Forgot your password?

typodupeerror
The Almighty Buck

Money Python: Florida Contest Offers Rewards In 2013 Everglades Python Hunt 132

Posted by samzenpus
from the badger-badger-badger-badger-mushroom dept.
Press2ToContinue writes "Dubbed the Python Challenge, the month-long contest will award $1,000 for the longest python and $1,500 for the most pythons caught between Jan. 12 and Feb. 10 in any of four hunting areas north of Everglades National Park and at the Big Cypress National Preserve. Pythons have been spreading through the Everglades for years, posing a threat to the sensitive ecosystem by preying on native species. Some estimates put their number in the tens of thousands. Last year, 272 pythons were removed from the wild, state figures show."

Comment: ...what's the point? (Score 0) 156

I'll be frank, I've never fully understood the basic concept of a flu vaccine.

Sure, flu season comes around, and a lot of people come down with the $animal plague. A few die from complications, but by and large, we get over it.

Enter into it, here, the current vaccine. It protects against a prior strain, but that leaves any new strain open to attack without reprisal. People get the flu, accordingly.

It's not to say it isn't completely without benefit, as I do know a few people who take it to keep from getting ill, and it's mostly because they have respiratory issues. But really, aren't we just protecting ourselves from something that really is more of a bogeyman that makes us miserable for a few weeks out of the year?

Comment: Ha! You can't see me! (Score 1) 56

by dacarr (#42071805) Attached to: Cloaking Technology Could Protect Offshore Rigs From Destructive Waves
I suppose this would assume that waves have some intelligence, and are attacking these ships. I'm of the opinion that these waves are more like the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, where you would be better off covering your eyes with a towel to fool them into thinking the ship - or at least, the crew - are invisible.

Well, it would probably just do as much good.

Comment: I'm in an apartment complex, you insensitive clod! (Score 1) 253

by dacarr (#41829687) Attached to: EFF And Others Push For Open Wifi APs Everywhere
I live in apartments in the Seattle area - in fact, I'm a few miles out from the Microsoft campus. We get people who don't use the ILEC or incumbent cable co, the latter whose name sounds like "bombast" - because they're cheapskates ,so they filch off of others' open wifi.

This includes the front office. Which they used for sharing, and that includes file sharing - which poses a risk, in this day and age, for cancelling all internet service for the front office, something they rely on.

Personally, I need to have a notice eating at my mail like I need a hole in my head. It might push security by the openness, but I don't need to be spending too long setting this stuff up - I have homework.

Comment: PEX and Ethernet (Score 1) 372

by dacarr (#41799795) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Ideas For a Geek Remodel?
Gonna reinforce here.

PEX tubing for your plumbing is pretty damn cool, and pretty cheap. No worries at all about pipe corrosion if you have funky water, and they tend not to burst. Moreover, the right kind of box can set your valves for all fixtures in one central location. The bad news, however, is that you can't just cut the valve if you're on the commode and the commode suddenly springs a leak on the intake.

As for hardline networking, just do it. Have a wifi spot for guests and laptops, but for desktop boxes, well, wifi never really made sense to me - and besides, it's hard to beat the reliability of a copper CAT6E line, or fiber, or....

Comment: Live with it (Score 2) 345

by dacarr (#40023741) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Holding ISPs Accountable For Contracted DSL Bandwidth
I used to work for Speakeasy.

That last 10% is generally considered to be transactional overhead. Speed testers don't tend to count that. Your best advice is to either live with the 300 kb/s missing, demand a 10% discount for that overhead (which will likely be unsuccessful, because that top speed is NOT guaranteed and it will most likely say as much in the TOS), or find a provider that will provide that max speed limit at all times.

Good luck.

Science

Researchers Conquer "LED Droop" 113

Posted by samzenpus
from the more-shine-for-your-dime dept.
sciencehabit writes "Tiny and efficient, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are supposed to be the bright future of illumination. But they perform best at only low power, enough for a flashlight or the screen of your cellphone. If you increase the current enough for them to light a room like an old-fashioned incandescent bulb, their vaunted efficiency nosedives. It's called LED droop, and it's a real drag on the industry. Now, researchers have found a way to build more efficient LEDs that get more kick from the same amount of current—especially in the hard-to-manufacture green and blue parts of the spectrum."
Government

US Metaphor-Recognizing Software System Starts Humming 105

Posted by samzenpus
from the bright-ideas dept.
coondoggie writes "An innovative project, called Autonomous Dynamic Analysis of Metaphor and Analogy, or ADAMA, aims to build a software system that can automatically analyze metaphorical speech in five different languages by analyzing huge quantities of online data got off the ground this week when the U.S. Army Research Laboratory awarded a $1.4 million contract to the team conducting the research. The research is backed by the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), which develops high-risk, reward research projects for the government, and is intended to build a repository of speech metaphors from American/English Iranian Farsi, Mexican Spanish and Russian speakers. ADAMA could have immediate applications in forensics, intelligence analysis, business intelligence, sociological research and communication studies, researchers stated."
Science

Mini Mammoth Once Roamed Crete 50

Posted by samzenpus
from the lets-get-small dept.
ananyo writes "Scientists can now add a 'dwarf mammoth' to the list of biological oxymorons that includes the jumbo shrimp and pygmy whale. Studies of fossils discovered last year on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea reveal that an extinct species once thought to be a diminutive elephant was actually the smallest mammoth known to have existed — which, as an adult, stood no taller than a modern newborn elephant (abstract). The species is the most extreme example of insular dwarfism yet found in mammoths."
Science

The Rise of Chemophobia In the News 463

Posted by samzenpus
from the dangerous-compounds dept.
eldavojohn writes "American news outlets like The New York Times seem to thrive on chemophobia — consumer fear of the ambiguous concept of 'chemicals.' As a result, Pulitzer-prize winning science writer Deborah Blum has decided to call out New York Times journalist Nicholas Kirstof for his secondary crusade (she notes he is an admirable journalist in other realms) against chemicals. She's quick to point out the absurdity of fearing chemicals like Hydrogen which could be a puzzler considering its integral role played in life-giving water as well as life-destroying hydrogen cyanide. Another example is O2 versus O3. Blum calls upon journalists to be more specific, to avoid the use of vague terms like 'toxin' let alone 'chemical' and instead inform the public with lengthy chemical names like perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) instead of omitting the actual culprit altogether. Kristof has, of course, resorted to calling makers of these specific compounds 'Big Chem' and Blum chastises his poorly researched reporting along with chemophobic lingo. Chemists of Slashdot, have you found reporting on 'chemicals' to be as poor as Blum alleges or is this no more erroneous than any scare tactic used to move newspapers and garner eyeballs?"

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. - Voltaire

Working...