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Re:Well, it makes sense by stonecypher · 2007-04-24 16:26 · Score: 1 · on Quantum Physics Parts Ways With Reality

Yes, but did they take the next step to completely scrap reality, as Einstein saw it, and wonder if the world was instantiated upon simulation hardware with limited abilities?

Yes.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Thank you, drive through.

Re:Take my camera phone...please. by w42w42 · 2007-04-24 15:33 · Score: 1 · on Digital Camera Vs. Camera Phone

I had a similiar 1st thought, that being that I could care less about combining a phone and camera. As a parent, if I'm taking pictures of my kids, I want *quality*. If we're combining devices, I'm more interested in quality video out of my camera, than pictures out of my phone. This market is still pretty imature, but this Sanyo is a start.

Re:omg omg by iminplaya · 2007-04-24 13:50 · Score: 1 · on Earthlike Planet Orbiting Nearby Star

No, I think they meant, In Soviet Russia, Red Star orrrbeeet plahnet.

**cough** by way2trivial · 2007-04-24 08:20 · Score: 1, Informative · on Judge Says RIAA "Disingenuous," Decision Stands

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000008LOV/ sr=8-1/qid=1177445909/ref=olp_tab_new/103-2954490- 8100607?ie=UTF8&coliid=&qid=1177445909&sr=8-1&sell er=&colid=&condition=new

Re:Misunderstanding by GodfatherofSoul · 2007-04-24 06:49 · Score: 1 · on Netcraft Shows Smartech Running Ohio Election Servers

It's April 2007. Anyone who believes the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen (or not) isn't going to change what they think now.

The problem is getting those of you who think otherwise to look at the evidence.

Re:Misunderstanding by GodfatherofSoul · 2007-04-24 06:49 · Score: 1 · on Netcraft Shows Smartech Running Ohio Election Servers

It's April 2007. Anyone who believes the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen (or not) isn't going to change what they think now.

The problem is getting those of you who think otherwise to look at the evidence.

Re:Oh, great by stonecypher · 2007-04-24 04:48 · Score: 5, Informative · on FDA Considers Redefining Chocolate

Come on, we might be a country full of people from everywhere else, but we have our own style and cuisine.

Not a lot of it, it seems - not in my opinion anyway.

Let's try someone who knows food, then. The entire Cajun cuisine, for example, is essentially new. Chowder (there's more to chowder than clam and corn) is an entirely American practice, as are Burgoo, Chioppino and Bouillabase. We invented recirculated roasting (no, it's not the same as a dutch oven.) The number two prepared food on earth is an American invention, despite its foreign name - whereas China beat us to rice with egg, we invented the Hamburger. We're responsible for nachos, hard tacos, chili con queso and chili con carne (look it up.) We're why Mexico loves cumin now. Basically anything you eat that you think is mexican food that has yellow cheese on it instead of white is America's fault.

The current state of Barbeque is entirely an American thing, though the Dutch independently reinvented it in South Africa later under the name "braai." (This is unfair to foreigners, as we use the word "barbeque" very differently than they do; a Briton hearing that word will think of the situation we think of as "grilled," and when they hear grill, they think of what we think of as stove-top burners. I do not know what foreigners call what we call Barbeque, though I know Australia uses the word the way we do.) We also invented Pit Barbeque (yes, we mean something different by that phrase too, sorry.) There's also Saint Louis Barbeque, Kentucky Barbeque and Louisiana Barbeque, all of which are substantially different (one's stewed in sauce, one's over a grill range open fire and one's surrounded by coal heat in a brick pit.)

We invented Chop Suey and General Tso's Chicken. Indeed, anything you see on a purportedly Chinese menu involving cheese, mango, brown/whole rice or tomato is our fault. Rangoon puffs (not crab rangoon) are our fault. What we call Egg Foo Yung is nothing like what the Cantonese call Fu Yung Egg. Spring rolls are Chinese; egg rolls are not. What we call beef with broccoli is supposed to use a relative of broccoli called gailan; however, the leafy parts are used, not the stalks and not the clubs, so it might as well be asparagus, it's so different. We invented Jibaritos and Jigaritos.

We invented the tri-tip steak. "You can't invent a steak, it grew in the cow that way!" Actually, no it didn't. We also invented cheesed steaks. (No, not Philly cheese-steaks; we didn't invent those, we just perfected them.) If you don't know what a cheesed steak is, look up what "new york strip" actually means; it's not a cut, like sirloin or delmonico. They're aged and molded. There's a reason they're that tender.

America includes several areas whose cuisines developed on their own before they were called America, such as Hawaii, Alaska, the Texarcana area and the pan-Florida area (Florribean food is awesome.) We're the country that merged Burmese and Oaxacan cuisine. We're about the only country to grill frog legs (the french batter them, the chinese boil them and the italians and thai fry them.) Chicken Vesuvio is ours.

We have a spectacular history of invention in the field of alcohol. I probably don't need to beleaguer this.

Americans use the phrase "fried chicken" differently than other countries, so when I say "fried chicken is ours," please understand that I mean something more specific than chicken which has been fried. We mean bone-in chicken ribcage halves and drumsticks which are larded, spiced, battered, breaded, deep fat fried and re-spiced, in that order. Furthermore, it involves a specific set of spices; it's a little like talking to the British about Shephard's Pie. You just have to know.

There are a lot of people who believe that the current popularity of the sandwich is largely due to their upsurge in use in America during the l

Re:FDA summary report by LauraScudder · 2007-04-24 04:20 · Score: 1 · on FDA Considers Redefining Chocolate

The "improvements in nutritional properties" is really about marketing. They know that the average consumer easily confuses "slightly healthier than the fatty fat fat original" with "healthy", and proceeds to feel good about eating something they used to have to feel bad about and limit themselves on. Just look at all those sugar cereals that are marketing themselves as containing whole grains - the implication being that Trix is somehow heart healthy and good for you instead of just better than a big bowl of sugar.

There's a big section in Food Politics on the fortified health food game, from the perspective of a nutritionist who's served on government nutrition panels.

there are, sadly enough by way2trivial · 2007-04-24 02:27 · Score: 1 · on 'Kryptonite' Discovered in Serbian Mine

This outta freak you out
http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Theme-Other-Songs-196 6/sim/B000002ZBS/1/ref=pd_sexpl_s_m/103-5067299-15 70205?ie=UTF8&pf=music

Re:bye-bye! by kestasjk · 2007-04-23 15:52 · Score: 5, Insightful · on Quantum Physics Parts Ways With Reality

You might be interested to read about David Bohm's interesting theory - though a lot of people think it's garbage, it does illuminate the lengths you must go to to fashion a theory that is consistent with quantum mechanics yet doesn't completely shred your common sense notions of reality. What does common sense have to do with anything? The way we experience the world wasn't set up to be able to understand it, but to survive in it.

When we see an insect being tricked into thinking an orchid is a female insect we think "That orchid doesn't look anything like an insect, what a strange mistake to make", and a bat might use echo location and see us being aroused by something that simply has the texture and shape of a piece of paper which doesn't resemble the texture or shape of a female human and wonder how we could make such a mistake.
Our common sense and intuition don't necessarily tell us what's true, especially when it doesn't relate the world we evolved in, so we have to rely on experiments, and quantum theory constantly makes accurate predictions. If it's beyond our common sense and intuition then that's too bad for us.

Re:bye-bye! by Anonymous Coward · 2007-04-23 15:09 · Score: 5, Informative · on Quantum Physics Parts Ways With Reality

Am I the only one that thinks to themselves, "One of these days, some really smart person is going to come out with a new and better theory of reality that reveals all this quantum mechanics stuff to be a bunch of quackery."?

Nope, and a lot of physicists think that quantum mechanics is fundamentally broken beyond the level of fixing - though it is a massively useful theory from a calculational point of view, it has deeper problems than just the ones involved in this experiment, including the measurement problem.

Nobody is really sure what quantum physics says about reality or locality. Each of the interpretations is flawed or incomplete in some way. You might be interested to read about David Bohm's interesting theory - though a lot of people think it's garbage, it does illuminate the lengths you must go to to fashion a theory that is consistent with quantum mechanics yet doesn't completely shred your common sense notions of reality. I have no idea if the experiment in this article has anything to say about so-called "Bohmian mechanics," as the blurb was completely uninformative and I don't subscribe to Nature...

Re:Easy Mac Development with Xcode by Mr2001 · 2007-04-23 13:43 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Says iPhone Is Irrelevant To Business

I doubt even the book will help you but it helped me which is why I keep mentioning it over and over and over. You seem to keep missing that fact. No, believe me, I've caught your references to the book, but I don't know why you think I'd make a trip to the book store just to verify something that should be plastered all over the web. I was able to look at some of the pages with Amazon, and there is indeed a simple "hello world" app with a text box and a button laid out in IB... but then, starting on page 22, you have to write code to make it work. That's not what you said earlier.

I've got Xcode installed. If it's so easy to make a program that does something without writing any code, why can't you just tell me give me the basic steps? Is it a secret, or are you making it up?

Nice theory, but not quite new by metrometro · 2007-04-23 10:56 · Score: 1 · on New Theory Links Biodiversity to the Stars

Variations on this have been kicking around for a while. Some of the wacky-but-plausable explainations for the periodicity off mass extinctions, including this one, show up in this book, written in the late 1990s. The Nemesis Affair: A Story of the Death of Dinosaurs and the Ways of Science

Re:Great firewall of China by progprog · 2007-04-23 09:36 · Score: 0 · on China's New Internet Plan

I know it's not really what the TFB is about, but does anyone have any tech details about the Great Firewall of China? How does it work, is it some kind of giant NAT? Are there blacklist-based IP filtering, real-time content filtering? Are ISPs routes set up so that foreign IPs can only be reached via a few select routers that do the censoring?

I don't know the exact details, you can extrapolate from my experience with it.

It is not consistent across all of China. At times blogspot may be available in one city and unavailable in another.
Domains that are not blocked by default may be temporarily blocked for a while. For example if blacklisted words appear in GMail, Google Reader, Amazon, etc, your subnet will be blocked off for maybe an hour. Yes this means if your neighbor received "subversive material" from GMail, you will have no access to google for some time
The filters are based on very crude blacklists. For example, this url gets you blocked off from Amazon temporarily: http://www.amazon.com/adidas-Mens-Revolution-III-P ant/dp/B000KL3FEC/

A sampling of blocked domains: wikipedia, blogspot, xanga, geocities, livejournal, ...

My tracepath output is throwing the lameness filter, so let's just say it starts spewing "no reply" after about 7 hops.

Now, for my thorough analysis of what all this implies%)$)*#@)NO CARRIER

Inner City Kids by ushering05401 · 2007-04-23 07:09 · Score: 1 · on Massively Multiplayer Online Birdwatching Game

Should be self explanatory. This could be a start to addressing the 'nature gap.'

I know some educators/avid-birdwatchers who will be very interested in this technology.

I have lived in both the L.A. & NYC urban environments. Exposure to nature for many people in those areas is non-existent. Not that we should *force* nature on anyone, but there is a correlation between income & ability to escape the noise/stresses of urban life.

This book has been hot with educators & experimental children's museum consultants:

link: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Child-Woods-Children-Na ture-Deficit/dp/1565125223/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-480 2758-1879040?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177355249&sr=8-1

Regards.

Re:this is a useful reminder by tomstdenis · 2007-04-22 04:38 · Score: 5, Interesting · on Canada's Wayne Crookes Sues the Net

I have no idea what your ranting about. I didn't vote NDP. And I'm pro-individual rights, which includes the rights to live safely (free from ridicule, contempt, torment, etc). I was simply replying to the parent suggesting that libel is real, does affect people, and there are boundaries that civilized people don't cross.

The idea that anonymous users exist on the net is an excuse to publish libel is nonsense. If you run a message board [or equiv] you should be held liable for any and ALL anonymous postings. After all, you're the one who is publishing it. I think it's reasonable that people moderate their websites such that libelous content is not widely distributed.

If that means changing existing website designs to disallow anonymous posts to become immediately published so be it.

Take a look at this for instance. Not once did I "spam" usenet about the book. I posted one message in an on-topic usenet group (where I've was an active participant for the last 7 years) about the book, some asshole then took that post and reposted it to a hundred other groups.

Amazon was at one point hosting reviews that read such as [from memory] "I would never buy this book as he's a usenet spamming jerk. This book clearly is not worth buying, etc, etc..." While amazon was nice enough to take down the reviews [which were posted before the book was in print] they didn't remove the "discussion" threads which are still there today.

While I don't think that's the only reason the books aren't selling, I have to assume that it has had an impact on some of the sales, at the very least, one sale.

And what did I do to deserve this treatment? Be an outspoken advocate of free software, open source cryptography, and an enemy of snake oil. Because someone didn't like how open I was, how generous I was to give out free knowledge and software they decided to post spam, kiddie porn and other nonsense with my name on it. It wasn't like I was actively attacking others. In fact, the last round of joe-jobs before I just quit using usenet altogether were people re-posting my research posts [I had optimized my ECC implementation that I give out in LibTomCrypt].

Basically some guy decided he didn't like me so he nearly ruined my life (hint: you consider awful things when you're being labeled a kiddie porn peddler).

Is that what living in a "free" society is like?

God help us all then when some random asshole on the web decides to have it in for you. Maybe the next time someone does the same to someone else (yourself, a friend of yours, a family member), someone will respond with violence. In my case, there were times were I was afraid someone would mail a bomb, or worse, come to my house looking for a fight.

People should be responsible for what they write, and people should be responsible for what they host.

Tom

Vietnam did last for decades by unassimilatible · 2007-04-21 11:26 · Score: 1 · on RMS Protest Song On Gitmo

The seminal work on Vietnam is named The 25-Year-War. Might want to do a little research on that war.

Again, why does the enemy, with its intransigence, get to decide the rules? Surrender and we'll let everyone go. It is quite simple. And there is no such thing as "international law" unless it is a treaty that the US has signed and ratified, and under the US legal system, any treaty is superseded by subsequent conflicting federal law (e.g., the Detainee Treatment Act). I don't recall suspending the US Constitution and surrendering US sovereignty to the United Nations.

Went laser, never looking back by linzeal · 2007-04-21 03:49 · Score: 1 · on Is Your Printer Ripping You Off?

Agreed, when you can get color for 10 cents a page at most college campuses why bother with inkjets? I just bought a Brother 2070N a 100 dollar networkable printer about 3 months ago, and have printed over 1000 pages without changing the toner cartridge, which costs 45 dollars.

The last printer I was using was a Brother 3240 all in one and I was spending 100 dollars a month in cartridges with color evaporating and black cartridges lasting 100-250 pages. Truly one of the most awful printers in existence.

Went laser, never looking back by linzeal · 2007-04-21 03:49 · Score: 1 · on Is Your Printer Ripping You Off?

Agreed, when you can get color for 10 cents a page at most college campuses why bother with inkjets? I just bought a Brother 2070N a 100 dollar networkable printer about 3 months ago, and have printed over 1000 pages without changing the toner cartridge, which costs 45 dollars.

The last printer I was using was a Brother 3240 all in one and I was spending 100 dollars a month in cartridges with color evaporating and black cartridges lasting 100-250 pages. Truly one of the most awful printers in existence.

Went laser, never looking back by linzeal · 2007-04-21 03:49 · Score: 1 · on Is Your Printer Ripping You Off?

Agreed, when you can get color for 10 cents a page at most college campuses why bother with inkjets? I just bought a Brother 2070N a 100 dollar networkable printer about 3 months ago, and have printed over 1000 pages without changing the toner cartridge, which costs 45 dollars.

The last printer I was using was a Brother 3240 all in one and I was spending 100 dollars a month in cartridges with color evaporating and black cartridges lasting 100-250 pages. Truly one of the most awful printers in existence.

Re:Can I get a hell yeah! by CRCulver · 2007-04-20 04:09 · Score: 1 · on Thompson Stifled by Take Two Suit

If he can't harass Take Two, he'll probably turn up the public demogoguery, such as working on a sequel to Out of Harm's Way (notice that it's one of the few books on Amazon with an average one-star review). Like the advertisements in a certain Halloween episode of The Simpsons, media whore waste away and die without someone to look at them.

Meme Wars by Anonymous Coward · 2007-04-20 02:49 · Score: 1, Interesting · on Botnet on Botnet Action

This sort of reminds me of John Barnes "Meme Wars" books. Except that the botnets are fighting over our computers instead of our minds. I'm wondering if it will get to the point where people will actively choose to infect their computer with one particular botnet or another if they find that that particular one interferes the least with their particular usage. At least you would know what your computer is infected with and that will keep the other garbage out.

Some useful books by progprog · 2007-04-20 02:23 · Score: 1, Informative · on Learning More About Linux?

"Are there any great resources, such as websites, wikis or books for someone that wants to find out exactly how Linux works and how to fix and modify it?"

Understanding The Linux Kernel is a good resource. For more conceptual stuff, Modern Operating Systems is great.

Some useful books by progprog · 2007-04-20 02:23 · Score: 1, Informative · on Learning More About Linux?

"Are there any great resources, such as websites, wikis or books for someone that wants to find out exactly how Linux works and how to fix and modify it?"

Understanding The Linux Kernel is a good resource. For more conceptual stuff, Modern Operating Systems is great.

Re:There's only been half a book so far.. by moosesocks · 2007-04-19 19:47 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Monkey Business and Freakonomics

I concur. Freakonomics stripped a bit too much of the science away in an attempt to make the book accessible.

Naked Economics tries to do the same thing as Freakonomics, but achieves a much higher degree of success. Freakonomics was dumbed down to an almost insulting level, and many of the examples provided felt somewhat outlandish. Naked Economics does a much better job of distilling economic theory down to plain english, and picks much more relevant examples. I also found it to be a pretty entertaining read:

"The sultan of Brunei earned billions of dollars in oil revenues in the 1970s. Suppose he had stuffed that cash under his mattress and left it there. He would have had several problems. First, it is very difficult to sleep with billions of dollars stuffed under the mattress. . ."

(Yes.... I did pull that quote from one of the Amazon reviews, but it's a rather accurate representation of the text)

Books by Knuckles · 2007-04-19 17:28 · Score: 3, Insightful · on Learning More About Linux?

BOOKS:
Essential System Administration By Æleen Frisch
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/esa3/index.html

Unix Power Tools By Shelley Powers, Jerry Peek, Tim O'Reilly, Mike
Loukides
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/upt3/index.html

Running Linux By Matthias Kalle Dalheimer, Matt Welsh
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/runlinux5/index.htm l

The UNIX Systems Administration Handbook by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder,
Scott Seebass, Trent R. Hein, et al.
http://www.amazon.com/UNIX-System-Administration-H andbook-3rd/dp/0130206016/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/104 -2587738-8696715?ie=UTF8&qid=1176522696&sr=1-1

The Practice of System and Network Administration by Thomas A.
Limoncelli, Christine Hogan
http://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Admi nistration/dp/0201702711/ref=pd_sim_b_4/104-258773 8-8696715?ie=UTF8&qid=1176522696&sr=1-1

Martin F. Krafft: The Debian System: Concepts and Techniques
http://debiansystem.info/

Benjamin Mako Hill, Jono Bacon, Corey Burger, Jonathan Jesse, Ivan
Krstic: The Official Ubuntu Book
http://www.amazon.com/Official-Ubuntu-Book-Benjami n-Mako/dp/0132435942

Books by Knuckles · 2007-04-19 17:28 · Score: 3, Insightful · on Learning More About Linux?

BOOKS:
Essential System Administration By Æleen Frisch
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/esa3/index.html

Unix Power Tools By Shelley Powers, Jerry Peek, Tim O'Reilly, Mike
Loukides
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/upt3/index.html

Running Linux By Matthias Kalle Dalheimer, Matt Welsh
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/runlinux5/index.htm l

The UNIX Systems Administration Handbook by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder,
Scott Seebass, Trent R. Hein, et al.
http://www.amazon.com/UNIX-System-Administration-H andbook-3rd/dp/0130206016/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/104 -2587738-8696715?ie=UTF8&qid=1176522696&sr=1-1

The Practice of System and Network Administration by Thomas A.
Limoncelli, Christine Hogan
http://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Admi nistration/dp/0201702711/ref=pd_sim_b_4/104-258773 8-8696715?ie=UTF8&qid=1176522696&sr=1-1

Martin F. Krafft: The Debian System: Concepts and Techniques
http://debiansystem.info/

Benjamin Mako Hill, Jono Bacon, Corey Burger, Jonathan Jesse, Ivan
Krstic: The Official Ubuntu Book
http://www.amazon.com/Official-Ubuntu-Book-Benjami n-Mako/dp/0132435942

Books by Knuckles · 2007-04-19 17:28 · Score: 3, Insightful · on Learning More About Linux?

BOOKS:
Essential System Administration By Æleen Frisch
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/esa3/index.html

Unix Power Tools By Shelley Powers, Jerry Peek, Tim O'Reilly, Mike
Loukides
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/upt3/index.html

Running Linux By Matthias Kalle Dalheimer, Matt Welsh
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/runlinux5/index.htm l

The UNIX Systems Administration Handbook by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder,
Scott Seebass, Trent R. Hein, et al.
http://www.amazon.com/UNIX-System-Administration-H andbook-3rd/dp/0130206016/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/104 -2587738-8696715?ie=UTF8&qid=1176522696&sr=1-1

The Practice of System and Network Administration by Thomas A.
Limoncelli, Christine Hogan
http://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Admi nistration/dp/0201702711/ref=pd_sim_b_4/104-258773 8-8696715?ie=UTF8&qid=1176522696&sr=1-1

Martin F. Krafft: The Debian System: Concepts and Techniques
http://debiansystem.info/

Benjamin Mako Hill, Jono Bacon, Corey Burger, Jonathan Jesse, Ivan
Krstic: The Official Ubuntu Book
http://www.amazon.com/Official-Ubuntu-Book-Benjami n-Mako/dp/0132435942

Re:Wow by pete-classic · 2007-04-19 11:04 · Score: 1 · on Sony Rejects PS3 Price Cuts

Blu-ray: One or two 25gb layers.
Xbox 360: One 20gb drive.

How on Earth can you have full-quality movies on the Xbox marketplace?

I read some review that says that a 45 minute TV show is 2.2gb in their HD format. That's 4.4gb for a 90 minute movie compared to 25gb for a 90 minute movie on Blu-ray. That's 6.7 Mbits/s compared to 37.9 Mbits/s. Am I meant to believe that Microsoft has some secret video codec that is five times as efficient as VC-1 (or their own Media Player 9 codec)?

For the record, I do have broadband and an Xbox 360. And you must have horrible vision.

-Peter

Re:The best Marketing = Religion by iamcf13 · 2007-04-19 09:56 · Score: 1 · on Bad Security Driving Out the Good

No one ever came back from the dead to tell us "There is NO life after death" for very obvious reasons :-)

Then what about this guy, then?

You science types agree that matter can't be created or destroyed, only changed into another form, right?

If there is no afterlife, why bother being a 'good person' in this life?

It would make believers the most miserable of creatures.... (verses 12-19)

Slashdot CAPTCHA: dismiss - How apt!

Re:Only Fools Wait Until The Last Minute by macbort · 2007-04-18 04:31 · Score: 1 · on Turbo Tax Melts Down on Tax Day

What they really should have done was use the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, or something similar.

I think this would have been a perfect application for cloud computing. If they had the ability to turn on more instances of their processing servers as demand required, they could have met any level of service.

The Gigavox Audio Lite media publishing platform was designed from the ground up using Amazon's web services, including EC2, S3, and SQS. Because of their application architecture, they can scale infinitely without doing anything special. IT Conversations has an excellent Technometria podcast describing how it all works. It's really pretty incredible stuff.