Dopeskills - Slashdot User

Comment Re:it's the children that suffer (Score 1) 206

by Dopeskills on Sunday January 27, 2013 @10:51PM (#42712407) Attached to: Chinese Supplier Gets Dumped By Apple For Fraudulently Using Underage Labor

From the article: "When new violations are found, Apple requires its suppliers to return the workers back to a school chosen by the family and finance their education. "In addition, the children must continue to receive income matching what they received when they were employed. We also follow up regularly to ensure that the children remain in school and that the suppliers continue to uphold their financial commitment," wrote Apple in its latest report."

Insects As Weapons 160

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Monday July 02, 2012 @06:41PM from the preemptive-strike-against-koalas dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Timothy Paine, an entomologist at the University of California-Riverside, recently 'committed to the scientific record the idea that California's eucalyptus trees may have been biologically sabotaged, publishing an article [in the Journal of Economic Entomology] raising the possibility of bioterrorism.' Specifically, Paine argues that foreign insect pests have been deliberately introduced in the Golden State, in hopes of decimating the state's population of eucalyptus (especially the two species regarded as invasive, which 'are particularly susceptible to the pests.') In California's Bioterror Mystery, Paine (and scientists who are skeptical) make their arguments. What isn't in dispute is that the insect pests have already inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, making the story a cautionary tale about what might happen if a food or crop were intentionally targeted."

After Launch Day: Taking Stock of IPv6 Adoption 244

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 07, 2012 @01:16PM from the perhaps-romania-loves-broccoli-too dept.

darthcamaro writes "So how did World IPv6 Launch go? Surprisingly well, according to participants at the event. Google said it has seen 150% growth in IPv6 traffic, Facebook now has 27 million IPv6 users and Akamai is serving 100x more IPv6 traffic. But it's still a 'brocolli' technology. 'I've said in the past that IPv6 is a 'broccoli' technology,' Leslie Daigle, CTO of the Internet Society said. 'I still think it is a tech everybody knows it would be good if we ate more of it but nobody wants to eat it without the cheese sauce.'" Reader SmartAboutThings adds a few data points: "According to Google statistics, Romania leads the way with a 6.55% adoption rate, followed by France with 4.67%. Japan is on the third place so far with 1.57% but it seems here 'users still experience significant reliability or latency issues connecting to IPv6-enabled websites.' In the U.S. and China the users have noticed infrequent issues connecting to the new protocol, but still the adoption rate is 0.93% and 0.58%, respectively."

Comment 20 parts per billion?!? (Score 1) 398

by Dopeskills on Saturday April 07, 2012 @07:23PM (#39609719) Attached to: Colony Collapse Disorder Linked To Pesticide, High-Fructose Corn Syrup

FTA " It doesn't take much to eventually kill the bees accord to Lu, who said an incredibly small amount (20 parts per billion) of imidacloprid was enough to lead to Colony Collapse Disorder within 6 months. " 20 parts per billion?!? Maybe Homeopathy isn't a myth?

Boston Dynamics' PETMAN Humanoid On Video 70

Posted by Soulskill on Monday October 31, 2011 @02:44PM from the somebody-help-john-connor-hide dept.

An anonymous reader writes "IEEE reports that Boston Dynamics has unveiled video footage showing its biped humanoid robot PETMAN walking, kneeling, and doing push-ups. Boston Dynamics is building the robot for the U.S. Army, which will use it to test chemical protective suits for soldiers. The requirement was that the robot had to be the approximate size of a 50th percentile adult male (180 pounds, nearly 6 feet tall) and capable of a full range of dynamic movements. The company says PETMAN could also be used to survey disaster zones and access hazardous environments."

Algorithm Predicts New Superhard Materials 85

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @04:51PM from the what's-harder-than-hard dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers in New York have developed an algorithm that can predict new superhard materials — a relatively small class of compounds of which diamond is the most famous. Beyond the pluses this represents for, say, the drilling industry, the physicists claim say their computational approach can be used to think up new materials of all sorts. 'New materials with desired properties will be routinely discovered using supercomputers,' they say, 'instead of the expensive trial-and-error method that is used today.'"

Comment No Elevator for 150 years ?!? (Score 1) 212

by Dopeskills on Saturday August 13, 2011 @11:55PM (#37082984) Attached to: Space Elevator Conference Prompts Lofty Questions

From the article: He was reluctant to guess when a space elevator could actually begin to be built. "We try not to be narrow-minded and say it won't happen for 150 years. Breakthroughs in technology innovation occur on a daily basis," he said.

Project Icarus: the Gas Mines of Uranus 155

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 01, 2011 @10:29PM from the cue-the-obvious-jokes dept.

astroengine writes "When considering the fuel source for a fusion-powered interstellar probe, wouldn't it be a good idea to set up a colony on the moon and start pillaging the lunar surface for its helium-3 riches? Not so fast, says Adam Crowl of Project Icarus, there may be a far more viable source. What about the gas giants? Although Jupiter's gravity could pose a problem and Saturn's rings might get in the way (and forget Neptune, that place is one hell of a commute), perhaps the helium-3 in the Uranian atmosphere could be mined using atmospheric balloons?"

Comment Dual Boot (Score 1) 200

by Dopeskills on Wednesday March 09, 2011 @05:05PM (#35436092) Attached to: HP To Put WebOS On PCs In 2012

It's just speculation that HP will ship WebOS on top of Windows. Maybe, what will really happen is that HP will provide a dual boot solution (think bootcamp) for customers so that they can boot WebOS as the primary operating system.

App — the Most Abused Word In Tech? 353

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 03, 2011 @01:44PM from the I-remember-calling-them-programs dept.

Barence writes "PC Pro has a blog exploring the misuse of the word 'app'. Until the iPhone came along, the word 'application' largely meant a self-contained piece of software installed on a PC or Mac. Then Apple took ownership, trimmed it to three letters, and within months the word 'app' became synonymous with small widgets of code for smartphones. Now, Google's pushing the boundaries of the 'app' definition even further. Google Chrome users will have seen a new addition to their browser recently: the Chrome Web Store. Here, you'll find dozens of 'apps' to install and run directly from a handy icon on the browser's home screen. Except, these aren't 'apps' at all. They're websites. Google's idea of 'apps' are what we quaintly referred to in the good old days as 'bookmarks.' Does the word 'app' mean anything at all any more?"

Microsoft Makes Chrome Play H.264 Video 535

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @12:14PM from the patches-are-welcome dept.

nk497 writes "Chrome users will be able to play H.264 video — thanks to Microsoft. The software giant today unveiled the Windows Media Player HTML5 Extension for Chrome, which will let users of the Google browser play H.264 video after it was dropped from Chrome over licensing issues. 'At Microsoft we respect that Windows customers want the best experience of the web including the ability to enjoy the widest range of content available on the internet in H.264 format,' said Claudio Caldato, Microsoft interoperability program manager."

Oracle Launches 'Private Cloud' Box 82

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 20, 2010 @01:15PM from the buzzwords-get-worse dept.

aesoteric writes "Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison has used the keynote of Oracle OpenWorld to launch the 'Exalogic Elastic Compute Cloud' — an appliance combining server and storage hardware with a pre-tuned web server, hypervisor and other middleware. Introducing the product as 'a honking big cloud in a box,' Ellison shifted from his previous criticism of the terms 'cloud computing' and 'private cloud' by using the exact same terms to sell a physical appliance." Oracle also took the wraps off Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux, which is based on the 2.6.32 Linux kernel.

What US Health Care Needs 584

Posted by kdawson on Monday June 21, 2010 @01:15AM from the velluvial-matrix dept.

Medical doctor and writer Atul Gawande gave the commencement address recently at Stanford's School of Medicine. In it he lays out very precisely and in a nonpartisan way what is wrong with the institution of medical care in the US — why it is both so expensive and so ineffective at delivering quality care uniformly across the board. "Half a century ago, medicine was neither costly nor effective. Since then, however, science has... enumerated and identified... more than 13,600 diagnoses — 13,600 different ways our bodies can fail. And for each one we've discovered beneficial remedies... But those remedies now include more than six thousand drugs and four thousand medical and surgical procedures. Our job in medicine is to make sure that all of this capability is deployed, town by town, in the right way at the right time, without harm or waste of resources, for every person alive. And we're struggling. There is no industry in the world with 13,600 different service lines to deliver. ... And then there is the frightening federal debt we will face. By 2025, we will owe more money than our economy produces. One side says war spending is the problem, the other says it's the economic bailout plan. But take both away and you've made almost no difference. Our deficit problem — far and away — is the soaring and seemingly unstoppable cost of health care. ... Like politics, all medicine is local. Medicine requires the successful function of systems — of people and of technologies. Among our most profound difficulties is making them work together. If I want to give my patients the best care possible, not only must I do a good job, but a whole collection of diverse components must somehow mesh effectively. ... This will take science. It will take art. It will take innovation. It will take ambition. And it will take humility. But the fantastic thing is: This is what you get to do."

Google Reportedly Ditching Windows 1003

Posted by kdawson on Monday May 31, 2010 @08:09PM from the it's-ok-microsofties-use-bing dept.

Reader awyeah notes a Financial Times report that Google is ditching the use of Windows internally. Some blogs have picked up the FT piece but so far there isn't any other independent reporting of the claim, which is based on comments from anonymous Googlers. One indication of possibly hasty reporting is the note that Google "employs more than 10,000 workers internationally," whereas it's easy enough to find official word that the total exceeds 20,000. "The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google's Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google. ... 'We're not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,' said one Google employee. ... New hires are now given the option of using Apple's Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. 'Linux is open source and we feel good about it,' said one employee. 'Microsoft we don't feel so good about.' ... Employees wanting to stay on Windows required clearance from 'quite senior levels,' one employee said. 'Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval,' said another employee."

National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax 875

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 19, 2010 @07:04PM from the let-the-flamewar-begin dept.

eldavojohn writes "Moving for the first time from a cautious message to a message of urgency, the National Academy of Science has advised the United States government to either adopt a carbon tax or cap and trade legislation. This follows a comprehensive study in three parts released today from the National Academies that, for the first time, urges required action from the government to curb climate change."

Slashdot Top Deals