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Comment: Weakly Hopeful (Score 1) 48

by SpaceToast (#37528006) Attached to: Developer Seeks FDA Approval For Therapeutic Game

In theory, this isn't actually that out-there as an addition to a treatment regimen, although the trial should be an order of magnitude larger to produce meaningful data. What we'd hope for is a means of giving the patient a quantifiable, self-directed method of practicing certain aspects of his or her cognitive behavioral therapy -- there's a lot more to therapy than what takes place at the therapist's office. The danger comes from a product that allows the patient to learn to beat the game, rather than improving his or her skills in the real world. (This is where so-called "brain training" games for general entertainment have failed: Play memory cards for a few hours a day, and you'll get very good at turning over memory cards. You still won't be able to find your keys in the morning though.)

Schizophrenia basically means that a person has difficulty assigning priority to ideas. The toast you actually just put in the toaster has no more significance than the goofy idea that just popped into your head about your ex. Sounds reasonable until you consider thinking that way nearly all the time, and actually trying to get anything done. Add a dash of natural human paranoia, and it can cause some serious harm.

We'll hope for the best, but I still prefer to see any new treatment given the level of scrutiny we instinctively give to a new (molecular) medication.


Making Graphics In Games '100,000 Times' Better? 291

Posted by Soulskill
from the future-of-gaming-or-complete-bunk dept.
trawg writes "A small Australian software company — backed by almost AUD$2 million in government assistance — is claiming they've developed a new technology which is '100,000 times better' for computer game graphics. It's not clear what exactly is getting multiplied, but they apparently 'make everything out of tiny little atoms instead of flat panels.' They've posted a video to YouTube which shows their new tech, which is apparently running at 20 FPS in software. It's (very) light on the technical details, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but they say an SDK is due in a few months — so stay tuned for more." John Carmack had this to say about the company's claims: "No chance of a game on current gen systems, but maybe several years from now. Production issues will be challenging."

Comment: The Davy Lamp (1815) (Score 5, Interesting) 127

by SpaceToast (#35685678) Attached to: Robert Bunsen, Open Source Pioneer?

After a series of deadly methane explosions in British coal mines, Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829) invented an oil lamp with a metal mesh-encased wick, which became known as the Davy lamp. He released it without patent, and the design quickly spread. Humphrey determined through experimentation that methane only exploded at a certain mixture with oxygen, at a certain (high) temperature. The metal mesh dissipated the heat of the wick below the ignition point, which alerting the miners to the presence of methane ("fire damp") by burning at a different color. It was considered an early triumph of the application of the scientific method to a critical public need.

For a fascinating read on the era, I can't recommend Richard Holmes' recent book The Age of Wonder highly enough.


Bill Gates Says Anti-Vaccine Effort Kills Children 832

Posted by Soulskill
from the won't-somebody-think-of-the-oh-wait dept.
Hugh Pickens writes writes "CNN has an interesting interview with Bill Gates who says that unbelievable progress is being made in both inventing new vaccines and making sure they get out to all the children who need them. The improvements could cut the number of children who die every year from about 9 million to half that. But Gates has harsh words for those who engage in anti-vaccine efforts, especially Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who falsified data to 'prove' a fraudulent link between vaccines and autism. 'It's an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids,' says Gates. 'Because the mothers who heard that lie, many of them didn't have their kids take either pertussis or measles vaccine, and their children are dead today.'"

Comment: Re:Look at it from the other side. (Score 1) 151

by SpaceToast (#34602980) Attached to: Finding Independently Produced TV Shows?
Thanks for shedding some light on that, Tim. Would I be wrong in thinking that the largest barrier is the upfront cost -- and thus risk, if the series isn't picked up -- to the producers? How would the cost of a speculative hour long series pilot compare to, say, a spy show? (Assuming of course that more than half of the speculative show can be filmed on the same sets Firefly/Trek style, and that the spy show will still have to invest in at least one Bookend HQ set itself.)

Comment: Gas Pipe Piracey Apocryphal? (Score 1) 250

by SpaceToast (#34529182) Attached to: When Computers Go Wrong

The Gas Pipe Piracy subheading appears to refer to the 1982 Siberian pipeline sabotage incident. This is something I've been meaning to do a bit of research on. Yes, every bad or even mixed story in the U.S.S.R. was hushed up as best it could be by the Soviets -- witness C.J. Chivers' recent problems tracing the history of the AK-47 in The Gun -- but did the incident actually happen?

I've seen it reported as the largest non-nuclear manmade explosion in history, but every source is weak and third-hand. Obviously the CIA's and NSA's files from the time would still be classified. It seems like the best way to establish the veracity of the incident would be by speaking to senior physicians in the surrounding cities. The casualties from the event -- if it did occur -- would have been extremely high. Burst eardrums alone would have radiated for miles.

Has anyone come upon a strong source for this story, or does it remain somewhere between Soviet coverup and CIA blowback?

Comment: Books... But No More Contrux!? (Score 1) 458

by SpaceToast (#34301752) Attached to: Thought-Provoking Gifts For Young Kids?

I'm rather sad. My childhood essentially WAS Legos and Contrux. Contrux were a beams-and-collars style snap-together assembly toy. Most pieces were a couple of inches long. You could build BIG. There were wheels, pulleys -- making things move was easy. According to Wikipedia: "Construx was discontinued in 1988, briefly revived by Mattel in 1997, and then discontinued again."

At any rate, I'm in the book trade, so here are a few thoughts:

  • Actual Size (3-5) A great little picture book of animals depicted at, you guessed it, actual size.
  • Of Thee I Sing (4-6) Politics aside, a look at figures from American history as, interestingly, people whose acheivements kids may aspire to build on.
  • The My Father's Dragon trilogy (6-7) Your first great chapter book, and your first introduction to a problem-solving hero.
  • The Ivy and Bean series (6-8) Smart, loveable girl-positive books. You'll laugh as hard as the kids.
  • Built to Last (9-12) A mind-blowing omnibus of David MacAulay's Castle, Cathedral and Mosque.
  • The New Way Things Work (9-12) Expanded since my time, and even better.
  • The Outlandish Adventures of Liberty Aimes (9-12) Smart, positive and a little dangerous -- everything a good adventure should be.
  • The Harry Potter Series (10-) On second blush, an impressively smart fantasy/mystery series that rewards kids' close reading.

Comment: Not Suggesting Impropriety (Score 1) 94

by SpaceToast (#33397148) Attached to: Collage, and the Challenge of "Deniability"
It strikes me that Gmail over https is actually a worse solution than steganography when deniability is the goal. Deniability doesn't simply mean making it impossible to read a hidden message; it also means hiding a message in a way that doesn't look like one is hiding anything. TOR, Freenet and proxy servers have the same problem. Collage seems to be a slightly Rube-Goldbergian but never the less right headed solution. How does a dissident exchange messages without appearing to do anything sneaky or out of the ordinary on the internet? I wonder if there's a means of hiding messages in the ordinary bandwidth chatter of AJAX pages.

ATM Hack Gives Cash On Demand 193

Posted by samzenpus
from the one-card-bandit dept.
angry tapir writes "Windows CE-based ATMs can easily be made to dole out cash, according to security researcher Barnaby Jack. Exploiting bugs in two different ATMs at Black Hat, the researcher from IOActive was able to get them to spit out money on demand and record sensitive data from the cards of people who used them. Jack believes a large number of ATMs have remote management tools that can be accessed over a telephone. After experimenting with two machines he purchased, Jack developed a way of bypassing the remote authentication system and installing a homemade rootkit, named Scrooge."

Comment: Re:From Boing Boing (Score 2, Informative) 437

by SpaceToast (#33063566) Attached to: What To Do About CC License Violations?

I had to reread the gloss a few times. On closer examination, the poster is not actually claiming to be the rightsholder of the images used on BoingBoing or Wired, but makes a logical leap in assuming that both are used without permission, and then inserts these assertions as concrete examples. Pretty sneaky, sis.

Bottom line, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the anonymous poster isn't giving any personal examples because -- if they exist -- they just wouldn't hold up to scrutiny.

Comment: Re:GIANTS TALK LIKE THIS (Score 1) 569

by SpaceToast (#33008958) Attached to: Why Designers Hate Crowdsourcing

Threadless steals designs, and launders that theft through middlemen. Likewise for all of the "crowdsourced" tee shirt firms. (I've had a webcomic punchline stolen by Gawker myself.)

And that's the appeal of crowdsourcing. If a capitalized firm were thinly ripping off designs using pirated software they'd be sued out of existence the minute someone blew the whistle. With a million unknown players darting in only to feed there's no danger. (And don't give me this horsepaddy about all art being ripped off -- you'd know the difference if we were talking about code.)

Crowdsourcing is a cheap shortcut of a business model. The only real way to prevent yourself from being ripped off by a vendor is to carefully establish earned-reputation relationships.

Comment: Re:Its nice to see (Score 3, Informative) 252

by SpaceToast (#32926764) Attached to: India's New Rupee Symbol Won't Show On Computers

Specifically, it's a Devanagari R with a horizontal line through the top, similar to the €, £ and ¥ signs. Usefully for most European language readers, in most fonts (and when not part of a conjunct character) it does look similar to a Latin R missing it's vertical stroke. Pronunciation is a soft R, similar to French.

What? Hindi is a fun language to learn.

Comment: I'm willing to be even more pedantic (Score 1) 170

by SpaceToast (#32764800) Attached to: Buy Your Own <em>Tron</em> Lightcycle For $35,000
Tron did indeed showcase "the kinds of computer-generated special effects that later become commonplace," but in a sense the light cycles did not. As sequence designer Ken Perlin, now of NYU, has remarked, after Tron polygon-based 3d graphics became the new hotness, with the light cycle sequence as its acme. The trouble was, they didn't use polygons. The light cycles were actually constructed out of volumetric primitives using boolean operations (AND, OR, NOT). True curves like NURBs and Hash patches wouldn't have really been practical on the systems they were working with. (Nor had they -- you know -- been invented yet.) Most of what you seen on movie screens to this day are approximated hollow polygon shells that immitate curved solids. CAD makes common use of boolean primitives, but the light cycle sequence was less the ancestor of modern film CGI than an all but extinct evolutionary branch. Tron was the Burgess Shale of computer animation.

Cub Scouts To Offer Merit Pin For Video Gaming 366 Screenshot-sm

Posted by samzenpus
from the be-prepared-to-play dept.

Comment: Re:Quality (Score 1) 160

by SpaceToast (#31391414) Attached to: Why Wikipedia Articles Vary So Much In Quality
Science articles are often quite good, but mathematics articles are terrible. They read like pages from graduate textbooks. There is of course nothing wrong with advanced or highly technical information on a topic, but in order to be "encyclopedic" an article needs to first describe a concept in layman's terms. (Economics articles have similar problems, but I've seen less push-back when making readability edits on those.) A basic mathematical concept like rotation describes two-dimensional rotation in matrix algebra, and then for complex numbers. If the average college graduate can't get through the first section of an article, it needs work. If I add a section on the basic geometric formula for rotating a point around the axis, do you think it will survive?
