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Believing You Are Very Good Or Evil Boosts Your Physical Capabilities 192

Posted by samzenpus
from the strength-of-heart dept.
Research by Kurt Gray, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard, shows that a person's capacity for willpower and physical endurance increases if they perceive themselves as good or evil. "Evil" acts in particular give a person a large boost in physical strength. From the article: “'People perceive those who do good and evil to have more efficacy, more willpower, and less sensitivity to discomfort,' Gray said. 'By perceiving themselves as good or evil, people embody these perceptions, actually becoming more capable of physical endurance.' Gray’s findings run counter to the notion that only those blessed with heightened willpower or self-control are capable of heroism, suggesting instead that simply attempting heroic deeds can confer personal power."

Comment: Re:Alcohol "causing" crime (Score 4, Insightful) 393

by iansmith (#27549187) Attached to: Closing Time At Microsoft's Campus Pub

If I could, I'd live in a dry county. It drives away the people who need to have intoxicants to survive.

Yeah... when the US made alcohol illegal in the 1920s all the drinkers just moved to Canada. It certianly didn't suddenly make a large percentage of the population criminals, divert tons of resources and money to enforce it, and of course it didn't make the mob rich.

I think you need to move out of your neighborhood into a nice gated community that doesn't allow those pesky lower class people in.

For the record, I don't drink.

Comment: You would get... 'Into the Looking Glass' (Score 1) 395

by iansmith (#26617013) Attached to: Daemon

A series of novels by John Ringo and Travis Taylor is what happens when you get a geek who (co)writes a novel.

It's filled with rednecks with big guns and tough marines who spend their time between blowing up alien monsters discussing the finer points of quantum mechanics.

It's sort of like reading a WWII novel while attending a college physics class and the two people behind you are talking about last nights Babylong 5 episode.

(Not that I ever had that happen to me...)

First Person Shooters (Games)

+ - Has the internet killed game AI?

Submitted by
iansmith writes "After the amazing AI and scripted plot of Half-Life my friends and I were looking forward to what would be next. It seemed that great things were on the way.

But what came next was, nothing. We have better graphics and more objects are physics enabled, but the AI is still in the stone age.

Next year Half-Life will be 10 years old. So the question is, why is the AI in FPS shooters so terrible? Why did it peak 9 years ago? I've been using the same trick of hide JUST behind a corner and shoot some poor grunts elbow until they die since Doom.

I understand AI is hard, I mean *REALLY* hard. Expecting fast improvement is not realistic, but I am not kidding when I say I don't think current AI is any better than it was 9 years ago, and thats just sad. A top of the line game machine today is a 3GHz dual-core machine with a powerful GPU vs the 233MHz machine I used with no hardware acceleration, so you can't tell me it's lack of processing power.

A possible answer is that with the rise of the internet, game developers got an out. Single player has become almost a second priority to multi-player deathmatch. Why bother creating good AI when you can just have people play against actual human opponents? There is just no incentive to spend time and money on improving the AI when you can just dodge the whole idea of it.

So can anyone point me to a ray of hope, or is the future just limited more of the same old FPS we all love and hate?"

+ - Reboot to get Reboot

Submitted by
superstick58 writes "Reboot, one of the first CG animated TV shows is returning as a trilogy of feature-length films. This was a great cartoon for me as a budding geek in the mid 90's. Perhaps it also helped stimulate other developing nerds to embrace the computers that are supposedly run by these enjoyable CG characters."

+ - University Security Bans Vmware for Sensitive Data

Submitted by EnimyMyne
EnimyMyne (1133803) writes "The University of Minnesota security group has declared that vmware and other server virtualization tools not be used to host sensitive data: "As a general rule, using Virtual Machines (VMWare, Virtual PC, etc) for servers that hold protected or private data is not acceptable. Protected and private data include grades, credit card numbers, social security numbers, Private Health Information (PHI), HIPAA and FERPA data, etc." The following rationale was given: "The main concern is the risk of a low-security VM being compromised, and the hackers breaking out of the VM into the host OS. If the same physical hardware also is running high security VMs holding protected data, it could be compromised. And given the consequences of breaches these days (massive fines, losing grants, legal action, etc.) we need to be particularly careful about this. There are an infinite number of scenerios here, with VMs of the same security level on the same hardware, or different security levels." How valid is this claim given the great advantages of virtualization and the fact that large enterprises are increasing their use of products such as vmware? I haven't seen any articles on slashdot discussing particular vulnerabilities of vmware over standard server hardware."

+ - Flash based PC for ssh-based router?

Submitted by
iansmith writes "I have an internal network I reach through a Linux box by using ssh to tunnel in via the internet.

The problem is I want to be able to reach this network even if the linux box(es) crash or get powered down.

Are there any flash based linux boxes (like the linksys wireless router) that have at least two ethernet ports to allow me to connect two networks together? It does not need to be fast or full featured, I just want a single service (ssh) running without needing to worry about an entire computer.

I'd use an old Cisco router (don't we all have a box of those in a closet?) but without firmware updates, no way will I put one on my network."
