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Math

Euler's Partition Function Theory Finished 117

Posted by Soulskill from the that-was-quick dept.
universegeek writes "Mathematician Ken Ono, from Emory, has solved a 250-year-old problem: how to exactly and explicitly generate partition numbers. Ono and colleagues were able to finally do this by realizing that the pattern of partition numbers is fractal (PDF). This pattern allowed them to find a finite, algebraic formula, which is like striking oil in mathematics."

Comment Re:Uh, what? (Score 2, Interesting) 390

by NoTheory (#33554390) Attached to: Defending Self In a Case of On-Line Identity Theft?
This is a case of following the money. ICANN info isn't going to be helpful, so get back to the root of who paid for the domain registration, and make it clear that it is different from the listed registerer.

I am however somewhat surprised by/skeptical about this story. How did the poster's name and info get associated w/ this? This sounds like an inside job or there's additional info missing from this story (which may be due to just trying to remain anonymous-ish).
The Internet

Woman's Nude Pics End Up Online After Call To Tech Support 197

Posted by samzenpus from the how-was-your-service-today? dept.
Tara Fitzgerald couldn't find the nude pictures she planned on sending to her boyfriend, but instead of just taking more, she decided to see if a Dell tech support call could fix her problem. Apparently the tech support guy found them. Unfortunately, he then put them up on a site called "bitchtara."
Google

Submission + - Google SSL Blocked by Schools Across the World (blogspot.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Over the past several weeks, the rolling out of Google SSL search has been getting attention here at slashdot, but also some not-so-pleasant obstacles have been in the making much to the frustration of school students and teachers alike. All of this is due to the fact that many content filter vendors have decided to block all google ssl traffic.

While this is being worked on by google to appease these vendors, my question to slashdot is this, "Is it the right of a company to restrict SSL traffic so they can snoop your data, or is it the right of an individual to be entitled to encrypted internet facilities? Also, is the search data you create your data, or your company's?" IANAL but this all seems at odds with the Data Protection Act as some local governments here and here possibly use the very same filtering service for their government employees (as well as the one I work for), and it would also seem to go against the spirit of FIPS (though I appreciate Federal standards are separate from schools in the states).
Image

Australian Women Fight Over "Geekgirl" Trademark 187

Posted by samzenpus from the geekgirls-geekgirls-you're-both-pretty dept.
bennyboy64 writes "Two prominent women in the Australian IT industry are in a bitter dispute over the ownership of the trademark 'geekgirl.' A woman attempting to use 'geekgirl' on Twitter told ZDNet that women had been advised by the trademark owner to stop doing so since she owned the trademark for the word. 'She noted her trademark and asked me to stop calling myself a "geekgirl" in general conversation and to cease using the hashtag "#geekgirl" on Twitter,' IT consultant Kate Carruthers said."

Comment Radical Spelling (Score 2, Informative) 237

by NoTheory (#31551778) Attached to: Memorizing Language / Spelling Techniques?
There are ideographic relationships between concepts and what's in the characters. Each of the elements in complex characters bears some of the meaning of the word. Dictionaries for Chinese and Japanese Kanji are in fact organized in this manner (by character radical). I can't recommend a particular manner of memorizing them (i failed abysmally at the task as a child, and am functionally illiterate as a result), however the relationships are there if you want to look for them.

Comment Re:Another Slashdot Ad? (Score 5, Informative) 344

by NoTheory (#30875128) Attached to: Crazy Firewall Log Activity — What Does It Mean?
If you check the other uploaded videos on youtube by the same guy (who's name appears to be "Ben Lindquist", the CEO of Green Phosphor, found on blogger and twitter), there is an introduction to Green Phosphor's Glasshouse. So yeah, Slashvertisement done in the style of Lost.

Welcome to the future of advertising. /sigh.

Comment Pretty awesome (Score 4, Insightful) 126

by NoTheory (#30497206) Attached to: Google Open Sources Etherpad, Piratepad Launches
Happy to see a Google acquisition which has not entirely abandoned their existing userbase, as they are assimilated. The company i work for has picked up using etherpads here and there, and was intending on doing so further, until the acquisition. I guess we'll probably give the code base a run, and try installing an internal copy :) Rock on Etherpad & Google guys.

Comment Re:Patent if it's practical, publish if it's risky (Score 2, Insightful) 266

by NoTheory (#29756709) Attached to: Should I Publish Or Patent?
Oh, naïveté.

Nothing will stop them from filing their patent unless you are aware of their filing, and object.

Then, if you were to do something w/ your idea, they may very well sue you, regardless of their patent's invalidity, making the gamble that you'd rather settle than deal with the legal proceedings required to invalidate their patent.

These guys aren't doing it cause they're smart. They're doing it because they think there's easy money to be made, and it's a pain in the ass to defend yourself in court.

This behavor is called patent trolling. I figure any careful reader of Slashdot would recognize this modus operandi, given it's frequency in News for Nerds.

So what can i say?
You must be new here.
Transportation

Bugatti's Latest Veyron, Most Ridiculous Car on the Planet? 790

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the gas-guzzlers-that-make-your-eyes-bleed dept.
Wired has an amusing writeup that accurately captures the most recent ridiculous addition to Bugatti's automobile catalog. The $2.1 million Veyron sports over 1,000 horsepower, a 16-cylinder engine, and a top speed of 245 mph. The guilty conscience comes for free. "That same cash-filled briefcase could buy seven Ferrari 599s or every single 2009 model Mercedes. You could snap up a top-shelf Maybach and employ a chauffeur until well past the apocalypse. Hell, in this economy, $2.1 million is probably enough to make you a one-man special-interest group with some serious Washington clout."
Privacy

The "Hidden" Cost Of Privacy 217

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the if-you-can't-handle-it-get-out-of-the-business dept.
Schneier points out an article from a while back in Forbes about the "hidden" cost of privacy and how expensive it can be to comply with all the various overlapping privacy laws that don't necessarily improve anyone's privacy. "What this all means is that protecting individual privacy remains an externality for many companies, and that basic market dynamics won't work to solve the problem. Because the efficient market solution won't work, we're left with inefficient regulatory solutions. So now the question becomes: how do we make regulation as efficient as possible?"
Google

Wolfram|Alpha's Surprising Terms of Service 303

Posted by kdawson from the badges-coming-soon dept.
eldavojohn notes that Groklaw is highlighting the unexpected Wolfram|Alpha ToS — unexpected, that is, for those of us accustomed to Google's "just don't use it to break the law, please" terms. Nothing wrong with Wolfram setting any terms they like, of course. Just be aware. "We've seen people comparing Wolfram's Alpha to Google's Search from a technical standpoint but Groklaw outlined the legal differences in a post yesterday. Wolfram|Alpha's terms of use are completely different in that it is not a search engine; it's a computational service. The legalese says that they claim copyright on the each results page and require attribution. So for you academics out there, be careful. Groklaw notes this is interesting considering some of its results quote 2001: A Space Odyssey or Douglas Adams. Claiming copyright on that material may be a bold move. There's more: if you build a service that uses their service or deep-links to it, you may be facilitating your users to break their terms of use, and you may be held liable."
Earth

Were Neanderthals Devoured By Humans? 502

Posted by timothy from the subsumed-or-consumed dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that a Neanderthal jawbone covered in cut marks similar to those left behind when flesh is stripped from deer provides crucial evidence that humans attacked Neanderthals, and sometimes killed them, bringing back their bodies to caves to eat or to use their skulls or teeth as trophies. 'For years, people have tried to hide away from the evidence of cannibalism, but I think we have to accept it took place,' says Fernando Rozzi, of Paris's Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique. According to Rozzi, a discovery at Les Rois in south-west France provides compelling support for that argument. Previous excavations revealed bones that were thought to be exclusively human. But Rozzi's team re-examined them and found one they concluded was Neanderthal." (Continued, below.)
Communications

Al-Qaeda Used Basic Codes, Calling Cards, Hotmail 285

Posted by Soulskill from the if-only-the-nsa-watched-the-wire dept.
jd writes "In startling revelations, convicted terrorist Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri admitted that Al Qaeda used public telephones, pre-paid calling cards, search engines and Hotmail. Al-Marri 'used a '10-code' to protect the [phone] numbers — subtracting the actual digits in the phone numbers from 10 to arrive at a coded number.' The real story behind all this is that the terrorists weren't using sophisticated methods to avoid detection or monitoring — which tells us just how crappy SIGINT really is right now. If the NSA needs to wiretap the whole of the US because they can't break into a Hotmail account, you know they've got problems. FindLaw has a copy of al-Marri's plea agreement (the tech-related information begins on page 12), and the LA Times has further details on his case."

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