stumbler - Slashdot User

Journal Journal: Blood stem cells fight invaders, study finds

Journal by stemceller on Thursday November 29, 2007 @06:43PM

New research from Harvard Medical School, published in the November 30 edition of Cell, suggests that the biological role of blood, or hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is far more versatile and dynamic. Researchers have found that HSCs can travel from the bone marrow, through the blood system, and enter visceral organs in search of disease-causing invaders, such as bacteria and viruses. Upon encountering an invader

Submission + - Egyptian Blogger Silenced by YouTube

Submitted by

Frosty Piss

on Thursday November 29, 2007 @05:03PM

Frosty Piss writes: "A Egyptian human rights activist has been muzzled after YouTube and Yahoo! shut down accounts belonging to the award-winning blogger. Cairo-based Wael Abbas regularly writes and posts video about police brutality, torture and sexual harassment in Egypt. One of the videos — of an Egyptian bus driver being sodomized with a stick by a police officer — was used as evidence to convict two officers of brutality, a rare occurrence in a country where human-rights groups say torture is rampant. YouTube said the decision to remove Abbas' videos had nothing to do with the Egyptian government, but was rather an internal decision."

Google Set to Bid $4.6 Billion for Airwaves 156

Posted by Zonk on Friday July 20, 2007 @07:12PM from the power-play dept.

Nrbelex writes "The Associated Press is reporting that Google has offered to bid at least $4.6 billion on wireless airwaves being auctioned off by the federal government, as long as certain conditions are met. 'The Internet search company wants the Federal Communications Commission to mandate that any winners lease a certain portion of the airwaves to other companies seeking to offer high-speed Internet and other services. Such a provision, Google argues, will give consumers — who traditionally get high-speed Internet access via cable or telephone lines — a third option for service.'" We discussed AT&T's objection to Google's acquisition of these airwaves last week; this article would seem to confirm Ma Bell's worst fears.

Submission + - Facebook acquires Parakey's "web OS" platf

Submitted by NaijaGuy on Friday July 20, 2007 @06:18PM

NaijaGuy writes: As many news sites have reported, Facebook just bought Parakey for an undisclosed sum. Slashdot has previously discussed how Facebook recently opened up development opportunities for third-party developers, and with this acquisition, some observers have pointed out how it appears that Facebook might be trying to become a Microsoft or Google by providing an application development platform based on Parakey's technology. Its "web OS" has also been discussed on Slashdot, and the company has made headlines partly because of the fame of one of its founders. Blake Ross helped launch Firefox, and it was enthusiasm for helping less geeky users like his mom to thrive on the web that got him through the doors of Netscape at the age of 15. A recent interview charts how that same enthusiasm led him to start Parakey, "a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do." I write Java code for my day job, and I'm eager to see how significant this new platform could be. Also, I still haven't explored many apps on Facebook since few appear to be very amusing or helpful, and I'm curious as to whether any of you have noticed interesting possibilities for development on their existing platform.

Feed Science Daily: Melting Glaciers On The Tibetan Plateau (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed on Friday July 20, 2007 @05:12PM

"If I compare this land to what it used to be in the 1960s, it is difficult for me to recognize it," recalls Qi Mei Duo Jie, a 71-year-old nomadic herder from Yanshiping in China's central-western Qinghai Province. "Glaciers are melting, temperatures are rising and rainy seasons have become unpredictable."

Feed Science Daily: How Do Newcomers Make Changes In Long-standing Groups? (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed on Friday July 20, 2007 @04:12PM

Virtually everyone who joins a new group is sensitive to the fact that, as a newcomer, he or she must tread carefully for a while, keeping a low profile until becoming sufficiently integrated into the group. When they do offer their ideas, criticisms, and suggestions, existing group members typically resist their contributions. "Why does that happen and what can be done to overcome that resistance?"

Open Library Goes Online With Public Domain Books 103

Posted by Zonk on Friday July 20, 2007 @03:34PM from the shakespeare-and-company dept.

mrcgran writes "A competitor to Google Book Search emerges as the Yahoo-backed Open Content Alliance launches an 'open library' of its own. After several years of scanning and archiving, the Internet Archive and the Open Content Alliance this week unveiled the Open Library, their attempt at bringing public domain books to the masses. The Internet Archive has hosted texts for quite some time, but the Open Library makes fully-searchable, high-quality scans of books available, along with downloadable PDFs. It offers an experience designed to match paper: there's even a page-flipping animation as readers move forward and backward through the book. Ben Vershbow of the Institute for the Future of the Book says that when it comes to presentation, 'they already have Google beat, even with recent upgrades to the [Google Book Search] system including a plain text viewing option.'" We have previously discussed this project, though this is a bit more complete rundown on the initiative.

Comment Charcters w/ Good AI Act Like I ThinkThey Should.. (Score 1) 398

by stumbler on Saturday March 31, 2007 @03:17PM (#18557725) Attached to: Most Impressive Game AI?

... only better.

Observable results based on a stimulus understood by the player ... that is the key to good AI.

1) Make sure the player can understand (or correctly infer) the stimulus
2) Make sure the actor responds in to the stimulus in a way that makes sense to the player
= WOW GREAT AI ... even if it's a bunch of "if then" statements.

While the goal is easy to describe I can't imagine this is easy to do . . .

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