Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
Transportation

Rude Drivers Reduce Traffic Jams 882

BuzzSkyline writes "Traffic jams are minimized if a significant fraction of drivers break the rules by doing things like passing on the wrong side or changing lanes too close to an intersection. The insight comes from a cellular automata study published this month in the journal Physical Review E. In effect, people who disregard the rules help to break up the groups that form as rule-followers clump together. The risk of jamming is lower if all people obey the rules than if they all disobey them, according to the analysis, but jamming risk is lowest when about 40 percent of people drive like jerks."

Comment Re:DCT (Score 3, Insightful) 291

This seems to me the best suggestion, and there's a simple visual way to accomplish it! The hardest hit part of the image is going to be the chroma information, which your eye normally has reduced resolution sensitivity for in a normal scene. To overcome this, load your JPEGs into your favorite image editor and crank the saturation to the max(this throws away the luminance data). Now the JPEG artifacts in the chroma information will HIT YOU IN THE FACE, even in images that seemed rather clean before. Pick the least blocky of the two, and there you go!
Businesses

Drug Company Merck Drew Up Doctor "Hit List" 281

Philip K Dickhead sends in a piece from the Australian media, a couple of weeks old, that hasn't seen much discussion here. In a class-action lawsuit in Australia against Merck for its Vioxx anti-arthritis drug, information has come out that the company developed a "hit list" of doctors who had expressed anything but enthusiasm for the drug. Vioxx was withdrawn from the market in 2004 because it causes heart attacks and strokes. Merck settled a class action in the US for $4.85 billion but did not admit guilt. "An international drug company made a hit list of doctors who had to be 'neutralized' or discredited because they criticized the anti-arthritis drug the pharmaceutical giant produced. Staff at US company Merck & Co. emailed each other about the list of doctors — mainly researchers and academics — who had been negative about the drug Vioxx or Merck and a recommended course of action. The email, which came out in the Federal Court in Melbourne yesterday as part of a class action against the drug company, included the words 'neutralize,' 'neutralized,' or 'discredit' against some of the doctors' names. It is also alleged the company used intimidation tactics against critical researchers, including dropping hints it would stop funding to institutions and claims it interfered with academic appointments. 'We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live,' a Merck employee wrote, according to an email excerpt read to the court by Julian Burnside QC, acting for the plaintiff."
Space

Telepresence — Our Best Bet For Exploring Space 309

Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute recently wrote an opinion piece for the NY Times discussing the limitations of our space technology. He makes the harsh point that transporting human beings to other star systems isn't a reasonable goal even on a multi-generational time frame. However, advances in robotics and data gathering could instead bring the planets and stars to us, and do it far sooner. Quoting: "Sending humans to the stars is simply not in the offing. But this is how we could survey other worlds, around other suns. We fling data-collecting, robotic craft to the stars. These proxy explorers can be very small, and consequently can be shot spaceward at tremendous speed even with the types of rockets now available. Robot probes don't require life support systems, don't get sick or claustrophobic and don't insist on round-trip tickets. ... These microbots would supply the information that, fed to computers, would allow us to explore alien planets in the same way that we navigate the virtual spaces of video games or wander through online environments like Second Life. High-tech masks and data gloves, sartorial accessories considerably more comfortable than a spacesuit, would permit you to see the landscape, touch objects and even smell the air."
Government

Robo-Arm Signatures Are Legal, Gov't Buys One 154

AndreV writes "It's endlessly comforting to know a recently designed and implemented long-distance robotic signing arm can produce signatures legal in both the US and Canada. The aptly named LongPen replicates the handwriting from a person writing in a remote location — with the unique speed, cadence and pressure of a human pen-stroke. It started as an idea from author Margaret Atwood to help free her from grueling, multi-city, multi-country book tours, but the hard stuff was done by a bunch of Canadian haptic gurus, whose design took into consideration many factors of the human arm and how we write. How it works: from the author-end, data protocols are set up, and the pen pressure is measured on a special tablet. The data streams to the robot, while algorithms smooth out all the missed points. Complex math operations were used to help the mechatronic limb repeat the hand's motions without unnecessary jerking, and programmers had to 'scale time' or 'stretch time' by breaking down the movements, essentially tricking the eyes into thinking the robot is writing fast. It was recently adopted by the Ontario Government to sign official documents. It helps criminals sign books, too."
Intel

Intel Responds To X25-M Fragmentation Issue 111

Vigile writes "In mid-February, news broke about a potential issue with Intel's X25-M mainstream solid state drives involving fragmentation and performance slow-downs. At that time, after having the news picked up by everyone from CNet to the Wall Street Journal, Intel stated that it had not seen any of these issues but was working with the source to replicate the problem and find a fix if at all possible. Today Intel has essentially admitted to the problem by releasing a new firmware for the X25-M line that not only fixes the flaws found in the drive initially, but also increases write performance across the board."
Biotech

Acquired Characteristics May Be Inheritable 242

A story from a week or so back in Technology Review describes research coming to the surprising conclusion that Jean-Baptiste Lamarck may have been right — that acquired characteristics can be passed on to offspring, at least in rodents. Lamarck's ideas have been controversial for 200 years, and dismissed in mainstream scientific thinking for nearly that long. "In Feig's study, mice genetically engineered to have memory problems were raised in an enriched environment — given toys, exercise, and social interaction — for two weeks during adolescence. The animals' memory improved... The mice were then returned to normal conditions, where they grew up and had offspring. This next generation of mice also had better memory, despite having the genetic defect and never having been exposed to the enriched environment."
Media

The Technology Behind the Magic Yellow Line 261

CurtMonash writes "Fandome offers a fascinating video explaining how the first-down line on football broadcasts actually works. Evidently, theres a lot of processing both to calculate the exact location being photographed on the field — including optical sensors and two steps of encoding — and to draw a line in exactly the right place onscreen. For those who don't want to watch the whole video, highlights are here."
Data Storage

Why Not To Shout At Your Disk Array 125

Brendan Gregg of Sun's Fishworks lab has an interesting video demo up at YouTube demonstrating just how bad vibes, if expressed with sufficient volume in front of a rack full of disks, can cause a spike in disk latency. White noise, evidently, doesn't do them much harm. (Maybe they just feel awkward to get yelled at on camera.)
Programming

Evolution of Mona Lisa Via Genetic Programming 326

mhelander writes "In his weblog Roger Alsing describes how he used genetic programming to arrive at a remarkably good approximation of Mona Lisa using only 50 semi-transparent polygons. His blog entry includes a set of pictures that let you see how 'Poly Lisa' evolved over roughly a million generations. Both beautiful to look at and a striking way to get a feel for the power of evolutionary algorithms."

Comment Re:Not really news per se... (Score 1) 773

X0563511, you're beating yourself up over something that ISN'T YOUR FAULT.

The diet and MODERATE exercise(extreme exercise will make it worse...just talk to some older bodybuiders) will probably help some, but we're talking changes of a few percent here and there. If your testosterone and estrogen levels are "quite low" and "high" as you say, you're really not going to fix all of it with diet and exercise. Its not worth beating yourself up because you're sick and can't achieve a fairy tale fix.

If you are very overweight, I do admit that much of the aromatase enzyme that converts testosterone to estradiol(the strongest estrogen made by the body) is present in adipose tissue, and losing some weight might be beneficial. But I don't really hear too many stories of people with true endocrine problems turning things around JUST by losing weight. Heck, in your state, your body probably doesn't want to burn fat anyway.

So what can you do?

Unless you're luck and find some root underlying illness, you're going to need to treat your hormone levels directly. That means going on HRT(hormone replacement therapy), or as it is sometimes referred to, TRT(testosterone replacement therapy). The problem is that while HRT for women is well-accepted, HRT for men isn't understood by many well-meaning doctors. Some refuse to give it as a treatment, while others don't understand how to properly dose and manage it. Which means you're going to have to educate yourself.

Read the following things:

TRT: A Recipe for Success
This is almost like a bible to many. Since its publication, a few things have changed though. Transdermal testosterone is largely preferred over IM, if your body is capable of absorbing it. And HCG has become almost mandatory.

HCG Update
Talks about the benefits of HCG while on TRT

All Things Male Forum
Read the stickies and some posts to get a feel for what's going on.

Bodybuilding.com TRT Forum
Same thing here, read a bit. Maybe not as technical as the previous forum, but a strong community.


The problems you're having are shared by a LARGE, and GROWING(as this article indicates) number of men. You aren't alone. But many doctors are just starting to wake up to the treatment, and you will have to educate yourself. Rest assured though, there is a solution out there.
Google

Android Also Comes With a Kill-Switch 300

Aviran writes "The search giant is retaining the right to delete applications from Android handsets on a whim. Unlike Apple, the company has made no attempt to hide its intentions, and includes the details in the Android Market terms and conditions, as spotted by Computer World: 'Google may discover a product that violates the developer distribution agreement... in such an instance, Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your device at its sole discretion.'"
Transportation

Qantas Blames Wireless For Aircraft Incidents 773

musther writes "An Australian airline Qantas Airbus A330-300, suffered 'a sudden change of altitude' on Tuesday. "The mid-air incident resulted in injuries to 74 people, with 51 of them treated by three hospitals in Perth for fractures, lacerations and suspected spinal injuries when the flight bound from Singapore to Perth had a dramatic drop in altitude that hurled passengers around the cabin." Now it seems Qantas is seeking to blame interference from passenger electronics, and it's not the first time; 'In July, a passenger clicking on a wireless mouse mid-flight was blamed for causing a Qantas jet to be thrown off course.' Is there any precedent for wireless electronics interfering with aircraft systems? Interfering with navigation instruments is one thing, but causing changes in the 'elevator control system' — I would be quite worried if I thought the aircraft could be flown with a bluetooth mouse."
The Almighty Buck

Landing IT Work Overseas 194

snydeq writes "US IT workers could find considerable payoff and invaluable experience by taking their IT skills overseas, InfoWorld reports, as foreign, US, and global firms have increased the demand for a wide range of tech talent across the globe, offering positions that clearly move beyond the scut work of heads-down programming. Business fluency, industry-specific skills, and knowledge of American markets is fast becoming an invaluable asset foreign firms will pay a premium for, according to the report, which offers insights into finding IT work in a range of cities and regions abroad."

Slashdot Top Deals

The amount of beauty required launch 1 ship = 1 Millihelen

Working...