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Comment X-Ray backscatter blocking clothing (Score 1) 821

by Uninvited Guest (#30994862) Attached to: "No Scan, No Fly" At Heathrow and Manchester
Back in 2002, Slashdot reported on Demron, a lightweight fabric that blocks radiation as well as lead. It's $600 for a medical apron that would effectively cover the torso, but worthwhile for some, perhaps. Such clothing might even become popular and reasonably priced if, say, it was designed to include a message or image viewable only on an X-Ray backscatter scanner.

Comment Determinism is consistent, but not supportable (Score 1) 610

by Uninvited Guest (#27272331) Attached to: If We Have Free Will, Then So Do Electrons
This is the best summary I could tease out of the follow up paper:
Although, as we show in [1], determinism may formally be shown to be consistent, there is no longer any evidence that supports it, in view of the fact that classical physics has been superseded by quantum mechanics, a non-deterministic theory. The import of the free will theorem is that it is not only current quantum theory, but the world itself that is non-deterministic, so that no future theory can return us to a clockwork universe.

See it? At a certain level, future events are inherently unpredictable. These small uncertainties bubble all the way up to our level. So, while we can predict with confidence that the sun will rise tomorrow, certain other smaller events are inherently unpredictable. That's a a circular way of saying that subatomic particles and big things like people have free will, because at least some of their actions cannot be determined by past events and circumstances.

They do this with a proof that first assumes such a model of events exists, and then go on to prove such a model is mathematically impossible. There are no hidden variables or forces, because quantum mechanics won't allow any. The world is non-deterministic, and it's no longer possible to prove that it is deterministic.

Comment MS, you forgot to round to the nearest tenth (Score 1) 532

by Uninvited Guest (#27166627) Attached to: Microsoft Says IE Faster Than Chrome and Firefox

Differences of less than a tenth of a second aren't generally noticeable to users, so it makes no sense to measure down to the nearest 0.01 seconds. If all of the numbers are rounded to the nearest tenth of a second, then 4 sites are a dead heat, and Chrome is the overall winner.

Single winners (>0.1 seconds difference):
Chrome: 7
FF: 1
IE: 6

2 winners (=0.1 seconds difference):
FF, IE: 2
Chrome, IE: 2
Chrome, FF: 2

Dead heat: 4 (=0.1 seconds difference)
XBox (Games)

Submission + - DVD size limiting Unreal Tournament 3 on Xbox 360 (gamepro.com)

Submitted by powerlord
powerlord writes: DVD's size may be starting to show its limits. Mark Rein, President of Epic (creators of "Gears of War"), was quoted as saying, "We'll compress some things. But you know, we may have fewer maps on the 360 version... Blu-Ray has definitely given us a lot of legroom," while speaking at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival.
Operating Systems

Submission + - XenSource releases product, gets bought by Citrix (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by billstewart
billstewart writes: XenSource has been in the news twice this week — Monday they release a product, then Tuesday they get bought for $500m by Citrix. Here's Network World's take on the buyout and on the product. It looks like the product is packaging new releases of several of their components — there's a 64-bit hypervisor version 3.1 that uses the Intel and AMD hardware tricks, APIs, management tools, and XenMotion, which lets you move running virtual machines around. According to Xen's product page, the free-beer XenExpress version gets the hypervisor, APIs, and some of the management tools, but not the fancier management or XenMotion, and it's somewhat crippled in terms of capacity (max 4 VMs, 2 CPUs, 4GB RAM, while the commercial versions support 128GB total RAM, larger VMs, and unlimited VMs and CPUs.)

(But will it run Linux?) It will run Linux — one of the data sheets implies that Linux only runs in 32-bit mode, while Windows can run 64-bit. Perhaps there's more documentation that provides more details.
The Internet

Submission + - Bandwidth crunch looms for cable companies (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by coax4life
coax4life writes: While Verizon and AT&T lay fiber, cable companies are looking at a huge bandwidth crunch according to a new report. Increased demand for high-def programming on the TV side and faster download speeds on the ISP side of the business will leave cable companies in a rough spot — after spending over $100 billion in the last decade on infrastructure improvements. Jumping on the fiber bandwagon may help. 'Upgrading to a fiber infrastructure is a much more expensive proposition, and one more likely to occur in areas where the cable companies are facing more competition. It can happen, though — several years ago, Comcast's predecessor on the northwest side of Chicago laid fiber on top of its existing coaxial installation. The payoff is good for both cable companies and users, as it can result in more programming choices and faster Internet access.' Moving to switched digital video solutions will also help.
Editorial

Journal Journal: Employee and customer problems come up, some of us are both?

Journal by rzrzedg

I am an employee for one of the largest banks in the country, recently when calling as a customer I had a chance to butt heads with customer service. When I returned to work the next day my manager and unit manager had received details about the conversation, and a screen shot of my account details. Most of us support our companies by using the service we help to provide, but what do you all do when those situations come into conflict. I am moving my accounts away but what legal options are t
The Courts

Submission + - The 63,000,000,000 billion dollar lawsuit (foxnews.com) 1

Submitted by Crazy Taco
Crazy Taco writes: This has to be the most ridiculous lawsuit ever filed in the history of the United States court system. Apparently a South Carolina inmate wants to sue Michael Vick for 63,000,000,000 billion dollars (and I don't believe the amount is a typo). He claims Michael Vick stole two white mixed pit bull dogs from his home in Holiday, Fla., used them for dogfighting operations in Richmond, Va., and then "used the proceeds to purchase missiles from the Iran government." His complaint alleges Vick would need the missiles because he pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda in February of this year. The complaint goes on to state that "Michael Vick has to stop physically hurting my feelings and dashing my hopes" and requests that the money, "backed by gold and silver," be delivered to the front gates of the Williamsburg Federal Correctional facility in South Carolina.
Space

Submission + - Comet Explosion Killed The Clovis Culture. 1

Submitted by Haikuist_For_Hire
Haikuist_For_Hire writes: The NSF has released a study that strongly implicates a comet explosion over North America roughly 13000 years ago. Researchers at the University of Californina at Santa Barbara with the help of a National Science Foundation grant visited many Clovis sites around North America. The abrupt cooling trend of that time is known as the Younger Dryas or 'big freeze' and the collapse of the Clovis has been the subject of much debate over recent years. Samples from 12 Clovis period sites yielded high concentrations of Iridium, nano-diamonds, and buckyballs (fullerenes) that contain gases which indicate extraterrestrial origins. From the article: 'The team concluded that the impact of the comet likely destabilized a large portion of the Laurentide ice sheet, causing a high volume of freshwater to flow into the north Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.'
Software

Submission + - Map Places, People, & Relationships in a Build

Submitted by LinucksGirl
LinucksGirl writes: Google and MapQuest do a great job of creating maps of the outside world on the fly. But what about our workspaces? This article shows how to define and map places and people inside a building. Search, track, and plot individual cubicles, rooms, employees, or assets. Graph the location of individuals or groups of employees based on job function, or track unused office space visually.
Space

Submission + - Wow! Its been 30 years.... (wikipedia.org) 1

Submitted by
Richard_at_work
Richard_at_work writes: "Thirty years ago today, the Big Ear radio telescope recorded a 72 second long signal that perfectly matched the expected signature of a signal that was not of local origin. This became known world wide as the 'Wow!' signal after the comment its discoverer, Dr. Jerry R. Ehman of SETI, scribbled in the margin of the print out, and while it has never been detected since, it has fueled arguments on both sides as to the existence of extraterrestrial life ever since."
Censorship

Submission + - How Far Can Confrence Attendies Go? 1

Submitted by bmore
bmore writes: Dave Winer is known for being outspoken, but some think he has recently taken it too far. The first incident occurred publicly at Gnomedex when Winer openly heckled Jason Calicanis during a presentation about Mahalo. Wired reports that this feud led to Winer's resignation form the TechCrunch20 conference. Winer's second recent feud happened when he turned the name of a student that heckled him into a domain name. In light of Winer's recent actions I think it is time to ask how far conference attendees in general can go. It also brings the idea that participants should be able to question speakers back to the forefront.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Going green now helps save companies money sooner (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Going green now is more cost effective than waiting for the next great discovery. That seems to be the point of two news items this week. The first, an item from the Philadelphia Inquirer, notes that PNC Bank, the nation's 20th largest bank, has opened 43 environmentally friendly, or "green," branches since 2002 with many more on the way. PNC officials would not say how much they spend on green branches, but said it had spent $100,000 less than an unspecified competitor spends on conventional branches.Meanwhile a data center energy meeting in Boston this week attended by a variety of large users and vendors such as IBM, EMC, AMD and HP said data center designers and operators often fail to take advantage of existing technology and design principles that could greatly reduce power consumption. The average data center probably uses three times more air conditioning and cooling than is needed. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18444"
Music

Submission + - Allofmp3.com owner acquitted (cnn.com)

Submitted by
192939495969798999
192939495969798999 writes: "CNN reports that Denis Kvasov was acquitted of copyright infringement, prosecuted on pressure from EMI Group Plc, NBC Universal and Time Warner Inc. From the article: "The prosecution did not succeed in presenting persuasive evidence of his involvement in infringing copyright law". Is this a lucky break or another sign of the traditional distribution model collapsing permanently?"

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