TheObruniSpeaks - Slashdot User

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

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."

Journal Journal: HIV/AIDS bikeride

Journal by TheObruniSpeaks on Tuesday May 17, 2005 @12:48PM

Hello All,

I'm back safe, happy, and a good deal fitter from the HIV bikeride. About 50 volunteers and 25 ghanaians from HIV NGOs participated. We split into 4 groups that took different routes from Tumu in north-central upper west to Jirapa in west-central upper west. My group logged the most miles (about 120 over five days), but had the fewest hills. We had been hoping for a little bit of rain, because the rains cause a temp drop of 20 degrees or even more, but we got only o

Journal Journal: greetings from Tamale

Journal by TheObruniSpeaks on Saturday March 26, 2005 @11:12AM

Dear All,
Hello from Tamale! I'm in the capital of the Northern Region and largest city in northern Ghana right now. It's east of Tuna. The students are on easter break, so I took the opportunity to meet at the PC sub-office in Tamale to type up a presentation for the Ghana Education service where another volunteer (who is near Tamale) and I will ineffectually point out the problems in the system, particularly their curricula. This weekend is also the end of Guinea Worm week, the big pus

Journal Journal: New Year's, etc.

Journal by TheObruniSpeaks on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @01:39PM

Hi everbody,

Life continues in Tuna with its usual careening up and down, through which I am treading OK. If I recall, I haven't written since before I went south, so let's go from there. I went down to the south for my last hep A shot and the peace corps art show. I went down early so that I could do the beach for new year's. Since school is out and the tunans I know travelled for the holidays I didn't have much to do but sit in my house anyway. An annoying peace corps polic

Journal Journal: my nonsense, Christmas Edition

Journal by TheObruniSpeaks on Wednesday January 05, 2005 @01:48PM

ORIGINALLY EMAILED December 25th, 2004

Happy holidays everybody. This is going to be short because I biked to Wa today, which is 42 miles through the equatorial heat, so I'm tired. Christmas in Ghana is a less visible affair than in the US. Lots of people are Muslim for one, and they don't generally do the christmas tree/lights thing anyway. THe only xmas lights I've seen are here in the internet cafe, which is odd, cuz it's run by Muslims.

Journal Journal: beach, tibane, chasing small boys, etc.

Journal by TheObruniSpeaks on Wednesday January 05, 2005 @01:45PM

ORIGINALLY EMAILED December 22, 2004 Hi everybody,

Long time. Between being busy and not making it to Wa as much as usual, I haven't written much in a long time! I did make one big email but lost it in a power outage. Let's rewind a couple months and pick up where I left off.

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