iamdrscience - Slashdot User

Submission + - Boston Mistakes Blinking LEDs for a Bomb... Again.

Submitted by

iamdrscience

on Friday September 21, 2007 @03:44PM

iamdrscience writes: ""In a story bearing a striking similarity to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force "hoax device" story from a few months ago, Star Simpson, a 19 year old MIT student, was arrested this morning at Logan airport by Boston police for allegedly carrying a fake bomb. She has already been charged with "disturbing the peace and possessing a hoax device" to which she plead not guilty and was released on $750 bail. The device in question consisted of a black sweatshirt with prototyping breadboard attached to the front which had been wired up a few blinking LEDs. In a press conference, State Police Major Scott Pare, the commanding officer at the airport was quoted as "She was immediately told to stop, to raise her hands and not to make any movement, so we could observe all her movements to see if she was trying to trip any type of device, had she not followed the protocol, we might have used deadly force.""

Submission + - Man Has Thumb Surgery to Enable Better iPhone Use

Submitted by

iamdrscience

on Thursday August 09, 2007 @04:48PM

iamdrscience writes: "ZDNet is reporting that 28 year old Thomas Martel has undergone "whittling" thumb surgery to enable better use of the iPhone. The procedure involved making a small incision into both thumbs and shaving down the bones, followed by careful muscular alteration and modification of the fingernails. Were turning plastic surgery from something that people use in service of vanity, to a real tool for improving workplace efficiency says Dr. Robert Fox Spars, who worked on developing the procedure."

Submission + - 50 Laws of Software Development (itsbeenconfirmed.com)

Submitted by iamdrscience on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @04:08PM

iamdrscience writes: There's no better way to pretend you're smart than quoting an idea thought up by some other smart guy who is now dead or old. This post from the Tucows Developer Blog catalogs 50 Laws of Software Development. In addition to the well-known ideas like Occam's Razor and Clark's Third Law the list includes many other lesser known laws such as Joy's Law ("No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.").

Submission + - Linus: "I've never used Debian" (oneopensource.it) 1

Submitted by

javipas

on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @04:37AM

javipas writes: "On a recent interview, Linus has confessed a surprising fact: "the only major distribution I've never used has actually been Debian, exactly because that has traditionally been harder to install". Torvalds seems to be running Fedora 7 on most of his systems, though he has used a bunch of other well known distros. He also has comments on GPLv3, patent violation and the future of Linux on the desktop. "I think it just needs more time. We basically have all the pieces, but we can improve on them"."

Submission + - MIT team designs a new, sleek, skintight spacesuit (mit.edu)

Submitted by

iamdrscience

on Monday July 16, 2007 @03:27PM

iamdrscience writes: "MIT aeronatuics professor Dava Newman has designed a new spacesuit along with her colleague, Jeff Hoffman and a group of students. This is far sleeker and lighter weight than the suits used by astronauts today, promising greater mobility than the traditional bulky suits of today which can weigh 300lbs or more. Instead of gas pressurization, the new prototype BioSuit employs "mechanical counter-pressure" in the form of skin-tight layers wrapped around the body."

Submission + - Marketers Abandoning Second Life? (latimes.com)

Submitted by

Vary

on Saturday July 14, 2007 @10:50AM

Vary writes: "The LA Times is running a story today saying that marketers are pulling out of Second Life, primarily because — surprise, surprise — the 'more than 8 million residents' figure on the game's web site is grossly inflated. Also, as it turns out, the virtual world's 40,000 or so regular visitors are not only disinterested in in-world marketing, but actively hostile to it, staging attacks on corporate presences such as the Reebok and American Apparel stores. The companies aren't giving up on virtual worlds altogether, though, but moving on to games like There, Gaia Online and Entropia Universe. The article also contains some commentary from a marketing executive who conducted an informal survey of the game. His most imporant discovery? "One of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia." What company wouldn't want to be in on that action?"

Submission + - 10 things I hate about the iPhone

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 01, 2007 @01:43PM

An anonymous reader writes: The iPhone is the Paris Hilton of technology stories, and even the most ardent Apple fan might be getting a bit sick of hearing about it. But here's one last link — 10 things that absolutely suck about the iPhone, written by somebody who has one. By the look of things, there have been some massive banana-skin-like slip-ups, from the obvious (no horizontal keyboard except in Safari), to the irksome (back and edit buttons swapping, catching users out). From the article: "I had to make this list ... [it's] the first time I've ever been really disappointed with such a major product. :("

Submission + - Carbon Offset Snakeoil

Submitted by

WED Fan

on Monday March 19, 2007 @10:00AM

WED Fan writes: "As the discussion goes on about human-driven climate change v. cyclical climate change, those that feel guilty for their lavish or extravegant lifestyle, or companies that feel the need to be more proactive, try to find ways to neutralize their carbon outputs and end up purchasing "carbon offsets". This article in Business Week is a result of an investigation that reveals most offset schemes to be nothing more than "feel good hype" and sometimes profiteering off the movement.

Done carefully, offsets can have a positive effect and raise ecological awareness. But a close look at several transactions — including those involving the Oscar presenters, Vail Resorts, and the Seattle power company — reveals that some deals amount to little more than feel-good hype. When traced to their source, these dubious offsets often encourage climate protection that would have happened regardless of the buying and selling of paper certificates. One danger of largely symbolic deals is that they may divert attention and resources from more expensive and effective measures.

Offset companies are not regulated, nor are they certified by any organization with accountability, and most are "for profit" and do little more than collect money from the guilt-ridden and act as a PR gimmick for incredible polluters. Quite possibly lulling the environmental movements into a false sense of righteousness, and possibly raising the level of pollution."

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