Comment Re:Erm (Score 1) 461
If someone were truly interested in remaining fully anonymous, they would probably be using prepaid credit cards.
Comment Wireless (Score 2, Interesting) 466
If you replace the wireless card with an intel based wireless card, you should have no problems with any linux distro. I replaced my wireless card on my MSI Wind with the Intel 3945 and have no problems in linux http://www.google.com/products?q=intel+PRO+3945
Comment Re:Voodoo Science (Score 1) 684
Regardless of whether they're just fear mongering or not, from a statistical standpoint, it makes senses. They're just marginalizing over the uncertainty of the expert.
p(blackhole = 1 | expert opinion) = p(blackhole = 1 | expert opinion, expert=correct) + p(blackhole=1 | expert opinion, expert = wrong)
It's the type of calculation that happens every day. E.g., what's the probability that I'll die in a car accident given I have an airbag in my car
p(survive = 0 | airbag in car) = p(survive = 0 | airbag in car, airbag works = true) + p(survive = 0 | airbag in car, airbag works = false)
If you don't take into account the uncertainty of the expert (or airbag malfunction, etc.), the you're ignoring what could be a large contribution to the actually outcome.
Comment Re:states rights! (Score 1) 270
Or you walk into the contract negotiations with a red pen and cross out the 12 month extension beyond employment termination.
The problem with non-competes is that they are so vaguely written that it can cover pretty much any new job in the field you're trained for. Sure, you can bring it to litigation to prove otherwise, but what employer would be willing to risk taking a new employee that might have a possible contractual obligation?
Submission + - USPTO Examiner Rejects 1-Click Claims as 'Obvious'
theodp writes: "Faced with a duly unimpressed USPTO examiner who rejected its new 1-Click patent claims as 'obvious' and 'old and well known', Amazon has taken the unusual step of requesting an Oral Appeal to plead its case. And in what might be interpreted by some as an old-fashioned stalling tactic, the e-tailer has also canceled and refiled its 1-Click claims in a continuation application. As it touted the novelty of 1-Click to Congress last spring, Amazon kept the examiner's rejection under its hat, insisting that 'still no [1-Click] prior art has surfaced' to a Judiciary Committee whose members included Rick Boucher (VA) and Howard Berman (CA), both recipients of campaign contributions from a PAC funded by 1-Click inventor Jeff Bezos, other Amazon execs, and their families."
Submission + - Internet use from work may be protected
athloi writes: "A Welsh university employee has successfully sued the UK government in the EU court of human rights over monitoring of her personal internet use from work. "According to the complaint, the woman's e-mail, phone, Internet, and fax usage were all monitored by the Deputy Principal (DP) of the college, who appears to have taken a sharp dislike to her. The woman claimed that her human rights were being abused, and pointed specifically to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (PDF), which governs private and family life." Amazingly, the courts agreed. This could set a precedent for internet use as a right independent of location."
Submission + - Ocean Planets on the Brink of Detection
ZonkerWilliam writes: Seems, at least theoretically, that there may be water planets, and that we may be close to detecting them.
http://www.physorg.com/news89627725.html
Excerpt from the article;
"Imagine a world with no land at all, merely the impenetrable depths of a seething ocean. Models of planet formation predict the existence of such worlds, even though our own solar system has none. Indeed, their formation should actually be rather common — and new satellites may soon detect them around other stars."
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