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Comment Re:Can it remove viruses from the bloodstream? (Score 1) 60

Not only that, from what I understand, Metastatic cancer cells travel via blood. If this could grab those, that'd be awesome. So many cancer stories seem to involve killing the main site of the disease only to have it reoccur a few months or years later somewhere else, this time metastatic and basically incurable.

Start this treatment up right after diagnosis, and continue it through the normal cancer treatment. If this device could be used to detect metastatic cancer cells in the blood, even better (but maybe this is reaching - still, cool to consider).

Comment AI Opportunities in MTG (Score 1) 104

There are a few interesting ways AI can be applied to the game of Magic the Gathering - this is one, and it's cool to see this guy's project, and the results.

I've done a little bit of thinking in this area, but more in the area of making an AI play with the goal of searching for new competitive deck lists.

I posted on my blog about my approach a while back: Getting Your Computer to Make an Awesome New Magic the Gathering Deck

Another interesting tack would be to see if you can write an agent to create single cards with mechanics that actually move second-tier decks into first-tier competitiveness, looking at the current metagame. WotC probably wouldn't take your advice on new cards, though, as they probably prefer to keep card design in-house.

Haven't had the time to actually try to implement something (too busy futzing with Minecraft modding), but maybe one of these days I'll make it happen.

Comment Re:Why does Obama support this? (Score 3, Informative) 271

What about the order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility over the next year?

What about his executive order disallowing any interrogation techniques not defined in the Army Field Manual (i.e. no waterboarding, no torture)?

What about telling the EPA to look into letting California define their own, stricter auto emissions standards (instead of locking them to the federal standards like Bush did)?

What about signing the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act just yesterday?

What about striking down Bush's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information? You could make an argument about abortion here, depending on which side of the issue you stand, but this money is also used for other medical procedures performed by these organizations.

He's done more good in one week than GWB did in 8 long years.

It's funny.  Laugh.

Inventor to Launch Pop Bottle Rocket into Space 285

DrButts writes "An inventor in British Columbia wants to be the first to launch a pop bottle rocket into space. 'This could be impossible, but the CEO of AntiGravity Research already holds the altitude record for boosting an elongated plastic pop bottle — propelled by a bicycle pump, water and a bit of soap — into the air. Firing the ubiquitous, two-litre plastic container usually consigned to the recycle bin into space might create a whole new definition for space junk, but the dream keeps Schellenberg going.'"
United States

Colorado Decertifies E-voting Machines 169

mamer-retrogamer writes "On December 17, Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman decertified election equipment used by 64 Colorado counties, including machines made by Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold Election Systems. A report issued by the Secretary of State's office details a myriad of problems such as lack of password protection on the systems, controls that could give voters unauthorized access, and the absence of any way to track or detect security violations. Manufacturers have 30 days to appeal the decertification."
Security

SquirrelMail Repository Poisoned 182

SkiifGeek writes "Late last week the SquirrelMail team posted information on their site about a compromise to the main download repository for SquirrelMail that resulted in a critical flaw being introduced into two versions of the webmail application (1.4.11 and 1.4.12). After gaining access to the repository through a release maintainer's compromised account (it is believed), the attackers made a slight modification to the release packages, modifying how a PHP global variable was handled. This introduced a remote file inclusion bug — leading to an arbitrary code execution risk on systems running the vulnerable versions of the software. The poisoning was identified by a difference in MD5 signatures for version 1.4.12. Version 1.4.13 is now available."

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