Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Should optical discs last forever?
C|net: “One should consider the issues of digital obsolescence and migration,” the survey says. “Is 100 years (or ‘forever’) really practical for typical long-term digital storage strategies? While you may need to preserve data for a particular length of time, is it really necessary to preserve that data on any particular technology or can it be migrated to newer technologies?”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:16 PM / Comments (0)
Dying stars could make frozen planets habitable
Maggie McKee reports for NewScientist: “Planet hunters should look for potential havens for life around dying stars, suggest new calculations. Astronomers think the best environment for life around any star lies in a “habitable zone” – the zone in which a planet’s surface temperature means liquid water can exist.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 08:02 PM / Comments (0)
Monday, March 28, 2005
Gravity Probe B Aims to Confirm Einstein's Theory
Red Nova: “By measuring the shape of space with exquisite precision, NASA’s Gravity Probe B aims to confirm Einstein’s theory of relativity… or provide the first evidence against it.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 03:15 PM / Comments (0)
Global Warming's Silver Lining
Wired News: “Earth’s temperature is on the rise, researchers say, and environmental watchdogs are howling, hoping it’s not too late to avert negative effects that could range from melting icecaps to mass extinctions… [Yet] some researchers believe the benefits of Earth’s warming will help compensate for the harmful consequences.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 01:31 PM / Comments (2)
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Google in new languages
O’Rielly Developer Weblogs: “LifeHacker made me aware of some amusing Google search pages in L33t, Klingon and Sveedish Chef (bork bork bork). I’m not sure if these really count as Easter Eggs as they are all listed on the main Google language tools page. Other cute versions include Elmer Fudd and Pig Latin.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 11:10 PM / Comments (0)
Friday, March 25, 2005
Become the Idlewords.com Macropatron!
Idle Words: “I’m asking one of the regular readers of this site to become the idlewords.com macropatron by contributing a very large sum of money to enable me to quit my job and become a professional blogger.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:57 AM / Comments (0)
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Netspeak good for English, experts say
Knight Ridder Newspapers: “The Internet is fostering new kinds of creativity through language,” said David Crystal, a historian of language at the University of Wales in the United Kingdom. “It’s the beginning of a new stage in the evolution of the written language and a new motivation for child and adult literacy.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 04:12 PM / Comments (0)
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Firefox add-on lets surfers tweak sites
C|net: “The extension, dubbed Greasemonkey, lets people run what’s known as a “user script,” which alters a Web page as the page is downloaded. That capability has gained the extension an avid following of Web surfers who want to customize the sites they visit, removing design glitches and stripping sites of ads.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 06:53 PM / Comments (1)
Hackers Tilt PowerBook for Tricks
Wired News: “With the mouse entering its fifth decade, it could perhaps be on the verge of retirement - at least if a combination of Apple Computer engineering and the work of enterprising hackers bears fruit.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 03:18 PM / Comments (0)
Exotic black holes spawn new universal law
Jenny Hogan reports for New Scientist: “Black holes may define the perfect fluid, suggests a study of black holes that only exist in a theoretical 10-dimensional space. The finding may have spawned a new universal law in physics, which puts constraints on the way fluids behave in the real world.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 03:15 PM / Comments (0)
Mendel's Law May Be Flawed
Wired News: “Challenging a scientific law of inheritance that has stood for 150 years, scientists say plants sometimes select better bits of DNA in order to develop normally even when their predecessors carried genetic flaws.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 03:13 PM / Comments (0)
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
3D printer to churn out copies of itself
New Scientist: “A self-replicating 3D printer that spawns new, improved versions of itself is in development at the University of Bath in the UK. The self replicating rapid prototyper or RepRap could vastly reduce the cost of 3D printers, paving the way for a future where broken objects and spare parts are simply “re-printed” at home. New and unique objects could also be created.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 08:00 PM / Comments (0)
Dark matter doesn't matter, say scientists
Lucy Sherriff reports for The Register: “The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate because of ripples in space-time that stretch beyond the observable edges of the universe, according to a paper published in Physical Review Letters. This theory runs counter to current scientific thinking, which holds that so-called dark energy is responsible for this phenomenon.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 12:50 PM / Comments (0)
Super Shuffle just a publicity stunt
Peter Rojas of engadget reports: “The facts: The Super Shuffle is not in production by LuxPro. There is no intent by LuxPro to ever put the Super Shuffle into production. The entire CeBit sideshow was planned from the start as a gambit to gain a hugely disproportionate share of the industry’s attention, so as to find a few customers for the Super Shuffle’s electronics.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 12:31 AM / Comments (0)
Monday, March 21, 2005
Global warming could trigger ant invasions
New Scientist: “Global warming may lead to an unexpected threat from the insect world - swarming invasions of tiny ants - suggests new research. The study of 665 ant colonies in environments ranging from tropical rainforests to frozen tundra suggests that in warmer environments the ants’ body size shrinks…”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 07:17 PM / Comments (0)
Classic maths puzzle cracked at last
Maggie McKee reports for NewScientist: “A number puzzle originating in the work of self-taught maths genius Srinivasa Ramanujan nearly a century ago has been solved. The solution may one day lead to advances in particle physics and computer security.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 03:06 PM / Comments (0)
Sunday, March 20, 2005
More than meats the eye
Guardian Unlimited: “You may scoff at the idea of an emotional cow, but the latest research suggests animals might have feelings just like ours.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:38 PM / Comments (0)
Friday, March 18, 2005
Saving the Internet from itself
Ars Technica: “CIO.com polled a bunch of infosec and other types for “big ideas” on how to keep the Internet from collapsing under the weight of worms, Trojans, SPAM, and so on. The suggestions are worth taking a look at, mostly because many of them are just appalling.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:43 AM / Comments (0)
13 things that do not make sense
New Scientist: “The placebo effect, The horizon problem, Ultra-energetic cosmic rays, Belfast homeopathy results, Dark matter, Viking’s methane, So why no party, Tetraneutrons, The Pioneer anomaly, Dark energy, The Kuiper cliff, The Wow signal, Not-so-constant constants, Cold fusion.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:40 AM / Comments (0)
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Hydrogen cars by 2012 says DaimlerChysler
Lucy Sherriff reports for The Register: “DaimlerChrysler has announced that it will be ready to launch its first hydrogen-powered car by 2012. A company spokesman made the announcement in tandem with Shell Hydrogen at a hydrogen car technology exhibition in Brussels.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 04:56 PM / Comments (0)
Watery atmosphere discovered on Saturn's moon
Maggie McKee reports for NewScientist: “Saturn’s snow-white moon, Enceladus, is shrouded by a thin water-vapour atmosphere, reveal measurements from the US-European Cassini spacecraft. The atmosphere may be pumped out by erupting ice volcanoes or geysers - which could signal toeholds for life on the tiny moon.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 04:48 PM / Comments (0)
Black holes in production in New York
Lucy Sherriff reports for The Register: “Researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York have created a very short-lived, very tiny black hole, or at least, a fireball that behaved quite a lot like one for a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 04:46 PM / Comments (0)
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Spammer sues anti-spammer for $4 million
Ars Technica: “Can you imagine trying to get someone to stop spamming you, only to be sued for a whopping US$4 million? That’s exactly what has happened to Mark Mumma, after he took his displeasure with Cruise.com to the web, and started threatening to collect the fines he believed he was due.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 11:03 PM / Comments (0)
Monday, March 14, 2005
Why it is hard to share the wealth
Jenny Hogan reports for New Scientist: “The rich are getting richer while the poor remain poor. If you doubt it, ponder these numbers from the US, a country widely considered meritocratic, where talent and hard work are thought to be enough to propel anyone through the ranks of the rich.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:32 PM / Comments (0)
The endgame
Guardian Unlimited interviews Garry Kasparov: “When Garry Kasparov announced his retirement from chess last week, after more than 20 years as the world’s best player, he left the sport reeling. In his first major interview since the news, he explains how he plans to take on a challenge of even greater complexity - politics in his native Russia.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:28 PM / Comments (0)
The Blind Fragging the Blind
Wired News: “Michael Feir is an avid gamer. He spent so much time playing games in college he created his own online gaming magazine. But Feir doesn’t play the best-selling games and has never seen World of Warcraft — he’s blind. It doesn’t matter. A growing library of computer games has been built specially for blind gamers, using sound instead of visuals to let players know what’s going on around them.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 10:35 AM / Comments (0)
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Do You Speak Tech?
Wired News: “The technology industry never had it easy explaining technical concepts in plain language, but some at Hanover’s CeBIT technology fair don’t even seem to be trying.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 01:24 PM / Comments (0)
Saturday, March 12, 2005
The pits in CherryOS
Drunken Blog: “Recently I had some very, very disturbing news passed onto me regarding what’s going on with the product known as CherryOS. There’s been a lot of buzz about Cherry OS lately - since they started actually selling their product - but there are some real pits in Cherry OS, and the people behind it (MXS), that aren’t getting enough attention.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 07:14 PM / Comments (0)
Friday, March 11, 2005
'Red and dead' galaxies surprise astronomers
Maggie McKee reports for NewScientist: “The corpses of three “dead” galaxies - which to the surprise of astronomers stopped forming stars long ago - have been identified by the Spitzer Space Telescope during a survey of the distant, early universe. The find bolsters a theory that colossal black holes can starve galaxies of the gas needed to create new stars.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 08:17 PM / Comments (0)
Apple Wins Trade Secrets Legal Dispute
Rachel Konrad reports for SFGate.com: “A California judge on Friday ruled that three independent online reporters may have to divulge confidential sources in a lawsuit brought by Apple Computer Inc., ruling that there are no legal protections for those who publish a company’s trade secrets.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 08:16 PM / Comments (0)
Garry Kasparov retires from professional chess
Chessbase News: “The winner of Linares and the world’s strongest chess player, Garry Kasparov, has just announced his retirement from professional chess. His games in this tournament were the last in a career that has spanned thirty years, twenty of which were spent on the top of the world ratings list. Here are details and a video clip.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 07:36 AM / Comments (0)
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Hello aliens, this is Earth calling
Kelly Young reports for NewScientist: “A group of engineers has offered a solution for people who want a direct line to aliens - by broadcasting their phone calls directly into space. The company is not aiming its antenna at specific stars with the potential to harbour life. Rather, they have opted to track across the Milky Way galaxy to cover a host of nearby stars.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:35 PM / Comments (0)
Bill Gates: UK Workers are liars
TechNewsWorld: Microsoft attributes the blame to employers rather than staff and accuses UK companies of making British workers feel obliged to lie to cover shortcomings in their work. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who last week went to Buckingham Palace to receive an honorary knighthood, says two-thirds of British workers are liars.
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:28 PM / Comments (0)
Google Responds to Cloaking Accusations
Matt Hicks reports for eWeek: “Google has taken the unusual step of removing some of its own Web pages from its Web index after reports that the pages used a search-optimization method frowned upon by the search engine.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 06:21 PM / Comments (0)
Wednesday, March 9, 2005
Student in High School zombie terror threat
Lester Haines reports for The Register: “An 18-year-old US student is today behind bars after police uncovered his plot to raise a zombie army and attack his high school. The wannabe Papa Doc Duvalier’s chilling plan was uncovered after the youth’s grandparents discovered his written proposal for the outrage. Mercifully, William Poole was cuffed before he could execute his macabre scheme.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 10:16 PM / Comments (0)
Penrose: The Answer's Not 42
Wired News: “In 1998, Stephen Hawking laid 50-50 odds that the holy grail of physics, the elusive theory of everything, was less than 20 years away. We are nowhere close to an accurate, purely physical theory of everything, Penrose told Nature earlier this year. For instance, despite the stampede of physicists today seeking to unify all physical theories under the aegis of string theory, Penrose thinks his colleagues are on a wild goose chase.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 10:06 PM / Comments (0)
Tuesday, March 8, 2005
How to Snatch an Expiring Domain
Mike Davidson writes: “I recently found myself in the position of wanting to register a domain which was owned by someone else. The domain was set to expire in a week, and I figured there was a decent chance that the person who owned it wouldn’t be renewing it…”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 11:12 PM / Comments (0)
Wiki Becomes a Way of Life
Wired News: “Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, has 490,000 articles — in English alone. All together, including its French, German, Italian, Chinese, Spanish and many other versions, it has well over 1.3 million entries. Among those 16,000 contributors, there are some whose involvement goes far beyond the call of duty. These are the hard-core Wikipedians who spend long hours writing articles, or tweaking existing ones.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 06:47 PM / Comments (0)
Google Caught Cloaking and Keyword Stuffing?
Threadwatch: “A short while ago, Threadwatch member Adam_C discovered what for all appearances seems to be Google pulling dirty SEO tactics on it’s own pages and thus going against it’s own guidelines in an effort to rank highly within it’s own results.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 06:38 PM / Comments (0)
Monday, March 7, 2005
WinFS To Be Available on Windows XP
Microsoft Watch: “Microsoft is back-porting its WinFS file-system technology to Windows XP, the same way that it is doing with its Windows presentation and communications subsystems, according to company officials.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:49 PM / Comments (0)
Laughing helps arteries and boosts blood flow
Andy Coghlan reports for NewScientist: “Laughing appears to be almost as beneficial as a workout in boosting the health of blood vessels, a new study suggests. Thirty minutes of exercise three times a week and 15 minutes of hearty laughter each day should be part of a healthy lifestyle, says Michael Miller of the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, US, whose team has shown that laughter relaxes arteries and boosts blood flow.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:46 PM / Comments (0)
Allofmp3.com let off the hook
Ars Technica: “Russian online music site Allofmp3.com will continue to operate, after Russian prosecutors concluded they cannot take legal action against the music store. Finally prodded into motion by continuous lobbying by the RIAA, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, and other copyright holders, Russian law enforcement officials began an investigtation of the service two weeks ago.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 03:27 PM / Comments (0)
Sunday, March 6, 2005
TTC Fares - Effective March 6, 2005
TTC: Adult - Cash: $2.50, Tokens/ Tickets: 5 - $10.00, 10 - $20.00, Metropass: Monthly - $98.75, Metropass Discount Plan (MDP): Annual per month - $90.50.
Senior / Student - Cash: $1.70, Tickets only: 5 - $6.65, 10 - $13.25, Metropass: Monthly - $83.25, Metropass Discount Plan (MDP): Annual per month - $76.25.
Child - Cash: $0.60, Tickets: 10 - $4.50.
Day Pass - $8.00.
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 10:09 PM / Comments (0)
Friday, March 4, 2005
Ruling on Fate of Protective Order
The Mac Observer: “Lawyers representing Apple Computer said Friday they have exhausted all resources in finding who leaked confidential information about an unreleased Apple product, as lawyers for three Web sites argued the Mac maker shouldn’t be able to use facts found in the discovery process to force journalists into revealing sources.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 05:41 PM / Comments (0)
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Hydroelectric power's dirty secret revealed
NewScientist: “Contrary to popular belief, hydroelectric power can seriously damage the climate. Proposed changes to the way countries’ climate budgets are calculated aim to take greenhouse gas emissions from hydropower reservoirs into account, but some experts worry that they will not go far enough.”
Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 07:15 AM / Comments (0)