kdawson - Slashdot User

Emergent Gravity Disproved-> 0

Submitted by

kdawson

on Saturday August 27, @10:37AM

kdawson writes "A paper up on the ArXiv claims to disprove the gravity-from-entropy theory of Erik Verlinde, which we discussed soon after he introduced the idea in a symposium late in 2009. Archil Kobakhidze says that experiments measuring the effect of gravity on quantum particles (neutrons in this case) match results expected from classical Newtonian gravity, not Verlindian entropic gravity. Here is Kobakhidze's paper (PDF)."
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Court overturns Mass law banning recording of cops-> 1

Submitted by schwit1 on Friday August 26, @08:19PM

schwit1 writes "In its ruling, which lets Simon Glik continue his lawsuit, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston said the wiretapping statute under which Glik was arrested and the seizure of his phone violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights."
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Do Supercomputers Still Matter?-> 0

Submitted by

Esther Schindler

on Thursday June 09 2011, @01:15PM

Esther Schindler writes "The innovations that are redefining the way businesses compute today were made feasible by supercomputers, the first platforms to enable parallel processing on a scale anywhere close to that of the cloud. Supercomputing would have been a lost art had it not been for the capability of everyday PC processors to be stacked together by the thousands — a technology for the high end made possible at the low end. But now, writes Scott Fulton in an exhaustive technical essay, a looming engineering bottleneck may have already rendered it technically and financially impossible for supercomputers to continue evolving at the current rate. Can the cloud go forward if the “grid” on which it’s based grinds to a halt?"
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Is Process Killing the Software Industry?-> 0

Submitted by blackbearnh on Tuesday May 10 2011, @08:09AM

blackbearnh writes "We all know by now that Test Driven Development is a best practice. And so is having 100% of your code reviewed. And 70% unit test coverage. And keeping your CCN complexity numbers below 20. And doing pre-sprint grooming of stories. And a hundred other industry 'best practices' that in isolation seem like a great idea. But at the end of the day, how much time does it leave for developers to be innovative and creative?

A piece on O'Reilly Radar is arguing that excessive process in software development is sucking the life out of passionate developers, all in the name of making sure that 'good code' gets written. TFA:"The underlying feedback loop making this progressively worse is that passionate programmers write great code, but process kills passion. Disaffected programmers write poor code, and poor code makes management add more process in an attempt to 'make' their programmers write good code. That just makes morale worse, and so on.""
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Russian Drug Cops Storm Rogue Pharmacy Party-> 0

Submitted by tsu doh nimh on Wednesday February 23 2011, @10:59AM

tsu doh nimh writes "Brian Krebs has posted a fascinating, inside look at a battle that's been brewing between two Russian men who run a pair of the largest online rogue pharmacy programs in the world. The story focuses more on Pavel Vrublevsky, the man alleged to run Rx-Promotion — a pharmacy program that specializes in selling addictive, controlled substances like Oxycodone — and how Russian drug authorities recently raided a party in Moscow thrown for Rx-Promotion affiliates who had been competing for cash and prizes and the grand prize — a one kilogram bar of gold."
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"The Hidden Reality" Draws Ire from Physicists-> 1

Submitted by eldavojohn on Monday January 31 2011, @08:32AM

eldavojohn writes "Scientific American is running a piece by science journalist John Horgan attacking pop physicist Brian Greene's latest offering titled "The Hidden Reality." He's not entirely alone, Not Even Wrong backs him up and reminds us of a growing list of multiverse propaganda. The Journal of Nature ran a short piece trying to remind everyone that Greene's book is more theory than fact but apart from those three responses, the popular press seems to be gobbling up this tantalizing concept of a multiverse. NPR offers an excerpt while SFGate and The Wall Street Journal entertain us with interviews of the controversial Greene. The New York Times and Salon seem to think it's worthwhile with Salon even calling it "the science behind" the multiverse theory. The New York Times thought it worthwhile to give Greene an op-ed column. For better or for worse, Greene has certainly brought this great debate to the public's attention — similar to his exhibition of String Theory."
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Pondering Egypt and Net Activism-> 0

Submitted by rsmiller510 on Friday January 28 2011, @11:50AM

rsmiller510 writes "A new book that calls into question the power of the internet to affect real political change is quite prescient given the situation in Egypt today where the government has literally shut down the internet."
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NFC Could Make iPhone a Payment Machine-> 0

Submitted by rsmiller510 on Wednesday January 26 2011, @12:25PM

rsmiller510 writes "You might not know what 'near field communication is,' but there's a chance it could transform the iPhone into a payment machine tied to your iTunes account. And if that happens, it could put Apple in the payments business."
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Dancho Danchev Claimed Located-> 0

Submitted by kdawson on Monday January 17 2011, @10:55AM

kdawson writes "A Bulgarian newspaper carries a report that missing security researcher Dancho Danchev has been found — and is in a mental institution (link is a Google translation of the Bulgarian original). The article claims that 'according to reliable source of [the newspaper] Dnevnik he was placed in a Bulgarian psychiatric hospital since December 11.' I hope more will eventually be revealed as to where Danchev spent the 3 months preceding that date. During the bygone Soviet era, 'psychiatric hospital' didn't have the same connotations it might in the West."
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34,000-Year-Old Organisms Found Buried Alive-> 1

Submitted by cold fjord on Friday January 14 2011, @01:40AM

cold fjord writes "A scientist has made a weird and and wonderful find:
It's a tale that has all the trappings of a cult 1960s sci-fi movie: Scientists bring back ancient salt crystals, dug up from deep below Death Valley for climate research. The sparkling crystals are carefully packed away until, years later, a young, unknown researcher takes a second look at the 34,000-year-old crystals and discovers, trapped inside, something strange. Something ... alive.

The Geological Society of America's current issue of GSA Today has the hard science paper."
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