Feed Game Theory: A Sexy Witch, Zombies and Death: Who Needs a Story? (nytimes.com)
Story aside, Bullet Witch is reasonably entertaining, with a plethora of zombies occasionally aided by giant-brained creatures and 50-foot monsters.
Submission + - Rural Idahoans Can't Read This--But Oregonians, Wa
sharon fisher writes: "http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/print/14749/
Some rural Idahoans are still being told that they can't have access to high-speed, broadband Internet that would give them access to features such as video.
Exactly how many don't have it who want it is unclear, but it could be up to 10% of the population. While Jim Schmit, President of Idaho Operations for Qwest, told attendees of the Emerging Directions in Economic Development conference in Boise on Friday that "virtually all" Idahoans had such access, about a quarter of the economic development professionals attending indicated that they represented a community that didn't have it yet, and most of the questions related to how their communities could get the access they'd been told wasn't available.
Meanwhile, in rural Oregon and Washington, communities are using high-speed Internet access to attract new business and improve public safety.
In Washington, the Legislature passed in 2000 a law that allowed Public Utility Districts to deliver wholesale broadband Internet to retail providers. Grant County, a rural area in the center of the state, invested $40 million in broadband infrastructure, said Thomas Jones, vice president of 180 Connect Inc., a Toronto, Canada, provider of technical support services who spoke at the broadband infrastructure panel.
Between broadband access and the cheap power provided by the Grand Coulee Dam, the area has been able to attract installations from vendors such as Microsoft and Google, Jones said. "None of these are in Idaho, and I think there's a reason why," he said.
For example, the Gorge amphitheater — in addition to being supplied with breathtaking views and popular music — also has broadband Internet, and the House of Blues, which owns the facility, has considered using the facility as a backup to its Los Angeles offices in the case of a natural disaster.
In fact, this year the Washington Legislature is considering a pilot program to enable the public utility districts to provide broadband Internet services on a retail basis as well as wholesale.
Similarly, though Tom Pickren of Tropos Networks said during the panel that a technology called WiMAX is not yet available, it is already being used over a 700-mile area in eastern Oregon.
WiMAX is similar to the wifi technology that is currently widely used, but is based upon cellular phone communication methods, which means it has a much broader range than wifi — up to 30 miles — and it is being looked at as a means to provide broadband Internet to rural America.
Much of the cost of the eastern Oregon WiMAX network was funded by the Department of Homeland Security, to protect chemical weapons located in the area.
A lack of broadband Internet not only limits the economic development of rural Idaho, but limits public education as well. During the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee hearings on public education, state superintendent of instruction Tom Luna indicated that his department was considering providing students with electronic textbooks, which are both cheaper than published textbooks and can be more easily updated. Consequently, children who live in areas without broadband Internet could end up being limited to published textbooks, Representative Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene and chairman of the House Education Committee, told JFAC.
This could raise the spectre of a two-tiered educational system, leaving rural Idahoans even further behind. "A school with dialup is a school that is disconnected from the infrastructure they need to survive," said Senator Eliot Werk, D-Boise, during JFAC hearings.
Meanwhile, some rural economic development professionals reported that they had trouble getting cooperation from incumbent telephone and Internet companies — while such a company might not find it financially feasible to supply an area with broadband Internet, at the same time it doesn't want to free the community to find solutions elsewhere.
On the other hand, it could be worse. One presenter noted that four states completely prohibited any municipality from participating in a broadband initiative. "Fortunately, Idaho isn't one of them," he noted.
At least, not yet."
Submission + - Orkut: You email address can be hacked easily
vikrantsharma1 writes: "Orkut has been in the midst of privacy and security concerns since its launch. There have been many ways through which you can get to know the email address of any person on Orkut even when it is not displayed in the public profile. Although, Google keeps on fixing bugs as and when they are highlighted; however, there seems to be a long way before they can make Orkut a secure social network.
One of the method to know the email address which I came across has been listed below which you can try yourself.
Steps:
1. Open the profile of the person whose email address you wish to know. It can be anyone in the Orkut network.
2. Click on "Ignore User"
3. Open GTalk and sign in with your ID
4. Click on Settings and select "Blocked"
5. You will find the email address of the person whom you blocked on Orkut.
You can see the sceenshots of the same at http://vikrantweb.blogspot.com/2007/03/orkut-your- email-address-can-be-hacked.html"
One of the method to know the email address which I came across has been listed below which you can try yourself.
Steps:
1. Open the profile of the person whose email address you wish to know. It can be anyone in the Orkut network.
2. Click on "Ignore User"
3. Open GTalk and sign in with your ID
4. Click on Settings and select "Blocked"
5. You will find the email address of the person whom you blocked on Orkut.
You can see the sceenshots of the same at http://vikrantweb.blogspot.com/2007/03/orkut-your
Submission + - International Public Toilets Database
William S. writes: "Press Release: 10 March 2007
A publicly accessible database has been set up at www.publictoilets.org . You can search for public toilets in 19 countries and find out information that includes the address and detailed information about the facility as well as geographic coordinates. A user can submit comments and enter new locations. There is a wiki, forum and mailing list linked from the main page of the database with information related to public toilets. It is hoped that public exposure to this resource will add to it's content and help expand coverage.
For more information contact:
wstan@publictoilets.org
or go to:
www.publictoilets.org"
A publicly accessible database has been set up at www.publictoilets.org . You can search for public toilets in 19 countries and find out information that includes the address and detailed information about the facility as well as geographic coordinates. A user can submit comments and enter new locations. There is a wiki, forum and mailing list linked from the main page of the database with information related to public toilets. It is hoped that public exposure to this resource will add to it's content and help expand coverage.
For more information contact:
wstan@publictoilets.org
or go to:
www.publictoilets.org"
Comment Pirates vs Ninjas was a draw (Score 1) 926
Ninjas and pirates agreed to cease hostilites and ally with zombies and robots some time ago. The resulting alliance can be seen at The Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot Clan . They're unlikely to flip out and eat you as long as you feed them plenty of rumricebrainsoil.
Submission + - 9 Laws of Physics That Don't Apply in Hollywood
Ant writes: "Neatorama lists nine laws of physics that don't apply in Hollywood (movies and television/TV shows). In general, Hollywood filmmakers follow the laws of physics because they have no other choice. It's just when they cheat with special effects that people seem to forget how the world really works..."
Submission + - Ruby/Rails environment comparison
oozinoz writes: "A (the?) nameless blogger has gathered a terrific
comparison of development environments for Ruby/Rails development,
including IntelliJ Idea, NetBeans 6, and Eclipse, all augmented with plugins."
Submission + - Microsoft kills off J# language
Bookmark Linux.com | Métamorphose your file names en masse (linux.com)
Submission + - Google Promoting Software Piracy?
AlHark writes: "It is very sad to constantly see pirated software ads on the Google search
engine. You may know what I am talking about. Search for terms like "microsoft
download site" (for the microsoft.com software download page at microsoft.com)
or perhaps you search for terms like "Adobe Photoshop", "CorelDraw", (insert
popular software product name here" downloads. Even after notifying the Google
AdSense abuse department the ads still show. Google doesn't care about software
piracy, what they worry about is their profits from AdSense. Even when piracy
ads are reported they stay in the Google AdSense system. Unless companies like
Microsoft or Adobe complain about them Google and it AdSense staff are content
with leaving the ads in the system because it makes them money. There are some
screenshots and a commentary
here."
Submission + - IBM speeds up DRAM to S2 cache speeds
An anonymous reader writes: IBM said it has been able to speed up the DRAM to the point where it's nearly as fast as SRAM, and that the result is a type of memory known as embedded DRAM, or eDRAM, that helps boost the performance of chips with multiple core calculating engines and is particularly suited for enabling the movement of graphics in gaming and other multimedia applications. DRAM will also continue to be used off the chip.
Submission + - Deputy: Type and Memory Safety for C Programs
An anonymous reader writes: Deputy is a C compiler built by researchers at UC Berkeley that uses simple programmer-supplied annotations to catch type and memory errors such as buffer overflows and misuse of union types. For example, if you write a function that takes a buffer and its length as arguments, you can annotate the buffer's type to indicate that its length is stored in the second argument. Using these annotations, Deputy will either verify accesses to this buffer at compile time or insert the required run-time checks. Deputy has already been used on several Linux device drivers and has a corresponding recovery system for Linux called SafeDrive.
Submission + - First Commercial Quantum Computer Demonstrated
emw2012 writes: "As of February 13, D-Wave Systems Inc. of Burnaby, British Columbia has shown a proof of concept of its 16-qubit quantum system, dubbed "Orion". The system was showcased, audaciously enough, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, where D-Wave displayed Orion's power in a drug molecule matching test, followed by such worthy enterprises as solving a party seating arrangement seeking to pair like-minded guests, and deducing a Sudoku puzzle to completion. While time will tell whether Orion is remembered as merely a curious misadventure or the harbinger of revolution in the processing industry, D-Wave has assured us of the later, promising systems able to model molecular dynamics, complex NP-complete optimization problems, and simulate nanoscale behavior in fractions of second, compared to years (or simply not at all) on BlueGene/L and its digital kin.
dwavesys.com, Press Release"
dwavesys.com, Press Release"
Submission + - Giant Squid Species Blinds Prey With Light Bursts
ar1550 writes: The BBC reports that one species of squid, the 2 meter (7ft.) long Taningia danae, is believed to use light-emitting organs on its tentacles to confuse its prey. Scientists also raised the possibility that the display of bioluminescence is used in attracting a mate. The link includes a video, if you have Windows Media or Real installed.
Submission + - Adium 1.0 Final Released
An anonymous reader writes: The Adium Development team has anounced the realese of Adium 1.0, go to www.adiumx.com and check it out!
