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Comment Re:USA #1 (Score 1) 513

This happens to me as well, I host a FTP server in the US, if any of my Portuguese friends want to download anything at max speed (25Mbps) they have to use a download manager that allows them to use separate connections to download separate parts of the same file. Either that or I split the files with winrar and they download 10 files simultaneously. Note that it's not multiple peers like bittorrent, but multiple connections to the same IP. I believe there is an artificial cap in a router somewhere in the middle, but it's easily bypassed.

The individual connection cap seems to be around 4Mbps.

Comment Re:Human touch is seen as empathetic (Score 1) 137

So, you're telling me that no one person in the world will be able to have emotional attachment to something artificially created no matter how good it is?

We read books and watch movies, what happens in there is emulated by words and body language. None of it is real, that why it's called fiction and acting. But people still have emotional attachments to what happens to the characters in the story, even though they know well that it's not "real".

Most robots "creep" people out due the uncanny valley effect. If a robot acts too mechanically, your brain is being constantly reminded that it is not a real person even though it looks like one. The easiest solution is to make robots to not look like humans. If it looks like a big-ass toy instead of a doll there's no conflict, and you will be able to attach to it emotionally as you can with dogs/cats/other animals.

Comment Re:Something odd (Score 3, Insightful) 81

If you go over at sankaku complex (NSFW site) they once in a while post survey results (mostly from 2chan) and the majority of it shows that most japanese girls despise otaku (nerds). Also, for some reason japanese culture thinks that moaning as if you're being raped is the standard while having sex. That might be bad or good, depends on your preferences...
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft launches kill-IE6 countdown site (networkworld.com)

alphadogg writes: “Friend's don't let friends use Internet Explorer 6," Microsoft said this week in launching a new site that tracks the progress of pushing IE6 market share below 1%.
“10 years ago a browser was born,” Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 Countdown site says. “It's name was Internet Explorer 6. Now that we're in 2011, in an era of modern web standards, it's time to say goodbye.” Worldwide usage of IE6 was still an astounding 12% in February, lower than the previous year but too high given the security risks associated with using such an ancient browser.

Science

Submission + - Secrets of a Mind-Gamer

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "We've all heard of people who claim to have "photographic memories." Now Joshua Foer writes in the NY Times magazine (reg. may be required) that a "skilled memory" can be acquired and proves it by explaining how he trained his brain to became a world-class memory athlete winning first place in the speed cards competition last year at the USA Memory Championship by memorizing a deck of cards in one minute forty seconds. According to Foer, memory training is a lost art that dates from antiquity. "Today we have books, photographs, computers and an entire superstructure of external devices to help us store our memories outside our brains, but it wasn’t so long ago that culture depended on individual memories," writes Foer. "It was considered a form of character-building, a way of developing the cardinal virtue of prudence and, by extension, ethics." Foer says that the secret to supermemory is a system of training and discipline that works by creating "memory palaces" on the fly filled with lavish images, painting a scene in the mind so unlike any other it cannot be forgotten. “Photographic memory is a detestable myth. Doesn’t exist. In fact, my memory is quite average," concludes Ed Cooke who recently invented a code that allows him to convert every number from 0 to 999,999,999 into a unique image that he can then deposit in a memory palace. "What you have to understand is that even average memories are remarkably powerful if used properly.""

Comment Re:Artificial Brains? (Score 1) 320

Then someone else figures how to do a quantic entaglement of a pair of brain/brain brain/device. That would be the shit.
Instant access to all information
You could see/feel/taste/smell/dream anything else, independently of it being male/female/squirrel/cow/eagle/whale.
You could be someone else entirely different, remotely controlled by your own brain as if it was you

Me personally, I want to feel how a woman feels when she moans that much. Yeah, the killer app is fucking roleplay porn.
Linux

Submission + - Linux-compatible Netflix-like services?

An anonymous reader writes: I am searching for a Netflix-like service which supports streaming to Linux desktops, as my HTPC is Linux based. I'm aware of Hulu, but that is not the type of service I'm after. I'd like a mail DVD rental service with no late fees, augmented by commercial-free streaming. I also don't want an additional physical box: the HTPC already has internet access, so I don't want more hardware.

GreenCine is another company which provides the DVD rental half, but I was unable to determine whether they support streaming to Linux devices. However, it seems quite unlikely from the FAQ here: http://www.greencine.com/static/divx/divxdrm_faq.jsp

Does anyone know of such a service that supports Linux? I'd like it to have a large selection of non-mainstream movies and TV series, since I do not primarily watch "blockbusters".

Submission + - Google scroogles Scroogle.org (scroogle.org)

An anonymous reader writes: Scroogle.org's search now says:

November 3, 2010: Here we go again...

We regret to announce that Google changed their output format once again. The last time this happened was in July, and we were down for five days. During that time we looked for the simplest remaining Google format we could find, reprogrammed our parser, and ended up with something that worked. However, the file we fetched from Google was three times more bloated for the same information, as compared to the previous format we used, and we are still not happy about this.

Now it looks like even more bloat. We have to take a closer look at the new format and see if we can program around it. Check back in a day or two.

Submission + - Oracle to charge for use of InnoDB in MySQL (readwriteweb.com)

neo writes: "Oracle has dropped support for InnoDB in its MySQL Classic Edition as part of its continued push to capitalize on the open-source database technology." Start forking now, while you still can.
United States

Submission + - EPIC Lawsuit to Suspend Airport Body Scanners (epic.org)

nacturation writes: "EPIC filed a petition for review and motion for an emergency stay, urging the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to suspend the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) full body scanner program. EPIC said that the program is "unlawful, invasive, and ineffective." EPIC argued that the federal agency has violated the Administrative Procedures Act, the Privacy Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Fourth Amendment. EPIC cited the invasive nature of the devices, the TSA's disregard of public opinion, and the impact on religious freedom."

Submission + - T-Mobile Pushes 4G Lie In New Ad Campaign (infoworld.com) 1

snydeq writes: "T-Mobile has officially joined Sprint in pushing the promise of '4G' mobile services on consumers, despite the fact that, according to the ITU standards body, neither carriers' offerings constitute 4G mobile technology. In Sprint's defense, it has been advertising its WiMax-covered areas as 4G for nearly a year — technically not a lie because until last month 4G didn't mean anything, InfoWorld's Galen Gruman reports. But now that the ITU has provided a standard against which the FCC and FTC can judge truth in advertising, T-Mobile's new 4G ad campaign is a 'bald-faced lie,' Gruman writes. 'I find it interesting that the two carriers in the United States struggling to maintain their customer bases — T-Mobile and Sprint — are also the ones using false 4G claims. It shows their desperation. Even if users don't know what 4G really means, they know fear when they smell it.'"

Comment Re:Don't mess with Larry (Score 1) 137

If anything he''s a ninja. If Hollywood movies and weekend morning cartoons have taught us anything, it's that a trained ninja's ability is inversely proportional to the amount of the adversaries he is facing. Don't believe me? When a ninja is facing a thousand samurai, a single punch can thrust them meters away, and he will defeat them swiftly and without fail. When a ninja is facing a single samurai, it will be a duel that will be sung for centuries and. So if he hired a army of ninjas, all that Oracle would need to do is hire a single one to counter them.

Comment I have the reverse problem... (Score 1) 467

When I die I want everyone to be able to see what the hell I was doing when they weren't around. Hiding yourself after you die is just fucking pointless, you're dead. You no longer care (or do anything else).

Probably you want your wife to be able to get those mails and pictures. Or your family might at last figure out why you were so could to them after they find out that you knew that they were a S&M troupe that made special shows every friday night and left you out of it.

Yeah my life is kind of complicated.

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