Comment This leaves the little guy just as vulnerable (Score 2) 205

by TheObruniSpeaks on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @06:59PM (#39935457) Attached to: The Patent Mafia and What You Can Do To Break It Up

In your world the big guys are even more free to abuse the little guy; now the big guys are instead free to infringe on the little guy's patents without compunction, because the little guy dare not sue for infringement. God knows the big guy will spend a lot to defeat your infringement claim...and now not only is your case hard to win, if you lose, you are completely screwed. Almost everything I see on slashdot about fixing the patent system would actually make it worse, particularly for the little guy people here so love to defend. There are certainly problems, but they take a hell of a lot more thought than you're putting in to fix them.

Comment Re:Use databases! (Score 1) 235

by TheObruniSpeaks on Sunday August 15, 2010 @09:39PM (#33260032) Attached to: How Do You Organize Your Experimental Data?

50-90% (depending on project) of what physics grad students do is programming. It's definitely reasonable for a physics nerd to set up an SQL database. Whether that's the right way to spend their time and effort organizing the data is another question.

Comment ARMOK=1 (Score 1) 242

by TheObruniSpeaks on Thursday December 04, 2008 @11:27AM (#25989125) Attached to: Doctor Performs Amputation By Text Message

...but it does sound like more fun than Boatmurder

Wikimedia Censors Wikinews 180

Posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday May 17, 2008 @01:18PM from the because-they-can dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks has revealed that the Wikimedia Foundation Board (which controls Wikipedia and Wikinews) has killed off a Wikinews report into the Barbara Bauer vs. Wikimedia Foundation lawsuit. Wikinews is a collaborative news site and is meant to be editorially independent from the WMF. The WMF office also suppressed a Wikinews investigation into child and other pornography on Wikipedia, which was independently covered by ValleyWag and other outlets this week. The US Communications Deceny Act section 230 grants providers of internet services (such as the Wikipedia and Wikinews) immunity from legal action related to their user-generated content provided they do not exercise pre-publication control. In deleting articles critical of the WMF prior to publication, Wikileaks says the Wikimedia Foundation may have set a dangerous precedent that could remove all of its CDA section 230 immunity (at least for Wikinews, where the control was exercised)."

Understanding How CAPTCHA Is Broken 148

Posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday May 17, 2008 @11:10AM from the stuff-to-think-about dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Websense Security Labs explains the spammer Anti-CAPTCHA operations and mass-mailing strategies. Apparently spammers are using combination of different tactics — proper email accounts, visual social engineering, and fast-flux — representing a strategy, explains their resident CAPTCHA expert. It is evident that spammers are working towards defeating anti-spam filters with their tactics."

Firefox 3 RC1 Out Now 473

Posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday May 17, 2008 @08:56AM from the can't-be-worse-than-the-last-beta dept.

Jay writes "Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 is out now. If yours didn't auto-update, then get it while it's hot! The release came a bit early, with Computer World noting: 'As recently as last Saturday, Mozilla's chief engineer said that although the company had locked down RC1's code, it was planning to publicly launch the build in "late May."'" My copy just downloaded — restarting after I save this story. God I hope it's better than the last beta.

Unmanned Aircraft Pose US Airspace Problems 78

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Saturday May 17, 2008 @07:29AM from the just-what-we-need-more-governmental-bodies dept.

coondoggie writes to tell us that congressional watchdogs have called on Congress to create a body within the FAA to oversee unmanned aircraft development and integration. The group cited the rapidly growing unmanned aircraft community and is worried about the possible repercussions. "The GAO also called on the FAA to work with the Department of Defense, which has extensive unmanned aircraft experience, to issue its program plan. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assesses the security implications of routine unmanned aircraft access to commercial airspace, the GAO said. Even if all issues are addressed, and there are a number of critical problems, unmanned aircraft may not receive routine access to the national airspace system until 2020, the GAO concluded."

Submission + - MIT finds cure for fear (pressesc.com)

Submitted by

Doom con runs away

on Monday July 16, 2007 @12:03AM

Doom con runs away writes: "MIT biochemists have identified a molecular mechanism behind fear, and successfully cured it in mice, according to an article in the journal Nature Neuroscience. They did this by inhibiting a kinase, an enzyme that change proteins, called Cdk5, which facilitates the extinction of fear learned in a particular context."

Submission + - Moebius strip riddle solved at last (abc.net.au) 2

Submitted by

BigLug

on Sunday July 15, 2007 @06:32PM

BigLug writes: "In a study to appear in Nature Materials, two experts in non-linear dynamics, Gert van der Heijden and Eugene Starostin of University College London, resolve the Moebius Strip algebraically.

From the ABC (Australia):

What determines the strip's shape is its differing areas of "energy density," they say.

"Energy density" means the stored, elastic energy that is contained in the strip as a result of the folding. Places where the strip is most bent have the highest energy density; conversely, places that are flat and unstressed by a fold have the least energy density.

"

Patents Don't Pay 210

Posted by kdawson on Sunday July 15, 2007 @05:07PM from the crunching-the-numbers dept.

tarball_tinkerbell sends us to the NY Times for word on a book due out next year that claims that beginning in the late 1990s, on average patents cost companies more than they earned them. A big exception was pharmaceuticals, which accounted for 2/3 of the revenues attributable to patents. The authors of the book Do Patents Work? (synopsis and sample chapters), James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer of the Boston University School of Law, have crunched the numbers and say that, especially in the IT industry, patents no longer make economic sense. Their views are less radical than those of a pair of Washington University at St. Louis economists who argue that the patent system should be abolished outright.

Submission + - The Computer Virus Turns 25 in July 1

Submitted by bl8n8r on Sunday July 15, 2007 @10:09AM

bl8n8r writes: In July of 1982, an infected Apple II propogated the first computer virus onto a 5-1/4" floppy. The virus, which did little more than annoy the user, Elk Cloner, was authored in Pittsburgh by a 15-year-old high school student, Rich Skrenta. The virus replicated by monitoring floppy disk activity and writing itself to the floppy when it was accessed. Skrenta describes the virus as "It was a practical joke combined with a hack. A wonderful hack." Remember, he was a 9th grader when he did this.

Fructose As Culprit In the Obesity Epidemic 821

Posted by kdawson on Sunday July 15, 2007 @04:54AM from the check-your-brake-fluid dept.

drewtheman writes "According to an interview with Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatric Endocrinology from the University of California, San Francisco, fructose, once touted as diabetic-friendly because it doesn't raise insulin levels directly, could be a major culprit for the obesity epidemic, high blood pressure, and elevated blood levels of LDL in Americans and others worldwide as they adopt American-style diets. Fructose comprises 50% of table sugar and up to 90% of high-fructose corn syrup, both ingredients found in copious quantity in most American prepared foods."

Dark Energy May Lurk In Hidden Dimensions 164

Posted by kdawson on Sunday July 15, 2007 @01:56AM from the offspring-of-sterile-neutrinos dept.

Magdalene writes in to let us know about a sketch of an idea, that might one day become a theory, to explain the dark energy that is making the universe flee faster and faster apart. It posits that dark energy may be the result of a new kind of neutrino wandering in tiny extra dimensions above our familiar three. She adds, "There is no word yet on whether Sphere or Square are available for comment." From the article: "The mysterious cosmic presence called dark energy, which is accelerating the expansion of the universe, might be lurking in hidden dimensions of space. This idea would explain how the dimensions of space remain stable — one of the biggest problems for the unified scheme of physics called 'string theory'... To get the same amount of acceleration seen by astronomers, Greene and Levin calculate that the extra dimensions should have a scale of about 0.01 millimeter."

Interstellar Ark 703

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday February 18, 2007 @10:17AM from the yeah-good-luck-with-that dept.

xantox writes "There are three strategies to travel 10.5 light-years from Earth to Epsilon Eridani and bring humanity into a new stellar system : 1) Wait for future discovery of Star Trek physics and go there almost instantaneously, 2) Build a relativistic rocket powered by antimatter and go there in 22 years by accelerating constantly at 1g, provided that you master stellar amounts of energy (so, nothing realistic until now), but what about 3): go there by classical means, by building a gigantic Ark of several miles in radius, propulsed by nuclear fusion and featuring artificial gravity, oceans and cities, for a travel of seven centuries — where many generations of men and women would live ? This new speculation uses some actual physics and math to figure out how far are our fantasies of space travel from their actual implementation."

Comment Re:Instant torque (Score 1) 741

by RaveX on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:37PM (#15270919) Attached to: Electric Car Faster Than A Ferrari or Porsche

Umm, eletric motors provide instant torque with equals massive acceleration from 0. It takes a combustion engine time move to high rpms.

The winner!

This car isn't faster than a Ferrari or Porsche, it's quicker, and for precisely the reason you mention. It's not hard to convince an electric motor to accelerate something quickly, it's not even newsworthy. Managing to create an electric car with better range and comparable high-end power, while meeting safety requirements and the needs of consumers would be an achievement.

In short, the technical problem with electric cars is one of energy density-- gasoline has extraordinary energy density and is relatively easy to store and transport efficiently. That's the technical hurdle we should be paying attention to, not this acceleration stuff.