Comment You know what's next (Score 1) 61
...evolve into an entirely different and new device, to reflect the changing needs of consumers.
Or any changing needs of its own.
Comment Hey, it's a good way to get rid of... (Score 5, Funny) 258
those pesky minarets! Yeppers!
Comment MediaWiki + job swapping (Score 2, Insightful) 401
Choose any goddamn thing to start documenting (I use MediaWiki, since everybody seems to have some experience with Wikipedia nowadays, so it's not so jarring).
Job swapping is essential, since you'll never know how good your doco is until you test it.
Choose the best communicator with skillset A, the best communicator with skillset B, and let A do B's job with B watching over, documenting all the way. Swap and repeat.
Do the same thing with all other combinations of skillsets you've got.
Then test again: when A takes a day off, find a B to replace him/her as a stand-in. See how well he does.
If it's not tested, it's useless.
Single Drive Wipe Protects Data 625
ALF-nl writes "A forensics expert claims that wiping your hard drives with just one pass already makes it next to impossible to recover the data with an electron microscope." But that's not accounting for the super secret machines that the government has, man.
RIAA Case May Be Televised On Internet 221
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Boston case in which the defendant is represented by Prof. Charles Nesson and his CyberLaw class at Harvard Law School, the defendant has requested that audio-visual coverage of the court proceedings be made available to the public via the internet. Taking the RIAA at its word — that the reason for its litigation program is to 'educate the public' — the defendant's motion (PDF) queries why the RIAA would oppose public access: 'Net access to this litigation will allow an interested and growingly sophisticated public to understand the RIAA's education campaign. Surely education is the purpose of the Digital Deterrence Act of 1999, the constitutionality of which we are challenging. How can RIAA object? Yet they do, fear of sunlight shone upon them.'"
Dark Matter Discovered Near Solar System? 179
gpronger writes "The ATIC (Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter) has potentially discovered the presence of dark matter close (only 3000 light-years) to our solar system. The system detected a large-amount of high energy cosmic rays which match the theoretical signature of dark matter annihilating itself. The universe is believed to be composed of about 25% dark matter, but there has been little evidence of it. This discovery, if correct, would be the first."
The paper was published in Nature , but it requires a subscription to see beyond the abstract.
Free Online Scientific Repository Hits Milestone 111
ocean_soul writes "Last week the free and open access repository for scientific (mainly physics but also math, computer sciences...) papers arXiv got past 500,000 different papers, not counting older versions of the same article. Especially for physicists, it is the number-one resource for the latest scientific results. Most researchers publish their papers on arXiv before they are published in a 'normal' journal. A famous example is Grisha Perelman, who published his award-winning paper exclusively on arXiv."
Comment The pictures are... (Score 1) 1007
I think they're pictures of the MCP from Tron.
Submission + - FCC Order scolds Comcast for changing story on P2P (arstechnica.com)
negRo_slim writes: "Comcast has 30 days to disclose the details of its "unreasonable network management practices" to the Federal Communications Commission, the agency warned Wednesday morning as it released its full, 67-page Order. As FCC Chair Kevin Martin said it would, the Commission's Order rejects the ISP giant's insistence that its handling of peer-to-peer applications was necessary. "We conclude that the company's discriminatory and arbitrary practice unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet," the agency declares."
Submission + - RIAA pays Tanya Andersen $107,951 (p2pnet.net)
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Well, Phase I of the RIAA's misguided pursuit of an innocent, disabled Oregon woman, Atlantic v. Andersen, has finally drawn to a close, as the RIAA was forced to pay Ms. Andersen $107,951, representing the amount of her attorneys fee judgment plus interest. But as some have pointed out, reimbursement for legal fees doesn't compensate Ms. Andersen for the other damages she's sustained. And that's where Phase II comes in, Andersen v. Atlantic. There the shoe is on the other foot, and Tanya is one doing the hunting, as she pursues the record companies and their running dogs for malicious prosecution. Should be interesting."
Submission + - Economic gridlock: the invisible cost of IP law
smellsofbikes writes: This week's New Yorker magazine has a financial article, "The Permission Problem", discussing the hidden cost of patent, trademark and copyright laws. It's a subject anyone here already knows well, but he brings up two interesting points.
1. He uses the term "tragedy of the anticommons". Instead of depletion of a shared resource, this describes under-use of hoarded resources: areas that can't be explored because they're encumbered by patent/copyright issues. As he points out, the result of this is an invisible loss: drugs not made, software not written. The loss is impossible to quantify and difficult to see. I like the term 'tragedy of the anticommons' because it encapsulates a long-winded explanation into a pithy, memorable phrase that will stick with people unfamiliar with the topic.
2. He also cites a study by Ben Depoorter and Sven Vanneste that discusses why anticommons effects are seen, beyond mere competition. Individual right holders value their contribution to the overall project as a significant fraction of the project value, so if there are more than three or four right holders, their perceived value can far exceed the total value of the project, making it uneconomical.
1. He uses the term "tragedy of the anticommons". Instead of depletion of a shared resource, this describes under-use of hoarded resources: areas that can't be explored because they're encumbered by patent/copyright issues. As he points out, the result of this is an invisible loss: drugs not made, software not written. The loss is impossible to quantify and difficult to see. I like the term 'tragedy of the anticommons' because it encapsulates a long-winded explanation into a pithy, memorable phrase that will stick with people unfamiliar with the topic.
2. He also cites a study by Ben Depoorter and Sven Vanneste that discusses why anticommons effects are seen, beyond mere competition. Individual right holders value their contribution to the overall project as a significant fraction of the project value, so if there are more than three or four right holders, their perceived value can far exceed the total value of the project, making it uneconomical.
Successful Cold Fusion Experiment? 387
An anonymous reader writes "The italian economic journal 'Il sole 24 ore' published an article about a successful cold fusion experiment performed by Yoshiaki Arata in Japan. They seems to have pumped high pressure deutherium gas in a nanometric matrix of palladium and zyrcon oxide. The experiments generates a considerable amount of energy and they found the presence of Helium-4 in the matrix (as sign of the fusion). I was not able to find other articles about this but the journal is very authoritative in Italy. Google translations are also available."
Bobby Fischer Is Dead At 64 377
A number of readers wrote in to make sure we know that former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has died in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he had lived since 2005. No cause of death was given.
Wolfram's 2,3 Turing Machine Not Universal 284
Fishbat writes "In a cutting message to the Foundations of Mathematics mailing list, Stanford's Vaughan Pratt has pointed out an elementary mistake in the recently announced proof that Wolfram's (2,3) machine is universal." Update: 10/30 04:18 GMT by KD : Ed Pegg Jr. from Wolfram Research points to this response to Dr. Pratt's note, which has been submitted to the FoM mailing list but has not yet appeared there due to moderation.
Feed Engadget: FCC approves rules for 2009 digital TV transition (engadget.com)
While we passed the T-minus two year mark earlier this year, the FCC has just now approved rules "that it says will ensure that millions of cable subscribers will still be able to watch broadcast programming after the digital television transition in 2009." Judging by reports, not a whole lot of new material was covered, but the new FCC rules reportedly mandate that cable operators "either convert the digital signal to analog at the point where the cable signal originates or supply customers with a down converter device that will change digital signals to analog at the TV set." Interestingly, the FCC "did not require operators to pass through every bit of information, as broadcasters had pushed for," and while smaller cable systems will be able to request a waiver, all providers will be required to "guarantee that analog cable customers will receive broadcast channels until February 2012."
[Via BroadcastingCable]
[Via BroadcastingCable]
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