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.
Uwe Boll To Quit Making Movies With 1M Signatures 355
An anonymous reader writes to mention that Uwe Boll, the infamous German director behind such video game adaptations as House of the Dead, BloodRayne, Dungeon Siege and Postal, has recently admitted that he would retire from making movies if enough people want him to stop. When FearNet mentioned to Boll a petition online signed by 18,000 people requesting that he cease making films, Boll responded that '18,000 is not enough to convince me.' So how much would be enough? 'One million,' Boll said."
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."
Feed news.com: FCC bans exclusive TV deals for cable (news.com)
Commission adopts new rules that ban cable operators from locking apartment buildings into exclusive contracts in exchange for service.
Feed news.com: Fisker Automotive trots out pictures of its sporty plug-in hybrid (news.com)
First, electric cars go upscale with Tesla. Now Fisker takes plug-in hybrids upstream.
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.
Journal Journal: Full-body imprint fossils found in collection 2
I have often said that no good news comes out of Pennsylvania. I can site a litany of stories that have made the national news and not one of them has been good. Until now.
Feed news.com: Popular Mechanics 2007 Breakthrough Awards announced (news.com)
Popular Mechanics announces its 2007 Breakthrough Awards tonight, and CNET has exclusive early coverage.
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?"
Journal Journal: WiFi - A Warning Signal
The BBC has an article asking if WiFi signals are damaging to us, especially children. In one example the investigators found that radio frequency radiation levels in some schools are up to three times the level found in the main beam of intensity from mobile phone masts.
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.
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The tao that can be tar(1)ed is not the entire Tao. The path that can be specified is not the Full Path.
