redundant. That will teach me to read the summary more fully next time.

Comment: India isn't the only one, IDists think so too (Score 1) 478

by Dracil on Thursday February 03 2011, @02:34PM (#35093148) Attached to: Bombay High Court Rules Astrology To Be a Science

As "cdesign proponentsist" Behe said during the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, any definition of "scientific theory" that would include Intelligent Design would also include Astrology.

Model Says Religiosity Gene Will Dominate Society 729

Posted by timothy on Saturday January 29 2011, @07:42PM
from the getchyer-broad-brushes-n'-start-paintin' dept.

Hugh Pickens writes writes "PhysOrg reports on a study by Robert Rowthorn, emeritus professor at Cambridge University, that predicts that the genetic components that predispose a person toward religion are currently "hitchhiking" on the back of the religious cultural practice of high fertility rates and that provided the fertility of religious people remains on average higher than that of secular people, the genes that predispose people towards religion will spread. For example, in the past 20 years, the Amish population in the US has doubled, increasing from 123,000 in 1991 to 249,000 in 2010. The huge growth stems almost entirely from the religious culture's high fertility rate, which is about 6 children per woman, on average. Rowthorn says that while fertility is determined by culture, an individual's predisposition toward religion is likely to be influenced by genetics, in addition to their upbringing. In the model, Rowthorn uses a "religiosity gene" to represent the various genetic factors that combine to genetically predispose a person toward religion, whether remaining religious from youth or converting to religion from a secular upbringing. Rowthorn's model predicts that the religious fraction of the population will eventually stabilize at less than 100%, and there will remain a possibly large percentage of secular individuals. But nearly all of the secular population will still carry the religious allele, since high defection rates will spread the religious allele to secular society when defectors have children with a secular partner."

BitTorrent Client Offers P2P Without Central Tracking 218

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 09 2010, @11:55PM
from the nodist-colony dept.

Shiwei writes "While BitTorrent is the most popular P2P protocol, it still relies on several centralized points for users to find the files they are looking. There have been several attempts at making BitTorrent more decentralized, and the latest Tribler 5.3 client is the first to offer the BitTorrent experience without requiring central trackers or search engines. Tribler offers some very interesting technologies; the latest version enables users to search and download files from inside the client. Plenty of other clients offer search features, including the ever-popular Torrent, but Tribler's results come from other peers rather than from a dedicated search engine. Users can search and download content without a server ever getting involved; everything is done among peers, without the need of a BitTorrent tracker or search indexer."

Valve Announces Dota 2 128

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday October 14 2010, @06:50AM
from the new-and-improved-ways-for-people-to-call-you-terrible dept.

RulerOf writes "Just over a year after hiring IceFrog, the lead developer of the wildly popular DotA Allstars mod for Warcraft III, and the speculation surrounding Valve's recent trademark filing for the 'DotA' name, Valve has officially announced Dota 2. Gameplay of Dota 2 is being ported 'exactly' from the current DotA Allstars and includes every hero, but vast improvements are being made to the game including VoIP, a coaching system, in-game rewards, and AI that takes over for disconnected players. Lastly, it all runs on top of the Source engine. (GameInformer's website appears to be struggling right now though, as they had an exclusive on this story.)"

Comment: Why not board games? (Score 2, Insightful) 123

by Dracil on Friday April 30 2010, @08:57PM (#32052296) Attached to: Kid Health Experts Attack Video Game Summer Camp

If the point is social opportunity, then these provide a good social opportunity that does not require sitting in front of a screen. It arguably also requires a bit more thinking than the average video game. I'm of course, talking about games like Puerto Rico, Small World, Tigris & Euphrates, or Battlestar Galactica. Not games like Monopoly.

Talk of an Apple Search Engine To Thwart Google 276

Posted by kdawson on Sunday April 04 2010, @03:44PM
from the don't-want-to-play-in-your-yard dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "eWeek reports that the data Apple collects about users from its iPhone is so valuable that the company may build its own iPhone-centric search engine just to keep Google from gleaning insight from that data. 'The data generated on the iPhone OS platform must become an increasing priority for Apple and we believe the company has the resources to develop its own products in both maps and search in the next five years,' writes analyst Gene Munster. Google is currently the default search engine on the iPhone, but Google has increasingly encroached on Apple's mobile turf, offering the Android operating system and several mobile applications. As the search provider for the iPhone, Google sees what iPhone users are searching for, which can help it tailor software and services for its own mobile smartphones — a competitive advantage that has not gone unnoticed by Apple. Apple lacks the experience and engineering wherewithal to build a large, scalable search engine, but Munster says Apple could buy a search startup with a Web index, such as Cuil or Taptu, and use its index as the seed for its own search engine. 'Apple is in an inside position to tap into the current pent-up demand for better mobile search, and add a new competitive differentiation from other search providers and device makers,' adds IDC analyst Hadley Reynolds."

Comment: Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score 1) 658

by Dracil on Sunday April 04 2010, @03:31AM (#31722146) Attached to: What the Top US Companies Pay In Taxes

And people will just buy their goods and services from businesses in countries or states with lower consumption taxes instead.

Not to mention this will cause a shitload of damage on the poor who have to spend every cent they get (causing massive difficulties while getting very little actual tax revenue out of them) while the rich can just hoard their excess money as they see fit.