Comment Airport Security Nudity Day (Score 5, Interesting) 434
Let us declare April 17 as Airport Security Nudity Day.
Comment Re:Cool, but... (Score 1) 280
Because Apple makes and in many cases retails the end user product. In most countries, either the manufacturer or the retailer is responsible for consumer complaints and warranties.
It's the car manufacturer who is responsible for the faulty floor mat, even if it is made by a subcontractor.
Comment Excellent (Score 3, Insightful) 227
It's only a matter of time before someone writes a tool that generates top grade essays.
Comment Re:Don't be a jerk (Score 1) 64
I'm no sociologist, but...
Social groups with something in common usually has unwritten rules that can be summarized as "Don't be a jerk". As the community grows and more people, and therefore more jerks, join. The social control in the group loosens and a bigger need for a formalized set of rules emerge.
I congratulate the OSHW movement for, by this article, taking the first steps towards formalizing their rules, and becoming a more jerk friendly (or unfriendly depending on how you see it) community.
Comment Re:How much would better cooling cost? (Score 1) 303
Well, the stirling engine requires a large temperature difference between a hot and cold medium. And will essentially need some kind of cooling source to operate. Stirling engines usually has a maximum efficiency of ~40% (number grabbed from the back of my head, don't take it too seriously) wich means that more than 60% of the heat energy will end up heating the cooling medium.
Also, the mechanical energy generated by the stirling engine will turn into heat sooner or later due to the grim laws of thermodynamics.
Comment Re:So... (Score 4, Interesting) 353
It is probably very cheap since the music is public domain and the speakers is probably already in place.
For scientific purposes they should not only compare the classical music with not music but also with a music perceived as crime inducing, such as gangsta rap.
Comment Re:Internet wins... (Score 1) 495
To pay artists with public funds and give their works away for free would be socialist.
To give the companies power over the law is associated with facism.
Comment Pouring water into volcanos... (Score 5, Funny) 321
...is also useful to generate cobblestone, especially on some pvp maps.
Comment O Rly (Score 1) 252
Wild animals should never be kept as pets. And there is a lot of people that shouldn't be allowed to have domesticated animals either.
Comment species (Score 1) 157
I hope they name it Jozin.
Submission + - Computers Unlock Secrets Of Ancient Script. (sciencedaily.com) 1
bagsta writes: Four-thousand years ago, an urban civilization lived and traded on what is now the border between Pakistan and India. During the past century, thousands of artifacts bearing hieroglyphics left by this prehistoric people have been discovered. Today, a team of Indian and American researchers are using mathematics and computer science to try to piece together information about the still-unknown script.
Submission + - Large Hadron Collider
Polar Pope writes: The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/science/earth/04collide.html?_r=1&hp
Submission + - Nmap 5.00 Released! (nmap.org)
iago-vL writes: "The long-awaited Nmap Security Scanner version 5.00 was just released (download)! This marks the most important release since 1997, and is a huge step in Nmap's evolution from a simple port scanner to an all-around security and networking tool suite. Significant performance improvements were made, and dozens of scripts were added. For example, Nmap can now log into Windows and perform local checks (PDF), including Conficker detection. New tools included in 5.00 are Ncat, a modern reimplementation of Netcat (with IPv6, SSL, NAT traversal, port redirection, and more!), and Ndiff, for quickly comparing scan results. Other tools are in the works for future releases, but we're still waiting for them to add email and ftp clients so we can finally get off Emacs!"
Submission + - New Binary Diffing Algorithm Announced by Google
bheer writes: "Google's Open-Source Chromium project announced a new compression technique called Courgette geared towards distributing really small updates today. Courgette achieves smaller diffs (about 9x in one example) than standard binary-diffing algorithms like bsdiff by disassembling the code and sending the assembler diffs over the wire. This, the Chromium devs say, will allow them to send smaller, more frequent updates, making users more secure. Since this will be released as open source, it should make distributing updates a lot easier for the open-source community."
Submission + - Serious study of: Can online sales reduce piracy?
feenberg writes: When NBC dropped out of Hulu, piracy of NBC programs increased by twice the amount that sales dropped.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1381827
