Journal SPAM: Working classes are less intelligent, says evolution expert 12
"Then they should have fewer rights, too" Dept.:
Journal SPAM: "Everybody in the country" was Subject of Illegal Wiretap 5
The Washington Post drops this bomb, in the middle of the page:
Submission + - Robots that bounce in bed (nytimes.com)
nem75 writes: "The NY Times has a review of British AI researcher David Levy's book "Love and Sex with Robots". He claims that within a span of about 50 years the day will come, when people could actually fall in love with life-like robots and want to live with them instead of a human mate. While this may seem far fetched at first, he has some pretty interesting views on this. Like the sexual part being the easyest thing, what with brothels exclusively offering life-like sex dolls already existing in Japan and South Korea. The case he builds goes much further though, and certainly provides food for thought."
Submission + - How to turn a Mini Maglite into a powerful laser (lifehacker.com) 3
Lucas123 writes: "Using the laser from a DVD burner, this instructional video shows you how to create a hand-held laser that is powerful enough to light a match and pop a balloon. There's some soldering involved and the Maglite's bulb housing needs to be drilled out to fit the new laser diode, but with some basic skill, most people could do this. Just plain cool."
Submission + - Replacing atime With relatime in the Kernel (kerneltrap.org)
eldavojohn writes: "Our friend Jeremy at the Kernal Trap has has dug up some interesting criticism of atime from god himself, Linus Torvalds. As Linus submitted patches to improve relatime he noted: "I cannot over-emphasize how much of a deal it is in practice. Atime updates are by far the biggest IO performance deficiency that Linux has today. Getting rid of atime updates would give us more everyday Linux performance than all the pagecache speedups of the past 10 years, _combined_." And later severely beat atime about the head with a pointed stick: "It's also perhaps the most stupid Unix design idea of all times. Unix is really nice and well done, but think about this a bit: 'For every file that is read from the disk, lets do a ... write to the disk! And, for every file that is already cached and which we read from the cache ... do a write to the disk!" Well, I guess I can expect my Linux machine to become a little bit faster!"
Submission + - A CIO's View of Ubuntu (cio.com)
onehitwonder writes: "Well-known CIO John Halamka has rigorously tested six different operating systems over the course of a year in an effort to find a viable alternative to Microsoft Windows on his laptop and his company's computers. CIO.com reported his experiences in Windows vs. Linux vs. OS X and in a follow-up article on SUSE. In Windows vs. Linux vs. OS X: CIO John Halamka Tests Ubuntu, the CIO explains how Ubuntu stacks up against Novell SUSE 10, RHEL, Fedora, XP and Mac OS X, in a life-and-death business environment. He also shares his individual and enterprise desktop OS plans moving forward. Things are not going to be the same for him or his company: SUSE and Ubuntu have dealt Windows a blow."
Feed Top 10 Internet Crimes of 2006 (schneier.com)
Journal Journal: Fascist America, in 10 easy steps 3
Naomi Wolf is highly annoying, but she makes some valid points in this Guardian op ed.
Submission + - The Virtues of a Monoculture: Why Microsoft Wins
blackbearnh writes: "Why does Microsoft win the development environment war so often, when we all know it's a lifetime lock-in to Windows? Perhaps it's because the open source community offers too much choice, as this blog on the O'Reilly ONLamp site suggests.
From the blog:
"Microsoft offers the certainty of no choices. Choice isn't always good, and the open source community sometimes offers far too many ways to skin the same cat, choices that are born more out of pride, ego or stubbornness than a genuine need for two different paths. I won't point fingers, everyone knows examples.
Journal Journal: amerika uber alles
The Bush administration asked Congress on Friday to allow monitoring of more foreigners in the United States during intelligence investigations.
The plan is among several proposed changes, which have been in the works for more than a year, that go to the heart of a major U.S. surveillance law.
The administration says the changes are intended to help the government deal with national security threats better by updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to bring it into line with rap
The administration says the changes are intended to help the government deal with national security threats better by updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to bring it into line with rap
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Dies At 84 380
At least twenty-two readers took the trouble to make sure we knew that Kurt Vonnegut has died at 84. From the Times obituary: "Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like 'Slaughterhouse-Five,' 'Cat's Cradle' and 'God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater' caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan... Mr. Vonnegut suffered irreversible brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago, according to his wife, Jill Krementz." Reader SPK adds: "He will be remembered not only as a great writer, but also as a staunch civil libertarian (long-term member of the ACLU) and as a 'mainstream/literary' author who integrated science fiction concepts into his writing. So it goes."
Submission + - Hackers Turn $300 Apple TV into Cheapest Max
Anonymous Coward writes: "Apple TV is dead, long live the Mac Nano. Sort of.
Just two weeks after Apple released its streaming media box to the public, hackers successfully installed OS X, Apple's desktop operating system, on the $300 device, making it the cheapest PC Cupertino has ever sold.
"The breakthrough is done, OS X runs on Apple TV!" wrote "Semthex," the anonymous hacker responsible for the mod, at his website. "Now we got (the) low-budget Mac we ever wanted."
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2007/04/appl etvhacks_0406"
Just two weeks after Apple released its streaming media box to the public, hackers successfully installed OS X, Apple's desktop operating system, on the $300 device, making it the cheapest PC Cupertino has ever sold.
"The breakthrough is done, OS X runs on Apple TV!" wrote "Semthex," the anonymous hacker responsible for the mod, at his website. "Now we got (the) low-budget Mac we ever wanted."
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2007/04/app
Feed Star's odd double explosion hints at antimatter trigger (pheedo.com)
Astronomers are puzzling over a star that survived a massive explosion, only to be destroyed in a second blast two years later - its own production of antimatter may have been its undoing
Submission + - Top 21 Tech Flops
PetManimal writes: "Whatever happened to Digital Audio Tape? Or Circuit City's DIVX program? Or IBM's PCjr. and the PS/1? Computerworld's list of 21 biggest tech flops is an amusing trip down the memory lane of tech failures. Some are obvious (Apple Newton), while others are obscure (Warner Communications' QUBE). Strangely, Y2K didn't make the list."
Feed State of the Art: The Sermon on the Tapes (nytimes.com)
When old media formats die, there are ways to bring your Super 8 films, VHS tapes and 8-tracks into the DVD world.
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