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Comment Re:A more interesting question (Score 1) 397

If we keep feeding the monsters, this is the kind of garbage we have to put up with. There are clearly enough of us that want to be able to buy a device and actually own it and be in control of it that we should be able to get what we want. We're pretty close with the android dev phone (not the one from t-mobile, it's still locked down). Now we just have to win over the networks so that we can actually use the damned thing. I'm holding out for a device that will work on a network that has 3g in my area (St Louis). Though I'm still annoyed with the whole 5GB limit on EVERY 3g plan. I have high hopes for 4g (WiMax/LTE) but I know I'll be disappointed. I have slightly higher hopes for WiMax because the ones pushing that aren't quite as deep in bed with the content providers... so it's a possibility that they'll only cap if the network requires it (which it likely will early on, but shouldn't after a few years). Though time warner has a big stake in clearwire now, so who knows.
Google

Russian Regulators Block Google Online Advertising Acquisition 120

An anonymous reader writes "Russian regulators will not let Google buy a local online advertising company, halting a $140 million deal agreed to in July. Google had planned to acquire Zao Begun, which has a search and contextual video and text advertising business. Begun is owned by Rambler Media, a Russian company that own various Web sites and runs a search engine. Google said it is reviewing the decision of Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) and hasn't decided how to react. Slashdot has previously covered some of the issues surrounding Google's muscle in the advertising market."
Communications

US Army Sees Twitter As Possible Terrorist "Operation Tool" 320

Mike writes "A draft US Army intelligence report has identified the popular micro-blogging service Twitter as a potential terrorist tool. A chapter titled 'Potential for Terrorist Use of Twitter' notes that Twitter members reported the July Los Angeles earthquake faster than news outlets and activists at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis used it to provide information on police movements. 'Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives,' the report said. The report goes on to say, 'Terrorists could theoretically use Twitter social networking in the US as an operation tool.' Just wait until the Army finds out about chat rooms and email!"
PHP

PHP Gets Namespace Separators, With a Twist 523

jeevesbond writes "PHP is finally getting support for namespaces. However, after a couple hours of conversation, the developers picked '\' as the separator, instead of the more popular '::'. Fredrik Holmström points out some problems with this approach. The criteria for selection were ease of typing and parsing, how hard it was to make a typo, IDE compatibility, and the number of characters."
Math

Distributed.net Finds Optimal 25-Mark Golomb Ruler 265

kpearson writes "Distributed.net's 8-year-old OGR-25 distributed computing project has just proven conclusively that the predicted shortest 25-mark Golomb ruler is optimal. 'The total length of the ruler is 480, with marks at positions: 0 12 29 39 72 91 146 157 160 161 166 191 207 214 258 290 316 354 372 394 396 431 459 467 480. (This ruler may alternatively be expressed in terms of the distance between those positions, which is how dnetc displays them: 12-17-10-33-19-...).' 124,387 people participated in the project and two people found the shortest ruler, one on October 10, 2007 and the other on March 24, 2008."
Medicine

Half of American Doctors Often Prescribe Placebos 238

damn_registrars writes "'Half of all American doctors responding to a nationwide survey say they regularly prescribe placebos to patients. The results trouble medical ethicists, who say more research is needed to determine whether doctors must deceive patients in order for placebos to work.' The study just quoted goes on to say that the drugs most often used as placebo are headache pills, vitamins, and antibiotics. Studies on doctors in Europe and New Zealand have found similar results."

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