Dr Cool - Slashdot User

Submission + - Accidental Find May Lead to a Cure For Baldness (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by

kkleiner

on Monday April 04, 2011 @11:09AM

kkleiner writes: "Science is full of stories in which great discoveries are made by accident: the discovery of radiation, the discovery of the universe's shape through x-ray detection, and the cure for hair loss? Maybe. At the time they returned to the cages to find that their bald mice had miraculously grown their hair back, the scientists at UCLA had no intention of curing baldness. Originally, theirs was in fact a study aimed at reducing the harmful affects of chronic stress. The unanticipated side effect of their treatment could prove a boon to balding men and women everywhere, not to mention to the drug company that delivers the cure to them."

Comment Re:Hardly (Score 1) 374

by Dr Cool on Wednesday August 12, 2009 @01:48PM (#29041177) Attached to: MS — Dropping IE6 Support "Not an Option"

What I really don't understand is why corporations don't require their users to use IE6 for their internal web-apps but allow them to use an alternative browser such as Firefox or Opera for browsing the modern Internet. It's ironic that Microsoft's decision to disallow side-by-side installations of IE which could cause much larger adoption of alternative browsers such as Firefox.

This way, corporations could run their crappy web-apps on an ancient browser and use a modern browser for everything else. Just rename the "Internet Explorer" icon on everyone's desktop to "Corporate Web Apps" or something.

Comment Re:Market share (Score 1) 481

by Dr Cool on Tuesday July 14, 2009 @05:20PM (#28696521) Attached to: YouTube Phasing Out Support For IE6

Automatic updates weren't enabled on XP until one of the service packs. So millions of PCs will never know about the new browsers.

They will when they can no longer view many of their favorite websites. I'm glad YouTube and other sites are doing this. We need strong leadership to force IE6 off the web.

Pretty soon, the idea of banning IE6 from websites will hit critical mass and suddenly it'll start affecting websites used by people in businesses who refuse to upgrade out of IE6. That's when those IT departments will finally upgrade to something newer than an 8 year-old browser. In Internet years, that's like 100.

Traveling With Tom Bihn's Checkpoint Flyer 133

Posted by timothy on Friday March 13, 2009 @02:02PM from the halvah-smuggling-device dept.

Some people care about bags; obsession is a better word. (See the Bags subforum of the Every Day Carry Forums for evidence.) How are the straps attached? Is that 1050 denier, or 1600? Makers like Crumpler, Ortlieb and Maxpedition inspire impressive brand-loyalty, but probably no bag maker has customers more enthusiastic than Tom Bihn's. (There really is a Tom Bihn, too -- he's been designing travel bags since he was a kid; now he has a factory with "all the cool toys" to experiment with designs and materials.) When I started looking for a protective case for my MacBook Pro, I discovered that a few of my coworkers were part of the Bihn Army, and after some Tupperware-style evangelism I was convinced to buy a few items from the Bihn line-up: a backpack (used); then a messenger bag (new); then a mid-sized briefcase, used, which is now my portable filing cabinet. (Take this bias for what you will; I stuck with my previous messenger bag for more than a decade.) For a just-completed trip to Israel, which I couldn't quite make in true one-bag travel fashion, I brought along one of the newest Bihn Bags — the Checkpoint Flyer — and found it to be worth its (considerable) price. Read on for my review.

Ubuntu 8.10 Outperforms Windows Vista 689

Posted by timothy on Friday October 31, 2008 @12:22PM from the windows-probably-runs-more-windows-apps dept.

Anonymous writes "By now a lot has been reported on the new features and improvements in Ubuntu 8.10; it also looks like the OS is outperforming Vista in early benchmarking (Geekbench, boot times, etc.) At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?" (And though there are lot of ways to benchmark computers, Ubuntu 8.10 with Compiz Fusion is certainly prettier on my Eee than the Windows XP that it came with.)

Submission + - Ray tracing for gaming explored (pcper.com) 3

Submitted by

Vigile

on Thursday January 17, 2008 @03:26AM

Vigile writes: "Ray tracing is still thought of as the 'holy grail' for real-time imagery but because of the intense amount of calculations required it has been plagued with long frame render times. This might soon change, at least according to an article from Daniel Pohl, a researcher at Intel. With upcoming many-core processors like Intel's Larrabee he believes that real-time ray tracing for games is much closer than originally thought thanks in large part to the efficiency it allows with spatial partitioning and reflections when compared to current rasterization techniques. Titles like Valve's Portal are analyzed to see how they could benefit from ray tracing technology and the article on PC Perspective concludes with the difficulties combing the two rendering techniques as well as a video of the technology in action."

Comment PS3 as a Blu-Ray Player (Score 4, Interesting) 151

by Dr Cool on Sunday September 23, 2007 @08:26PM (#20723243) Attached to: Sony Shifting PS3 Marketing to Focus on Blu-Ray

I bought a sweet 47" 1080p LCD TV about a month ago. Of course, I had to get some kind of HD movie source and I don't watch cable TV. I prefer to rent movies. Since Blockbuster is now stocking Blu-Ray movies, it was a natural choice that I choose a Blu-Ray player. I looked around at prices and all the players are fairly expensive. Sony sells a standalone Blu-Ray player for $499. Imagine my surprise when I walked around the Circuit City store and noticed a 60 GB PS3 for... $499! I intended on buying a Blu-Ray player. But I walked out with a PS3. I haven't owned a console game machine since the Nintendo back in the day. And my roommate is the only one who's played games on it so far but I do enjoy watching him play it. So yes, I'm one of the few who bought a PS3 specifically because it's a Blu-Ray player. But I'm sure that if a killer game comes out that I'm dying to play and I know it's not coming out for the PC (my preferred gaming platform), I'll definitely drop $60 on it for my PS3. But for now, it's my HD movie machine.

SCOTUS To Hear Patentable Thought Case 394

Posted by Zonk on Sunday March 19, 2006 @02:45PM from the get-out-of-my-head dept.

skayell writes "The Supreme Court of the United States will hear a landmark patent case involving whether or not thoughts and relationships are patentable. Michael Crichton's essay in the New York Times attempts a thoughtful summary of Metabolite's primary assertion: they not only own the connection between homocysteine levels in the blood and vitamin B12 deficiency, but also any thought connecting the two."

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