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Comment overall: better (Score 1) 2254

by jtnix (#35005120) Attached to: Slashdot Launches Re-Design

en breve:

way too much VERTICAL white space = please tighten up the vertical spacing by at least 50%

the left sidebar is way too sterile and unattractive = needs better hover / highlighting and styling - please put on your thinking cap, visit the web-i-verse and derive something logically beautiful; that can be my only hint.

everything else is awesome = much faster 'web 2 ... OH!' experience.
News

Submission + - Terrorists bomb Moscow Airport (cnn.com)

Submitted by jayme0227
jayme0227 writes: "Terrorists detonated a bomb at Moscow's busiest airport on Monday, killing 35 people and wounding another 152, Russian authorities said.

President Dmitry Medvedev, who called the bombing a terrorist attack, ordered additional security at Moscow's other airports and transportation hubs, and Moscow police went on high alert in case of additional bombs."
Television

Submission + - New TV Show May Violate Child Pornography Laws 3

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Contra Costa Times reports that executives at MTV are concerned that some scenes from the provocative new show "Skins" may violate child pornography statutes defined by the federal government as any visual depiction of someone under 18 engaged in sexually explicit conduct. "Skins" is an import from Britain, a country that has historically displayed a higher tolerance for TV eroticism and episodes there included simulated masturbation, implied sexual assault, and teenagers disrobing and getting into bed together. The early episodes for MTV, including the third one, are virtually identical to the source material. The Parents Television Council, a TV watchdog group, has labeled "Skins" the "most dangerous program that has ever been foisted on your children" and has asked Congress and the Justice Department to investigate because unlike "Glee" and other TV shows depicting sexually active teenagers, the actors in "Skins" are still teenagers, rather than actors in their 20s. However MTV says the show addresses real-world issues confronting teens in a frank way. "We also have taken numerous steps to alert viewers to the strong subject matter so that they can choose for themselves whether it is appropriate.""

Submission + - The End of Scarce Oil and Atmospheric CO2 Problems (theglobeandmail.com) 1

Submitted by Saysys
Saysys writes: n September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for “a proprietary organism” – a genetically engineered cyanobacterium that produces liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable supplies of liquid fossil fuel almost anywhere on Earth, in essentially unlimited quantity and at an energy-cost equivalent of $30 (U.S.) a barrel of crude oil. It will deliver, the company says, “fossil fuels on demand.”

oule says it now has “a library” of fossil-fuel organisms at work in its Massachusetts labs, each engineered to produce a different fuel. It has “proven the process,” has produced ethanol (for example) at a rate equivalent to 10,000 U.S. gallons an acre a year. It anticipates that this yield could hit 25,000 gallons an acre a year when scaled for commercial production, equivalent to roughly 800 barrels of crude an acre a year.
Math

Euler's Partition Function Theory Finished 117

Posted by Soulskill from the that-was-quick dept.
universegeek writes "Mathematician Ken Ono, from Emory, has solved a 250-year-old problem: how to exactly and explicitly generate partition numbers. Ono and colleagues were able to finally do this by realizing that the pattern of partition numbers is fractal (PDF). This pattern allowed them to find a finite, algebraic formula, which is like striking oil in mathematics."
Input Devices

Submission + - Apple Files Patent for Display Mouse (appleinsider.com)

Submitted by astrodoom
astrodoom writes: AppleInsider has posted a story detailing a new patent application by apple that hints at the possibility of adding a touchscreen to the company's magic mouse. At a basic level this could mean things like customizable colors or artwork displayed on the user's mouse, but the possibilities extend much farther to fully customizable mouse layouts and program controls. Apple Insider comments on the possibilities: "The display on the mouse would change according to what the user may be doing on their Mac. As an example, the application describes displaying a number of icons for quickly selectable options when a user is running Apple's Pages word processing application. Switching over to the spreadsheet software Numbers would reconfigure the buttons on the screen to allow for commands in that respective application."
Apple

Submission + - The Case of Apple's Mystery Screw 1

Submitted by
Pickens
Pickens writes: "Network World reports that in the past if you wanted to remove the outer case on your iPhone 4 to replace the battery or a broken screen, you could use a Phillip screwdriver to remove two tiny screws at the base of the phone and then simply slide off the back cover. But now Apple is replacing the outer screw with a mysterious tamper-resistant "pentalobular" screw across its most popular product lines, making it harder for do-it-yourselfers to make repairs. What about existing products in the field? Pentalobular screws might find their way into them, too. "Apple's latest policy will make your blood boil," says Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit. "If you take your iPhone 4 into Apple for any kind of service, they will sabotage it by replacing your Phillips screws with the new, tamper-resistant screws. We've spoken with the Apple Store geniuses tasked with carrying out this policy, and they are ashamed of the practice." Of course only Apple authorized service technicians have Pentalobular screwdrivers and they're not allowed to resell them. "Apple sees a huge profit potential," says Wiens. "A hundred dollars per year in incremental revenue on their installed base is a tremendous opportunity.""
Image

Sharks Seen Swimming Down Australian Streets 210

Posted by samzenpus from the we're-going-to-need-a-bigger-sidewalk dept.
As if the flood waters weren't bad enough for the people of Queensland, it now appears that there are sharks swimming in the streets. Two bull sharks were spotted swimming past a McDonald’s in the city of Goodna, Butcher Steve Bateman saw another making its way past his shop on Williams street. Ipswich councillor for the Goodna region Paul Tully said: "It would have swam several kilometres in from the river, across Evan Marginson Park and the motorway. It’s definitely a first for Goodna, to have a shark in the main street."

Submission + - Creating an efficient social site? (mydbuddy.com) 1

Submitted by Twisted64
Twisted64 writes: After the Australian floods, a few sites have popped up, attempting to get flood victims in touch with their would-be saviours in the shortest time possible.These include qldfloods.org, floodaid.com.au, wikifloods.com.au, ozfloodhelp.org and mydisasterbuddy.com.

The sites use different methods to get people to register their needs or areas where they can provide assistance. Floodaid is a basic list for people to search through, wikifloods provides a bulletin board, and My Disaster Buddy is a basic networking site, requiring registration (but after registration it automates the searching process, matching users based on their preferences).

What do you think is the best approach to getting people in contact with each other, with the minimum of fuss? It's clearly too late after the fact to throw together a website and expect it to be a polished production, but there is clearly a need that is being answered in several differing ways. Disasters will continue to happen, and plenty of people with a mobile phone have enough internet access to make these projects worthwhile.

Comment I smell a lawsuit or a fraud (Score 2) 295

by jtnix (#34793766) Attached to: Facebook's Revenues Leaked

Let's see... very wealthy customer receives NDA covered financial document over a recent lunch and decides to violate the NDA he/she signed and publicly disclose it.

I can't imagine it will be very hard for Facebook to track down this customer and use their $500 million profits from this year to sue this customer out of their 'very wealthy' status, perhaps permanently and or sue Goldman Sachs for disclosing the information publicly.

IF that does not happen, I would be very suspicious of the validity of the document for both the lack of details (how the money was spent) and lack of lawsuit.

I am going with the latter option. Sounds like a planted document, if you ask me.

Submission + - Bee population drops 96%, baffles scientists (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by jcgam69
jcgam69 writes: The abundance of four common species of bumblebee in the US has dropped by 96% in just the past few decades, according to the most comprehensive national census of the insects. Scientists said the alarming decline, which could have devastating implications for the pollination of both wild and farmed plants, was likely to be a result of disease and low genetic diversity in bee populations.
Science

Why Published Research Findings Are Often False 453

Posted by samzenpus from the race-to-publish dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Jonah Lehrer has an interesting article in the New Yorker reporting that all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed findings in science have started to look increasingly uncertain as they cannot be replicated. This phenomenon doesn't yet have an official name, but it's occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology and in the field of medicine, the phenomenon seems extremely widespread, affecting not only anti-psychotics but also therapies ranging from cardiac stents to Vitamin E and antidepressants. 'One of my mentors told me that my real mistake was trying to replicate my work,' says researcher Jonathon Schooler. 'He told me doing that was just setting myself up for disappointment.' For many scientists, the effect is especially troubling because of what it exposes about the scientific process. 'If replication is what separates the rigor of science from the squishiness of pseudoscience, where do we put all these rigorously validated findings that can no longer be proved?' writes Lehrer. 'Which results should we believe?' Francis Bacon, the early-modern philosopher and pioneer of the scientific method, once declared that experiments were essential, because they allowed us to 'put nature to the question' but it now appears that nature often gives us different answers. According to John Ioannidis, author of Why Most Published Research Findings Are False, the main problem is that too many researchers engage in what he calls 'significance chasing,' or finding ways to interpret the data so that it passes the statistical test of significance—the ninety-five-per-cent boundary invented by Ronald Fisher. 'The scientists are so eager to pass this magical test that they start playing around with the numbers, trying to find anything that seems worthy,'"
Google

Submission + - Beware of using Google or Open DNS for iTunes (joemaller.com)

Submitted by Relayman
Relayman writes: Joe Mailer wanted to download an iTunes movie recently and his Apple TV told him it would take two hours. When he switched his DNS resolver settings, the download time dropped to less than 20 seconds. Apparently, iTunes content is served by Akamai which uses geolocation based on the IP address of the DNS request to determine which server should provide his content. When you use Google or Open DNS to resolve the Apple domain name, all the requests to Akamai appear to be coming from the same location and they're all directed to the same server pool, overloading that pool and causing the slow downloads. The solution: Be wary of using Google or Open DNS when downloading iTunes files or similar large files. Use your own ISPs DNS servers instead or run your own resolving DNS server (This is /., is it not?).

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