And finally, a project at the University of Catania in Italy was awarded the management prize for demonstrating mathematically that organizations can improve efficiency by promoting people randomly.

This research deserves a far better prize than the Ig Nobel. Just look at the management in companies! An algorithm far worse than random is being used to select the worst of the worst to run companies.

I believe most institutions run in spite of management.

And don't mod this funny.

All US banks are very happy to offer many years worth of transaction history to any Federal agency that desires this information. Too bad they won't do the same for their putative "customers".

It is Uncle Sam after all. Look how much he gave to the banks recently. How much did you give?

[citation]?

I give you a counterexample: SophistiCalc
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sophistimacalc-programmable/id317192851?mt=8

webkit is exempt.

Written like a true slashdotter who didn't read the article.

Does that count as downloading?

I am looking at this in the context of scriptability.

This would have been the first app had it not been for the stupid restrictions.

Look at what they did with Nintendo DS. They sneaked up on it through music. People are very emotionally attached to their music, so associating something else with their music would be a good strategy. The start with this social network for music, building a core group of people. Then these people will form a critical mass such that they can bring in non-music things.

Apple has it's strategy right because they are making money from their social network (through music) and can thus outlive the non-profit social networks in existence.

I wrote not too long ago that Ping is Facebook's killer, much like the iPod (Touch) was a backdoor to the game market.

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1773738&cid=33438624

And they laughed at me.

Please mod me insightful this time.

This sounded like a hammer nailing the first nail into the facebook coffin.

Take my word: Ping is the Next Big Thing(tm)(sm)(c).

Now that's closer to true News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters. Not the Mac fish tanks.

However, I am a little disappointed that he didn't do something with the tower part of his cray. Cooling perhaps? Blinkenlights?

How does it compare in performance with the original?

Does HP really know what it's doing?

They paid too much and were in a gambler's frame of mind.

Why does every invented/imaginary language have so many apostrophies?

Now the whole world knows my combination.

Funny, I'd have thought it was not one of the first post^W things Obama's administration had promised.

How well do they work with black people? These have been issues in other face recognition systems.