Comment Re:It's called speculation... (Score 1) 1143
The reason is if you buy oil, you have to take delivery of that oil.
Negative. The whole argument for "speculation is driving up prices" is based on "paper oil," or oil futures. Read on.
Submission + - U.S. Voting Machines Standards Open To Public (eac.gov)
Online Voting writes: "The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has published new voting systems testing and certification standards for 190 days of public comment. For all the critics of electronic voting, this is your opportunity to improve the process. This will be the second version of the federal voting system standards (the first version is the VVSG 05). To learn more about these Voluntary Voting System Standards see this FAQ."
Submission + - New Robots Hunt Pirates by Sea, Traffic by Land (popularmechanics.com)
mattnyc99 writes: Two interesting first-looks over at PopularMechanics.com's "Robot Week": a lengthy preview of this weekend's DARPA Urban Challenge, which unlike in past years will put self-driving vehicles through a world of parked cars, three-point turns and oncoming traffic; and a peek into the growing world of high-tech piracy on the open seas, which the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard are looking to cut off by investing in a new fleet of superfast, gun-mounted unmanned surface vessels (USVs). From the article: "The Interceptor is available now. But the USV market is just getting started: Two months ago, British defense firm Qinetiq debuted its own robotic vessel, the jetski-size Sentry. Among its potential duties is intruder investigation, which could include scouting out unidentified boats, along the lines of the raft that detonated alongside the USS Cole in Yemen, as well as offering a first look at a possible pirate-controlled vessel."
Submission + - Brains hard wired for math
mcgrew (sm62704) writes: "New Scientist is reporting that "non-human primates really can understand the meaning of numerals."
The report itself is online at PLoS Biology, Semantic Associations between Signs and Numerical Categories in the Prefrontal Cortex."The small study of two rhesus monkeys reveals that cells in their brains respond selectively to specific number values — regardless of whether the amount is represented by dots on a screen or an Arabic numeral.
For example, a given brain cell in the monkey will respond to the number three, but not the number one. The results suggest that individual cells in human brains might also have a fine-tuned preference for specific numerical values.
Submission + - One-third of employees violate company IT policies (net-security.org)
BaCa writes: A national survey of U.S. white-collar workers commissioned by the nonprofit, independent organization ISACA has found that more than one-third (35%) of employees have violated their company's IT policies at least once and that nearly one-sixth (15%) of employees have used peer-to-peer file sharing at least once at their place of business, opening the door to security breaches and placing sensitive business and personal information at risk.
Submission + - Ethanol demand is increasing food prices worldwide
hereisnowhy writes: The rising demand for corn as a source of ethanol-blended fuel is largely to blame for increasing food costs around the world, the CBC reports. Increased prices for ethanol have already led to bigger grocery bills for the average American — an increase of $47 US compared to July 2006. In Mexico last year, corn tortillas, a crucial source of calories for 50 million poor people, doubled in price. The increase forced the government to introduce price controls. The move to ethanol-blended fuel is based in part on wide-spread belief that it produces cleaner emissions than regular gasoline. But a recent Environment Canada study found no statistical difference between the greenhouse gas emissions of regular unleaded fuel and 10 per cent ethanol-blended fuel. Environmental groups have argued that producing ethanol — whether from corn, beets, wheat or other crops — takes more energy than is derived from the product.
Submission + - What is the best console controller of all time?
Mateo Slovinsky writes: Is the XBox 360's controller the best controller of all time? CNet seems to think so in its line up of the top five gamepads of all time. "Did you expect the Wii? Sorry. It's a brilliant piece of innovation, that's not in question, but there simply aren't enough games to judge it against the best controllers ever. The Xbox 360 pad has proven itself over a longer time and on a wider selection of titles — and it has its own claims to originality."
Submission + - PC World: Best 100 products of 2007?
javipas writes: "The popular PC World magazine has published its annual list of the 100 best products of the year, with a few surprises on it. Google Apps Premiere Edition ranks first, with other 4 services on the list. Apple has six products on it, with Tiger — a two-year old OS — on the ninth position. Microsoft and Dell have four each, and Canon and Nikon, three. Almost forgot: Ubuntu 7.04 has made it, and has entered on the 16th position. That makes you think about the kind of ranking process, doesn't it?"
Submission + - A Mighty Number Falls
space_in_your_face writes: Mathematicians and number buffs have their records. And today, an international team has broken a long-standing one in an impressive feat of calculation. On March 6, computer clusters from three institutions — the EPFL, the University of Bonn and NTT in Japan — reached the end of eleven months of strenuous calculation, churning out the prime factors of a well-known, hard-to-factor number that is a whopping 307 digits long.
Submission + - Polyethylene Bulletproof Vests better than Kevlar
teflonscout writes: When I think of bulletproof vests, the first word that comes to mind is Kevlar. Wired is running a story on Dynema SB61, a bulletproof material that is made of polyethylene. It is a higher grade of the plastic found in Tupperware. The story also mentions the recall of Second Chance bulletproof vests that were made from Zylon, a material that degraded slowly when exposed to moisture. At least one police officer was injured when a bullet penetrated his Zylon vest. Polyethylene is impervious to moisture. The first vests made from this new material are 5mm thick and can stop at 9mm bullet traveling at 1777 feet per second, which is slightly better than other top of the line vests.
Submission + - Should Games Be More Boring?
An anonymous reader writes: At Gamasutra, 'serious games' creator Ian Bogost is making the case that video games should be more mundane, particularly discussing of Nintendo' Brain Age: "It's certainly a very different kind of game from Halo or even Miyamoto's own Zelda series, games that allow the player to inhabit complex fantasy worlds. Instead, much of Brain Age's success seems to come precisely from the ordinariness of its demands." Would games become more accessible if they tapped into everyday things a little bit more, as opposed to spiralling off into fictional realities?
Submission + - High paying jobs in math and science?
An anonymous reader writes: Where are the high paying jobs for those good in math and science at? I've heard about math and science shortages for almost two decades now, and I was wondering what high salary/high demand jobs have resulted from these shortages. Most science majors I know actually make less than teachers (in Texas teachers make $38-40K to start for nine months work). In terms of money, what career would you pursue coming out of college right now with a math or science degree?
Submission + - Robotic submarine maps worlds deepest sinkhole
holy_calamity writes: The world's deepest water-filled sinkhole has finally been mapped — by a robotic submarine who's descendants may swim on one of Jupiter's moons. The last attempt to find the bottom yielded the SCUBA diving depth record and the death of a diving legend. The sub's SONAR found that the divers were about 10m from the floor, and that the sinkhole which is over 300m deep could be connected to even deeper caves.
Submission + - Appeals Court limits scope of Safe Harbor
Mariner writes: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Roommates.com Safe Harbor status under the Communications Decency Act in a lawsuit brought by the Fair Housing Councils of San Fernando Valley and San Diego. Roommates.com was accused of helping landlords discriminate against certain kinds of tenants due to a couple of questions on the Roommates.com registration form: gender and sexual orientation. 'Though it refused to rule on whether Roommates.com actually violated the Fair Housing Act, the Court did find that it lost Section 230 immunity because it required users to enter that information in order to proceed. As Judge Alex Kozinski put it in his opinion, "if it is responsible, in whole or in part, for creating or developing the information, it becomes a content provider and is not entitled to CDA immunity."'
Breakpoints have now been patented 412
An anonymous reader noted that apparently Breakpoints have now been patented. From the link "A method for debugging including the steps of receiving code having a software breakpoint function therein, running the code for the purpose of debugging, monitoring the code to detect the presence of the software breakpoint function, recognizing the software breakpoint function, determining an action to be performed based on the software breakpoint function, and implementing the action. The present invention also includes an apparatus for implementing the method for debugging and a medium embodying a program of instructions for execution by a device to perform the method for debugging."
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"What man has done, man can aspire to do." -- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight
