Comment: Get Help? (Score 2) 278
I use BT, chat, email, FG and even play WoW and flash games. So I guess I'm in trouble:
Come see the symptoms inherent in the system, Help Help, I'm being depressed!
Comment: Re:USB keypad (Score 1) 300
Just buy a USB number pad and call it a day. They cost $30 for wireless ones, i have one i used forever as a macro keypad for WoW rather then drop $100+ on the G15 keyboard.
I know this is slashdot, but really, Read The Fine Original Post, the one at the very top before all the comments.
For practicality reasons, an external USB keypad is less convenient than a built-in one.
Comment: Re:Not only that... (Score 1) 569
The Swiss are also the beneficiaries of very mountainous terrain (notoriously hard to attack) and VERY heavily armed (An assault rifle in most homes). Plus in their history (there's that word again, history), the Swiss were feared mercenaries, and even the subject of treaties regarding use. There have also been civil wars, and repression of the populace. You seem to omit those. Switzerland is unique in its position, and hardly applicable as a realistic example, plus they too, have had blood in their past as I showed. Again, human nature is just to bloody to disarm.
"Brainput" Boosts Your Brain Power By Offloading Multitasking To a Computer 121
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the let-me-give-you-a-hand dept.
from the let-me-give-you-a-hand dept.
MrSeb writes "A group of American researchers from MIT, Indiana University, and Tufts University, led by Erin Treacy Solovey, have developed Brainput — a system that can detect when your brain is trying to multitask, and offload some of that workload to a computer. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which is basically a portable, poor man's version of fMRI, Brainput measures the activity of your brain. This data is analyzed, and if Brainput detects that you're multitasking, the software kicks in and helps you out. In the case of the Brainput research paper (PDF), Solovey and her team set up a maze with two remotely controlled robots. The operator, equipped with fNIRS headgear, has to navigate both robots through the maze simultaneously, constantly switching back and forth between them. When Brainput detects that the driver is multitasking, it tells the robots to use their own sensors to help with navigation. Overall, with Brainput turned on, operator performance improved — and yet they didn't generally notice that the robots were partially autonomous. Moving forward, Solovey wants to investigate other cognitive states that can be reliably detected using fNIRS. Imagine a computer that increases the size of buttons and text when you're tired, or a video game that slows down when you're stressed. Your Xbox might detect that you're in the mood for fighting games, and change its splash screen accordingly. Eventually, computer interfaces might completely remold themselves to your mental state."
Comment: Re:Not only that... (Score 1) 569
I recommended you learn history - apparently your grasp of history only extends to Wikipedia. Rather poor examples, you must be joking. Pax Romana? Constant small wars and battles all around the edges of the empire - study your history, you can start with Boudica and her routing the IX Hispana Legion in a rebellion. And you overlook the rest of the world - for instance the Han Dynasty's 100+ years Sino-Xiongnu war. Pax Britannica? An even bigger joke - you completely overlook the US Civil war, and lots of smaller wars like the Crimean war (Charge of the light brigade), the Opium wars in China, the Russian-Japanese wars of the early 20th, and the multiple Prussian wars in Europe, and even the Boer war towards the end of the period. Pax Americana? Come on, you should know better. For the US itself, there are a ton: Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan (Both the US and the Russians have had a go there). World wide there have been nearly innumerable colonial, then tribal wars that cause massive starvation in Africa, not to mention the Arab-Israeli wars, Indo-Pakistan. and numerous insurgencies all over the place like the Moro-Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines (who really need a different acronym if they want to stop people from snickering). Like I said, you need to learn some history. Come back when you learn the lessons of said history. Thanks for playing, have a nice day.
Comment: Re:forced? (Score 2) 811
Anything to get a mm wave look at some underage breasts.
Sadly, this may have some truth to it - she looks like a cute enough high school girl in the online picture in the article. TSA and Pedobear, BFF
Comment: Re:Not only that... (Score 1) 569
War is not so much a matter of weapons as of money -- Thucydides That was 25 centuries ago. Care to give even one instance of an extended period in civilized history in which war did not occur? That was what the point (which you apparently completely missed). Human nature insures there will always be war, naively wishing war would not happen doesn't make it go away. Santayana was right: Only the dead have seen the end of war. It is not a matter of if you have to spend money on military and war, its how much (and how well spent the "much" is). "A wise man in times of peace prepares for war." -- Horace's ancient advice still rings true down all the centuries. The only real choice is not whether to spend, but how much. War is such a horrid thing that it is incumbent to spend enough money and time to preclude one if possible, and to win one quickly and as bloodlessly as possible if not.
Comment: Re:Not only that... (Score 1) 569
Your problem is, human nature. Those who beat their swords into plowshares will till the soil for those who have not.
It's not human nature, it's your civilization and its institutions.
I suggest you take a few history courses. War of some sort or another (for gain or subjugation) has existed as long as any human civilization larger than a family has existed.
Comment: Re:Not only that... (Score 5, Insightful) 569
Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace. ~Charles Sumner
It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers. ~Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953
I'll just leave these in this thread...
Nice sentiments. But far too idealistic and unrealistic. Your problem is, human nature. Those who beat their swords into plowshares will till the soil for those who have not.
Comment: Re:No one sees... (Score 1) 397
you are rather simpleminded and frozen in your political outlook if you think the D party doesnt covent defense spending nearly as much as the R party. Two sides of the same coin.
You're the one who's "frozen in your political outlook". Obama's budget proposal would cut military spending. By quite a bit, in fact. See for yourself. Click the department totals tab.
Nice fantasy: depending on Obama's budget. I live in reality. Obamas budget was defeated by a unanimous vote (0 voting for, 414 D and R voting against) in case you didn't notice. Try to read what I said instead of being frozen to your preconceived "D Good R Bad" misconception: 2 sides, same coin. Learn. Or else all you will ever be is a convenient dupe for one side or the other.
Comment: Re:No one sees... (Score 1) 397
Will Panetta still be in if the Willard Romney wins? No - that's why he wants to lay the groundwork *now*. He wants to help his industrialist buddies. Very little R vs D here to see - you are rather simpleminded and frozen in your political outlook if you think the D party doesnt covent defense spending nearly as much as the R party. Two sides of the same coin.
Comment: Re:No one sees... (Score 1) 397
They have to be beaten down, shoved aside, and ignored
A rather unique approach you have to the scientific method, and applying it to public policy, which by nature demands consensus for anything to be done. Either you are an idiot who is doing more harm to his cause than he realizes, or I bow to you for trolling me with that jack-booted comment.
Panetta Labels Climate Change a National Security Threat 397
Posted
by
timothy
from the he's-got-a-military-industrial-complex dept.
from the he's-got-a-military-industrial-complex dept.
skipkent writes "Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared global warming a national security threat [Wednesday] during a speech before an environmentalist group in Washington, D.C. 'The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security,' Panetta told the Environmental Defense Fund last night. 'Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.'"
TMS9918A Retro Video chip reimplemented in FPGA with VGA out->
Submitted
by
acadiel
acadiel writes "Matthew H from the AtariAge.com TI-99/4A forum> has finalized a design of a TMS 9918A replacement (with VGA out) for classic computer systems such as the ColecoVision, TI-99/4A, SpectraVision, MSX1, SpectraVision 128, and Tomy Tutor Home computers. This hardware project replaces the native video controller on these classic systems and enables them to have VGA output for the first time."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Facebook and the Costs of Social Media->
Submitted
by
stern
stern writes "A nice piece in the New York Times about social media fatigue, the desire not to know so much about people, and the social costs of over-sharing."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source