Comment Re:Other Categories? (Score 1) 722
The internet, being a place of danger, gets Sauron's place's names for that reason
Ah. Here that's the virtual windows boxes. The internet has some nice spots too
Comment Re:Other Categories? (Score 1) 722
Yeah, though i got to name only one server (our family LAN's server), we name all of our computers after cities, countries, regions, mountains, etc. from Tolkien's world. Whether these are fictional or not i will leave up to the reader to decide. It seemed logical to use places instead of people, because then you can imagine users living, or have a home, in that place. It is very neat to login as manwe@taniquetil, while it seems strange to be a person in another person. Moreover, processes can just as well be imagined as going on at places (carried out by employees for example) as in the mind of a person (the cpu, i know...). I suppose that would mean the human users are some kind of lords over the "slaves" doing all the pre-programmed work, but at least they feed them electricity, and i'm not sure messing with some historic or fictional hero's mind would be more politically correct. Of course, processes should then be named as processes, and not as something else, though i still feel sorry to kill evolution as much as to kill empathy.
Mind you: we are not complaining about lack of options; just proposing new ones
Comment Re:Edge a bet? (Score 1) 281
For a non-native English speaker like me, it's useful to know the right spelling. Thanks for the information.
Submission + - 92,000 Lego Robots To Take Over Peruvian Schools w (olpcnews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The president of Peru, Alan Garcia, decided to celebrate the 500,000th One Laptop Per Child XO laptop in that country in style, announcing orders for half a million more and 20,000 additional Lego education WeDo robot kits for public schools. The latest OLPC laptop, the XO-1.75, has the lowest power draw ever thanks to a Marvell Armada 600 ARM processor and runs Fedora GNU/Linux with dual desktops Sugar (in Spanish, Aymara, and Quechua) and GNOME. For the first time, the XOs will be manufactured locally; the previous 2 million, including the blue high school variant with grownup keyboard, were all made by Quanta Computer. Meanwhile, parallel development continues on the upcoming XO-3 tablet; OLPC's New Technologies director is exploring software paths including GTK3 for Sugar, Android and Chrome. I, for one, salute our new plastic Peruvian overlords.
Comment Re:Anthropology (Score 1) 311
I think a class that studies those who believe in UFOs would definitely be worth of an anthropology class.
You bet. That's exacly what an Anthro teacher of mine is doing. ^_^
Well, to be honest,not exactly: UFO sightings are just one subtype of the phenomena he proposes to approach more with attentiveness and less with skeptiscism, especially in the study of religion. Basically, his point is that people believe in something, UFO's as alien visitors for example, this fact - the believer, not necessarily the object of belief - is significant in itself and worthy of study.
While as humans we can strongly believe or disbelieve in intelligent extraterrestrial life circling our little planet Earth, anthropologists have no business in proving or disproving the actual existence of it - that's the job of physicists and other natural scientists. For anthropologists, it is the act of belief, the reason, the manner, and all other intricacies, that matter.
I described his view in a short story at my universities anthro department blog, but unfortunately this post is in Dutch and google translate does a very crappy job.
And regarding bias: we are all biased in one way or another. Consider the idea expressed in one of the previous comments that lawn mowing is a "normal" activity. Yes, for some of us, it is. But for people not grown up with the idea of short-mowed lawns, it may seem as alien an activity as sighting UFO's.
The Fruit Fly Drosophila Gets a New Name 136
G3ckoG33k writes "The name of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster will change to Sophophora melangaster. The reason is that scientists have by now discovered some 2,000 species of the genus and it is becoming unmanageably large. Unfortunately, the 'type species' (the reference point of the genus), Drosophila funebris, is rather unrelated to the D. melanogaster, and ends up in a distant part of the relationship tree. However, geneticists have, according to Google Scholar, more than 300,000 scientific articles describing innumerable aspects of the species, and will have to learn the new name as well as remember the old. As expected, the name change has created an emotional (and practical) stir all over media. While name changes are frequent in science, as they describe new knowledge about relationships between species, these changes rarely hit economically relevant species, and when they do, people get upset."
The 1-Second Linux Boot 156
An anonymous reader writes "Less than one second Linux boot! This video shows an OMAP3530 capturing video data from a camera and rendering it to an LCD display — the video appears on the LCD display in less than a second from reset."
Secret Service Runs At "Six Sixes" Availability 248
PCM2 writes "ABC News is reporting that the US Secret Service is in dire need of server upgrades. 'Currently, 42 mission-oriented applications run on a 1980s IBM mainframe with a 68 percent performance reliability rating,' says one leaked memo. That finding was the result of an NSA study commissioned by the Secret Service to evaluate the severity of their computer problems. Curiously, upgrades to the Service's computers are being championed by Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who says he's had 'concern for a while' about the issue."
Directed Energy Weapon Downs Mosquitos 428
wisebabo writes "Nathan Myhrvol demonstrated at TED a laser, built from parts scrounged from eBay, capable of shooting down not one but 50 to 100 mosquitos a second. The system is 'so precise that it can specify the species, and even the gender, of the mosquito being targeted.' Currently, for the sake of efficiency, it leaves the males alone because only females are bloodsuckers. Best of all the system could cost as little as $50. Maybe that's too expensive for use in preventing malaria in Africa but I'd buy one in a second!" We ran a story about this last year. It looks like the company has added a bit more polish, and burning mosquito footage to their marketing.
Google Buys AI Social Search Service Aardvark 41
eldavojohn writes "MIT's Tech Review is covering an acquisition it finds very interesting. Google (which recently announced Buzz) has acquired Aardvark. The review covered Aardvark and the artificial intelligence it uses in its searches in 2009."
Submission + - Paypal Reverses Payments made to Indians (todayskhabor.com) 1
bhagwad writes: Starting on the 28th of Jan 2010, Paypal has actually reversed the payments made to any Indian provider of services. In addition, Indian users have been unable to withdraw their money to their bank accounts — the funds have been stuck in transit. As a result, a large number of Indian Paypal accounts have a negative balance running into thousands of dollars. The worst part is that users weren't informed beforehand — the funds were just whisked away. Indian providers have gone ballistic with over 2000 posts on this thread on the reversal of payments and over 700 posts on this thread about the delay in transfers.
Paypal hasn't given any explanation to this behavior other than they're looking into it.
Though Paypal claims that payments made for "Services" are not being reversed, this isn't true. All payments not made for "Goods" with a shipping address have been reversed — in fact, the Paypal e-mail tells the Indian sellers to encourage their clients to lie and claim that they're paying for goods with a shipping address instead — something that reputable buyers will be loathe to do...Indian merchants who constitute a large fraction of worldwide IT services rue the fact that Paypal essentially has a monopoly on the online payments business, with almost all buyers using it, and are forced to put up with this shabby treatment.
Paypal hasn't given any explanation to this behavior other than they're looking into it.
Though Paypal claims that payments made for "Services" are not being reversed, this isn't true. All payments not made for "Goods" with a shipping address have been reversed — in fact, the Paypal e-mail tells the Indian sellers to encourage their clients to lie and claim that they're paying for goods with a shipping address instead — something that reputable buyers will be loathe to do...Indian merchants who constitute a large fraction of worldwide IT services rue the fact that Paypal essentially has a monopoly on the online payments business, with almost all buyers using it, and are forced to put up with this shabby treatment.
Submission + - White House Makes Copyright Claim on Flickr Photos
Hugh Pickens writes: "US government policy is that photos produced by federal employees as part of their job responsibilities are not subject to copyright in the United States but Kathy Gill writes that after originally putting official White House photos in the public domain, since January the Obama White House has been asserting that no one but “news organizations” can use its Flickr photos taken by the official White House photographer who is a US government employee. The “easy” answer is that the change appears to be a heavy-handed White House response to last month’s controversy resulting from a billboard that implied the president endorsed The Weatherproof Garmet Co after the company used an Associated Press photo of the president for a Times Square billboard. However a New York law already protects individuals from unauthorized use of their image for advertising and the billboard was quickly taken down. "Whatever the reason, the assertion of these “rights” seems to be in direct contrast to official government policy and is certainly in direct contrast to reasonable expectations by the public, given that the photos are being produced with taxpayer (ie, public) money," writes Gill. "Ironically, the same Flickr page that claims (almost exclusive) copyright also links to the US copyright policy statement.""
Submission + - AU Govt Wants ISPs To Sort Out Illegal Downloads (zdnet.com.au)
bennyboy64 writes: Australia's Minister for Communications wants internet providers and the film industry to sit down and work out a solution to stop illegal movie downloads, despite a judge ruling in favor of an internet provider not being responsible for policing illegal downloads.The film studios first dragged internet provider iiNet into the Federal Court back in November 2008, arguing that the ISP infringed copyright by failing to take reasonable steps — including enforcing its own terms and conditions — to prevent customers from copying films and TV shows over its network.
Submission + - Pen Still Mightier than the Laptop for Notetaking? 1
theodp writes: While waiting to see if the iPad is a game-changer, CS student Carolyn continues to take class notes with pen and paper while her fellow students embrace netbooks and notebooks. Why? In addition to finding the act of writing helps cement the lecture material in her mind, there's also the problem of keeping up with the professor: 'Every five minutes I found myself cursing at not being able to copy the diagram on the board.' So, when it comes to education or business, do you take notes on a notepad/netbook, or stick with good old-fashioned handwriting? Got any tips for making the transition, or arguments for staying the course?
Submission + - SPAM: US Patent Office to review VoIP patent
alphadogg writes: The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has agreed to review a controversial patent issued in 2001 that is claimed to cover much of the technology underlying VoIP.
The patent, held by a small company called C2 Communications Technologies, is one of 10 that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been trying to strike down for several years through its Patent Busting Project. [spam URL stripped] On Friday, the patent office granted the EFF's request for a re-examination, the EFF said. The digital civil-liberties organization argued that another applicant had submitted basically some of the same technology to the patent office before C2 did. Patent No. 6,243,373, [spam URL stripped]"Method and apparatus for implementing a computer network/Internet telephone system," is credited to David L. Turock as inventor and is owned by C2, previously called Acceris Communications Technologies.
Link to Original Source
The patent, held by a small company called C2 Communications Technologies, is one of 10 that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been trying to strike down for several years through its Patent Busting Project. [spam URL stripped] On Friday, the patent office granted the EFF's request for a re-examination, the EFF said. The digital civil-liberties organization argued that another applicant had submitted basically some of the same technology to the patent office before C2 did. Patent No. 6,243,373, [spam URL stripped]"Method and apparatus for implementing a computer network/Internet telephone system," is credited to David L. Turock as inventor and is owned by C2, previously called Acceris Communications Technologies.
Link to Original Source
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In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
