January 2012
5 posts
Con Artist Starred in Sting That Cost Google... →
PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Wearing leg irons and guarded by federal agents, David Whitaker posed as an agent for online drug dealers in dozens of recorded phone calls and email exchanges with Google sales executives, spending $200,000 in government money for ads selling narcotics, steroids and other controlled substances.
‘It was very obvious to Google that my website was not a...
December 2011
1 post
August 2011
1 post
May 2011
3 posts
Japan recreates the sensation of buttons on a... →
Japanese telecommunications operator KDDI is developing a smartphone which can accurately recreate the sensation of using physical buttons on a touch panel.
Why Mobile Apps Will Soon be Dead - Technology... →
Games: the ultimate test of downloadable web apps
It’s hard to imagine Apple’s App store — 50 million users, 400,000 apps, 10 billion downloads — being threatened with extinction, but it’s not as if Tyrannosaurus Rex had a clue its demise was imminent until the process was well underway, either. We know that empires crumble: what’s interesting is how.
Why Not All Earnings Are Equal; Microsoft Has the... →
For the first time in 20 years,Apple’s quarterly profit exceeded Microsoft. Thus, on the face of things, the companies should be roughly equally valued. But they aren’t. This week Microsoft’s market capitalization is about $215B, while Apple’s is about $365B – about 70% higher.
The difference is, of course, growth – and how a lack of it changes management – including Microsoft.
According to...
March 2011
22 posts
Dubai on Empty | Culture | Vanity Fair →
Locals stand in front of the royal enclosure at the track.
Kids urged to study less, sleep more →
Stressed … new documentary questions the value of pushing kids too hard.
Maybe kids don’t have to take several extra-curricular classes, do hours of homework every night, excel at a sport or two, join a bunch of clubs - and then, of course, get into a top university - to be successful.
Maximum Overhang, Optimum Reward - Microsoft... →
Yuval Peres, principal researcher at Microsoft Research Redmond and manager of the Theory Group, always advocates both healthy skepticism and an open mind when it comes to problem solving. Even so, Peres was pleasantly surprised when a paper he co-authored won the prestigious David P. Robbins Prize from the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) for taking a completely new approach to a problem...
Illegal TV streamers, here's how the feds will... →
BBC News - Plagiarism: The Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V boom →
Plagiarism: The Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V boom
Many students cross the line under pressureContinue reading the main story
In today’s Magazine
Which UK accents work in the US?
Why the UK gives India aid?
Raunchy Doris: Been and gone
Your Letters
A German minister has resigned after copying huge chunks of his doctoral thesis, while the London School of Economics is probing whether Colonel...
Death of Adventure Games →
A few weeks ago, Gamecenter ran an article in which they declared that adventure gaming was “dead and buried”. The Gamecenter employees who write the titles for articles apparently don’t coordinate their efforts with the people who write the subtitles for articles because even before the banner graphic was completely over, someone in the subtitle department had upgraded...
Cactus Walking On 20 Legs Found In China :... →
There was a wild period — roughly 520 million years ago — when life, for no obvious reason, burst into a crazy display of weird new fantastic forms — producing creatures in shapes never seen before or since. Consider this animal, the newest fossil discovery from Jianni Liu in China. She calls it “the walking cactus.”
Bittorrent over Tor isn't a good idea | The Tor... →
An increasing number of people are asking us about the recent paper coming out of Inria in France around Bittorrent and privacy attacks. This post tries to explain the attacks and what they imply.
A Ban on Brain-Boosting Drugs Is Not the Answer -... →
Jordin Isip for The Chronicle
Enlarge Image
By Matt Lamkin
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism recently described an experiment in which two student journalists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison tested how quickly they could “score” Adderall—a prescription stimulant designed to treat attention-deficit disorders, but often used by healthy students as a study aid....
The Benefits of Being a Female Software Engineer «... →
There aren’t a lot of female software engineers out there, but being one is not all that bad! I love being a software engineer, for many reasons that are not gender-specific: the excitement of new releases that impact real users, working with an awesome team, being an active part of the thriving Palo Alto startup community… But then there are a lot of reasons that I love being...
Why is breast milk ice-cream repulsive? | Sarah... →
Baby Gaga breast milk ice cream has proved popular at the Icecreamists cafe in London. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images
February 2011
40 posts
cryptogon.com » High-Traffic Colluding Tor Routers... →
With the U.S. Government trying to shut down websites and stealing gold, I feel the need to discuss communications security, surveillance and anonymity as the U.S. collapses further into overt fascism. I need to get this off my chest, once and for all, because people, who don’t know much about computers, are being bombarded with nonsense, and they’re bombarding me with nonsense as a result. I want...
The lost art of pickpocketing: Why has the crime... →
The mark strolls along a city sidewalk, fresh out of the bank, his wallet in his back pocket, blithely unaware that he’s stumbled into the clutches of a practiced jug troupe. Someone shouts, “Look out for pickpockets,” and when the mark hears it, he feels for his wallet. It’s still there. A steer positioned across the street sees this and wipes his brow, signaling to an...
inception - The movie, explained through C code -... →
I will be honest: this is one of the cooler things I’ve seen recently:
/* * Create separate threads for the main protagonists involved in the inception */ static void *inception(void *unused) { struct sched_param param = {.sched_priority = 99 }; int policy = SCHED_OTHER; if(!getuid() || !geteuid()) { output("Setting policy to real time process\n"); ...
Gamification company GreenGoose raises $100k on... →
GreenGoose, which slaps accelerometers on everything to turn everyday activities into a game, impressed so many people at the Launch Conference in San Francisco today that it managed to raise $100,000 on stage from angel investor Shervin Pishevar and early stage venture capitalist Jay Levy.
“This stuff is not easy to do,” Pevy said. “This is pretty difficult, and they had to do it while we were...
Are You Smarter Than an Eighth Grader (From 1895)?... →
The Salina Journal, a daily newspaper in Salina, Kansas, has published a final exam that was given to local eighth-graders in 1895 (via this friendly website). (“It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS.”) The PDF is available here.
I would be very curious to know how modern eighth graders would do on the test — not that...
The Large Hadron Collider is back. Now for the... →
Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse, Foo Fighters: there are some big comebacks planned for 2011. But surely none will be as literally universe- defining as the third coming of the Large Hadron Collider(LHC), which revved back into gear on Sunday.
Google Gets Involved in BitTorrent Search Engine... →
Over the past several years many BitTorrent search engines have claimed in court that they’re “just like Google”, another search engine that allows users to find information scattered around the web. All this time Google itself remained silent on the issue, until now. The search giant has involved itself in the MPAA vs. isoHunt case recently, but not completely to the delight of isoHunt’s owner.
...
So you still think the internet is free... →
Tractatus Computo-Philosophicus - HXA7241 - 2010 →
A brief philosophical expression of software development, in the style of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.
Steve Jobs gave Russian President an AT&T iPhone,... →
Why I don't care very much about tablets anymore →
I’ve realized recently that I’m just not very excited about tablets—anybody’s tablets, no matter the OS or maker. I first realized I felt this way when I was only mildly disappointed (as opposed to heartbroken) to find myself too sick to attend the long-awaited (by me, anyway) webOS tablet unveiling. Since then, I’ve thought a lot about the roots of my tablet ennui, and...
Why Twitter Should Never Expand Beyond 140... →
Last week, I came across an interestingarticle on ReadWriteWeb titled: “Why Twitter Must Expand Beyond 140 Characters.” Going by the title alone, I can say without hesitation that calling it ‘a bad idea’ would be an understatement. In fact, I believe it would completely kill the very essence of Twitter.
How America Can Rise Again - Magazine - The... →
Is America going to hell? After a year of economic calamity that many fear has sent us into irreversible decline, the author finds reassurance in the peculiarly American cycle of crisis and renewal, and in the continuing strength of the forces that have made the country great: our university system, our receptiveness to immigration, our culture of innovation. In most significant ways, the U.S....
Are Writers Powerless to Make a Living in the... →
• Jaron Lanier is the author of You Are Not a Gadget and “father of virtual reality” considers whether writers and “content” creators can make a living in the Digital Age.
• Lanier argues against mashups and content fragmentation, saying, “economic incentives will be in favor of supporting individuals instead of … a collective vision.”
Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their... →
Is it fair for the founders to own about 100% of a startup while employee #1 only owns a few percent? Are the founders 10-1000x more valuable than their employees?
The answers are
Yes, it is fair.
Value doesn’t matter, timing does.