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Comment Re:Want to get more basic research? (Score 1) 552

by SocioDude (#29268259) Attached to: Where Have You Gone, Bell Labs?

People don't want to spend 1 cent extra for something with long-term value (like scientific research), but they're perfectly happy to spend $2000 (no joke) on seats at a football game, or to waste their time and money watching a football game on pay-per-view TV. The huge demand for this brainless sports industry, and the consequential enormous amount of money flowing through it, is what allows them to pay athletes so much. So it's not like the athletes are taking it wrongfully; the individual citizens in our society are willingly forking it over. So again, this just shows that our citizens are idiots and don't spend their money wisely.

I'm not sure I agree with you here. Enjoying live sports has a lot of value to some people. I don't think that means that they are idiots, and that they don't spend their money wisely. People spending thousands of dollars on sports is similar to people who spend hundreds of dollars on good hiking boots. They could certainly get by (perhaps more painfully) with cheaper footware, but it's something that they really enjoy.

It seems that the real problem is that people don't see value in donating money to science - especially when the research is abstract, and there are no clear applications. I agree that there's no clear answer, but claiming that sports fans are idiots seems relatively short-sighted.
Security

Linux, Twitter, and Red Hat "Win" Big At Pwnie Awards 63

Posted by Soulskill from the i'd-like-to-thank-the-academy dept.
hugmeplz writes "The third annual Pwnie Awards took place last night at Black Hat in Las Vegas, and a full list of the winners has been posted. 'Most Epic Fail' honors went to the notorious Twitter/Google Apps hack from earlier this month that raised all sorts of questions about cloud computing security. Red Hat got skewered with the 'Mass 0wnage' award, also known as the 'Pwnie for Breaking the Internet,' for issuing a version of OpenSSH that left a backdoor open to hackers. The Linux development team earned 'Lamest Vendor Response' recognition for 'continually assuming that all kernel memory corruption bugs are only Denial-of-Service.' Naturally, Microsoft didn't slip past judges' eyes. Its vulnerability that enabled the Conficker worm to do its thing earned honors as the 'Most Overhyped Bug.' On the more positive side, the Pwnie Awards recognized security pros Wei Yongjun, sgrakkyu, Sebastian Kramer and Bernhard Mueller for accomplishments such as discovering bugs and demonstrating exploits. The Pwnie for Best Song went to Doctor Braid for his song Nice Report. Solar Designer snagged the Lifetime Achievement Award, for among other things, being the first to demonstrate heap buffer overflow exploitation, according to the Pwnie Awards Web site."
Data Storage

Intel 34nm SSDs Lower Prices, Raise Performance 195

Posted by samzenpus from the getting-better dept.
Vigile writes "When Intel's consumer line of solid state drives were first introduced late in 2008, they impressed reviewers with their performance and reliability. Intel gained a lot of community respect by addressing some performance degradation issues found at PC Perspective by quickly releasing an updated firmware that solved those problems and then some. Now Intel has its second generation of X25-M drives available, designated by a "G2" in the model name. The SSDs are technically very similar though they use 34nm flash rather than the 50nm flash used in the originals and reduced latency times. What is really going to set these new drives apart though, both from the previous Intel offerings and their competition, are the much lower prices allowed by the increased memory density. PC Perspective has posted a full review and breakdown of the new product line that should be available next week."

Comment Re:Not really (Score 1) 319

by SocioDude (#28261883) Attached to: Has Bing Already Overtaken Yahoo?
It looks like you're not being quite honest about the search results you said were returned.

First of all, when searching for "The Dark Knight" on bing, the string "Dark Knight Shoes" doesn't appear on the page. There is also nothing that says "Dark Knight Houston". If you search for "Dark Knight" then those terms do show up, but only in the "related searches" sidebar. The main search terms returned are all (every single one of them) related to the movie. There are 21 results, and they are categorized by type (unlike google and yahoo) including links containing the trailer, reviews, information on the cast, posters, the soundtrack, and video links. You can even hover over the video links for a video preview (which google doesn't do, and yahoo doesn't even embed video links). And, to top it off, there were no advertisements on the page.

I know that here on Slashdot any post that doesn't bash M$ is against our religion, but at least a cursory glance suggests that dismissing bing as a "shitty" search engine that people need to be tricked by advertising to use is false.
Movies

More Americans Play Video Games Than Go To Movies 183

Posted by Soulskill from the majority-achieved-now-let's-work-on-tyranny dept.
New research from the NPD Group has found that the number of Americans who play video games has surpassed the number who go to movies. In a survey of over 11,000 people, 63% had played a video game within the past six months, while only 53% had gone to a movie. They also found that the purchase of game consoles was on the rise, as were new methods of accessing the games themselves, such as playing over a social networking site or downloading a game onto a mobile phone. The report said, "the average gamer spent just over $38 per month on all types of gaming content" in the first three months of 2009, adding that "video games account for one-third of the average monthly consumer spending in the US for core entertainment content, including music, video, games."
Hardware Hacking

NYT Techie Night Life Reprogrammed 97

Posted by timothy from the for-some-values-of-most-major-cities dept.
securitas writes "Almost a decade after the Internet bubble collapsed, the New York Times reports on the revival of the Silicon Alley technology social scene — with a twist. It's now about substance. Gone are the "glitzy club ... minor celebrities, go-go dancers, an open bar and pricey giveaways" in favor of unconferences, Ignite, Pecha Kucha, ideas and 'a night life that involves actually talking to creative people doing exciting things.' Most major cities have a geek social scene like the NYC Soldering Championship [video link] featured in the article." Not surprisingly (for anyone who reads O'Reilly's Make magazine), Bre Pettis is one of the event organizers mentioned.

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