Comment Been there done that * 5.95. (Score 1) 211
5 total and one anular. My wife has seen 16. Got pics.
BASF Moves GM Plant Research From Europe To US 288
ananyo writes "The German chemical giant BASF is moving its transgenic plant operations from Europe to the U.S., it says, because of widespread opposition to the technology. The company on 16 January announced that it would move its plant science headquarters from Limburgerhof, Germany to Raleigh, North Carolina and no longer develop plants solely for cultivation in Europe. The division employs 157 people in Limburgerhof, plus another 63 at facilities elsewhere in Europe. BASF said it would relocate 123 of those jobs to the North Carolina facility. In statement, Stefan Marcinowski, a member of BASF's Board of Executive Directors, cited 'a lack of acceptance for this technology in many parts of Europe – from the majority of consumers, farmers and politicians.' The company instead plans to focus on plant biotechnology markets in the Americas and Asia."
61.9% of Undergraduates Cybercheat 484
RichDiesal writes "A recent study of 1222 undergraduates found that 61.9% of them 'cybercheat,' which involves using the Internet illicitly to get higher grades. Some of the quotes from students are a bit troubling. As one 19-year-old engineering student put it, 'As more and more people are using the Internet illegally (i.e. limewire etc.), I feel that the chances of being caught or the consequences of my actions are almost insignificant. So I feel no pressure in doing what ever everybody else is doing/using the Internet for.'"
Alcatel-Lucent Shrinks Mobile Cell Tower To Small Cube 113
pbahra writes "French mobile telephone infrastructure manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent today unveiled technology that shrinks a mobile cell tower to a box the size of a Rubik's cube, potentially changing the structure of the cellular network, reducing greenhouse emissions and bringing mobile broadband into new areas. According to Wim Sweldens, president of wireless activities for Alcatel-Lucent, by reducing the technology from something the size of a filing cabinet, networks would reduce the total cost of ownership by half, as well as halving the global CO2 emissions from the mobile industry — currently equivalent of 15 million cars a year."
Submission + - SCO Puts Unix Assets On the Block (itworld.com)
itwbennett writes: SCO Group announced Thursday that it plans to auction off most of its Unix assets, including 'certain UNIX system V software products and related services,' ITworld reports. 'This asset sale is an important step forward in ensuring business continuity for our customers around the world,' said Ken Nielsen, SCO chief financial officer, in a statement. 'Our goal is to ensure continued viability for SCO, its customers, employees and the Unix technology.' Interested parties must submit a bid for the assets by Oct. 5.
Submission + - Public Clearinghouse Proposed for Evoting Failures (fcw.com)
Hugh Pickens writes: "Alice Lipowicz writes in Federal Computer Week that Lawrence Norden, senior counsel to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, has reviewed hundreds of reports of problems with electronic voting systems during the last eight years and is recommending a new regulatory system with a national database, accessible by election officials and others, that identifies voting system malfunctions reported by vendors or election officials and that new legislation require vendors report evoting failures to the clearinghouse. "We need a new and better regulatory structure to ensure that voting system defects are caught early, officials in affected jurisdictions are notified immediately, and action is taken to make certain that they will be corrected for all such systems, wherever they are used in the United States," writes Norden adding that election officials rely on vendors to keep them aware of potential problems with voting machines, which is often done voluntarily and that voting system failures in one jurisdiction tend to be repeated in other areas, resulting in reduced public confidence and lost votes."
Submission + - Adobe releases new 64-bit Flash plugin for Linux (adobe.com) 1
TheDarkener writes: Adobe seems to have made an about face regarding their support for native 64-bit Linux support for Flash today, and released a new preview Flash plugin named "Square". This includes a native 64-bit version for Linux, which I have verified works on my Debian Lenny LTSP server by simply copying libflashplayer.so to /usr/lib/iceweasel/plugins — with sound (which I was never able to figure out with running the 32-bit version with nspluginwrapper and pulseaudio).
Comment What a waste... (Score 3, Funny) 107
Just imagine the fun they could all be having with Pac-Man instead...
Comment Re:But will it work after the virus evolves? (Score 1, Offtopic) 71
Maybe this was a troll, but I'll respond anyway.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka Mormons) do believe that God created the Earth. Which is "creationism".
However most LDS folks also believe in evolution (e.g. as part of God's creation) and BYU was one of the very first schools to teach evolution. Last year BYU had a big, well-publicized week-long celebration of Darwin's birthday that included many lectures on the importance of the discovery of evolution.
Comment Re:I do it (Score 2, Insightful) 1324
what do you do for your children's social development?
All sorts of things.
Weekly co-operative learning with groups of other homeschooling families. Sports teams. Singing groups. Piano lessons and recitals. Scouting. Church meetings and activities. Playing with friends.
Comment Re:Good (Score 2, Insightful) 1324
Maybe there are a lot of "ultra fanatic religious" nuts who homeschool their children.
But there are also a LOT of homeschoolers that are doing it simply to help their children get real educations.
We associate with many other homeshooling families in our area and they range across a good spectrum of religious beliefs: protestant, catholic, mormon, buddhist, agnostic and atheist. Once a week the families get together for some social time and larger group learning. The adults and kids get along great, and have a great time doing fun, active learning. If anything it is the atheists that are the most fervent in bringing up religion during the co-op learning activities.
Comment Re:Home schooling vs. school duty (Score 4, Insightful) 1324
There are a lot of us who home-school for non-religious reasons... Please quit perpetuating a bad stereotype.
Some of us simply care about the the pace our children are learning things, and about the quality and content of the education.
We (my wife and I) are not doing anything "special" or worthy of bragging about in terms of spectacular teaching - yet our kids test well beyond other kids their age in math and reading, and they can tell you all sorts of things about classic literature, history, logic/reasoning, and geography, that very few other kids under 10 years old have even heard of.
Reducing the student/teacher ratio, and cutting out the crap makes a big, big difference.
Comment Jumping the Shark (Score 2, Interesting) 100
I've loved Amazon in most ways (excepting mainly their patents) for many years now.
However since their introduction of the Kindle, my opinion of them has steadily declined.
I think the Kindle was perhaps Amazon's shark-jumping.
KDE 4.3 Released 432
Jos Poortvliet writes "After another 6 months of hard work by over 700 people, after fixing over 10,000 bugs and granting 2,000 wishes, KDE 4.3, or 'Caizen,' is here (the release takes its nickname from the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement). The KDE Desktop Workspace introduces, besides the usual stability and speed improvements, new widgets, the ability to 'peek' in a folder with folderview, and activities tied to virtual desktops. The KDE Application Suites feature improvements in the utilities like a more formats supported in Ark and the return of the Linux Infrared Remote Control system. Instant messenger Kopete introduces an improved contact list and KOrganizer can sync with Google Calendar. Kmail supports inserting inline images into email and the Alarm notifier has gained export functionality, drag and drop, and has an improved configuration. The KDE Application Development platform has seen work on integrating the Social Desktop and the new system tray protocol from Freedesktop.org. You can watch a screencast of the Desktop Workspace here."
'Vanish' Makes Sensitive Data Self-Destruct 171
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports on new software called 'Vanish,' developed by computer scientists at the University of Washington, which makes sensitive electronic messages 'self destruct' after a certain period of time. The researchers say they have struck upon a unique approach that relies on 'shattering' an encryption key that is held by neither party in an e-mail exchange, but is widely scattered across a peer-to-peer file sharing system. 'Our goal was really to come up with a system where, through a property of nature, the message, or the data, disappears,' says Amit Levy, who helped create Vanish. It has been released as a free, open-source tool that works with Firefox. To use Vanish, both the sender and the recipient must have installed the tool. The sender then highlights any sensitive text entered into the browser and presses the 'Vanish' button. The tool encrypts the information with a key unknown even to the sender. That text can be read, for a limited time only, when the recipient highlights the text and presses the 'Vanish' button to unscramble it. After eight hours, the message will be impossible to unscramble and will remain gibberish forever. Tadayoshi Kohno says Vanish makes it possible to control the 'lifetime' of any type of data stored in the cloud, including information on Facebook, Google documents or blogs."
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