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Facebook Boosts Your Self-Esteem 139

Posted by samzenpus from the friend-request-yourself dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Using Facebook can increase your self-esteem, according to a new study from Cornell University researchers, published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Researchers Amy Gonzales and Jeffrey Hancock conducted the experiment with three groups of 21 students each in the university's Social Media Lab. The first one was the control group, which sat in front of blank computer screens for three minutes. The second group of individuals had mirrors propped up against their computer monitors and spent their three minutes looking at their own reflections. The third group was allowed to surf their own Facebook profiles and its associated tabs for the allotted time. At the end, all three groups were given a self-esteem questionnaire."

Comment Re:You have nothing to fear. (Score 1) 263

by yupie (#34573258) Attached to: Oracle Releases MySQL 5.5
Very true, so familiar.
And the steps that follow:

7. There is a growing major problem with the application (data inconsistency, request to integrate with other IT-established applications, performance,...)
8. IT is told "this is an IT problem which you have to solve since you are the IT department."
9. IT now has to solve this. But there are no specs, no documentation, no budget. And yes, in a hurry please.
Earth

Breaking the Squid Barrier 126

Posted by timothy from the calimari-for-the-5000 dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Steve O'Shea of Auckland, New Zealand is attempting to break the record for keeping deep sea squid alive in captivity, with the goal of being able to raise a giant squid one day. Right now, he's raising the broad squid, sepioteuthis australis, from egg masses found in seaweed. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because the squid he's studying grow rapidly and eat only live prey, making it hard for them to keep the squid from becoming prey themselves. If his research works out, you might one day be able to visit an aquarium and see giant squid."
Software

The Final Release of Apache HTTP Server 1.3 104

Posted by timothy from the people-of-earth-you're-on-your-own dept.
Kyle Hamilton writes "The Apache Software Foundation and the Apache HTTP Server Project are pleased to announce the release of version 1.3.42 of the Apache HTTP Server ('Apache'). This release is intended as the final release of version 1.3 of the Apache HTTP Server, which has reached end of life status There will be no more full releases of Apache HTTP Server 1.3. However, critical security updates may be made available."
Math

Man Uses Drake Equation To Explain Girlfriend Woes 538

Posted by samzenpus from the less-math-more-social-science dept.
artemis67 writes "A man studying in London has taken a mathematical equation that predicts the possibility of alien life in the universe to explain why he can't find a girlfriend. Peter Backus, a native of Seattle and PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, near London, in his paper, 'Why I don't have a girlfriend: An application of the Drake Equation to love in the UK,' used math to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. In describing the paper on the university Web site he wrote 'the results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.'"
Games

Whatever Happened To Second Life? 209

Posted by Soulskill from the i-blame-ralph dept.
Barence writes "It's desolate, dirty, and sex is outcast to a separate island. In this article, PC Pro's Barry Collins returns to Second Life to find out what went wrong, and why it's raking in more cash than ever before. It's a follow-up to a feature written three years ago, in which Collins spent a week living inside Second Life to see what the huge fuss at the time was all about. The difference three years can make is eye-opening."
Image

Dad Delivers Baby Using Wiki 249

Posted by samzenpus from the 9cm-edited dept.
sonamchauhan writes "A Londoner helped his wife deliver their baby by Googling 'how to deliver a baby' on his mobile phone. From the article: 'Today proud Mr Smith said: "The midwife had checked Emma earlier in the day but contractions started up again at about 8pm so we called the midwife to come back. But then everything happened so quickly I realized Emma was going to give birth. I wasn't sure what I was going to do so I just looked up the instructions on the internet using my BlackBerry."'"
Image

The Perfect Way To Slice a Pizza 282

Posted by samzenpus from the equal-distribution-of-the-pie dept.
iamapizza writes "New Scientist reports on the quest of two math boffins for the perfect way to slice a pizza. It's an interesting and in-depth article; 'The problem that bothered them was this. Suppose the harried waiter cuts the pizza off-center, but with all the edge-to-edge cuts crossing at a single point, and with the same angle between adjacent cuts. The off-center cuts mean the slices will not all be the same size, so if two people take turns to take neighboring slices, will they get equal shares by the time they have gone right round the pizza — and if not, who will get more?' This is useful, of course, if you're familiar with the concept of 'sharing' a pizza."
Privacy

Linked In Or Out? 474

Posted by timothy from the won't-you-be-my-neighbor-today dept.
Mr_Whoopass writes "I am the IT Administrator for a regional restaurant chain, and as of late I am noticing more and more people sending me invitations to sites like LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc. Mother always taught me to be a skeptic, and, knowing more than the average Joe about how information can be used in this digital era, I am reticent to say the least about posting such personal details as my full name and where I work on the net for all to see. I have thus far managed to stay completely below the radar, and a search on Google has nothing on my real persona. However, now times are tough, and I see sales dropping in the industry I work in as it is a discretionary spending market to be sure. I wonder if I should loosen up on the paranoia a bit and start networking with some of these folks in case of the all too common layoff scenario that seems to be happening lately. What do other folks here think about this? I am specifically interested in what people who work in IT think (since I know that just about every moron who has 'Vice President' or sits on the 'Executive Team' is already on LinkedIn and has no clue about why they should be trying to protect their identity)."
Databases

Is the Relational Database Doomed? 344

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the just-more-tools-in-the-bucket dept.
DB Guy writes "There's an article over on Read Write Web about what the future of relational databases looks like when faced with new challenges to its dominance from key/value stores, such as SimpleDB, CouchDB, Project Voldemort and BigTable. The conclusion suggests that relational databases and key value stores aren't really mutually exclusive and instead are different tools for different requirements."

Comment Re:Do people still get spam these days? (Score 1) 284

by yupie (#26248227) Attached to: What Will Spam Be Like In 20 Years?
My native tongue is Dutch.
About 0,1% of all emails I get in Dutch are spam.
About 99.9% of all emails I get in English, or any other language, from unknown sending domains or lists, are spam.
So, language detection would be a good extra in the spam-detection scheme. But please do not think that mail-in-English has to have a better rate.
Programming

Adventuresome or "Hands On" Careers in Tech? 72

Posted by Cliff from the escape-from-the-cube-farm dept.
omission9 asks: "For about 10 years I have worked mostly behind a desk in a cubicle and am starting to feel that this environment is making me miserable. The cheap fluorescent lights, the stuffy air, and the restless feeling I get from just sitting so long are starting to really annoy me. My background is mainly as a programmer but I started my career as a network engineer/network administrator. I am also a member of the US Naval Reserve and am cleared as high as Top Secret. Are there any jobs out there that match this sort of skill set (more or less programmer but generally excellent tech skills) that don't require being stuck behind a desk? Paying relatively well would be a major plus as would something that provides a solid career (20+ years of work). Is there anyone out there, from anywhere other than a cube farm, that may have some advice?"

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