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Submission + - Exam brute-forced by world's worst test taker (koreaherald.co.kr)

Submitted by unixan
unixan writes: What can you do with $4,200, and a lot of time on your hands? Why not brute force a written exam, the old fashion way?

The exam consisted of 50 multi-choice questions, and required a 60 percent score to pass. The would-be student, now a likely nominee for an Iggy, required 950 attempts to raise a score that started in the 30 percent range.

How about it, Slashdotters: assuming 50 questions with 5 choices each, could you program a brute force script (with learning capability based on final score) and beat the worlds worst test taker?
Education

Submission + - Comic Books Improve Early Childhood Literacy

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Telegraph reports that Professor Carol Tilley, a professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois, says that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of reading, children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other kinds of books, and that there is evidence that comics increase children's vocabulary and instill a love of reading. "A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words," says Tilley. "But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books – that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words." Tilley says that some of the condescension toward comics as a medium may come from the connotations that the name itself evokes but that the distinct comic book aesthetic — frames, thought and speech bubbles, motion lines, to name a few — has been co-opted by children's books, creating a hybrid format. "There has been an increase in the number of comic book-type elements in books for younger children," Tilley says. "If you really consider how the pictures and words work together in consonance to tell a story, you can make the case that comics are just as complex as any other kind of literature.""
Biotech

Submission + - Babies Begin Learning Language in the Womb

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Science Daily reports findings from a new study that suggest that infants begin picking up elements of what will be their first language in the womb, long before their first babble or coo, and are able to memorize sounds from the external world by the last trimester of pregnancy, with a particular sensitivity to melody contour in both music and language. Newborns prefer their mother's voice over other voices and perceive the emotional content of messages conveyed via intonation contours in maternal speech (a.k.a. "motherese"). "The dramatic finding of this study is that not only are human neonates capable of producing different cry melodies, but they prefer to produce those melody patterns that are typical for the ambient language they have heard during their fetal life, within the last trimester of gestation," said Kathleen Wermke of the University of Würzburg in Germany. Wermke's team recorded and analyzed the cries of 60 healthy newborns, 30 born into French-speaking families and 30 born into German-speaking families, when they were three to five days old. The recordings of 2,500 cries as mothers changed babies’ diapers, readied babies for feeding or otherwise interacted with the youngsters show an extremely early impact of native language with analysis revealing clear differences in the shape of the newborns' cry melodies, based on their mother tongue. "Newborns are probably highly motivated to imitate their mother's behavior in order to attract her and hence to foster bonding," says Wermke. "Because melody contour may be the only aspect of their mother's speech that newborns are able to imitate, this might explain why we found melody contour imitation at that early age.""

Comment Re:Yes, but... (Score 1) 43

by unixan (#29756479) Attached to: Electro-Scalpel "Sniffs Out" Tumors

The way I read it, it tells you what tissue you're cutting *when you're cutting it*,

It may take society a decade or more to figure out whether this tool is a net positive benefit to society.

Meanwhile, I anticipate the following problems:

  • Does this device fade over time, misleading a surgeon into finishing too soon?
  • In the reverse, is there a way to ensure the ensure this tool isn't too sensitive, misleading a surgeon into removing whole "diseased" organs?
  • ... Could this device even turn surgery into an addictive video game of hunt-the-cancer?

Comment Re:Ridiculous! (Score 1) 863

by unixan (#29168771) Attached to: "Smart" Parking Meters Considered Dumb

... and almost had a heart attack just thinking about walking up to half a block!

This isn't just funny, it's also a serious point! TFA has nothing to do with user-unfriendly parking meters. The poster (theodp) is just an angry Chicagoan posting his slant on Slashdot.

TFA does have a point -- Chicago and other cities are getting ripped off by an unholy alliance between city government and private companies to perform parking enforcement.

But it has nothing to do with user-unfriendly parking meters.

To compare, Seattle has replaced its parking meters with similar type meter (ones that accept both coins and cards, and dispense proof-of-purchase stickers). Lots of people love this kind of machine. It makes payment much easier. Walking 1/2 block? What a joke, any urbanite is used to a lot more walking than that.

Comment Astro lawn (Re:continued crappy ...) (Score 2, Interesting) 106

by unixan (#28742101) Attached to: Verizon Offers Compromise In Exclusivity Debate

So... In my opinion, the easiest way fix to your problem with coverage in the boonies is to go visit a verizon store, and just bite the bullet on the BS craptacular locked-down handset they will give you. At least you'll be able to use your phone to... you know... make phone calls...

Your impressive list of Verizon's virtues seems a little suspicious.

Especially when you seem rather sympathetic or unusually knowledgable.

Comment Google news has drawbacks (Score 3, Interesting) 108

by unixan (#28410907) Attached to: The Newspaper Isn't Dead Yet
I used to read Google News exclusively, then I stopped (well, relegated it to minority status) in favor of other news sites for some reasons:
  1. More and more stories seem to be opinion pieces / glorified blogs, not genuine news.
  2. Because of the 15-minute refresh interval, top stories can rotate out before you've had a chance to go see it.
  3. The RSS feed doesn't seem to be organized by any sensible order; important top news would be a good starting point, at least.
  4. Every new organization has different standards for story depth; using Google News gives you inconsistent coverage because it doesn't seem to take story depth into account when choosing a source to link to.

And most irritating of all, sometimes the source being linked to wants you to register / login and possibly pay for subscription. I'm not against subscribing in order to pay for the effort, but I'm not going to pay subscription to every news site that Google News links to.

And besides, a local newspaper provides you local-interest stories that can be important to know, in addition to the same kind of news that Google News collects.
Communications

Submission + - Constant TV is bad for babies (cosmosmagazine.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Having the television on constantly in a household with infants and toddlers is bad for brain and language development because it reduces the number of words the kids hear and say.

"Audible television clearly reduces speech for both infants and their caregivers within the home and this is potentially harmful for babies' development," said Dimitri Christakis, a professor of paediatrics with the University of Washington in Seattle, who led the study.
Censorship

Submission + - Voters face cyber harassment by new group

Submitted by unixan
unixan writes: The Seattle Times reports that Washington State votes are being threatened with "uncomfortable conversations" for signing a petition that puts new same-sex laws to a vote. WhoSigned.Org, a newly created organization intended for this campaign, is aiming to organize mass-intimidation of voters into withdrawing their signatures.

The campaign may be backfiring, however. Many comments on the story's page indicate that previously-unaware readers intend to sign the petition in protest of the group's tactics.

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