BionicWorm - Slashdot User

China's Nine-Day Traffic Jam Tops 62 Miles 198

Posted by samzenpus on Monday August 23, 2010 @11:08AM from the living-on-the-road dept.

A traffic jam on the Beijing-Tibet expressway has now entered its ninth day and has grown to over 62 miles in length. This mother-of-all delays has even spawned its own micro-economy of local merchants selling water and food at inflated prices to stranded drivers. Can you imagine how infuriating it must be to see someone leave their blinker on for 9 days?

Star Wars Fans Look For Love In Alderaan Places 88

Posted by samzenpus on Friday August 20, 2010 @12:37PM from the I-can-win-your-heart-in-less-than-twelve-parsecs dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that devoted fans at the recent Star Wars Convention V, many dressed as Jedi knights, stormtroopers, or the indomitable Princess Leia, sat opposite one another for a series of 3-minute speed dates, in hopes of finding a connection with a fellow Star Wars enthusiast. 'Over the course of the three events, due to size and time, we turned away about 600 participants,' says Ryan Glitch. 'Yesterday, this room was packed. We had to keep shoveling people along.' Meanwhile in the main exhibition hall, a chapel was set up to allow fans to profess their love and devotion to each other in the form of commitment ceremonies. 'I've been told that we've had two commitment ceremonies from people that met at my event,' says Glitch adding that he saw eight additional couples at the convention made up of people who had attended his speed dating sessions."

Comment Re:No need for two cameras (Score 1) 143

by BionicWorm on Friday April 30, 2010 @11:19PM (#32053596) Attached to: James Cameron To Develop 3-D Camera For Mars Rover

I think they're hoping for a Galaxy Quest Commander Taggart fighting kind of rock.

Groklaw Says Microsoft Patent Portfolio Now Worthless 219

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday November 24, 2008 @01:01PM from the along-with-most-patents dept.

twitter writes "P.J. concludes her look at the Bilski decision: 'you'll recall patent lawyer Gene Quinn immediately wrote that it was bad news for Microsoft, that "much of the Microsoft patent portfolio has gone up in smoke" because, as Quinn's partner John White pointed out to him, "Microsoft doesn't make machines." Not just Microsoft. His analysis was that many software patents that had issued prior to Bilski, depending on how they were drafted, "are almost certainly now worthless." ... He was not the only attorney to think about Microsoft in writing about Bilski.'"

Comment Re:African Americans are overwhelmingly homophobic (Score 1) 1486

by BionicWorm on Friday November 07, 2008 @08:43PM (#25684239) Attached to: Obama Launches Change.gov

Aids is a major epidemic in the gay community which poses a danger to society. Gay males a have a much shorter life expectancy than straight males which is also not good. What if the child is an adult? Would you consider a mother and son getting married wrong then? Interracial marriage is completely different. Race is not relevant to marriage. A persons sex clearly is. What standard or authority do you base right and wrong or proper and correct on? Tyranny is a bit overboard since, at least in CA, civil unions have the exact same benefits as marriage. Gay people loose nothing other the societies acceptance of there behavior and no one has a 'right' to demand that people accept there actions. I think the only tyrannical actions was by judges over stepping there authority and creating law.

Comment Re:African Americans are overwhelmingly homophobic (Score 1) 1486

by BionicWorm on Friday November 07, 2008 @04:54PM (#25681783) Attached to: Obama Launches Change.gov

It has nothing to do with homophobia. Society has right and responsibility to decide what actions and behaviors are acceptable. Gay marriage goes past tolerance and forces people to comply with the idea that a certain behavior is acceptable. What about marriage between siblings, mother and son, two women and two men? None of this is allowed. If this is truly a civil rights issue then all of the above marriages should be allowed also.

Banjo Used In Brain Surgery 164

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 14, 2008 @03:54PM from the not-that-way-silly dept.

Ponca City, We love you writes "Legendary bluegrass musician Eddie Adcock has undergone brain surgery to treat a hand tremor, playing his banjo throughout to test the success of the procedure. Adcock suffers from essential tremor, a condition where there is a continuing deterioration in areas of the brain that control movement, causing a tremor that usually appears when the person tries to act or move. Deep brain stimulation can be used to treat the movement difficulties of both Parkinson's and essential tremor by sinking an electrode into the thalamus, a deep brain area that is part of the motor loop — a circuit that helps coordinate movement. Surgeons placed electrodes in Adcock's brain and fitted a pacemaker in his chest, which delivers a small current that shuts down the region of his brain causing the tremors. The most sensible thing to do was to tweak the system while Adcock was playing the banjo to optimize the effect for the thing that's most important to him."

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