Comment Re:still useless (Score 1) 99
You do realize you can read other people's tweets without posting your own, right?
Comment Re:still useless (Score 1) 99
you are assuming that by choosing his news sources, he is choosing to only read things that confirm what he already believes. you have no basis for that conclusion.
i frequently read news from sources like The People's Daily (beijing newspaper) or al jezeera. i think a lot of what is published in those sources is bullshit, and plenty more i just disagree with. I still find them more useful than Fox News. In this case getting news on "my terms" simply means I am not dependent upon the popular mass media of this country for my information.
Comment Re:still useless (Score 0) 99
Its revealing of how far slashdot has fallen that we're 4 years in and still trying to figure out whether or not twitter might be useful. If you don't like using twitter, don't. But here are some things I like about it.
* I frequently discover that a friend is doing something (e.g. getting a beer) nearby, and I join them, when otherwise I wouldn't have known.
* I get news much sooner that I would otherwise.
* I don't have to have a facebook account.
* I find other people with similar interests to mine because they follow me on twitter.
* Some of my friends are hilarious. I love hearing their running commentary on their experiences.
* If I'm in a part of town I'm not familiar with, or another city, and want food recommendations, i tweet and usually get a few good suggestions within minutes. There are probably other good opportunities for crowd-sourcing decisions I'm not thinking of.
* I can quickly plan events by suggesting a time and place on twitter, and dont have to send emails or make phone calls.
* When I am at conferences and events, it is invaluable for meeting up with people, or finding out last minute about something awesome I want to be part of.
I could probably go on.
Comment Re:Why a smartphone? Google voice + prepaid is bes (Score 1) 199
This sucks. Examples of why:
* GPS navigation only works if you have a gps enabled device and a constant data connection. Wi-Fi is useless for this.
* Netbooks suck. Period.
* Pulling out a laptop to check twitter to see where your friends are while walking down the street does not make sense.
* Prepaid SIM service sucks. Calls are deprioritized relative to other traffic and call quality is terrible.
Do I need to keep going? Start counting the apps in the iTunes store that *DONT* work on the iPod Touch and you should start to get the idea.
* GPS navigation only works if you have a gps enabled device and a constant data connection. Wi-Fi is useless for this.
* Netbooks suck. Period.
* Pulling out a laptop to check twitter to see where your friends are while walking down the street does not make sense.
* Prepaid SIM service sucks. Calls are deprioritized relative to other traffic and call quality is terrible.
Do I need to keep going? Start counting the apps in the iTunes store that *DONT* work on the iPod Touch and you should start to get the idea.
Comment Re:Don't bother (Score 1) 199
Get this. Up until 85-100 years ago (practically) no one had cars. They all managed to survive and get through life despite that handicap. You may have to endure being a social pariah for a few years but it isn't necessary to have a car.
I don't know if it's still available but you can use the horse-drawn buggy on a road without getting a car. Whether they'll let you ride it to the grocery store without upgrading to a car is another thing. They allowed this for the first time with the Model T.
Comment cynicism (Score 1) 321
The Supreme Court was thinking about overturning an important and just ruling but decided to just maintain the status quo. Oooooh, I suddenly feel so optimistic.
Comment Re:the oh-so-special adaptor is more than just USB (Score 1) 363
moreover, firewire iPods *can't* charge over USB. At least my 3rd gen can't.
Pisses me off. Firewire is much better tech than USB. Loading a 160 GB iPod over USB sucks.
How Quake Wars Met the Ray Tracer 158
An anonymous reader writes "Intel released the article 'Quake Wars Gets Ray Traced' (PDF) which details the development efforts of the research team that applied a real-time ray tracer to Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. It describes the benefits and challenges of transparency textures with this rendering technology. Further insight is given into what special effects
are most costly. Examples of glass and a 3D water implementation are shown. The outlook hints into the area of freely programmable many-core processors, like Intel's upcoming Larrabee, that might be able to handle such a workload." We mentioned the ray-traced Quake Wars last in June; the PDF here delves into the implementation details, rather than just showing a demo, and explains what parts of the game give the most difficulty in going from rasterization to ray-tracing.
"Nuclear Archaeology" Inspires Replica of Hiroshima's Little Boy 298
James Cho writes "Through a decade of painstaking reverse engineering, trucker John Coster-Mullen built the first accurate replica of the Hiroshima bomb. His work yielded a new history of the first nukes, 'Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man,' with historian Robert Norris saying, 'Nothing else in the Manhattan Project literature comes close.' Philip Morrison, one of the physicists who helped invent the bomb, deemed it 'a remarkable job.'"
Trojan Hides In Pirated Copies of Apple iWork '09 431
CWmike writes "Pirated copies of Apple's new iWork '09 suite that are now available on file-sharing sites contain a Trojan horse that hijacks Macs and leaves them open to further attack, a security company said yesterday. The 'iServices.a' Trojan hitchhikes on iWork '09's installer, said Intego, which makes Mac security software. 'The installer for the Trojan horse is launched as soon as a user begins the installation of iWork, following the installer's request of an administrator password,' Intego said in a warning. Once installed, the Trojan "phones home" to a malicious server to notify the hacker that the Mac has been compromised, and to await instructions."
The In-Progress Plot To Kill Google 234
twitter writes "Four years after Steve Ballmer vowed to kill Google, Wired details Microsoft's, AT&T's, and big publishers' ongoing slog. The story is filled with astroturfers, lobbyists and others spending millions to manufacture FUD about privacy and monopoly in order to protect the obsolete business models of their patrons, who are mostly known for progress-halting monopoly and invasion of privacy. Their greatest coup to date was preventing Google from rescuing Yahoo."
How Best To Deal With WiFi Interference? 451
marciot writes "I live in a condominium where I get interference from my neighbors' WiFi. I understand that 1, 6 and 11 are the only non-overlapping WiFi channels, but how does this translate into real-life best practices? When you must overlap, is there a 'good' way to do it? With nine access points, for example, is it better to have three APs each on 1, 6 and 11, so that each completely overlaps with only two others? Or is it best to distribute those APs across nine channels such that they only partially overlap others (but potentially overlap more APs in total)? Do use patterns affect interference? For example, is it best to overlap a channel with multiple APs that rarely transfers data, or to share a channel with one person who downloads torrents 24/7? Does maximum data rate affect interference or robustness to interference? I found out by accident that setting my access point to '802.11b only' mode appeared to give me a vastly more reliable connection that leaving it in 'mixed 802.11b/g.' Is this a fluke? Or does transmitting at 10 Mbps when everyone else is using 54 Mbps (for their 3 Mbps DSL pipes!) give you a true advantage?"
Wiretapping Program Ruled Legal 575
BuhDuh writes "The New York Times is carrying a story concerning that well known bastion of legal authority, the 'Foreign Intelligence Surveillance' court, which has ruled that the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program was perfectly legal. It says, 'A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, is expected to issue a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order, even when Americans' private communications may be involved, according to a person with knowledge of the opinion.'"
Stand-Up Comic Makes Science Funny 126
Hugh Pickens writes "The San Fransisco Chronicle is running a story about Brian Malow, a stand-up comedian who has showcased his science-centric stand-up humor for more than a decade in comedy clubs, at conventions and for corporate clients across the country. Fortunately, club patrons don't need a degree in quantum mechanics to appreciate one-liners like 'I used to be an astronomer, but I got stuck on the day shift,' 'I just started reading, "The Origin of Species." Don't tell me how it ends!' or that he 'attended a magnet school for bipolar students.' While his show is very rational and based on hard science, Malow cleverly infuses it with an abstract or surreal comic twist."
Palm Announces Killer New Phone 617
Barence writes "At CES, Palm announced what promises to be the product that finally matches and even betters the Apple iPhone, and certainly looks to be the most important product announced at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. It's called the Palm Pre and it's based on a completely new operating system, called Palm webOS. Its key specs include a 3.1in 320x 480 touchscreen, 8GB of storage, UMTS HDSPA support (in the UK version of the phone), 802.11b/g WLAN, Bluetooth, and GPS. It also includes a slide-out Qwerty keyboard, 3.5mm headphone jack, and what Palm described as the 'fastest ever' Texas Instruments OMAP processor."
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