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Comment: Eve did it first... (Score 1, Interesting) 197

by JoeLinux (#37687690) Attached to: <em>WoW</em> To Add Avenue For Real-Money Gold Buying

Eve online did it first, and paid a price for doing it incorrectly...they've since apologized and said they will roll it out right.

Meanwhile, WoW is hemorrhaging users...this can only further accelerate their departure, as people find a game with more meaning...Should provide some tasty n00bs to pod...

Earth

Model Says Religiosity Gene Will Dominate Society 729

Posted by timothy
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."
It's funny. Laugh.

Newspaper "Hacks Into" Aussie Gov't Website By Guessing URL 271

Posted by Soulskill
from the security-through-hurf-durf dept.
thelamecamel writes "According to the New South Wales state government, the Sydney Morning Herald, a local newspaper, attacked the government's 'website firewall security' for two days to research a recent story. The affected government minister said that the website was accessed 3,727 times, and that this is 'akin to 3,727 attempts to pick the lock of a secure office and take highly confidential documents.' The matter has been referred to the police, who are now investigating. But how did the paper 'hack' the website? They entered the unannounced URL. Security by obscurity at its finest."
Cellphones

Underground App Store Courts the Jailbroken 295

Posted by kdawson
from the bring-down-the-towers dept.
PainMeds writes "Apple's stepped-up and controversial rejections are helping to foster competition in the app store marketplace. According to an article by Wired, developers aren't taking AppStore rejection lying down, but are turning to the hacking community's repository system for the iPhone to launch an app store of their own. The 4-month-old Cydia store is yielding notably higher sales for a few application developers than Apple's AppStore, and is reportedly running on over 4 million Apple iPhone devices, with perhaps 350,000 connected at any one time. In this store, developers are distributing applications they've written that push the limits of Apple's normal AppStore policies, with software to add file downloads to Safari, trick applications into thinking they're on Wi-Fi (for VoIP), and enhance other types functionality. You'll also find the popular Google Voice application, which was recently rejected by Apple. Third party application development has been around since 2007, when the iPhone was originally introduced, and became so popular that O'Reilly Media published a book geared toward writing applications before an SDK was available. The Cydia store acts as both a free package repository and commercial storefront to third-party developers."
Editorial

Navigating a geek marriage...

Submitted by
JoeLinux
JoeLinux writes "I am soon to marry my true love (a girl! yes! they do exist!). She is a literary geek, whereas I am a gaming/linux geek. Being the RTFM-style geeks that we are, we have been reading up on marriage, making things work, etc. Unfortunately, all of the references seem to be based around an alpha-male jock, and a submissive cheerleader-style wife. A lot of the references to incompatibility in the books don't apply to us.(neglect due to interest in sports, etc.) What are some of the pitfalls and successes learned in the course of a more geek-oriented marriage?"
Businesses

RadioShack To Rebrand As "The Shack"? 629

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the a-little-old-place-where-we-can-get-together dept.
Harry writes "Rumor has it that RadioShack is planning to re-brand itself as The Shack later this year, after eighty-eight years under the old name (most of them with a space in between 'Radio' and 'Shack'). I hope it's not true, because I don't think the move would do a thing to make the retailer a better, more successful business." Where will we go to buy soldering irons and those RCA to headphone jack adapters now?

Envy is a pain of mind that successful men cause their neighbors. -- Onasander