Comment Re:How does this get posted? (Score 1) 164
That part was taken from the article. It's shoddy journalism on the part of The Independent, less so on the part of /.
First Hidden Electric Motor In Cycling World Championship (cxmagazine.com) 262
An anonymous reader writes with the story that the world championship cyclocross competition this weekend in Zolder (Belgium) was scandalized by the first case of "mechanical doping." European champion Femke Van Den Driessche was caught with a bicycle with a hidden electric motor. From the article: The Union Cycliste Internationale said in a statement âoethat pursuant to the UCIâ(TM)s Regulations on technological fraud a bike has been detained for further investigation following checks at the Womenâ(TM)s Under 23 race of the 2016 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships. This does not concern any of the riders on the podium. Further details will be shared in due course.â
The Belgian media outlet Sporza reported that the Belgian Cycling Federation had confirmed that the detained bike belonged to Van den Driessche. Ironically, Van den Driessche had abandoned the race due to a mechanical issue shortly before the bike was scrutinised. Van den Driesscheâ(TM)s name did not feature in the official results on the UCI website on Saturday evening. Cyclocross Magazine adds some details.
The Belgian media outlet Sporza reported that the Belgian Cycling Federation had confirmed that the detained bike belonged to Van den Driessche. Ironically, Van den Driessche had abandoned the race due to a mechanical issue shortly before the bike was scrutinised. Van den Driesscheâ(TM)s name did not feature in the official results on the UCI website on Saturday evening. Cyclocross Magazine adds some details.
Comment Re:Poor example (Score 5, Interesting) 451
As it turns out, we do. A Google Self Driving Car and a cyclist on a fixed gear bike met at a 4-way stop. The cyclist was doing a track stand (staying upright on the peddles, sometimes peddling backwards and forwards a small ammount) instead of balancing on a foot. This caused the Google car to think the cyclist was going to enter the intersection after the car had started moving, causing it to stop and "wait" for the cyclist, which by this point had "stopped", which the car took to mean that he (the cyclist) was waiting for the car to go (which was actually the case), and so the car would start moving again until the cyclist started his next forward motion to balance himself.
Comment Re:Another piece of software to uninstall (Score 1) 275
What part of "I've been using Transmission" do you not understand? Seriously, ActiveX errors should have been the first and only red flag for any techie. I'm fine with simple gif, jgp, and png based ads, but since ActiveX has access to so much stuff it was easily crossing the line. Ads themselves were never really the issue. Ads that could potentially leak sensitive information were.
The only reason that this is a story is because there are still a large number of people using uTorrent. That group shouldn't include readers of Slashdot. If you're reading this, and you were using it until you read this story (and especially if you're still using it), you're doing it wrong.
Comment Re:Another piece of software to uninstall (Score 2) 275
No, the time to abandon uTorrent was when they started showing ActiveX ads. That was a while ago. I've been using Transmission running on my DroboFS ever since (which considering that was where most of my downloads were going in the first place ended up simplifying things).
uTorrent is just the latest piece of software that started off pretty awesome, and was ruined by greed.
Comment Re:And... (Score 1) 720
This. The only good reason for your main computer to be in the living room is if all the bedrooms in your dwelling are routinely occupied by people sleeping. I doubt this is the case for OP since it's obvious the OP and his wife are living in a house (which they apparently own).
Ampere Could Be Redefined After Experiments Track Single Electrons Crossing Chip 299
ananyo writes "Physicists have tracked electrons crossing a semiconductor chip one at a time — an experiment that should at last enable a rational definition of the ampere, the unit of electrical current. At present, an ampere is defined as the amount of charge flowing per second through two infinitely long wires one meter apart, such that the wires attract each other with a force of 2×10^-7 newtons per meter of length. That definition, adopted in 1948 and based on a thought experiment that can at best be approximated in the laboratory, is clumsy — almost as much of an embarrassment as the definition of the kilogram, which relies on the fluctuating mass of a 125-year-old platinum-and-iridium cylinder stored at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris. The new approach, described in a paper posted onto the arXiv server on 19 December, would redefine the amp on the basis of e, a physical constant representing the charge of an electron."
Facebook Autofill Wants To Store Users' Credit Card Info 123
cagraham writes "Facebook has teamed up with payment processors PayPal, Braintree, and Stripe, in an attempt to simplify mobile payments. The system allows Facebook members (who have turned over their credit and billing info) to click a 'Autofill with Facebook' button when checking-out on a mobile app. Facebook will then verify the details, and securely transfer a user's info over to the payment processing company. The move is likely aimed at gathering more data on user behavior, which can be used to increase the prices Facebook charges for mobile ads. Whether or not the feature takes off however, will depend almost entirely on how willing users are to trust Facebook with their credit card data."
Comment Pleasantly surprised (Score 1) 296
Although I'm not sure which is more surprising: the fact that this was written by a member of the government (or at least an aide to such a member), the fact that it came from the Republicans, or the fact that the chair of the committee that drafted it is basically completely opposite to me, politically. With any luck, at least some others will look at it and take it seriously.
Comment Re:War of 1812 is an odd example (Score 1) 248
Took the words right out of my mouth. I would be very surprised if view counts didn't return to say 2010 levels in several months, after the recognition of this historical event subsides. A more appropriate candidate may have been the US War for Independence or the Boer Wars, as it isn't an important anniversary year for either.
Comment Hmm... (Score 2) 201
Does this mean we'll be able to treat HIV with HIV modified T-cells? How about a cure for the common cold? Don't get me wrong, cure cancer first. But if we can apply almost any antigen, what's stopping us from curing basically any disease? Hint: maybe my lack of knowledge in immunology.
Zynga Accused of Cloning Hit Indie iPhone Game Tiny Tower 245
FrankPoole writes "Indie iPhone game developer Nimblebit is accusing social games giant Zynga of ripping off its popular mobile title Tiny Tower. Nimblebit's Ian Marsh got word out about the similarities between Dream Heights and Tiny Tower with an image that's still making the Twitter rounds. The image is made up of screenshots showing how Dream Heights' interface and gameplay mechanics appear strikingly similar to Tiny Tower's."
Comment Re:Checkout PostGIS (Score 1) 316
I'm with ^. We use Postgres in association with dynamic location data and haven't had any major issues. We haven't integrated PostGIS, but have definitely contemplated it, as it would make many of our queries an order of magnitude easier to write and (at least from what I hear) wouldn't compromise on speed when post query filtering is also accounted for. The only reason we haven't done it is that we haven't had the time and budget to make sure it was bullet proof, and we've been able to make do without the finer control offered by PostGIS. I believe another project in my office has been using PostGIS, and as far as I can tell, it's been paying off for them. While we're generally happy with a flat earth NW to SE bounding box, this other project needs much finer control for determining if a point is within an area.
Career Advice: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer 422
Ian Lamont writes "Patrick McKenzie has written about the do's and don't's of working as a software engineer, and some solid (and often amusing) advice on how to get ahead. One of the first pieces of advice: 'Don't call yourself a programmer: "Programmer" sounds like "anomalously high-cost peon who types some mumbo-jumbo into some other mumbo-jumbo." If you call yourself a programmer, someone is already working on a way to get you fired.' Although he runs his own company, he is a cold realist about the possibilities for new college grads in the startup world: 'The high-percentage outcome is you work really hard for the next couple of years, fail ingloriously, and then be jobless and looking to get into another startup.'"
Comment Re:And my count is.. (Score 1) 374
Main desktop
HTPC
Minecraft/FTP server
Drobo FS
PS3
XBox 360
iPad
Android phone
IPTV Settop box (Doesn't really count, cause its got a 10/8 IP back to my ISP)
8 port gigabit ethernet switch (again, I don't really count it cause I don't interact with it directly)
That's 8 + 2.
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