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Comment Re:Even their spokesperson is a bot... (Score 1) 69

I was surprised by this remark by the Turnitin spokesperson:

Humans don't tend to consistently use a high probability word in high probability places

Isn't that exactly why the word and place are high probability -- because humans are likely to use the use a word in that place? And because they don't always do so, the probability is less than 1.

Without more explanation for this claim, it seems that injecting a dash of (AI-determined probabilistic) randomness could foil the detector.

Comment Re:Jodie Whittaker (Score 1) 508

Whittaker was excellent in Broadchurch -- the three-series UK original on ITV, not the dreadful short-lived American remake. Broadchurch was definitely not sci fi, but David Tennant's portrayal of Detective Inspector Alec Hardy often reminded me of the Tenth Doctor, and now there will be two regenerations on the show's main cast.

I'm eager to see Whittaker's version of The Doctor.
Earth

New Solar-Powered Device Can Pull Water Straight From the Desert Air (sciencemag.org) 202

Posted by BeauHD from the thin-air dept.
sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: You can't squeeze blood from a stone, but wringing water from the desert sky is now possible, thanks to a new spongelike device that uses sunlight to suck water vapor from air, even in low humidity. The device can produce nearly 3 liters of water per day, and researchers say future versions will be even better. That means homes in the driest parts of the world could soon have a solar-powered appliance capable of delivering all the water they need, offering relief to billions of people. To find an all-purpose solution, researchers led by Omar Yaghi, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, turned to a family of crystalline powders called metal organic frameworks, or MOFs. Yaghi developed the first MOFs -- porous crystals that form continuous 3D networks -- more than 20 years ago. The networks assemble in a Tinkertoy-like fashion from metal atoms that act as the hubs and sticklike organic compounds that link the hubs together. By choosing different metals and organics, chemists can dial in the properties of each MOF, controlling what gases bind to them, and how strongly they hold on. The system Wang and her students designed consists of a kilogram of dust-sized MOF crystals pressed into a thin sheet of porous copper metal. That sheet is placed between a solar absorber and a condenser plate and positioned inside a chamber. At night the chamber is opened, allowing ambient air to diffuse through the porous MOF and water molecules to stick to its interior surfaces, gathering in groups of eight to form tiny cubic droplets. In the morning, the chamber is closed, and sunlight entering through a window on top of the device then heats up the MOF, which liberates the water droplets and drives them -- as vapor -- toward the cooler condenser. The temperature difference, as well as the high humidity inside the chamber, causes the vapor to condense as liquid water, which drips into a collector. The findings were published in the journal Science.

Comment Re:what's so "unthinkable"? (Score 1) 257

It's the perfect time to re-visit the Halloween Documents from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Yes, much has changed.

Eric Raymond's archive: http://catb.org/esr/halloween/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents

The Halloween Documents provide an inside look at the internal dialogues within a large company confronted by change. Terms in broad general use today, such as FUD and "embrace, extend, extinguish" , originated here. The Halloween Documents are important historically, but are also well-worth another look today.

Comment Re:The drug doggies of the 60s (Score 1) 326

The notion of the "Protestant work ethic" is much older. Max Weber's book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, was written in 1904 and 1905 (in German), and Weber definitely wasn't writing about the baby boomers in the United States born fifty years later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber
Movies

British Movie Theater Staff To Wear Night-Vision Goggles To Combat Movie Piracy 279

Posted by samzenpus from the scan-me dept.
Ewan Palmer writes: Movie theater across the UK will be required to don military-style night vision goggles in order to help crack down on movie piracy ahead of the release of potential box office smashes such as Spectre and Hunger Games. The initiative is part new measures to combat piracy as in recent years, pirates have found new and inventive ways to illegally record movies while using a smartphone to film through a popcorn box. Kieron Sharp, director general of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), said: "The bigger the film and the more anticipated it is, the higher-risk it is. We have staff on extra alert for that. James Bond is a big risk and we will be working with cinema operators and the distributors making sure we will keep that as tight as possible. We really don't want to see that recorded. They [cinema staff] are on alert to really drill down on who is in the auditorium and who might possibly be recording. They still do the sweeps around the auditoriums with the night vision glasses regardless of the film. But sometimes extra security is put in place for things like Bond."
It's funny. Laugh.

An Algorithm To Stop Joke Plagiarists 128

Posted by timothy from the stop-me-if-you've-heard-this-one-before dept.
Bennett Haselton writes: The comedy world crucified Josh "Fat Jew" Ostrovsky for building his career on re-tweeting other people's jokes without attribution. But Twitter, or whichever company rises as their successor, could easily implement an algorithm that could stop plagiarists from building a following, while still rewarding joke writers who come up with original content. Read on for Bennett's take on how such a system could work.

Comment The Economist says "Time to fix patents" (Score 3, Interesting) 40

by ACorrosionOfDeviants (#50308619) Attached to: The History of the Patent Troll
Here's what The Economist had to say last week about patents and patent reform (August 8 2015):

"Today's patent systems have created a parasitic ecology of trolls who aim to block innovation"
http://www.economist.com/news/...

"Patents are protected by governments because they are held to promote innovation. But there is plenty of evidence that they do not."
http://www.economist.com/node/...

It's a well-researched and thoughtful position.
United States

Is Weev Still In Jail Because the Government Doesn't Understand What Hacking Is? 246

Posted by samzenpus from the you-say-tomato-I-say-tomato dept.
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Last March, weev, the notorious internet troll who seems to be equally celebrated and reviled, was convicted of accessing a computer without authorization and identity fraud, and sentenced to serve 41 months in prison.'He had to decrypt and decode, and do all of these things I don't even understand,' Assistant US Attorney Glenn Moramarco argued. Here, on a Wednesday morning in Philadelphia, before a packed courtroom, the federal prosecution argued that a hacker should spend three and a half years in prison for committing a crime it couldn't fully comprehend. Previously, Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University and weev's defense attorney, had argued first and foremost that there was no criminal hacking to speak of. According to Kerr, what weev and Daniel Spitler (who pleaded guilty to avoid jail time) had done while working as an outfit called Goatse Security was entirely legal, even though it embarrassed public officials and some of the country's biggest corporations."

Comment Please retain "classic" as a option (Score 1) 237

Please, please, please do not remove "classic".

Please do feel free to experiment with other design OPTIONS. I don't understand the appeal myself, but perhaps they can bring in new readership and sponsorship -- that would be fine. But please do not FORCE me to use those designs by taking away classic and the functionality that I most value.

Sincerely,
A concerned reader of many years.

Comment Re:just FUD IMHO (Score 1) 303

> Some recent uses of my fingerprints in which I
> had no real say...

Disneyland requires a biometric fingertip scan at the park entrances, ostensibly to deter fraudulent passes. Here's a 2008 blog post from Cory Doctorow:
http://boingboing.net/2008/03/15/fingertip-biometrics.html.

I was surprised to encounter this on a recent family vacation, and even more surprised to learn that it had been happening for years with no backlash from park visitors.

Biometric scanning for a theme park? Really?
Blackberry

RIM Facing $147.2 Million Patent Verdict 77

Posted by Soulskill from the kicking-them-when-they're-down dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters reports that beleaguered wireless device maker Research In Motion is on the losing end of a patent suit that will cost them $147.2 million. The jury arrived at that number by assigning an $8 royalty for every BlackBerry connected to RIM's enterprise server software. Unsurprisingly, RIM intends to appeal the decision. 'Mformation sued RIM in 2008, bringing claims on a patent for a process that remotely manages a wireless device over a wireless network, a court filing says. According to its web site, Mformation helps corporations manage their smart phone inventory. The company also says it helps telecoms operators, such as AT&T and Sprint, with remote fixes and upgrades for users' gadgets. RIM argued that Mformation's patent claims are invalid because the processes were already being used when Mformation filed its patent application.'"
IOS

What's Not To Like About New iPad? 617

Posted by timothy from the let-him-count-the-ways dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "With 3 million sold over the last week what's not to like about the new iPad? Michelle Maltais at the LA Times does a good job of putting together a compendium of gripes about the new device, justified or otherwise. Most people thought that Siri on the new iPad was a gimme; instead it has a scaled back version — dictation. 'If you want Siri, buy an iPhone. Plain and simple.' The new iPad is a little heavier than the iPad 2, thanks to the better graphics processor and more powerful battery. At one-tenth of a pound heavier that really doesn't sound like much, but it can start to matter if you hold your iPad in one hand for long periods or have any kind of repetitive stress injury. Apps designed for Retina display can be up to five times bigger and it's not just a problem for owners of the new iPad. Legacy owners of the original and iPad 2 who have these apps get to feel the pain too, since updates aren't device specific." The list continues, below.

Comment IEEE (Score 3, Informative) 125

Another relatively inexpensive option is the IEEE.
http://www.ieee.org/

Although the IEEE is encouraging members to switch over to digital only to reduce costs and waste, IEEE Spectrum and many of the technical society journals are still available on paper for those who want them.

- The society journals can be quite technical and specialized, but IEEE Spectrum maintains a broader focus.
- The IEEE Computer Society (www.computer.org) is the largest society in the IEEE, with lots going on and lots of publications.
- Other groups that might be of interest include the communications society (http://www.comsoc.org/), the robotics and automation society (http://www.ieee-ras.org/), or the society on social implications of technology (http://www.ieeessit.org/).

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