The Unknown Anorak - Slashdot User

Western-Style Voting 'A Loser' 614

Posted by Zonk on Sunday January 06, 2008 @05:32AM from the math-and-politics-two-great-tastes dept.

sethawoolley writes "In light of the upcoming elections in the US, author William Poundstone was interviewed about voting systems by Mother Jones. In it he advocates the benefits of Range Voting as a solution to Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. Approval, Borda, Instant Runoff, and Condorcet Voting, which are often solutions advocated by the Greens and Libertarians (in the US), are discussed, as well, in light of Warren Smith's recent empirical research using Bayesian Regret. My local party (of which I'm the Parliamentarian) uses Single Transferable voting, but we're considering using Range Voting in the future. One thing is for certain: any system is better than the West's out-dated plurality voting system."

Cocaine Vaccine In the Works 724

Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 03, 2008 @01:15PM from the runnin-round-my-brain dept.

martyros writes "Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine are performing clinical trials of a vaccine that teaches the immune system to attack cocaine, preventing it from giving a high. The vaccine is made by attaching inactivated cocaine molecules to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins. When the immune system attacks the cholera proteins, it also 'learns' the cocaine molecules as well. The result is that the immune system 'recognizes the potent naked drug when it's ingested. The antibodies bind to the cocaine and prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate the highs that are so addictive.'" An earlier story from The Star notes that human trials for vaccines against both cocaine and nicotine are well under way.

Cloned, Glow in the Dark Cats 222

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday December 12, 2007 @04:11PM from the i-can-haz-rave-party? dept.

eldavojohn writes "Well, you can finally get genetically modified cloned animals. South Korean scientists have shown it is possible to alter a protein via therapeutic cloning to 'artificially [create] animals with human illnesses linked to genetic causes.' The images of these animals are amazing. This research was headed by Kong Il-keun, the first person in the country to clone cats in 2004." There is always the chance that this is a hoax, but far too amusing to ignore.

Computer Model Points To the Missing Matter 97

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @03:41PM from the on-a-whim dept.

eldavojohn writes "There exists a little-known problem of missing regular matter that has perhaps been overshadowed by the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. Computer models show that there should be about 40% more regular matter than we see... so where is it? From the article: 'The study indicated a significant portion of the gas is in the filaments — which connect galaxy clusters — hidden from direct observation in enormous gas clouds in intergalactic space known as the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium, or WHIM, said CU-Boulder Professor Jack Burns... The team performed one of the largest cosmological supercomputer simulations ever, cramming 2.5 percent of the visible universe inside a computer to model a region more than 1.5 billion light-years across.' This hypothesis will be investigated and hopefully proved/disproved when telescopes are completed in Chile and the Antarctic. The paper will be up for review in this week's edition of the the Astrophysical Journal."

Comment Re:tired of the insecurity troll (Score 1) 206

by The Unknown Anorak on Monday May 13, 2002 @06:27AM (#3509172) Attached to: Can 802.11 Become A Viable Last-Mile Alternative?

As he said , networks are (usually) insecure as hell - not by nature but by incompetent setup. You can use airsnort if you really, really want to crack WEP but the bigger problem is that most companies don't even bother to enable it, through laziness, incompetence or just being unfamiliar with the technology.
I've sat in a pub in London and seen three wireless networks accessed in five minutes. I won't say 'cracked' because that overstates the difficulty of doing it.
If you want proof, here's a story about WEP's inherent weaknesses.
To prove it's not just endemic in London, here's a story about War Driving in San Francisco.
And here is the story that I think the original poster was referring to. The key phrase is 'comprehensive seven-month audit' - this is not hearsay, it's concrete figures.
I know tech paranoia is annoying, but in this case it serves a purpose - it should help close up all these damn holes.

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