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Comment: Instant Results? (Score 5, Interesting) 339

by Kyune (#28315119) Attached to: Wolfram Alpha Rekindles Campus Math Tool Debate
Seeing as I'm about to graduate from CS with a minor in Math, the thing that I find funny is that there is so much focus on "results" and so little attention to process, particularly when it comes to learning. That being said, the biggest gripe I have with math in the classroom is the reliance by instructors and authors on readers to just "get" what is being taught; textbooks that provide one or two examples and assignments far beyond what the text really offers, or make the assumption that every reader is going to reflexively make all the intuitive leaps needed to get to the solution, and a correct one at that. Hey, I understand wanting to pass only the people who are willing to work hard to succeed, but right now the "system" makes people work hard for the wrong reasons. I can't say that I see Wolfram Alpha help the problem I outlined--it's a step sideward, really. At least now we can check our work? haha.
Patents

Life Imprisonment for Copyright Infringement

Submitted by
ronadams
ronadams writes "P. Parameswaran writes in his AFP article:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he proposed comprehensive legislation to Congress Monday against copyright thieves, including raising the maximum penalty to life imprisonment and seizing the illicit profits of offenders.
Nick Ferrel at the Inquirer confirms the reports and adds a few interesting insights of his own. Good to know RIAA is a vital part of the US Government. I must have been asleep when my Government & Law professor glossed over that one."
Censorship

Top 25 censored stories of 2007

Submitted by Vexorian
Vexorian writes "Is there direct or indirect censorship in the media towards delicate but important topics? Project censored lists 25 stories that did not seem to get the required attention by the media: From the article: "Throughout 2005 and 2006, a large underground debate raged regarding the future of the Internet. More recently referred to as "network neutrality," the issue has become a tug of war with cable companies on the one hand and consumers and Internet service providers on the other. Yet despite important legislative proposals and Supreme Court decisions throughout 2005, the issue was almost completely ignored in the headlines until 2006.1 And, except for occasional coverage on CNBC's Kudlow & Kramer, mainstream television remains hands-off to this day"."
Science

Creationism Museum Opening in Kentucky 1166

Posted by Zonk
from the see-where-you-are-wrong-is-everywhere dept.
Noel Linback writes "A new creationism-espousing museum is opening in the state of Kentucky. According to a New York Times article the museum depicts humans and dinosaurs living together in traditional 'diorama' style exhibit. 'Whether you are willing to grant the premises of this museum almost becomes irrelevant as you are drawn into its mixture of spectacle and narrative. Its 60,000 square feet of exhibits are often stunningly designed by Patrick Marsh, who, like the entire museum staff, declares adherence to the ministry's views; he evidently also knows the lure of secular sensations, since he designed the Jaws and King Kong attractions at Universal Studios in Florida. For the skeptic the wonder is at a strange universe shaped by elaborate arguments, strong convictions and intermittent invocations of scientific principle. For the believer, it seems, this museum provides a kind of relief: Finally the world is being shown as it really is, without the distortions of secularism and natural selection. '"
Programming

Open Source vs Affordable Indie 3D Game Engines? 152

Posted by Cliff
from the which-direction-would-you-choose dept.
TBBScorpion asks: "Lately I have been investigating 3D game engines. I was mostly paying attention to open source engines like Ogre3d, Irrlicht, Crystal Space 3D, and the like. Then I found out about cheap Indie licenses for commercial game engines like Torque Game Engine ($150), Torque Game Engine Advanced ($295) and the C4 Engine ($200 + free upgrades). I found a list of top commercial and open source game engines at devmaster.net in case anyone is interested (I didn't want to take the time to list all the engines, but there are more good ones that I did not list on this page). Now for my questions. Now, here's my dilemma. Which of the engines are worth investing in? Should I buy an indie license or hold out for open source? Or should I start with an indie engine and switch later if open source catches up?"
Democrats

Geek runs for congress wearing "Evil Genius

Submitted by
boyko.at.netqos
boyko.at.netqos writes "Brian Boyko was ticked off that the Democrats sold us out by voting to authorizing spending for the war without a timetable attached. Lloyd Doggett — his Congressman — was one of those Democrats who voted for the war authorization, presumably because they felt that voters who opposed the war would have no choice but to re-elect them. Instead, Boyko got so fed up he launched his own primary challenge to Congressman Doggett — and he's doing it his way, wearing an "Evil Genius" T-shirt, putting up blog posts that state that he doesn't want dime one in fundraising, or listing out all his political scandals in a post called "Welcome to my closet, would you like to see my skeletons?" The biggest thing: Republicans use blogs as smear campaigns, Democrats use blogs as fundraising tools. This is a campaign blog that's an actual blog.

From the site:


"I've never been charged with a crime, although I could have been once, when I was 19. Let's just say that toaster ovens are a privilege, not a right, and I learned that the hard way.... My sexual proclivities are my business, and I don't want to talk about them. Rest assured, they are not illegal (unless you consider Playstation 2 controllers to be "vibrators" — it's illegal to own vibrators in Texas.) Statistically speaking, it's very likely that your sex life is much more interesting than mine; I am running in the 25th district of Texas, after all... I play Dungeons & Dragons and other geeky games."


Full disclosure: This blog post was submitted by the candidate."
Power

Driving on starch?

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes "Using sugar contained in corn or potatoes to build hydrogen-powered fuel cells has already been done. But now, a team of U.S. researchers has developed a new sugar-to-hydrogen technology. Why not put the starch inside the tank of your car? With the help of 13 specific enzymes, "a car with an approximately 12-gallon tank could hold 27 kilograms (kg) of starch, which is the equivalent of 4 kg of hydrogen. The range would be more than 300 miles, estimates one of the researchers. One kg of starch will produce the same energy output as 1.12 kg (0.38 gallons) of gasoline." The beauty behind this idea is that no special infrastructure would be needed. Starch could be distributed by your local grocery store. Here is a link to many additional references."
Role Playing (Games)

Blizard Sues Virtual Gold Seller 242

Posted by CowboyNeal
from the long-time-coming dept.
DaphneDiane writes "Blizzard announced that they are suing one of the heavily spamming gold sellers, Peons4hire. Peons4hire had recently been spamming players in World of Warcraft with multi-line messages advertising their power leveling and gold selling business. With the advent of the recently released 2.1.0 patch Blizzard made it easier to report and block these spammers. I've noticed a large decrease in spam while playing since the patch. It used to be that I would get nearly a dozen spams a night but I barely have seen any since."
Media (Apple)

Apple refuses to fix Macbook Pro

Submitted by
notquiteleet
notquiteleet writes "I was called on the 21st of May by Apple to come pick up my Macbook Pro after having it repaired.

Why was it repaired? Here is the short back story.

I had a cracked LCD screen a few months ago. I paid nearly 1400 bucks to have it fixed and repaired (which included the top and bottom assembly). A month after I got it back I noticed that the display would not latch properly, not without my forcing it shut. I also noticed separation between the plastic lining and the metal assembly on the top and bottom of the chassis. This was also noticed on the display. At the time I needed it for school and for work setting up a few websites, making money etc. Semester was over, caught a break in work and met the tech at the Genius bar to address the issues on the weekend of the 12th of May. Genius tech agreed it was flawed, sent it to Apple Care to be fixed at no cost to me.

Went to pick up the laptop the first time on or around the 17th of May. I refused to accept the repair because there was still a large bulge between the lining and bottom assembly from the audio port to the back of the laptop. I could easily get my thumbnail in it. It was still present on the other side of the laptop but less prevalent. The display was never replaced so the condition on it still existed. The genius tech said he sees a lot of laptops come in with this "condition" and it seems to be typical. He said he couldn't guarantee anything, but he would send it back to Apple Care. He also said they may send it back without touching it.

Well here we are on the 22nd of May and this time its MUCH worse. Though I was optimistic, I still couldn't accept the repair. The top and bottom assemblies looked great, no issue there.

My issue was now the display itself. It has what I would say is a horrendous U bend when closed and latched.

Please let me know if I'm being a little over sensitive, here are the pics (click for 6 MP version):

Go to the host site to see the pictures.

http://notquiteleet.com/2007/05/23/apple-refuses-t o-fix-macbook-pro/

I was helped by Khalil Smith, the General Manager of the Apple Store at Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh, NC. I told him that I was not comfortable accepting the laptop in this condition.

I told him the assemblies and plastic lining looks great but I was concerned about the bend in the display. I asked him to send it back to Apple Care.

He said, "I will not authorize any more work on this laptop"!

I asked again that he send it back to Apple Care since I did not feel confident in the integrity of the display due to the large bend.

He replied that, "The repair falls within our specs."

I asked to see the specs.

He said, "They are confidential".

I almost lost it at this point. He then said if I refuse to pick the laptop up, they would follow their abandonment procedure where I would be called at a regular interval for 60 days. I picked up the work authorization paper work and said that I would like this as a record of the repair on it. He forcefully snatched it out of my hand and said "that is only if you pick it up". I asked him to make a copy of it, twice if not three times, before he went to the back and did it. He didn't copy the itemized repair page that showed exactly what was repaired.

So if you could let me know if I'm just being a little too sensitive about this Id appreciate it. They know perfectly well how much we spend on these machines, and at that price we deserve to have it looking and functioning perfectly, especially right out of a repair depot.

I worked for the Apple Store at Southpoint Mall in Durham, NC. for about 10 months (approximation) or so when I was in College, this being about 2 years ago. I left when I was offered and internship at a Fortune 100 company where I currently work now as full time Engineer.

Given the experiences Ive been through the past 2 weeks I'd like to thank Apple for disowning one of its "own".

Not only do I feel discriminated against, I am thoroughly disgusted, and deeply offended by the way Khalil Smith, a General Manager handled the situation. I have no confidence in the Management of the store to do what's right. My trust in Apple has been violated. My enthusiasm as an advocate of Apple and its products is substantially degraded. I also have little faith now in the Depot, nor any repair entity of Apple to fix this machine properly.

After all, the more time I have to wait for the Macbook Pro to get fixed the more money I lose. That isn't good.

Apple Inc, Digg, Slashdot, Consumerist, Reddit, will someone please help me?"
Real Time Strategy (Games)

StarCraft II - Worlds Best RTS, with In-Game Ads?

Submitted by ReKlipz
ReKlipz writes "Everyone knows StarCraft was a huge success, and is still a fairly popular game, despite the fact that it was released nearly 9 years ago. Blizzard has recently officially announced development of StarCraft II, expected to be released sometime next year (some speculate as a 10th year anniversary to StarCraft). Along with the announcement came a website sporting gameplay videos and in-game screenshots. Whats interesting though is whats in the screenshots. Although the landscaping and the highly improved detail of characters and other models looks amazing, there was something else that caught my eye when viewing. The screenshots contain what look to be futuristic billboards, billboards of which present day games (like Battlefield 2142) use to display in-game ads.

http://us.media.blizzard.com/starcraft2/images/scr eenshots/ss1-hires.jpg (near upper right)
http://us.media.blizzard.com/starcraft2/images/scr eenshots/ss2-hires.jpg (same as first, upper right)
http://us.media.blizzard.com/starcraft2/images/scr eenshots/ss3-hires.jpg (upper left, green)
http://us.media.blizzard.com/starcraft2/images/scr eenshots/ss4-hires.jpg (very top, "REAL MEN DRILL DEEP")
http://us.media.blizzard.com/starcraft2/images/scr eenshots/ss5-hires.jpg (upper left, "NUKE COLA")
http://us.media.blizzard.com/starcraft2/images/scr eenshots/ss8-hires.jpg (upper right)
http://us.media.blizzard.com/starcraft2/images/scr eenshots/ss10-hires.jpg (upper left, "REAL MEN DRILL DEEP")

Of course, this is all just speculation, and some may add that the speculated ads are nothing more than pleasant scenery. While I hope the latter is true, one cannot just toss out the possibility that these are just place holders for what would be real ads, as these do seem to be out of place, and in my opinion, unnecessary.

Now, don't get me wrong. In-game ads aren't always a bad thing. It's possible that they may drive down the cost of the game (although unlikely). Also, I'm sure that Blizzard would do a good job of making sure that the ads fit in well with the scenery (again, I believe Battlefield 2142 does a very good job of this).

This is just something I noticed, and is not backed by anything other than screenshots and speculation."
Worms

Hybrid SSL Keylogger Malware

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "A highly dangerous hybridised version of the Russian Gozi virus has surfaced that not only features an integrally-coded keylogger, but has the ability to steal data from an SSL stream. It is bad enough that this new version of Gozi can encrypt and rotate its program code to by-pass conventional signature detection, but the fact it can switch a keylogging function on and off when the infected PC reaches an e-banking Web page makes it almost undetectable using conventional IT security technology."
PC Games (Games)

Blizzard makes WoW wish virtual reality

Submitted by mobydobius
mobydobius writes "Blizzard makes young cancer patient's wish come true: He becomes a small part of the WoW storyline.

Okay so this is a little more sentimental than your typical slashdot fare, but the father in this article is my best friend and I just love his kid so much that I want everyone to know his story. And hey, it's WoW; it's Blizzard; so it's tangentially relevant."
It's funny. Laugh.

Apple sued - Macbook LCD not "millions" of

Submitted by
qu1j0t3
qu1j0t3 writes "Business 2.0 reports, "Two MacBook owners ... have filed a class action lawsuit ... charging the company with deceptive advertising, misrepresentation and unfair competition over the use of the phrase 'millions of colors' to describe the capability of the LCD displays in MacBook and MacBook Pro computers." (Engadget broke the story. I can't comment if these guys have a genuine complaint; I've no plans to upgrade my Powerbook G4.)"

System going down at 1:45 this afternoon for disk crashing.