Thursday, March 17, 2011

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday March 17, @03:26AM

from the i'm-sorry-dave-i-win-again dept.

Ian Lamont writes"MIT Media Lab and the Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab have just released Improviso, an online game that is part of a research project to create a more realistic game AI. Improviso requires two players, a Lead Actor and Director, who pretend to shoot a low-budget science fiction movie about a government cover-up of aliens at Area 51. The goal of the project is to gather recorded improv from thousands of games, which can be used to train an AI system that will be able to play the role of NPCs. Jeff Orkin, the MIT researcher who led game development, says that the best time to play Improviso is between 7 pm and 10 pm. Orkin is also the creator of a game AI called goal oriented action programming, first used in F.E.A.R. in 2005 and later employed inF.E.A.R. 2 and Fallout 3."

Large Hadron Collider is a Time Machine?

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday March 17, @10:06AM

from the summon-michael-j-fox dept.

MistrX writes"If the latest theory of Tom Weiler and Chui Man Ho is right, the Large Hadron Collider – the world's largest atom smasher that started regular operation last year – could be the first machinecapable causing matter to travel backwards in time."

Large Hadron Collider is a Time Machine?

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday March 17, @10:06AM

from the summon-michael-j-fox dept.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Tai Chi Beats Back Depression in the Elderly, Study Shows

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2011) — The numbers are, well, depressing: More than 2 million people age 65 and older suffer from depression, including 50 percent of those living in nursing homes. The suicide rate among white men over 85 is the highest in the country -- six times the national rate.

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 16, @02:00PM

from the space-sharks dept.

Hugh Pickens writes"MIT Technology Review reports that various ideas have been floated for removing space junk, most of them hugely expensive, but now James Mason at NASA Ames Research Center has come up with the much cheaper option of zapping individual pieces of junk with a ground-based laser, to slow them down so that they eventually de-orbit. Mason estimates that a device to test the reversal of the Kessler syndrome could be put together for a million dollars, which would have to be shared by many space-faring nations, to avoid the inevitable legal issues that using such a device would raise. 'The scheme requires launching nothing into space — except photons (PDF) — and requires no on-orbit interaction — except photon pressure. It is thus less likely to create additional debris risk in comparison to most debris removal schemes,' writes Mason. 'Eventually the concept may lead to an operational international system for shielding satellites and large debris objects from a majority of collisions as well as providing high accuracy debris tracking data and propellant-less station keeping for smallsats.'"

Sun.com, the twelfth oldest domain on the internet, will be decommissioned on June 1st

By Vlad Savov posted Mar 16th 2011 1:08PM

Sun Microsystems, one of the original gangsters responsible for supplying all the electronics and infrastructure we now know as the internet, ceased to be Sun Microsystems in January of last year. Assimilated into the Oracle juggernaut, its operations no longer carry that familiar logo and soon they'll no longer even be referenced in the same spot on the internet. Yes, after 25 years of answering the call of sun.com, the company that no longer is will be letting go of its former domain name as well. The site has already been redirecting users to Oracle for quite a while, but come June 1st, it'll be like the Sun we knew had never even risen.

Japan Earthquake May Have Shifted Earth's Axis

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday March 16, @12:27PM

from the buy-a-new-clock dept.

Zothecula writes"Using a complex model to perform a theoretical calculation based on a US Geological Survey, Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has determined that by changing the distribution of the Earth's mass, the earthquake that devastated Japan last Friday should have sped up the Earth's rotation, resulting in a day that is about 1.8 microseconds (1.8 millionths of a second) shorter."

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Boss Quotes

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day. ~Robert Frost

I've met a few people in my time who were enthusiastic about hard work. And it was just my luck that all of them happened to be men I was working for at the time. ~Bill Gold

One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you. ~Dennis A. Peer

Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties. ~Doug Larson

Ability is what will get you to the top if the boss has no daughter. ~Author Unknown

Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself. ~Thomas J. Watson

If a trainstation is where the train stops, what's a workstation? ~Author Unknown

Monday is a lame way to spend 1/7 of your life. ~Author Unknown

The best leader is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it. ~Theodore Roosevelt

Most people like hard work. Particularly when they are paying for it. ~Franklin P. Jones

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. ~Howard Aiken

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings." ~Dave Barry, "Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn"

The difference between a job and a career is the difference between forty and sixty hours a week. ~Robert Frost

Monday, March 14, 2011

Ever watched the 60's batman and played SMB2?

If you are one of the 15 or so who have, you might get a kick out of this gif.

Beijing to track individual movement through cell phones

Published 14 March 2011

Beijing could soon track the daily movements of seventeen million residents by tapping into their cell phones; authorities have proposed a program designed to help ease traffic congestion by providing up to the minute data on an individual's movements; critics say that this is an attempt by authorities to prevent large crowds from forming; the proposed plan comes as Chinese officials have grown increasingly worried about domestic unrest in light of the mass protests sweeping across the Middle East; Chinese police forces turned out in full force after anonymous calls for mass protests were posted online; the government has also placed more than eighty activists under house arrest while others have gone missing.

How the PC Is Making Consoles Look Out of Date

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday March 09, @02:11PM

from the reaching-hardware-limits dept.

An anonymous reader writes"What has been clear from this year's Game Developers Conference is that consoles are beginning to show their age. With nothing beyond a possible Nintendo update on the horizon, developers at this year's GDC have turned their eyes to the PC. The article includes three videos that give a fantastic insight into where PC graphics are headed, including a version of Epic's Unreal engine, Crytek's Cryengine 3, and DICE's Frostbite 2 engine. Considering that these leaps in eye candy are only possible with the current state of PC graphics, we wonder how long consoles will be the target platform for development of blockbuster games."

Romanian con man found working as TV anchor

Con man Viorel Plescan has finally been arrested after a decade on the run despite becoming a well-known face after getting a job as a TV show anchorman.

Plescan, 35, went on the run in 2001 and managed to escape capture by getting married abroad, and then adopting his wife's name to become Viorel Andrei.

He was arrested when Romanian police investigating a minor traffic offence linked Viorel Andrei to the on-the-run Viorel Plescan - and discovered to their amazementhe was the anchorman on a prime time TV programme.

He was wanted by police in Galati over cheque fraud but fled to Piatra-Neamt, a town 250km away. He must now serve eight years in jail for the conviction he got in 2001. In addition, police are now investigating him for using a false identity.

Dentist Accused Of Cursing & Farting As He Pulled Teeth

Margaret Hartmann — Here's a story that should make your next dentist visit seem delightful by comparison. During a misconduct hearing yesterday, British dentist Matthew Walton was accused of regularly burping and farting in front of patients because he thought it was "a big joke." According to The Daily Mail, dental nurse Nicola Groom testified that he also discriminated against patients:

"If the patients had status, if for example a doctor came in, he was fine, he would talk normally, respectfully. But if someone was, just to give an example, if they were from a council estate, his whole attitude was completely different ... He would show them no respect and the way he would speak to them – it was appalling really." She added: "If they didn't speak very good English, he would ask for their money before he treated them. He never took it off them in the surgery as long as he saw they had money to pay."

Annandale civic association elects dog as president

By Brigid Schulte

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 18, 2011; 8:26 PM

For more than 20 years, candidates running for office in the Hillbrook-Tall Oaks Civic Association inAnnandale have stood, waved and received polite applause at the annual meeting in June. Everyone votes, eats ice cream, chats with neighbors and goes home.

This past election, to make the meeting move faster, only the names and qualifications of the candidates were announced. Running for president, Ms. Beatha Lee was described as a relatively new resident, interested in neighborhood activities and the outdoors, and who had experience in Maine overseeing an estate of 26 acres.
Though unfamiliar with Lee's name, the crowd of about 50 raised their hands, assuming that the candidate was a civic-minded newcomer. These days, it's hard to get anyone to volunteer to devote the time needed to serve as an officer. The slate that Lee headed was unanimously elected. Everyone ate ice cream, watched a karate demonstration and went home.
Only weeks later did many discover that their new president was, in fact, a dog.

ScienceDaily (Mar. 8, 2011) — Many Americans are skeptical about whether the world's weather is changing, but apparently the degree of skepticism varies systematically depending on what that change is called.

By Michael Gorman posted Mar 9th 2011 4:40AM

Though well on its way to joining the Dodo, one of the internal combustion engine's advantages over itsplug-in competition is refuel time -- it only takes a few minutes to gas up, but you're talking hours for anEV to top off its batteries via a standard 220 / 240-volt socket. This fact is not lost on Nissan, as it just revealed plans to offer a higher-rate charger in its 2012 Leaf -- the current model's 3.3kW charger needs eight hours to power up -- in order to better compete with the Ford Focus Electric's three to four hour charge time courtesy of its 6.6kW. And all you early adopters won't be "orphaned," as 2011 model Leafs can be retrofitted with the new electrics -- no word if Daddy Warbucks will be footing the bill.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Japanese elevators get voice recognition, Japanese elevator rides get even more awkward

By Jacob Schulman posted Mar 8th 2011 3:48PM

We here at Engadget are all about helping the less fortunate, so Mitsubishi Electric's latest innovation in elevator tech has us all warm and fuzzy. The new interface allows for blind users -- and presumably lazy users -- to select their destination floor by voice, with a subsequent announcement when they arrive. Additionally, the system kicks in whenever it detects a wheelchair, replacing the potentially difficult process of reaching high buttons with the simple act of speaking. No word on whether the system works in English just yet or if it'll make it to the States, but you might want to brush up on your Japanese either way.

A neat vid about upgrading Windows over the past 20+ years.

Nice Song

$30 GPS Jammer Can Wreak Havok

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday March 08, @09:00AM

from the explains-my-wife's-navigation-system dept.

An anonymous reader writes"A simple $30 GPS jammer made in China can ruin your day. It doesn't just affect your car's navigation — ATM machines, cell phone towers, plane, boat, train navigation systems all depend upon GPS signals that are easily blocked. These devices fail badly — with no redundancy. These jammers can be used to defeat vehicle tracking products — but end up causing a moving cloud of chaos. The next wave of anti-GPS devices include GPS spoofers to trick or confuse nearby devices."

Acupuncture Curbs Severity of Menopausal Hot Flushes, Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (Mar. 7, 2011) — Traditional Chinese acupuncture curbs the severity of hot flushes and other menopausal symptoms, suggests a small study published March 8 inAcupuncture in Medicine.

ScienceDaily (Mar. 7, 2011) — High levels of "good" (high density lipoprotein) HDL cholesterol seem to cut the risk of bowel cancer, suggests research published online in Gut.

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday March 08, @12:02AM

from the powder-kegs-need-not-apply dept.

EnergyScholar writes"Sir Richard Dearlove, former Intelligence Chief of MI6, credits WikiLeaks with helping spark revolutions in the Middle East, in (what was supposed to be) an off-the-record speech. 'I would definitely draw parallels at the moment between the wave of political unrest which is sweeping through the Middle East in a very exciting and rather extraordinary fashion and also the WikiLeaks phenomenon. Really, what ties these two events together, and of course a number of other events, is the diffusion of power, away from the states and the empowerment of individuals, and small groups of individuals, by technology,' he said."