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Google

Submission + - Should Google News Include Controversial Sources?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When using my customized Google home page, I clicked a 'Top Stories' link labeled "Diana's Death Deemed a 'Tragic Accident'" and was a bit ebarassed to be reading www.bgay.com (http://www.bgay.com/bnews/news61214_dianas_death_ an_accident.htm) while at work!

Is this a problem? Is there any way to reasonably limit the sites referred to as 'news' without excluding those that prefer gay-friendly publications? (Couldn't they at least tone down the ads?)
Education

Submission + - Academia RFID - Press Release - December 14, 2006

Submitted by
Academia RFID
Academia RFID writes: "Press Release
For Immediate Release

ACADEMIA RFID AND INTEGRAL RFID BOOST CANADIAN TRAINING EXPERIENCE

Academia RFID selects Integral RFID to provide Instant EPC Hotspot software for its new training and certification courses

December 14, 2006 — Montreal, Quebec

Academia RFID, Canada's leading academic authority in RFID technology, is excited to use the Instant EPC Hotspot software as part of their RFID courses and certifications across Canada. Integral RFID, a world-class consulting and software solutions provider, is proud to be chosen by Academia to help elevate the classroom experience with the involvement of its innovative software.

"One of the fundamental problems to understanding and using RFID is not being able to 'see' what is going on", remarks Chris Parkinson, CEO of Integral RFID. "Instant EPC Hotspot allows its users to quickly and easily visualize many aspect of RFID, leading to insight, understanding and successful technology deployments. So by working with Academia in Canada we feel our software will uniquely enhance the understanding of their participants, resulting in very successful RFID training classes."

"We knew from day one that this software was essential to help fully explore visualization of tag location and portal tuning and it was just a matter of time before the obvious collaboration between Integral RFID and Academia happened", said Academia's Ygal Bendavid, "and just in time for the launch of our new courses."

Academia has decided to include the Instant EPC Hotspot software as part of their three new courses: RFID SCM (Supply Chain Management Certification), RFID PRO (Project Implementation Management Certification) and RFID LOG (Applications in Transport, Warehousing and Logistics), as well as their already popular RFID 101, 201, ROI and CompTIA RFID+ Certification courses.

****
About Canada' Academia RFID
Academia RFID is the first bilingual RFID training facility in Canada offering services to public and private organizations interested in discovering and implementing RFID technology and practices. A world-class research, development and consulting center driven by a team comprised of the best minds in RFID. They include PhD researchers and accredited RFID instructors in the fields of industrial engineering, operations management, supply chain, management and marketing. Training and certification courses are offered in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, St-John and Halifax. Academia RFID is a member of the CompTIA Learning Alliance (CLA) and offers the CompTIA Certification Program and Quality Authorized Curriculum (CQAC), as well as being certified by Emploi-Quebec for the purpose of applying the act which favors the advancement of training within the work force. Please visit our website for details and schedules www.academiaRFID.ca

About Integral RFID
Integral RFID is a privately held RFID consulting and solutions company based in Richland, WA. The company delivers innovative products to both RFID end-users and systems integrators, focusing heavily on the science of RFID. Integral RFID's engineers also consult to a wide range of clients including Wal-Mart's top suppliers. For further information visit http://www.integralrfid.com/

Contact:
Mathieu D'Amours
Director of Marketing & Communications
Academia RFID
Tel .514.631.8282 ext. 3222 or 1.866.918.8282
Email: mdamours@RFIDacademia.com
Website: www.academiaRFID.ca"
Data Storage

Samsung's Solid-State Disk Drive Unveiled 241

Posted by kdawson from the fast-and-flashy dept.
Iddo Genuth writes "After unveiling their upcoming hybrid hard drive, Samsung — along with a number of other manufacturers — is planning to begin shipping solid-state drives during 2007. Unlike the upcoming hybrids, solid-state drives should work with windows XP as well as Vista." The drives will be introduced in 1.8- and 2.5-inch form factors for notebooks. While streaming performance can't equal that of hard disks, Samsung claims that random-access performance is more important and that (e.g.) Vista users would see a 4x speedup in many key operations. Pricing was not announced.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Man Made Global Warming Hoax

Submitted by
Steven Brockerman, MS
Steven Brockerman, MS writes: "Re: Slashdot's article of a debunking (propeller head) global warming dogmatist supposedly debunking a global warming critic.

Perhaps you ought to consider publishing the facts — at least some of them if only to keep up appearances:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?id=4806

An Inconvenient Truth: An Inaccurate Depiction of the State of Global Warming Science
by Robert C. Balling Jr. (October 13, 2006)

Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" opened around the country earlier this year. In the film Gore pulls together evidence from every corner of the globe to convince us that climate change is happening fast, we are to blame, and if we don't act immediately, our Earth will be all but ruined. However, as you sit through the film, consider the following inconvenient truths:

(1) Near the beginning of the film, Gore pays respects to his Harvard mentor and inspiration, Dr. Roger Revelle. Gore praises Revelle for his discovery that atmospheric CO2 levels were rising and could potentially contribute to higher temperatures at a global scale. There is no mention of Revelle's article published in the early 1990s concluding that the science is "too uncertain to justify drastic action." (S.F. Singer, C. Starr, and R. Revelle, "What to do about Greenhouse Warming: Look Before You Leap. Cosmos 1 (1993) 28-33.)....

Dr. Robert C. Balling Jr. is a professor in the climatology program at Arizona State University, specializing in climate change and the greenhouse effect.

Additionally (my 2 cents worth):

A quick perusal of the Earth's climate record, going back not 150 yrs. (as does the NWS record), but *millions* of years, refutes the man made global warming hoax on its face. Dr. Richard Muller provides such a climate record: "A brief introduction to the history of climate" —

http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/IceAgeBook/history_of_ climate.html.

A few notable measurements:

— Avg. world atmospheric temp during the time of the Roman Empire was approximately .5 C *warmer* than the current world temp

— Avg. world atmospheric temp 3 million years ago was approximately _five full degrees warmer_ than at present.

As most know Dr. Richard Muller is a world renowned physicist at Cal Berkeley.

Also:

The man made global warming hoax rests on rising CO2 levels in the
atmosphere. In this context, it's helpful to recognize that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is something like .003, while the amount of water vapor (THE chief greenhouse gas) is approximately 4.00. Also noteworthy is that historical records indicate CO2 levels increased — and considerably so (3 times current levels) — during previous ice ages.

The key question to ask, then, in the context of rising CO2 levels and global temps is: Are rising levels of CO2 the *cause* or the *effect* of increased planetary temps? Given the far more significant role played by water vapor; given the scientific, historical evidence re: CO2 levels vis a vis global temps; and given the relationship of increased solar activity to rising temps, the answer is that the "villain" is all this hokum appears to
be our own sun:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_0 30320.html
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/cause.htm
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/st ory/0,,1951175,00.html

And:

Some Web sites refuting the hoax:

http://www.john-daly.com/
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen.htm
http://www.sepp.org/

And:

Approximately 17,000 climatologic, astrophysicists, meteorologists, etc. (including a few Nobel laureates)disagree with the *media* consensus that global warming is man made:

The Heidelberg Appeal:
http://www.sepp.org/policy%20declarations/heidelbe rg_appeal.html

Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming:
http://www.sepp.org/policy%20declarations/statment .html

The Leipzig Declaration (updated):
http://www.sepp.org/policy%20declarations/LDrevise d.html

Global Warming Petition: http://www.oism.org/oism/s32p31.htm

Of the current plethora of "evidence" from the Greens, major "studies" on which most of that "evidence" rests have proven to be either cherry picked (Jones, P.D., Mann, M.E., Climate Over Past Millennia) or simply outright lies (_Earth in the Balance_).

The bottom line: The man made global warming hoax is still a hoax."
Toys

Submission + - OhMibod - iPod® Powered Vibrator

Submitted by
Emma
Emma writes: "In the 1968 psychedelic sci-fi film 'Barbarella', Jane Fonda, as Barbarella, was pleasured to the extreme by a special piano-like machine that created orgasms through musical vibrations. OhMiBod(www.OhMiBod.com), the first insertable vibrator to enable people to actually feel their music by translating tunes from their iPod® into vibrations, makes this space-age fantasy a reality for the first time in history."
Microsoft

Submission + - Vista: Simple trick bypass anti-piracy technology.

Submitted by
Mikel
Mikel writes: "Descriptions on how to crack the anti-piracy technology of Vista have been surfacing all over the internet over the past weeks. Most of them requiring rather sophisticated techniques. It's all water under the bridge now: We found out that here is a rather simple trick, one you may not believe at first -at least we didn't. Soon, our main question was how Microsoft could have missed something so obvious. The whole news about this finding: http://www.pcwelt.de/news/software/66430/index.htm l"
Businesses

Submission + - ChaCha.com, the next Google?

Submitted by
SuperStretchy
SuperStretchy writes: "A new search engine has arisen in the past few months and has started to gain a minute share of search engine traffic. Chacha offers the normal search engine (similar in results to Google), but with a new twist: Guides. Guides are trained persons who will help you if you choose so.

Picking a guide is done for you, based on the system's perception of your search terms- terms that correlate with keywords chosen by guides trained in them.

From the outset, it seems like this service is unnecessary (for the most part it is), but say you have a grandma who wants to find a super-obscure result, but cannot handle the concept of using quotes or operators. This would be a great service for her.

Communication to your guide is done via a chat interface, where they will display several links that match what you're looking for. After the search is completed, you have the option to rate your guide, whose profile is also listed on there "Underground" page. From looking at most of the profiles, they seem to be largely stay-at-home wives."
Math

Submission + - New rules outlaw melting pennies, nickels

Submitted by
ealbers
ealbers writes: " USA Today is reporting that the treasury department would liek to remind people that melting pennies and nickels for profit is illegal. Currently a pennies metal is worth 1.12 cents! (12% profit) And a Nickel is 6.99 cents or 39% profit! The FED needs to stop printing so much money, soon it will be cheap to wallpaper your walls with dollar bills (currently $9.60/sq foot)"
The Internet

Is Internet Addiction a Medical Condition? 227

Posted by kdawson from the depraved-on-accounta-he's-deprived dept.
PreacherTom writes "Arising from such cases as a recent lawsuit with IBM over employee termination due to online sex chatting at work, recent debate over whether Internet abuse is a legitimate addiction, akin to alcoholism, is heating up. From the article: 'Attorneys say recognition by a court — whether in this or some future litigation — that Internet abuse is an uncontrollable addiction, and not just a bad habit, could redefine the condition as a psychological impairment worthy of protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act.' The condition could even make it into the next edition of the American Psychiatric Association's DSM, making it a full-blown neurosis. It wouldn't be a huge surprise, with a recent Stanford study showing that 14% of people state it would be 'hard to stay away from the Net for even a few days in a row."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Complete Tron Costume Forsale on Ebay!

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "A Complete hero costume from Tron is now up for sale on Ebay!

Link to Auction This complete costume consists of a full-length body suit, a helmet, corresponding left and right shoulder armor and forearm plates and a pair of boots. The special detailing on the helmet and armor were hand-applied to resemble electronic circuits. The costume pieces are attributed to a number of different leading characters/actors which are noted inside the pieces: "Cindy", "Flynn", "Bruce" and "BB" . Very few of these costumes survived production due to their fragile nature. The helmet is especially rare, as it still retains its back neck protector. This is believed to be one of the most complete Tron costumes in existence."

Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Launches Robotics Developer Kit

Submitted by JPriest
JPriest writes: Microsoft on Wednesday launched 'Microsoft Robotics Studio SDK'. The software allows you to build your robot and test it in a virtual environment with physics that let it interact with other objects. The idea is that the platform will allow for greater code re-use and sharing. There is a video segment about the SDK here showing the virtual environment near the end. If you don't have the domain filtered yet, you can always find the project home page at http://microsoft.com/robotics/
User Journal

Journal Journal: Adobe Flash made easy...

Journal by agentbleu
A new site Filmator.net suprises Adobe Flash as it threatens to swipe a large portion of their market. Creators who want to animate content and publish online have until now been forced to invest heavily in advance. One agency MagnumPhotos who has used Flash to create their In Motion series, and contracted the prestigious Flash design studio
User Journal

Journal SPAM: Deformity

Journal by mercedo
10 billion dollars is going to be reduced soon in corporatin tax. Instead same dollars will be increased in income tax paid by salaried workers in a form of the abolition of fixed rate reduced tax. One figure minus one plus one is equal to the same figure, but this figure looks deformed.

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