Comment I know if *I* was in charge of a country (Score 1) 204
with over a billion people, I'd want to have male births outnumber female births for awhile, and then take away all the porn.
Comment Re:Work on Hollywood movies? (Score 1) 198
Seeing movies produced by following the "formula", do you want automated games?
Only if a sequel is involved.
Comment Re:They got a refund (Score 5, Funny) 1002
3) A Chinese family of nine people get on the plane. They are dressed in clothing straight out of 1920's Shanghai. Three of the young adults in thick Chinese accents remark about where would be the safest place to sit on the plane in the event of an accident or explosion.
I'd be afraid they'd stop the plane, run around it, then get back in.
Comment We need gene engineering like this (Score 1) 259
Otherwise, the robots will take over.
Submission + - Voting method visualizations (zesty.ca)
Snarfangel writes: Voting method debates are generally considered snooze-producers for all but a small group of aficionados, partly because they involve large, non-intuitive spreadsheets and tables. For something so important to democratically-elected governments, that is a shame.
Fortunately, it is possible to create visual representations of voting methods, revealing where methods agree, and where they fall into voting paradoxes. Ka-Ping Yee has created multicolored graphs covering Plurality, Approval, Borda, Condorcet, and IRV. While the flaws in Plurality are readily apparent, what is even more fascinating is the failure of IRV in certain elections.
Submission + - Will Ron Paul & Rudy Giuliani Debate Foreign P
Ron Holland writes: "Will Ron Paul & Rudy Giuliani Debate Foreign Policy at Freedomfest?
The annual FreedomFest conference, has issued a debate invitation to GOP Presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul to use FreedomFest '07 as a debate venue to further explore their fundamental differences in foreign policy and the war in Iraq that were highlighted in the Columbia, SC debate. To review the debate invitation — www.freedomfest.com/debate.htm
For more information on the July 2007 FreedomFest Conference in Las Vegas, go to
www.freedomfest.com"
The annual FreedomFest conference, has issued a debate invitation to GOP Presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul to use FreedomFest '07 as a debate venue to further explore their fundamental differences in foreign policy and the war in Iraq that were highlighted in the Columbia, SC debate. To review the debate invitation — www.freedomfest.com/debate.htm
For more information on the July 2007 FreedomFest Conference in Las Vegas, go to
www.freedomfest.com"
Submission + - IE7 and FF 2.0 share vulnerability
hcmtnbiker writes: Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.0 share a logic flaw. The issue is actually more severe, as the two versions of the Microsoft and Mozilla browsers are not the only ones affected. The vulnerability impacts Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7, and Firefox 1.5.0.9.
"In all modern browsers, form fields (used to upload user-specified files to a remote server) enjoy some added protection meant to prevent scripts from arbitrarily choosing local files to be sent, and automatically submitting the form without user knowledge. For example, ".value" parameter cannot be set or changed, and any changes to .type reset the contents of the field," said Michal Zalewski, the person that discovered the IE7 flaw.
There are Proof of concepts for both IE7 and firefox
Submission + - Hal Turner takes John Doe 1-1000 to federal court.
Devek writes: An outlaw band of cyber warriors has managed to do what Hal Turner's most ardent opponents haven't — silence the hate-talk radio host, at least for a while. An anonymous cadre of pranksters has targeted Turner's weekly Internet radio program and Web sites, in escalating attacks over the past two months that have all but put him out of business.
Turner, a white supremacist who has advocated violence against minorities and government officials, is trying to fight back, with a federal lawsuit that accuses five Web sites and "John Does 1-1,000" of engaging in fraud, extortion and racketeering. Acting as his own attorney, Turner recently asked a judge in Newark, N.J., to grant an injunction against the Web sites, which he says make the attacks possible. But the judge said he first needs to hear from the defendants — whoever they may be.
Turner, a white supremacist who has advocated violence against minorities and government officials, is trying to fight back, with a federal lawsuit that accuses five Web sites and "John Does 1-1,000" of engaging in fraud, extortion and racketeering. Acting as his own attorney, Turner recently asked a judge in Newark, N.J., to grant an injunction against the Web sites, which he says make the attacks possible. But the judge said he first needs to hear from the defendants — whoever they may be.
Submission + - Maxwell's demon now reality?
DMiax writes: Reuter has claimed that a group of scientists from University of Edimburgh realized a nanomachine acting as a Maxwell's Demon. Namely the device selects and traps other molecules based on their direction of motion. The existence of such a device would violate the second law of thermodnamics. It is worth noting that the researcher himself did not make such claim, simply crediting Maxwell for his work on electrodynamics and thermodynamics.
Submission + - GapMinder (Human Development statistics for All)
Alex Unger writes: "Gapminder emerges as a way for everyday internet users to view statistics about the health and progress of our planet. Now the data published in the UN report on Human Development can be viewed graphically and easily by everyone in the world not just those willing to spend endless hour analyzing data.
Visit http://tools.google.com/gapminder and http://gapminder.org/ to see all of Gapminder's work.
From Article at techweb.com: http://www.techweb.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID =196602724
'The 2006 report (hdr.undp.org) focuses on the (un)availability of clean water and basic sanitation services worldwide. The New York Times coverage states, "A third of people have no decent place to use the bathroom, and the human cost is great." The annual development reports offer a careful problem presentation in narrative form. UNDP uses charts and graphics effectively and accessibly to complement and enhance the text. But it's a series of accompanying Flash presentations created by Swedish nonprofit Gapminder that really catch your eye.
Visit gapminder.org and view some of the 2005 Human Development Trends presentations. Animations graphically depict change over time using helpful explanatory text. They cleverly use color and symbol shape in addition to two spatial axes to present a total of five data dimensions in the chart. As a user, you control presentation pace and can raise annotations that describe data points. But you're never left to your own devices. The presentation brings you forward and doesn't let you drown in a sea of complicated data.'"
Visit http://tools.google.com/gapminder and http://gapminder.org/ to see all of Gapminder's work.
From Article at techweb.com: http://www.techweb.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleI
'The 2006 report (hdr.undp.org) focuses on the (un)availability of clean water and basic sanitation services worldwide. The New York Times coverage states, "A third of people have no decent place to use the bathroom, and the human cost is great." The annual development reports offer a careful problem presentation in narrative form. UNDP uses charts and graphics effectively and accessibly to complement and enhance the text. But it's a series of accompanying Flash presentations created by Swedish nonprofit Gapminder that really catch your eye.
Visit gapminder.org and view some of the 2005 Human Development Trends presentations. Animations graphically depict change over time using helpful explanatory text. They cleverly use color and symbol shape in addition to two spatial axes to present a total of five data dimensions in the chart. As a user, you control presentation pace and can raise annotations that describe data points. But you're never left to your own devices. The presentation brings you forward and doesn't let you drown in a sea of complicated data.'"
Submission + - Does sprawl make us fat?
Ant writes: "This Science News article talks about the relationship between city design and health. New transdisciplinary research is exploring whether urban sprawl makes us soft, people who don't like to exercise move to the suburbs, or, more likely, some combination of both...
Seen on Boing Boing."
Submission + - Spam is back, and worse than ever.
Ant writes: "The Red Tape Chronicles reports that just last December (2006), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published an optimistic state-of-spam report. It cites research indicating spam had leveled off or even dropped during the previous year. It now appears spammers had simply gone back to the drawing board. There's more spam now than ever before.
In fact, there's twice as much spam now as opposed to this time last year. And the messages themselves are causing more trouble. About half of all spam sent now is "image spam," containing server-clogging pictures that are up to 10 times the size of traditional text spam. And most image spam is stock-related, pump-and-dump scams which can harm investors who don't even use e-mail. About one-third of all spam is stock spam now.
Seen on Digg."
Submission + - Quantum Computer Demo in February
fwburton writes: D-Wave Systems has announced
has announced
that they will be demoing a 16-qubit adiabatic quantum computer in February. Their roadmap calls for a 1000-qubit by the end of 2008.
D-Wave Systems is planning to provide free access to one of their quantum computers in Q2/2007 for people who want to develop or port applications to the system.
D-Wave Systems is planning to provide free access to one of their quantum computers in Q2/2007 for people who want to develop or port applications to the system.
Submission + - English Wikipedia adds nofollow
Althazzar writes: "After being hit by another surge of spam because of a new SEO contest, Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales has ordered rel="nofollow" to be placed on all outbound links in the english part of Wikipedia to prevent SEO spam."
Submission + - Malaysian bloggers sued for defamation by Govt
An anonymous reader writes: A pro-government Malaysian daily has sued two popular Internet bloggers for defamation in what a critic said Thursday would have a "chilling effect" on freedom of speech. The lawsuits by English-language New Straits Times marked the first time Malaysian bloggers have been taken to court for publishing comments on the Internet in a country where much of the traditional media are controlled by political parties or the government.
