romit_icarus - Slashdot User

Journal Journal: Philly to ban Trans-Fats 4

Journal by GMontag on Sunday January 28, 2007 @12:53AM

Is Philly the Next New York?
Posted on January 26, 2007, 6:51pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

Looks like Philly is getting that nanny itch again. How about more cowbell instead of more regulation?

Didn't we get transfats from a host of nanny nonsense about 20 years ago or so?

Submission + - Starting a career in science at 38?

Submitted by A Science Nostalgic on Sunday January 28, 2007 @12:25AM

A Science Nostalgic writes: I'm 38, have a succesful career as a software developer but feel the all-too-similar enterprise apps are boring my brains out and I'm intensely missing the world of science (which I didn't pursue in favor of programming when I got my engineering degree). Now I'm contemplating looking for a job in research, but fear the age and the lack of "exercise" with math and physics would pose an understandable handicap. If I study math seriously I can realistically shed the "rust" in a year, maybe two, but I still fear I'll be considered too old for research. I graduated abroad so I don't have any old contacts at the local universities (there are a few in my city). I checked their job boards, they have no positions just in s/w development which I could use as an entry point. Do the Slashdot readers have any experience with such a career change? Is it feasible at all to get into science once you approach 40? I feel my brain is still alive and kicking and years of debugging have taught me a few things about investigating causes and correlations — useful skills in research.

Submission + - What Color is Your Steak?

Submitted by

MediaCow.tv

on Saturday January 27, 2007 @10:41PM

MediaCow.tv writes: "Author Jim Hightower just released a humorous piece: What Color Is Your Steak? about the FDA's approval of carbon monoxide gassing of meat to make it more red (a practice outlawed in the EU). According to FDA filings, U.S. retailers failed to capture at least one billion dollars of revenue annually from fresh beef sales, due to product discoloration."

Submission + - Internet to revolutionize TV in 5 years: Gates

Submitted by

adamlazz

on Saturday January 27, 2007 @07:57PM

adamlazz writes: "With an explosion of online video content on sites like YouTube and Google Video, Bill Gates believes that the Internet will revoloutionize the television within the next 5 years. "I'm stunned how people aren't seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we've had," Gates told business leaders and politicians at the World Economic Forum.
From the article:

The rise of high-speed Internet and the popularity of video sites like Google Inc.'s YouTube has already led to a worldwide decline in the number hours spent by young people in front of a TV set. In the years ahead, more and more viewers will hanker after the flexibility offered by online video and abandon conventional broadcast television, with its fixed program slots and advertisements that interrupt shows, Gates said.
"

Submission + - The bare facts about naked telecommuting

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Saturday January 27, 2007 @05:15PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "We've all heard the jokes about what our colleagues who work from home are wearing — or not. For Tom Mulhall, though, telecommuting naked is no joke. Rather, it's good business. The owner of The Terra Cotta Inn clothing-optional resort and spa in Palm Springs, Calif., says 80% of his guests bring laptops and work nude poolside. He also talks about where guests stash their BlackBerries and offers advice to those looking to give naked telecommuting a whirl. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/012607-bare- facts.html"

Submission + - Will America Run on Caffeinated Doughnuts?

Submitted by

theodp

on Saturday January 27, 2007 @03:44PM

theodp writes: "Just like Martin Luther King, molecular biologist Robert Bohannon had a dream. And thanks to his hard work, geeks and cops alike will soon be able to partake in doughnuts laced with caffeine. The challenge was overcoming the bitter taste of coffee beans ground up in the donuts. But Bohannon persevered, and has managed to infuse the Buzz Donut with a Red Bull-caliber dose of caffeine without sacrificing taste (or fats and sugars!)."

Submission + - Debugging CSS, AJAX and DOM with Firebug

Submitted by

prostoalex

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @03:49PM

prostoalex writes: "Joe Hewitt of Parakey in the latest Dr. Dobb's Journal provides a detailed overview of Firebug extension for Firefox: "Firebug breaks the page down into a set of tabs that depict its most important aspects — HTML, CSS, JavaScript, the DOM, network activity, and a console for errors and log messages. No tab is an island; Firebug lets you browse code just as you browse the Web by presenting objects as hyperlinks that can take you from one view to another.""

Journal Journal: dealing with spam bounces

Journal by DrEasy on Thursday January 11, 2007 @03:45PM

http://www.postfix.org/BACKSCATTER_README.html

Submission + - pr0n going HD-DVD

Submitted by YLee on Thursday January 11, 2007 @03:43PM

YLee writes: heise news reports (German only): According to Joone (founder of Digital Playground and "star director" of HD porn) SONY is trying to prevent the use of BD for distibution of adult entertainment material. Joone: "SONY wants me to use HD-DVD for distibution". First his plan was to go the BD route but every BlueRay press plant in the USA refused to cooperate with his company. Betamax/Video2000 deja-vu, anyone? (Max Grundig: "This crap won't make it on my tapes!")

Submission + - Business 2.0's dumbest moments in business

Submitted by

prostoalex

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @03:43PM

prostoalex writes: "Every year Business 2.0 magazine comes up with 101 dumbest moments in business, and now they published their 2006 list. While there're quite a few entrants from the technology world, such as Sony's rootkit distributed on music CDs, and Google's decision to blacklist CNet after a reporter googles private information on the company CEO, most of the entries, including the leading one, are from the wild real estate market."

Submission + - "Smart Mobs" author says SL numbers don't

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11, 2007 @03:34PM

An anonymous reader writes: Howard Rheingold (author of Smart Mobs) was just interviewed by CNET in their Second Life bureau where he talked about the recent debate surrounding Linden Labs' false user-numbers. He says "SL is a playground for early adopters. As far as I am concerned, tens of thousands of people who are actively creating new stuff is more interesting than millions of more passive participants." Rheingold went on to discuss the history of online communities: "Some things about online social behavior seems to be eternal and universal... Trolls and griefers, eternal meta-debate about what to do about them, for example. There's a widespread amnesia, as if these kinds of cybersocializing were new... not many people online have much sense of history. That's probably true of just about everything."

Submission + - Blur Ray or HD

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11, 2007 @03:30PM

An anonymous reader writes: http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/01/11/ces2007_hddvd_bl u_ray/

Submission + - MINI introduces RFID-activated billboards in US

Submitted by frinkster on Thursday January 11, 2007 @03:25PM

frinkster writes: MINI USA has placed interactive billboards in 4 US cities (Chicago, Miami, New York and San Francisco) and invited a few hundred MINI owners in those cities to join their targeted "advertisement" pilot program. The owners sign up on MINI's website and receive an RFID keyfob in the mail. When that MINI owner drives by the billboard, a targeted message appears. What sort of messages will be shown? Well, that's where the fun comes in. Each owner tells MINI what to show when they drive by, such as "Jim, you are one sexy beast" or "nice to see you finally out of your mother's basement, Joe." If the pilot program is successful, MINI plans to put up more billboards in more cities and allow every MINI owner to participate. MINI swears that no personal information in contained in the keyfobs and that all communication between the owner and user is subject to their privacy policy and thus the program is completely safe, but how well will they keep their billboard logs away from the prying eyes of local law enforcement or private detectives? And what are they doing to prevent "hackers" from changing the personal messages to insults, such as "Nice to see you finally emerge from your mother's basement"?

Submission + - World of Warcraft now the size of New York City

Submitted by

DeadBugs

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @03:07PM

DeadBugs writes: "World Of Warcraft has passed 8 Million subscribers. This would put it on par with the population of New York (the largest city in the United States). With the first expansion coming out since the game was released, the game could easily pass 10 million people.

From the press release: "Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. Today, World of Warcraft is available in seven different languages and is played in North America, Europe, mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.""

iPhone Faces Uncertain Market 869

Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 11, 2007 @02:07PM from the second-and-third-thoughts dept.

48 hours have passed since Steve Jobs's MacWorld keynote and the reality distortion field is beginning to wear off. Lists of the drawbacks of the announced iPhone are sprouting all over the Net (and there is the occasional defense by true believers). Now narramissic writes, "The iPhone may be poised to take over the high-end cell phone market, but is it a market worth taking? Not if an InStat survey from July is any indication: Of 1,800 consumers surveyed, just 21 had spent more than $400 for a cell phone. Prices for the iPhone, admittedly more of a handheld computer than a cell phone, start at $499 for the 4G-byte version with a required two-year contract with Cingular. So, is Apple pricing it right? Analysts quoted in this article seem to think Apple's going to have a hard time getting the 1% of market share that Jobs called for."

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