Comment Re:The difference between Google and Bing (Score 1) 527
Maybe, but look where this kind of argument got Mondale in '84:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mondale#cite_ref-2
Comment Re:Come on, Detroit isn't that bad. (Score 5, Insightful) 538
As a commuter who rides the train that feeds Fenway, I can say that's a major detriment. Nothing like 30 minutes in a packed train with sweaty drunk fans to end your day in the office 2-3 times a week.
A Mathematician's Lament — an Indictment of US Math Education 677
Scott Aaronson recently had "A Mathematician's Lament" [PDF], Paul Lockhardt's indictment of K-12 math education in the US, pointed out to him and takes some time to examine the finer points. "Lockhardt says pretty much everything I've wanted to say about this subject since the age of twelve, and does so with the thunderous rage of an Old Testament prophet. If you like math, and more so if you think you don't like math, I implore you to read his essay with every atom of my being. Which is not to say I don't have a few quibbles [...] In the end, Lockhardt's lament is subversive, angry, and radical ... but if you know anything about math and anything about K-12 'education' (at least in the United States), I defy you to read and find a single sentence that isn't permeated, suffused, soaked, and encrusted with truth."
Comment Re:WTF is Jaiku, you ask? (Score 1) 41
The "micro" part nominally means that entries are typically capped to whatever will fit in an SMS (although it's unclear whether SMS usage is still common).
The more interesting property relates to subscription. Like RSS, you start receiving updates from contacts you've explicitly selected. Spam-proof, and highly conducive to emergent conversations. (If you're a Facebook user, this is kind of like the News Feed.)
Here's another way to look at it: logging into your microblog is like joining an enormous IRC channel spanning the entire world, only almost everyone is set to
Sleep Mailing 195
Doctors have reported the first case of someone using the internet while asleep, when a sleeping woman sent emails to people asking them over for drinks and caviar. The 44-year-old woman found out what she had done after a would be guest phoned her about it the next day. While asleep the woman turned on her computer, logged on by typing her username and password then composed and sent three emails. Each mail was in a random mix of upper and lower cases, unformatted and written in strange language. One read: "Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4.pm,. Bring wine and caviar only." Another said simply, "What the......." If I had known that researchers were interested in unformatted, rambling email I would have let them read my inbox. They could start a whole new school of medicine.
NASA Running Out of Plutonium 264
PRB_Ohio takes us to Space.com for a story about NASA's plutonium shortage, and how it may affect future missions to the far reaches of the solar system. The U.S. hasn't produced plutonium since 1988, instead preferring to purchase it from Russia. We discussed the U.S. government's plans to resume production in 2005, but those plans ended up being shelved. If NASA is unable to find an additional source, it could limit missions that take spacecraft too far from the Sun. Quoting:
"Alan Stern, NASA associate administrator for science, ... said he believed the United States had sufficient plutonium-238 on hand or on order to fuel next year's Mars Science Lab, an outer planets flagship mission targeted for 2017 and a Discovery-class mission slated to fly a couple years earlier to test a more efficient radioisotope power system NASA and the Energy Department have in development. To help ensure there is enough plutonium-238 for those missions, NASA notified scientists in January that its next New Frontiers solicitation, due out in June, will seek only missions that do not require a nuclear power source."
Comment Re:Spam ruined email (Score 3, Insightful) 383
thats why we see more and more im systems develop a system of offline messages. [...] only thing missing really is a way to save and sort individual messages like one can mail, and upload files in a similar way to how one can do attachments to a mail.
Um.
At this point, haven't you essentially reinvented the email wheel?
I don't see how this hypothetical system is substantially different from email. Well, to be fair, "email plus presence" (see: tightly integrated email/IM systems like Gmail/Gtalk or Mail.app/iChat).
Note also that whatever it is about email that "the kids" don't like anymore, they'll also grow to dislike about "IM plus offline messages plus mailboxes plus attachments".
Females Outnumber Males Online 299
westcoaster004 writes "In news which may surprise some Slashdot users, females have been found to outnumber males online in the U.S. according to a report, and for some time. The statistics for Canadians show a slightly greater number of male users."
New N-Gage Confirmed for this Fall 71
njkid1 passed on a link to GameDaily's coverage of the new, confirmed, N-Gage. Nokia's ill-fated device is returning, and this time they're already touting some big names attached to the project. EA Mobile and Gameloft, along with other (unnamed) studios are slated to bring new games to the beleaguered handheld gaming appliance. What do you think about this? Will a new N-Gage be able to pull you away from your DS?
Comment Re:Dude, you don't get it (Score 1) 594
On a plane, you don't need that large of an explosion to bring the whole thing down.
Care to cite a source? It was my understanding that it in fact took a considerable force to bring a plane down, unless you happened to detonate inside the cockpit. Cabin decompression would at best kill a couple passengers and force an emergency landing.
And while a plane can be used as a weapon more easily than a train, I don't see how liquids would be the controlling factor in such a takeover.
Germany Searches Credit Cards For Child Porn Payments 283
narramissic writes "According to an ITworld article, police in the German state of Sachsen-Anhalt have teamed with credit card companies to sift through the transactions of over 22 million customers looking for those who may have purchased child pornography online. To date they have identified 322 suspects." From the article: "German data privacy laws allow police to ask financial institutions to provide data about individuals but only if the investigators meet certain conditions, including a concrete suspicion of illegal behavior and narrowly defined search criteria, according to Johann Bizer, deputy director of the Independent Center for Privacy Protection... In the case under investigation, police were aware of a child pornography Web site outside of Germany that was attracting users inside the country. And they asked the credit-card companies to conduct a database search narrowed to three criteria: a specific amount of money, a specific time period and a specific receiver account."
Submission + - MS Patch Day Misses Word Zero-Days
bungee jumper writes: "Microsoft released four bulletins with patches for 10 vulnerabilities but there are no fixes for known (and under-attack) MS Word zero-day flaws, eweek.com reports. The January batch covers critical bugs in Excel, Outlook and Windows. The first confirmed Windows Vista flaw, a denial-of-service issue that was publicly released on an underground hacker site in Russia, also remains unpatched."
Comment Re:Either way, you're screwed (Score 1) 757
Naturally, this is not really that big of news. This has been going on since Eisenhower and bringing it into the open is just another way to manipulate the populace.
Really, in two or three weeks they'll probably be trying to deny this program even exists.
Really, in two or three weeks they'll probably be trying to deny this program even exists.
PS3 Japanese Price Drop 'Ridiculous' 70
Gamasutra reports on comments from a Japanese analyst group, characterizing the pre-launch price drop for the Japanese market as ridiculous. From the article: "Meanwhile, Naoki Fujiwara of Shinkin Asset Management suggested that the price reduction was 'negative for the short term because the company may not be able to sell enough consoles to cover an instant loss caused by the price cut.' The PlayStation 3 was already expected to be sold at a loss, with Sony allowing up to five years to recoup the costs. Shares in Sony fell 1.9 percent following the announcement, although this coincided with a generally poor day for the Tokyo Stock Exchange and may not be entirely related to the price cut."
Kutaragi Admits Sony Hardware In Decline 68
An anonymous reader writes "In a surprising admission, Sony Computer Entertainment President Ken Kutaragi acknowledged that Sony's strength in game hardware might be in decline. BetaNews has the article, which reports on Sony's PS3 struggle for the holiday season." From the article: "In an extraordinary public statement of regret and despair over having to postpone his company's PlayStation 3 debut in Europe and Australia until March, and to limit availability elsewhere to only 500,000 units come November, Sony Computer Entertainment President Ken Kutaragi is quoted by Reuters as having told reporters, 'If you asked me if Sony's strength in hardware was in decline, right now I guess I would have to say that might be true.'"
