Comment Re: Impossible geometries? (Score 1) 157
If the mallet is inside a vacuum inside the sphere, its dimensions are irrelevant because it won't be producing any sound waves.
It will create vibrations that will travel and make sounds on the outside
And you can suspend a sphere with a electromagnetic field.
which would act forces upon the sphere, possibly constricting/altering its resonance
Heck, it wouldn't be that different from a brass ball hanging on a string getting hit with a heavy stick.
More physical dimensions might be interesting though.
solid vs. hollow. less/more mass on the object
Survey Finds Cheating Among Students At All GPA Levels 333
An anonymous reader writes "Over a third of undergraduate students admitted to some form of cheating at one of America's top research universities, according to a survey published November in the journal Science and Engineering Ethics (abstract). The researchers expected to find more cheating among the top-performing group — and at the minimum at least some students with excellent grades cheated. Not so. As it turned out, the overall cheating rate was similar to that found in other studies, but the types of cheating and stated reasons for cheating were all over the map. Researchers uncovered one trend among the cheaters: the perception that teaching assistants either ignored or didn't care about cheating."
Comment Re:Stupid! (Score 1) 577
this was the main catalyst for me to dive into mac: a unix terminal. that and the instant wake from sleep.
now that i have some games on the mac, it adds value to it as an os. if wine didn't break so easily or companies developed for linux, i wouldn't need mac at all
How Apple's iOS Went From Insecure To Most Secure 312
GMGruman writes "There's no such thing as a perfectly secure operating system, but security experts agree — somewhat grudgingly in some cases — that iOS, Apple's mobile operating system, is the most secure commercial OS today, mobile or desktop. It didn't start that way of course, and Robert Lemos explains what Apple did to go from insecure to most secure."
Comment tin-foil-hat crowd anyone? (Score 1) 1306
I'm surprised this hasn't been addressed, the tin-foil hatters will be up in arms with the government thinking of putting electronic metering (tracking) devices in everyone's car.
Duke Nukem Forever Release Date Revealed 288
stupid_is writes with news that Duke Nukem Forever has now gotten a firm US release date: May 3rd. It will release worldwide three days later. The game was resurrected last fall by Gearbox Software and 2K Games after 3D Realms' 12-year attempt at development came to an end in 2009 when the company closed its doors.
Wikipedia and the History of Gaming 240
Wired is running a story about Wikipedia's tremendous contribution to documenting the history of video games, and why it shouldn't necessarily be relied upon. Quoting:
"Wikipedia requires reliable, third-party sources for content to stick, and most of the sites that covered MUDs throughout the ’80s were user-generated, heavily specialized or buried deep within forums, user groups and newsletters. Despite their mammoth influence on the current gaming landscape, their insular communities were rarely explored by a nascent games journalist crowd. ... while cataloging gaming history is a vitally important move for this culture or art form, and Wikipedia makes a very valiant contribution, the site can’t be held accountable as the singular destination for gaming archeology. But as it’s often treated as one, due care must be paid to the site to ensure that its recollection doesn’t become clouded or irresponsible, and to ensure its coalition of editors and administrators are not using its stringent rule set to sweep anything as vitally relevant as MUDS under the rug of history."
Man Tunnels Into GameStop, Steals Games 210
An anonymous reader writes "Life imitates Minecraft: Computer game piracy is big business, but there are still those who prefer to get their games the old-fashioned way: by digging a tunnel into their local games shop and making off with as much stock as they can carry. At least, that's the slightly bizarre approach taken by a man from Greeneville, Tennessee, who was arrested late last week after being caught tunneling into his local GameStop store from an empty adjoining building."
Note that the link is thin, and the sources are behind logins and subscription links, so please post better URLs if you can find them.
Crowdfund a Moon Monolith Mission? 199
Jamie found a somewhat amusing little essay on putting together a crowd-sourced mission to
put a monolith on the moon. The author estimates it would cost half a billion dollars, which is a sum he thinks could be raised. Although personally, I think a half a billion dollars could be put to better use, it's a fun thought exercise.
Comment Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs (Score 1) 446
what if you're a birdwatcher/scientist snapping pics of urban birds?
Ozzy Osbourne's Genome Reveals Some Neanderthal Lineage 151
ByOhTek writes "CNN reports that in July, rocker Ozzy Osbourne became one of few to submit his blood to have his full genome sequenced and analyzed. The results are in, and it turns out his genome reveals some Neanderthal lineage. What does Ozzie have to say about it? 'I was curious, given the swimming pools of booze I've guzzled over the years - not to mention all of the cocaine, morphine, sleeping pills, cough syrup, LSD, Rohypnol... there's really no plausible medical reason why I should still be alive. Maybe my DNA could say why,' he wrote."
Why You See 'Free Public WiFi' In So Many Places 260
An anonymous reader writes "Almost anywhere you go these days (particularly at airports), if you check for available WiFi settings, you have a pretty good chance of seeing an ad hoc network for 'Free Public WiFi.' Of course, since it's ad hoc (computer to computer) it's not actually access to the internet. So why is this in so many places? Turns out it's due to a bug in Windows XP. Apparently, the way XP works is that if it can't find a 'favorite' WiFi hotspot, it automatically sets up the computer to broadcast itself as an ad hoc network point, using the name of the last connection the computer attempted. So... people see 'Free Public WiFi' and they try to log on. Then their own computer starts broadcasting the same thing, because it can't find a network it knows. And, like a virus, the 'Free Public WiFi' that doesn't work lives on and on and on."
Comment Re:E-Series Nokia or other WiFi-capable Symbian ph (Score 1) 289
I have an E71 with S60 and Skype on it works great. Before skype was supported on it I tried fring, the chat was good but the VOIP was laggy, as if the phone couldn't handle it.
+1 for E-Series
Univ. of California Faculty May Boycott Nature Publisher 277
Marian the Librarian writes "Nature Publishing Group (NPG), which publishes the prestigious journal Nature along with 67 affiliated journals, has proposed a 400% increase in the price of its license to the University of California. UC is poised to just say no to exorbitant price gouging. If UC walks, the faculty are willing to stage a boycott; they could, potentially, decline to submit papers to NPG journals, decline to review for them and resign from their editorial boards."
