marck - Slashdot User

Americans Less Healthy, But Outlive Brits 521

Posted by timothy on Saturday November 06, 2010 @06:33AM from the cross-cultural-croaking-comparison dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this intriguing snippet: "Older Americans are less healthy than their English counterparts, but they live as long or even longer than their English peers, according to a new study by researchers from the RAND Corporation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London. Researchers found that while Americans aged 55 to 64 have higher rates of chronic diseases than their peers in England, they died at about the same rate. And Americans age 65 and older — while still sicker than their English peers — had a lower death rate than similar people in England, according to findings published in the journal Demography."

Sound As the New Illegal Narcotic? 561

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 15, 2010 @12:46PM from the you-ever-see-the-back-of-a-$20-bill-on-sound? dept.

ehrichweiss writes "The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics is warning parents and teachers of a new threat to our children: sounds. Apparently kids are now discovering binaural beats and using them to get 'physiological effects.' The report goes on with everyone suggesting that such aural experiences will act as a gateway to drug usage and even has one student claiming there are 'demons' involved. Anyone who has used one of those light/sound machines knows all about the effects that these sounds will give and to state that they will lead kids to do drugs is nonsense at best. It seems the trend in scaring the citizens with a made-up problem has gone to the next level."

Believing You Are Very Good Or Evil Boosts Your Physical Capabilities 192

Posted by samzenpus on Monday June 28, 2010 @12:03PM from the strength-of-heart dept.

Research by Kurt Gray, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard, shows that a person's capacity for willpower and physical endurance increases if they perceive themselves as good or evil. "Evil" acts in particular give a person a large boost in physical strength. From the article: “'People perceive those who do good and evil to have more efficacy, more willpower, and less sensitivity to discomfort,' Gray said. 'By perceiving themselves as good or evil, people embody these perceptions, actually becoming more capable of physical endurance.' Gray’s findings run counter to the notion that only those blessed with heightened willpower or self-control are capable of heroism, suggesting instead that simply attempting heroic deeds can confer personal power."

Woman Claims Wii Fit Caused Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome 380

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday April 15, 2010 @07:00PM from the can't-stop-playing dept.

Amanda Flowers always liked her Wii Fit but now she can't get enough of it. Amanda claims a fall from her balance board damaged a nerve and has left her suffering from persistent sexual arousal syndrome. From the article: "The catering worker said: 'It began as a twinge down below before surging through my body. Sometimes it built up into a trembling orgasm.' A doctor diagnosed her with persistent sexual arousal syndrome due to a damaged nerve."

Thailand Cracks Down On Twitter, Facebook, Etc. 130

Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 14, 2010 @04:22PM from the and-everybody-loves-the-king dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The ongoing poitical turmoil in Thailand has inspired the country's Ministry of Information, Computers, and Telecommunications to issue a stern warning that all users of the Internet in Thailand must 'use the internet in the right way or with appropriate purpose and avoid disseminating information that could create misunderstanding or instigate violent actions among the public', that 'all popular websites and social networks such as facebook, twitter, hi5 and my space [sic] will be under thorough watch,' and that 'Violators will be prosecuted by law with no compromise.' Thailand has draconian anti-lèse majesté laws which are routinely abused in order to settle political scores and silence dissent, and recently implemented a so-called 'Computer Crimes Act' which appears to be almost solely focused on thoughtcrimes and censorship, rather than dealing with, you know, actual crime. Several Web forums have recently been shut down, their operators charged because they failed to delete 'harmful posts' quickly enough to suit the Thai authorities."

Massive EVE Online Alliance Disbanded 352

Posted by Soulskill on Friday February 06, 2009 @03:52AM from the create-your-own-drama dept.

tnt001 writes "In the world of EVE Online, the infamous Band of Brothers alliance has been disbanded. It seems that rival alliance Goonswarm had a spy in the holding corporation, and he stole money as well as capital ships and other assets. The spy then disbanded the alliance. 'One of GoonSwarm's stated motivations from their early days as an alliance was to punish what they viewed as the arrogance of Band of Brothers. If they've held true to that ideal, stealing the alliance out from under BoB effectively means GoonSwarm has accomplished what they set out to do years ago.' As of 11:00 GMT, BoB lost all its sovereignty (its outposts are conquerable now, cyno-jammers are offline, jump bridges are inoperable)."

Warhammer Team Hit By Layoffs 89

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday February 05, 2009 @03:46AM from the just-what-every-mmo-needs,-fewer-devs dept.

Zonk notes that Mythic Entertainment, developer of Warhammer Online, is being hit by another round of layoffs. The report estimates that between 60 and 130 staff were let go as part of Electronic Arts' reduction of its workforce. This comes alongside news that the number of Warhammer subscribers has settled to around 300,000. Mythic's Mark Jacobs was quick to affirm that while they were "resizing the team," their plans and schedule are unchanged, citing lower demands on QA now that the launch period has passed. Hopefully this means that their upcoming "live expansion," A Call to Arms, will not be affected by the layoffs.

China Launches First Willing Manned Mission Into Space 46

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 02, 2008 @02:18PM from the willing-participant dept.

Their program now includes helmets and food.

Comment Re:Does this guy know what he's talking about? (Score 1) 995

by marck on Tuesday July 24, 2007 @07:29PM (#19977209) Attached to: Why Linux Has Failed on the Desktop

Con had some great ideas, no doubt, but he has a huge lack of objectivity which probably biased him and led to his current discontent.

For one, he describes a horrible performing desktop environment. However, we have been avid Linux users since the late 1990s and one of our justifications was that Windows felt slower on the same hardware. It was originally due to that desktop experience that our offices have been primarily Linux based since around 1999. Most people in our office dual-booted to windows/2000 (staring with beta) or later windows/XP and we always found the windows environment to feel slower than Linux, especially when we were running lots of applications at the same time. Everyone was given the choice to use windows or Linux and by the end of 2000 everyone found they liked Linux better on regular machines for regular desktop use. Starting about 3 years ago only a few of our machines even dual boot anymore, we just wipe windows off completely so we don't waste the disk space.

In the article there was a description of music skipping, windows jumping, programs running slowly, etc. That may have been true 10 years ago, but nothing like that exists anymore. Even on my 500MHz Gateway Laptop back in 1998 this was not an issue. It ran fine, played music, ran word processing, was a pleasure to use. It did skip when playing movies, but the rest was an upgrade from windows.

As far as the reimplementation, I think we need to be objective. Con has had awesome ideas and great insights and could prototype well, but his coding skills were still a bit behind some of the other core developers. He pioneered a great scheduling idea, which is the hard part, having it re-implemented and cleaned up is a natural part of software progression and one of the benefits of how open source works. Unfortunately he let that get to him instead of being thankful for the adaptation of his ideas, which was his ultimate goal in the first place.

These days Linux is a dream to use. My Linux laptop (Dell Inspiron 9300) runs fantastic. Its fast, I can have compilers, www servers, databases, number crunching applications all running and still have a very snappy desktop. If I compare it to Vista then we are talking about Linux being by far the best performer. Even if I boot into XP I feel I'm tapping my fingers waiting all the time, which just doesn't happen in Linux. Anyone who dual-boots will see that Linux feels far more snappy than windows on the same hardware, and I don't even have the new scheduler yet.

Clearly the Linux desktop is doing very well. I think the entire context of the complaints was a way for Con to let of some steam. I wish him well in what ever he decides to do and I'm sorry to see his contributions lead to bitterness.

Slashdot Top Deals