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The Parking Meter Turns 75 Today 126

nj_peeps writes "75 years ago Carl Magee filed a patent application for what would become one of the most hated inventions in history: the parking meter. From the article: 'Magee's brainwave was to install a device that had a coin acceptor and a dial to engage a timing mechanism. A visible pointer and flag indicated the expiration of the paid period, meaning you either had to move, put in more money, or face the wrath of the local constabulary. The design continued largely unchanged for more than 40 years.'"

Comment Re:So? (Score 1) 170

That's pretty much it. If someone already knows your real name, and can guess that you may have an email address of your real name at one of the big free hosting providers, they might guess your email address! OH NO STOP THE INTERNET AT ONCE!!

Comment Re:News flash -- it's not always the CEO's fault (Score 1) 397

The ONLY thing keeping them afloat right now are deals with high-profile comedians and pro sports. Period. And they have to pay those folks boatloads of money to play at all.

Of all the people I know and have met that listen to Sirius/XM, a very small amount listen to the talk and sports stations primarily. It's possible that I have a bad representative sampling, but I don't think that is the case. Lose the high cost deals with the talk show people and then maybe the expenses will be a bit more manageable. Or maybe some of these high cost 'personalities' will have to work for less - one of the good sides of less competition. For the ones who can't or won't go back to FM, what other options do they have?

Comment Re:My humble opinions (Score 1) 397

They need to realize that most of us subscribe for literally a handful of stations, and if you screw with them, we get pissed.

This right here. I listen to ONE station primarily, have a secondary backup that is about half as enjoyable for me, and then dance around a handful of others when there's something on the first two I'm not in the mood for. They really need to learn to stop fucking with the music stations, every one that gets axed is that potential ONE station for thousands of subscribers. I know for a fact that if my primary station got the axe, my subscriptions (yes, plural) go as well, and I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way about 'their' stations.

Space

1.4 Billion Pixel Camera To Watch For Asteroids 138

SpaceSlug writes "The world's largest digital camera is to be used to keep an eye out for asteroids heading towards Earth. The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) has been built by researchers at MIT's Lincoln Lab. At its heart is a 1.4 billion pixel (or 1400 megapixel) camera that will scan the night sky looking for rogue near-Earth objects from atop Mount Haleakala in Maui Island, Hawaii. The system uses something called an orthogonal transfer CCD to remove atmospheric blur from images."

Comment Re:It's a drag, man (Score 1) 231

The purpose of low-drag swimwear is not to stay dry, but to reduce fiction, and therefore resistance, caused by moving through the water. Lower drag = higher speed for the same energy expenditure. And yes, this is probably the most useless possible application for this technology, but you've got to sell something to the people providing the funding. Much better ideas have been mentioned in this discussion already - sails, ship/sub coatings, extreme cold weather wear and raingear. Also, how about protective tarps, a replacement for tarpaper on roofs, umbrellas... the list goes on!
Security

Study Confirms ISPs Meddle With Web Traffic 131

Last July, a research team from the University of Washington released an online tool to analyze whether web pages were being altered during the transit from web server to user. On Wednesday, the team released a paper at the Usenix conference analyzing the data collected from the tool. The found, unsurprisingly, that ISPs were indeed injecting ads into web pages viewed by a small number of users. The paper is available at the Usenix site. From PCWorld: "To get their data, the team wrote software that would test whether or not someone visiting a test page on the University of Washington's Web site was viewing HTML that had been altered in transit. In 16 instances ads were injected into the Web page by the visitor's Internet Service provider. The service providers named by the researchers are generally small ISPs such as RedMoon, Mesa Networks and MetroFi, but the paper also named one of the largest ISPs in the U.S., XO Communications, as an ad injector."

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