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R In a Nutshell 91

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
joel.neely writes "R is a statistical computing environment that is fully-compliant with state-of-the-art buzzwords: free, open-source, cross-platform, interactive, graphics, objects, closures, higher-order functions, and more. It is supported by an impressive collection of user-supplied modules through CRAN, the 'Comprehensive R Archive Network.' And now it has its own O'Reilly Nutshell book, R in a Nutshell, written by Joseph Adler. I am pleased to report that Adler has risen to the challenge of the highly-regarded 'Nutshell' franchise. As is traditional for the series, this title mixes introduction, tutorial, and reference material in a style that is well suited to a reader who already has a background in programming, but is a new or occasional user of R." Read on for the rest of Joel's review.
Robotics

Six-legged Robot Teaches Itself To Walk 113

Posted by samzenpus from the machine's-first-steps dept.
rabiddeity writes "An undergraduate at the University of Arizona has built a six legged robot from scratch. The robot, which is equipped with sensors on each foot, teaches itself to walk and orients itself via an onboard camera. A similar design might be used to explore unstable environments such as collapsed buildings or rocky landscapes."
Image

PhD Candidate Talks About the Physics of Space Battles 361

Posted by samzenpus from the load-photon-torpedoes dept.
darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."

Comment All sf is Political (Score 1) 1021

by jvv62 (#29665339) Attached to: What Belongs In a High School Sci-Fi/Fantasy Lit Class?
I would suggest that all sf involves politics at some level. Heinlein is political as is Asimov. They are not necessarily as obviously political as L. Neil Smith or Orwell, but they definitely say a lot about what is good in government and society and what is bad. None of Tolkein's good guys live in autocracies. Even the Kings of Gondor had to pay attention to their people. Remember that a lot of people consider the s in sf to stand for speculative, rather than science. The key thing is to think about which facet of the genre you wish the students to consider.
Privacy

Americans Don't Want Targeted Ads 404

Posted by timothy from the might-prefer-them-to-endless-tampon-ads-though dept.
itwbennett writes "A survey by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California Berkeley School of Law and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania finds that US residents do not want to receive Web advertising tailored to their interests. 66% of those surveyed said they don't want tailored, or targeted, online ads and when asked if online ad vendors should deliver targeted ads by tracking customers' behavior across multiple Web sites, 86% of the 1,000 respondents said no. 35% of respondents said executives of companies that use personal information illegally should face jail time, and 18% said those companies should be put out of business. 'While privacy advocates have lambasted behavioral targeting for tracking and labeling people in ways they do not know or understand, marketers have defended the practice by insisting it gives Americans what they want: advertisements and other forms of content that are as relevant to their lives as possible,' the study said. 'In high percentages, [US residents] stand on the side of privacy advocates.'"

Submission + - GE: 1Tb micro Hologram Disc Readable by a Modified 1

Submitted by
Globally Mobile
Globally Mobile writes: "The Register has this article concerning GE announcement that it has been developing a 1 Terabyte DVD size disk that can be read by a modified Blu-ray player. Peter Lorraine, GE's lab manager, talking at an Emerging Tech conference last week, said that license announcements could be expected soon. He also mentioned the notion of disks having the capacity of 100 Blu-ray disks, implying a 2.5TB or even 5TB capacity, gained by increasing the number of layers used for recording. The discs will be used for high-end commercial niches initially and then migrate to consumer markets in 2012-2015.
Also here is a video of the technology explained.
.Wish we could see this sooner! Reminds me of the technology that Bowies charecter came up with in 'The Man Who Fell to Earth' Thanks to"
Printer

Choosing a Personal Printer For the Long Haul 557

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-thought-they-were-disposable-now dept.
The Optimizer writes "After 16 years of service, my laser printer, a NEC Silentwriter 95, is finally wearing its internals out, and I need to find a replacement. It's printed over 30,000 pages and survived a half-dozen long-distance moves without giving me any trouble. I believe it's done so well for two reasons. First, it's sturdily built and hails from an era when every fraction of a penny didn't have to be cost-cut out of manufacturing. The other reason was its software. Since it supported postscript Level II, it wasn't bound to a specific operating system or hardware platform, so long as a basic postscript level 2 driver was available. A new color laser printer with postscript 3 seems like a logical replacement, and numerous inexpensive printers are available. I'd rather get a smaller, personal-size printer than a heavy workgroup printer. Most of all, I would like it to still be usable and running well with Windows 9, OS X 11, and whatever else we will be using in 2020. Can anyone recommend a brand or series of printers that is built to last and isn't going to be completely dependent on OS specific proprietary drivers?"
Communications

Communicator Clothing 134

Posted by samzenpus from the can-you-wear-me-now dept.
coondoggie writes "The crew of the classic science-fiction show's Starship Enterprise wore small devices on their chests that they could tap to communicate instantly with their colleagues. Such communications technology is now closer to reality thanks to a Finnish company which this week demonstrated high-tech clothing that can send and receive messages via satellite. The demonstrator antenna, built by the Patria Aviation Oy company, looks like a simple patch of cloth but is capable of operating in the Iridium and GPS frequency band as part of clothing. The Iridium satellites allow two-way voice and data communication, while GPS provides positional data to the user. Iridium could also relay the position of the user."
Space

Cosmic Ray Intensity Reaches Highest Levels In 50 years 263

Posted by samzenpus from the start-the-mutations dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A NASA probe found that cosmic ray intensities in 2009 had increased by almost 20 percent beyond anything seen in the past 50 years. Such cosmic rays arise from distant supernova explosions and consist mostly of protons and heavier subatomic particles — just one cosmic ray could disable unlucky satellites or even put a mission to Mars in jeopardy."

Comment The MSM are really Creationists (Score 1) 5

by jvv62 (#28854989) Attached to: Bear Outsmarts Engineers
Whenever I read a story like this one, I get the feeling that the author, in his or her heart of hearts, is completely in tune with the creationist types who consider the standard Genesis story to be literally true. "God gave man dominion over the animals and ..." I know that I am smarter (in book learnin') than most people, but I also know that most people know more about some thing than I do. In fact, watching small animals around where I live, I know that plenty of birds and rabbits and squirrels know more about my immediate neighborhood than I do.

So why does every story about an animal figuring out something like this sound like a miracle has occurred? Animals, especially most mammals, learn how to do things to survive. Humans learn better than most other animals, but the animals still learn about a lot of different things. Yes, it's a news story when a bear opens a "bear-proof" canister. No, the engineers aren't stupid. No, the bear isn't a freak of nature. Yes, the bear is smarter than most.

Why can't there be smarter and stupider animals? All humans are equally smart? Yeesh.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft's GPL code because of breach. (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
ozmanjusri
ozmanjusri writes: "While Microsoft presented its recent embrace of the GPL as "a break from the ordinary", and the press spoke of them as going "to great lengths to engage the open source community", as is often the case with Microsoft, it turns out they had an ulterior motive.

According to Stephen Hemminger, an engineer with Vyatta, Microsoft's Hyper-V used open-source components in a network driver and the company released the code to avoid legal action over a GPL violation.

Microsoft's decision to embrace the GPL was welcomed by many in the open source community, but their failure to honestly explain the reason behind the release will have squandered this opportunity to build trust, something which is sadly lacking in most people's dealings with Microsoft."
Google

Submission + - Google Wave: 'Like Real-Time E-Mail. On Crack.' (bnet.com) 1

Submitted by
Michael_Curator
Michael_Curator writes: "Developers are finally getting their hands on the developer preview of Google's Wave, which means we can finally get some first-hand accounts of what it's really like to use, unfiltered by Google's own programmers. Ben Rometsch, a developer with U.K. Web development firm Solid State, blogged that, it's "probably the most advanced 'application in a browser' that I've seen." Wave is like giant Web page onto which users can drag and drop any kind of object, including instant messaging and IRC [Internet Relay Client] clients, e-mail, and wikis, as well as gadgets like maps and video. All conversations, work product and applications are stored on remote servers — presumably forever. "It's like real time email. On crack," he wrote. And unlike the typically minimalist Google UI, "It feels a lot more like a desktop application that just so happens to live in your browser.""
Censorship

Submission + - Apple backs off DMCA threats against wiki

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "A wiki operator who was pressured by Apple's legal team into removing anonymous discussions about circumventing the company's music-playback software for iPods and iPhones says he is relieved that Apple has backed off and he'll be able to restore the disputed material. Apple dropped its claims of copyright and DMCA violation against BluWiki only under legal pressure of its own in the form of a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/43762"

Comment And don't foget the sandpiles... (Score 1) 412

by jvv62 (#28698933) Attached to: Expanding the Electricity Grid May Be a Mistake
Another reason to stay away from a National grid is the effect of linking all the grids together into one system means a single catastrophic failure becomes possible. We have already seen this sort of problem on both coasts. The bigger the sandpile, the bigger the avalanche. We should be pushing into smaller more local stuff. Right now individual solar is still too expensive, but if we say no to more power lines, the power companies might do more in the line of peak pricing, buying back and conservation helps that some utilities are already doing.

NASA Plans To De-Orbit ISS In 2016 554

Posted by CmdrTaco from the everybody-duck dept.
NewbieV writes "The international space station is by far the largest spacecraft ever built by earthlings. Circling the Earth every 90 minutes, it often passes over North America and is visible from the ground when night has fallen but the station, up high, is still bathed in sunlight. After more than a decade of construction, it is nearing completion and finally has a full crew of six astronauts. The last components should be installed by the end of next year. And then? 'In the first quarter of 2016, we'll prep and de-orbit the spacecraft,' says NASA's space station program manager, Michael T. Suffredini."

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