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Comment Tax Funded Stochastic Parrots or Plagarized Birds (Score 1) 38

by crackpot (#65131547) Attached to: OpenAI Teases 'New Era' of AI In US, Deepens Ties With Government

âoeA glossy pamphlet papered over a deep fissure where underpaid click work meets ecologically devastating energy footprints in a sordid dance of disease, ending in the reproduction of the matrix of white supremacist capitalist cis-heteropatriarchal settler colonialist dominationâ - Sasha Sistanza-Chok

Comment Re:Let's not leap to conclusions. (Score 1) 1079

by crackpot (#30409902) Attached to: Sci-Fi Author Peter Watts Beaten, Charged During Border Crossing

Right on target and I couldn't agree more. I can't count how many times I've crossed the border having had to endure the clearly condescending "how are you sir?"; "please exit the vehicle sir"; "what is your business in the U.S. sir?"; "please open the trunk sir"; "you may return to your vehicle sir", "blah, blah, blah, blah" all the time knowing that these untrained armed goons purportedly there to "protect the border" are all really nothing more than sociopathic power freaks.

This is a clear indication of the decline of western society. We all know that it's our god given right to be rude, uncooperative, beligerent and generally unsocial towards "authority" without having to concern ourselves with the consequences of our actions. These guards are probably all redneck dog-beaters anyway that deserve whatever unholy hell Watts' attorney can dish.

We all know the same applies to all social activists, librarians, transit workers and tech support personnel...
Medicine

Are Women Getting More Beautiful? 834

Posted by CmdrTaco from the or-are-you-just-less-picky dept.
FelxH writes "Scientists have found that evolution is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors. The researchers have found beautiful women have more children than their plainer counterparts and that a higher proportion of those children are female. Those daughters, once adult, also tend to be attractive and so repeat the pattern." I just thought my standards were changing as I got older, but it turns out it's just science!
Portables

Submission + - big ram laptops? (beyond 4gb)

Submitted by Fubari
Fubari writes: Anybody know when laptops over 4gb might be coming out? Some of the devtools I want to run are just obscene ram-pigs. On the desktop I'm using now (win2003), it sucks up 1.6gb just to boot. By the time I log in and start doing work, it is stretching 2gb.

Move that to vista, add a vm-ware session or two, and I'm worried I'll be pushing 4gb.

I'm torn between buying a 4gb-max laptop now, or some mini-desktop that can fit in a set of luggage wheels. A friend of mine suggested something like this, but my first choice would be something designed to be portable.
It's funny. Laugh.

XP On 8-MHz Pentium With 20 MB RAM 410

Posted by kdawson from the golden-hourglass dept.
swehack writes "The guys over at winhistory.de managed to get their Windows XP Professional running on a very minimal box: an Intel Pentium clocked down to 8 MHz with 20 MB of RAM. (The installer won't work with less than 64 MB, but after installing you can remove memory.) The link has plenty of pictures of their progress in achieving this dubious milestone. They deserve a Golden Hourglass award for 'extreme waste of time.' What obscure hardware configurations have you managed to get Windows running on?"
Biotech

Merck To Halt Lobbying For Vaccine 544

Posted by kdawson from the get-that-needle-away-from-me dept.
theodp writes "Reacting to a furor from some parents, advocacy groups, and public health experts, Merck said yesterday that it would stop lobbying state legislatures to require the use of its new cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil, which acts against strains of the sexually-transmitted human papilloma virus. The $400, 3-shot regimen was approved by the FDA in June. Later that month, a federal advisory panel recommended that females 11-26 years old be vaccinated. The governor of Texas has already signed an executive order making its use mandatory for schoolgirls."
The Almighty Buck

IRS May Ask eBay To Snitch On Sellers 418

Posted by kdawson from the taxman-cometh dept.
Makarand writes "The IRS thinks that many sellers on online auction sites are unaware of their obligation to declare their profits and pay their taxes to the IRS. Tax experts are now asking the IRS to require online auction sites like eBay, Yahoo, and Ubid to report the gross sales numbers for their sellers. Such a requirement will surely send a shock wave across the online trading world because it could drastically reduce the profits a seller would make on these sites. The IRS thinks it can collect an extra $2 billion in taxes from this requirement that auctioneers report sellers who complete 100 or transactions a year worth at least $5,000."
Programming

Submission + - Introduction to Linden Scripting Language

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Dr. Dobb's Journal runs a lengthy introduction to Linden Scripting Language, the language behind avatars and their interaction in Second Life: "LSL is a scripting language that runs server-side, on a piece of software called the simulator. The simulator does just what it's name implies — it simulates the virtual world of Second Life. Each simulator runs everything for 16 acres of virtual land — buildings, physics, and of course, scripts. While you manipulate the script text in a form that is somewhat easy to read, the actual code that runs on the simulator is compiled. A compiler is a piece of software that takes the text version of the script and converts it into something that can actually run. In the case of LSL, the compiler exists within the Second Life viewer itself. In the future, it is likely that the compiler will move from the viewer into the Second Life simulators, but where the code is compiled isn't very important. What matters is that the text is converted into a form that can run on the simulators.""
Businesses

Are Unfinished Products Now the Norm? 111

Posted by Cliff from the not-ready-for-prime-time dept.
Paul asks: "Long ago when digital synthesizers first became commonly available, I recall a reviewer lamenting how he was getting more and more products to test whose software was unfinished and buggy and would require updates and fixes (this, before the internet allowed easy downloads, would have meant a journey to a specialist repair center). The review also commented how this common problem with computer software was spreading (this was before Windows 95 was out), and asked if it was going to become the norm. These days it seems ubiquitous, with PDAs, digital cameras, PVRs and all manner of complex goods needing after-market firmware fixes often simply to make them have the features promised in the adverts, let alone add enhancements. Are we seeing this spread beyond computers and computer-based products; jokes apart, will we be booting our cars up and installing flash updates every week to prevent computer viruses getting into the control systems? Can anyone comment on any recent purchases where they've been badly let down by missing features, or are still waiting for promised updates even whilst a new model is now on the shelves? How can we make the manufacturers take better responsibility? Apart from reading every review possible before making a purchase, what strategy do you have, or propose, for not being caught out?"
Education

Getting in to a Top Tier College? 177

Posted by Cliff from the secrets-of-admission dept.
IvyLeague Engineer asks: "I'm currently a senior at a top rated public school and I look forward to majoring in Electrical Engineering. I've already been accepted into Carnegie Mellon University, so I don't need to worry about any 'safety' schools. However, I still have my sights set on getting into a school such as MIT or Cal Tech. My grades are high (95.6 on a 100 scale), I have several leadership positions in clubs, however I'm pretty sure that's not enough. What else can I do to improve my chances of being accepted there? I've already been deferred from early action at both institutions and I'm afraid it's too late to do much at this point. I'm sure there are other people like me wondering just what it takes to get admitted to a prestigious college."

Deciphering the DNA Code of Neanderthal Man 188

Posted by Zonk from the hey-good-buddy dept.
smooth wombat writes "U.S. and German scientists have embarked on a two-year long project to map the genetic code of Neanderthal man. Their hope is to gain a greater understanding of how modern human brains evolved. This study comes after last years completion of mapping the DNA of chimpanzees, our closest living relative." From the article: "Over two years, the scientists aim to reconstruct a draft of the 3 billion building blocks of the Neanderthal genome -- working with fossil samples from several individuals. They face the complication of working with 40,000-year-old samples, and of filtering out microbial DNA that contaminated them after death. Only about 5 percent of the DNA in the samples is actually Neanderthal DNA, Egholm estimated, but he and Rothberg said pilot experiments had convinced them that the decoding was feasible."
The Courts

U.S. To Drop Charges Against Sklyarov 329

Posted by timothy from the in-exchange-for-testimony dept.
Schmerd writes: "The New York Times has a story saying that charges will be dropped against Dmitry Sklyarov in exchange for his testimony against his employer ElcomSoft." Si adds: "It looks like Dmitri might be home for Christmas. This is not the end of the trial, but it appears Dmitri has been freed, pending certain stipulations." jij adds this breaking news article on the Associated Press wire as well. (The AP story is also at Wired). Update: 12/13 22:23 GMT by T : sam@caveman.org links to a slightly more in-depth AP report at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Programming

Chuck Moore Holds Forth 211

Posted by timothy from the lots-of-little-processors dept.
A little while ago you asked Forth (and now colorForth) originator Chuck Moore about his languages, the multi-core chips he's been designing, and the future of computer languages -- now he's gotten back with answers well worth reading, from how to allocate computing resources on chips and in programs, to what sort of (color) vision it takes to program effectively. Thanks, Chuck!
The Internet

Seanbaby.com 247

Posted by JonKatz from the more-interesting-by-far-than-CNN dept.
It's obvious that Seanbaby.com is funny, weird and distinctive, a showcase example of how idiosyncratic personalities, viewpoints and sub-cultures can flourish on a free, non-corporatized Internet. It's not as clear why Seanbaby is important, a vital but endangered Web species that needs to grow and prosper in a world whose desktop is being shaped by Microsoft and AOL/Time-Warner.

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