Avitor - Slashdot User

Submission + - Is the RIAA back to it's torrent-crushing tactics? (tgohome.com) 1

Submitted by

Tom

on Thursday August 02, 2007 @06:39PM

Tom writes: "During a download from The Pirate Bay, I saw 11 similar IP addresses (via. the 'Peers' tab) on the .available.above.net server. This is really odd, because the chance of this happening is something close to 11 in 26 billion. Also, uTorrent constantly was complaining about pieces failing hash checks..."

Journal SPAM: Will Bush Cancel The 2008 Election? 10

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday August 02, 2007 @06:22PM

Published on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

Will Bush Cancel The 2008 Election?

by Harvey Wasserman & Bob Fitrakis

It is time to think about the unthinkable.
The Bush Administration has both the inclination and the power to cancel the 2008 election.

Submission + - Bill Gates Sells 3 Million Shares in Microsoft (cnn.com) 2

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Thursday August 02, 2007 @05:14PM

eldavojohn writes: "Today Bill Gates has sold 3 million shares of Microsoft's common stock for $28.99 to $29.44 each. A vote of no-confidence from the chairman himself?"

Submission + - Comcast Terms Change: You Lose Right to Sue (wtop.com)

Submitted by

dupeisdead

on Monday July 30, 2007 @02:50AM

dupeisdead writes: "Thankfully I don't even have the option to use Comcast where I live, but this is troubling. Almost all companies "reserve the right to change the contract" blah blah blah, but very few people actually read that. Comcast wishes to change existing contract with customers... Why would Comcast need to change this provision, and would this actually hold up if it came to it?"

Fruit Flies Show Spark of Free Will 375

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @09:40PM from the sorry-about-all-those-bio-labs dept.

Lucas123 writes "A study performed at the Free University Berlin on human free will has produced some unexpected results showing that fruit flies may have a spark of free will in their tiny brains." From the article: "Their behavior seemed to match up with a mathematical algorithm called Levy's distribution ... Future research delving further into free will could lead to more advanced robots, scientists added. The result, joked neurobiologist Björn Brembs from the Free University Berlin, could be "world robot domination."

Wolfram Offers Prize For (2,3) Turing Machine 164

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @02:53AM from the universal-or-not dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and author of A New Kind of Science, is offering a prize of $25K to anyone who can prove or disprove his conjecture that a particular 2-state, 3-color Turing machine is universal. If true, it would be the simplest universal TM, and possibly the simplest universal computational system. The announcement comes on the 5-year anniversary of the publication of NKS, where among other things Wolfram introduced the current reigning TM champion — 'rule 110,' with 2 states and 5 colors."

Submission + - Congress surveys campus IT officers about piracy

Submitted by

on Thursday May 03, 2007 @12:57PM

An anonymous reader writes: The lawmakers from the House of Representatives submitted a "Survey of University Network and Data Integrity Practices" to the heads of the 19 college that have recently received the largest number of copyright infringement notices from both the RIAA and the MPAA, and have asked for them to be completed by their campus technology officers. http://www.zeropaid.com/news/8724/Congress+wants+t o+question+college+IT+officers+about+illegal+file- sharing

Submission + - Breakpoints have now been patented

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Thursday May 03, 2007 @12:57PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Breakpoints have now been patented. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20030208745.html "A method for debugging including the steps of receiving code having a software breakpoint function therein, running the code for the purpose of debugging, monitoring the code to detect the presence of the software breakpoint function, recognizing the software breakpoint function, determining an action to be performed based on the software breakpoint function, and implementing the action. The present invention also includes an apparatus for implementing the method for debugging and a medium embodying a program of instructions for execution by a device to perform the method for debugging." Where's the prior art on this one?"

Submission + - Mercury Astronaut Wally Schirra Dies

Submitted by wiredog on Thursday May 03, 2007 @12:24PM

wiredog writes: Former astronaut Wally Schirra, the only astronaut to fly on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, has died.

Mathematica 6 Launched 222

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 01, 2007 @08:41PM from the simulate-this dept.

Ed Pegg writes "Wolfram Research has just released Mathematica 6. That link, in addition to the usual 'dramatic breakthrough' material, has an amazing flash banner that simultaneously shows a thousand mathematical demonstrations all at once. The animations came from the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, a free service with 1200+ dynamically interactive examples of math, science, and physics, all with code. For the product itself, much is new or improved, with built-in math databases, improved visualizations, and more."

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