http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/uuJ9Iv7y2pc/mind-the-flows-and-the-packets-will-take-care-of-themselves.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/mind-the-flows-and-the-packets-will-take-care-of-themselves.ars

In a recent article for the IEEE's Spectrum magazine, Dr. Lawrence Roberts explains how the large routers that power the core of today's Internet are doing it all wrong. They spend too much time processing each packet individually, then storing packets in a queue for during peak loads. This buffering makes VoIP calls and video streams stutter, and these routers use lots of hot-running and expensive memory, and they're stuffed with specially-created chips. 

Roberts' company Anagran has a different approach: only do the expensive work for the first packet in a flow, then treat subsequent packets in the same flow just like that first packet, doing away with queues and specially-designed chips in lieu of simple processors and cheap DRAM. (In the late 1960s, Roberts led the team that created the ARPANET, which would morph into the Internet that we know today in the following two decades.) As an added benefit, slowing down flows that go too fast can now be done with precision, rather than bluntly as in today's routers. 

Upon reading Roberts' article, the claims look rather extraordinary. Could it be that Cisco, Juniper and the other router vendors have been barking up the wrong tree for decades? In a word, no. Cisco has used numerous different router designs, including several that were fully or partially flow-based. Other vendors have built flow-based routers, too, such as Riverstone. For a while, there were also two-part multilayer switches, where a router would look at the first packet in a flow and then instruct a separate switch on how to switch packets belonging to the same flow.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/dmKzNQkIRSE/swearing-mitigates-p.html

Some experimental evidence to suggest that swearing makes pain less traumatic, though the mechanism by which is does this shit is unclear:

The study, published today in the journal NeuroReport, measured how long college students could keep their hands immersed in cold water. During the chilly exercise, they could repeat an expletive of their choice or chant a neutral word. When swearing, the 67 student volunteers reported less pain and on average endured about 40 seconds longer.

Although cursing is notoriously decried in the public debate, researchers are now beginning to question the idea that the phenomenon is all bad. "Swearing is such a common response to pain that there has to be an underlying reason why we do it," says psychologist Richard Stephens of Keele University in England, who led the study. And indeed, the findings point to one possible benefit: "I would advise people, if they hurt themselves, to swear," he adds.

Why the #$%! Do We Swear? For Pain Relief (via /.)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/AlZoHxpnB-g/mario-recreation-on.html

Here's a superior group of young Indian gamers recreating Super Mario onstage for an installment of the reality TV show "India's Got Talent."

India's got talent- Mario game (Thanks, Kvaid!)

http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/tVYTquER6O8/ericssons-rx-for-us-broadband.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/ericssons-rx-for-us-broadband.ars

The technology world's attention shifted to Sprint-Nextel this week with the company's announcement that it would hand off management of its wireless and wireline networks to Ericsson. Some time around or after September, 6,000 Sprint employees will begin working the system under the Swedish mobile maker's supervision, the new partners say. Sprint will pay Ericsson about $4.5 to $5 billion for its work over a seven year renewable contract.

But how will Ericsson manage one of the nation's largest wireless networks? The company's recent comments provide some clues.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nasawatch/Aekt/~3/q-Pa9lmxcZw/todays_interest_2.html

@InsideKSC The ground launch sequencer initialization has been completed. Launch remains set for 7:13 p.m. EDT this evening from Pad 39-A at KSC.

@Astro_Jose Mis companeros de generacion Chris Cassidy y Tom Marsburn estan bordando Endeavour.Se ven bien an NASA TV!

@brianshiro Brian just returned from his first EVA!: just returned from his first EVA! http://tinyurl.com/nu7wlw

@SpaceFrontier Attending NewSpace 2009 Confernece @ NASA Ames, CA July 18-20? Bring extra $ for a NewSpace Silent Auction & Raffle! -> http://biturl.cc/lX

@milesobrien Crew members are undergoing final suit checks and climbing aboard the shutle. Watch our Spaceflightnow.com webcast! http://tr.im/s0Ya

@PavilionLake New blog post: Sometimes you get some answers, sometimes you're left with more questions http://bit.ly/CByhm

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nasawatch/Aekt/~3/r65OstYnNFg/arc_employee_su.html

NASA ARC Internal Memo: Message from the Center Director Ames Employee Survey

"NASA Ames Research Center will take part in an Employee Survey to assess employee satisfaction, as well as leadership and management practices contributing to organizational performance. The survey will be conducted by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) between July 6, 2009 and July 24, 2009. I encourage you to participate in this survey, which should take about 20 minutes. All civil servant employees will be receiving an email from OPM that provides a login/password combination and link to the survey. Your confidentiality is guaranteed. Survey results will be ready for distribution within the year with the goal of making Ames an even more effective and better place to work."

Keith's note: The NASA ARC employee survey is now online. Download.

http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/Sacjw5dYEdY/weird-science-discovers-that-beer-could-power-our-future.ars

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/07/weird-science-discovers-that-beer-could-power-our-future.ars

The hydrogen economy goes down the toilet: Energy experts have mixed opinions on whether hydrogen might make sense as a portable fuel of the future. It can be made using electricity from renewable sources, which is good, but the process is inefficient and requires fresh water, which is already in short supply in many areas of the globe. All of which makes a recent paper on an alternate method of producing hydrogen rather intriguing. The method dispenses with splitting water entirely and instead generates hydrogen from one of the things that frequently ends up fouling water: urine or, more specifically, the urea it contains. Getting urea to break down and liberate hydrogen requires much less energy input, but still faces a substantial challenge: namely, getting to it before bacteria have the chance to metabolize it.

Hey, look over there: Spiders make a living largely because their prey doesn't notice their webs. So why might some species of orb weaving spider decorate their webs with bulky ornamentation, made in part from the bodies of past victims? You'd think it would be like hanging a flashing neon warning sign. Some researchers have now come up with an explanation: predators mistake the junk for the spiders. The authors observed that wasps attacked the ornaments often enough that it served as an effective decoy.

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http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/UZukO4oYl9s/american-heart-association-gets-behind-cpr-game-for-wii.ars

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/07/american-heart-association-gets-behind-cpr-game-for-wii.ars

When I was a kid, I learned CPR as part of health class and practiced on a foam dummy. Kids these days, however, may soon learn how to save someone's life through a game for the Nintendo Wii. 

Biomedical engineering students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are working on a program intended to work with the Wii controls that will teach CPR. The project isn't just a piece of pie in the sky, either—the American Heart Association was so impressed by a prototype of the system that it has pledged $50,000 in order to fund its completion.

Senior undergraduates at UAB started the project at the beginning of the spring semester this year with the help of professors Greg Walcott and Jack Rogers. The open source software was developed on computers and is meant to be transferred to the Wii via WiFi. The students made a "successful" presentation of their work this May, at which time the AHA decided to offer the grant. According to the UAB, the project "could be" completed by fall of 2009, at which time it will be made available as an open source download from the AHA website.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/N5phJZ7P730/first-person-shooter.html

As the spouse of a former competitive Quake champ, I laughed pretty goddamned hard at this video about life with "First Person Shooter Disease."

Living with First-Person Shooter Disease (via Scalzi)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/qiIA86bm46U/baby-pictures-in-los.html

Edinburgh psych researcher Richard Wiseman and team left a load of wallets lying around with various contents, trying to see if there was a correlation between, say, baby pictures or cards indicating charitable giving and the rate at which wallets are returned. It turns out that people in Edinburgh (and maybe everyone) have a high likelihood of returning wallets with baby pictures, but are much less likely to return the wallets of charitable givers:

The baby photograph wallets had the highest return rate, with 88 per cent of the 40 being sent back. Next came the puppy, the family and the elderly couple, with 53 per cent, 48 and 28 respectively. At 20 per cent and 15, the charity card and control wallets had the lowest return rates.

Overall, 42 per cent of the wallets were posted back -- more than the team had anticipated. "We were amazed by the high percentage of wallets that came back," said Dr Wiseman.

Scientists have also found evidence for a baby instinct in brain scanning experiments. A recent study at the University of Oxford examined how people responded when they were shown photographs of baby or adult faces.

Want to keep your wallet? Carry a baby picture (via Derren Brown)

(Image: 6. Wallet, a Creative Commons Attribution licensed photo from Saad.Akhtar's Flickr stream</a>)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/2jJtUvokhXU/high-ranking-insuran.html

Ross sez, "A high-placed insider (ex VP of PR at Cigna) describes the machinations the insurance industry has used to keep us from getting a decent health care system."

This guy literally wrote the talking-points memo that the anti-universal-health-care crowd uses. He had a conversion experience and has now come clean. Remarkable.

BILL MOYERS: Was [Michael Moore's SICKO] true? Did you think it contained a great truth?

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely did.

BILL MOYERS: What was it?

WENDELL POTTER: That we shouldn't fear government involvement in our health care system. That there is an appropriate role for government, and it's been proven in the countries that were in that movie.

You know, we have more people who are uninsured in this country than the entire population of Canada. And that if you include the people who are underinsured, more people than in the United Kingdom. We have huge numbers of people who are also just a lay-off away from joining the ranks of the uninsured, or being purged by their insurance company, and winding up there.

And another thing is that the advocates of reform or the opponents of reform are those who are saying that we need to be careful about what we do here, because we don't want the government to take away your choice of a health plan. It's more likely that your employer and your insurer is going to switch you from a plan that you're in now to one that you don't want. You might be in the plan you like now.

But chances are, pretty soon, you're going to be enrolled in one of these high deductible plans in which you're going to find that much more of the cost is being shifted to you than you ever imagined...

WENDELL POTTER: And [Wall Street thinks] that this company has not done a good job of managing medical expenses. It has not denied enough claims. It has not kicked enough people off the rolls. And that's what-- that is what happens, what these companies do, to make sure that they satisfy Wall Street's expectations with the medical loss ratio.

Wendell Potter on Bill Moyers (Thanks, Ross!)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/MOQL0ZuRw5E/sarkozy-brings-back.html

The French "Three Strikes" law is back on -- a law that can punish you for being accused of copyright infringement by cutting off your internet connection, fining you, and putting you in prison. It also criminalizes offering free internet access because pirates might use it.

Ed Felten nailed it: this is like a law that lets publishers take away all reading material from you and everyone who lives in your house if you're accused (without evidence) of infringing on three books.

Not content to let the idea die, President Nicolas Sarkozy's administration reworked the law in hopes of making it amenable to the Council--instead of HADOPI deciding on its own to cut off users on the third strike, it will now report offenders to the courts. A judge can then choose to ban the user from the Internet, fine him or her €300,000 (according to the AFP), or hand over a two-year prison sentence.

Those who are merely providing an Internet connection to dirty pirates can be fined €1,500 and/or receive a month-long temp ban from the online world. (A group of French hackers has already begun to work on software that cracks the passwords on locked WiFi networks so that there's an element of plausible deniability when law enforcement tries to go after home network owners.)

French "3 strikes" law returns, now with judicial oversight! (Thanks, Jeremie!)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/RtetUBpKtMk/attention-philanthro.html

Alex from WorldChanging sez,

We've just released our 2009 "Attention Philanthropy" grants, our effort to shine a light on awesome work that's undeservedly obscure. 100 nominators from around the world helped us find amazing projects in fields as diverse as human rights, urban planning, citizen media and renewable energy. There's a day's worth of interesting reading just going down the whole list, but even a quick visit will probably turn you on to some cool things you didn't know existed.

Attention philanthropy is a gift of notice. In a noisy world, deluged in advertising, overrun with PR flacks and crowded with the superficial, one of the biggest barriers to success for a small, good idea or noble enterprise can simply be getting noticed in the first place.

Here's your chance to do a simple, good thing. If the work you find on these pages inspires you, learn more. Visit their websites, contribute to their projects and, above all, help us spread the word far and wide.

Attention Philanthropy 2009 (Thanks, Alex!)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/tQq0yiF2gMI/hmm-maybe-that-wasnt.html

Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.

UFC fighter Frank Mir exhibits the unfortunate consequences of what happens when you step into the ring with six-foot-three, 265-pound human monster Brock Lesnar after last night's UFC 100 heavyweight bout.

If UFC 100 represents mainstream, the world has changed.

Brock Lesnar, the former World Wrestling Entertainment fighter and current UFC heavyweight champion, battered Frank Mir in a second-round knockout to set aside a festering year of bitterness.

With a likely million more watching on pay-per-view, Lesnar gave the 11,000-plus a doubly obscene hand gesture and stood firm as the disdain continued.

"Lesnar, St-Pierre claim victories at UFC 100." (Image credit: John Locher/Associated Press.)

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/7/9/1112/97112

I have to say that Firefox is getting a lot worse lately. The user experience is in serious need of improvement and development is the pits. I installed the latest "big deal" Firefox update on June 30th. (For some reason they skipped a full four secondary updates, but whatever.) Upon restarting, which took several minutes, I began using Firefox 3.5.[Note: This story appears with proper formatting in canonical at http://www.trollaxor.com/2009/07/some-questions-comments-about-firefox.html.]

http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/6AHJ0CGP8DQ/week-in-gaming-old-pinball-machines-monkey-island-and-starcraft-2.ars

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/07/week-in-gaming-old-pinball-machines-monkey-island-and-starcraft-2.ars

Trouble keeping up on gaming news? Here are the top gaming stories from the last week, covering everything from StarCraft to pinball machines to the newly episodic Monkey Island.

The pillars of PC gaming: why StarCraft 2 LAN play matters: While it may not change the game's bottom line, the exclusion of LAN play from StarCraft 2 bothers many old-school gamers. It's an uncomfortable reminder of just how much the PC gaming world has changed.

Fixing the past: the art of collecting pinball machines: Pinball is a dying art, but as it dies it has spawned a new art in its place: the art of collecting and restoring pinball machines. Ars talks to a veteran pinball machine collector and restorer about fixing (and playing) the past.

Click here to read the rest of this article

http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/YpQE3LX8Mj0/week-in-apple-webobjects-in-106-upcoming-ipod-rumors-app-store-birthday.ars

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/07/week-in-apple-webobjects-in-106-upcoming-ipod-rumors-app-store-birthday.ars

Hopefully the holiday weekend didn't leave you too hung over to get your daily dose of Apple news. But in case you missed it, this week we discussed cameras in iPods, the whereabouts of Quicken for Mac, the death (or not) of WebObjects, next-gen iPod touches, and an iPhone 3GS jailbreak, to name a few stories. Read on for our roundup:

More evidence supports earlier iPod camera rumors: We have heard rumors that Apple intends to add cameras to the iPod touch and even the iPod nano. New evidence supports the idea, though it's no guarantee that it's a sure thing.

Mac Quicken '09 still missing in action: All references to the new version of Quicken for Mac have been removed from Intuit's website, leaving only the old 2007 software. A year and a half after the "complete rewrite" was showcased, has the company decided to ditch the software in favor of its Web offerings? It turns out the answer is no—Intuit has just pushed the release date back to February of 2010.

Click here to read the rest of this article

http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/2tgkhvfeeLY/week-in-review-cracking-ssns-googles-chrome-os-and-html-5.ars

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/07/week-in-review-cracking-ssns-googles-chrome-os-and-html-5.ars

The news of Google's Chrome OS was first broken by Ars Technica and confirmed by the company several hours later in response to the publication of the news. Though Chrome OS was one of the week's biggest events, Ars also put together a few must read stories on the safety of Social Security numbers (and how they can be guessed), the brewing standards war over HTML 5's "video" tag, and reports from a Mars rover that snow falls on the Red Planet.

Here's a look back at the top stories of the week that was:

Click here to read the rest of this article

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nasawatch/Aekt/~3/wNM6Z51Vd7M/todays_interest_1.html

@NASA The shuttle's weather brief scheduled for 9:30a has been delayed to 10a. No issues are expected. Fueling commentary now ~10:30a.

@bnjacobs The storm that produced lightning at the shuttle launch pad. Photo courtesy of Bill Ingalls! http://yfrog.com/9zjbtj

@brianshiro Brian is enjoying the expedition but missing Henry and Holli http://tinyurl.com/m9pcb2

@milesobrien Beautiful morning in Cocoa Beach. Wish they could launch now. But 7:39pmET/2339UTC is when ISS will be overhead. Only a 5 min window.
about 1 hour ago from TwitterBerry

@HMP Beautiful sunny warm day today. Time to bring our analogue mission-class exploration support systems to full power!

@jeff_foust "Earth to U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby: The conquest of space won’t be won by odious pork-barrel politics." http://is.gd/1uDeF

@ESAHerschel As the images and spectra released yesterday were "trials" with uncalibrated instruments we will expect far better and deeper images later.

@NASA_Ames[News] Author Andrew Chaikin speaks at NASA Ames: Award-winning science journalist and space historian And.. http://tinyurl.com/lbee5g

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/8ymZQzQs4n0/talking-to-bureaucra.html

Seth Godin eloquently describes the fitness factor that makes a restaurant suited to getting placement in an airport: they have to be run by corporations whose primary skill is dealing with bureaucracies. I wonder why this competency appears to exclude a comparable competency in preparing edible food?

Have you noticed that most airports feature the same restaurants? It's not an accident. The people who run these chains have organized themselves to be good at dealing with municipal organizations. Same thing goes for design firms, creative firms, accountants etc. that deal with large corporations.

The art and skill of working with bureaucrats