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The WiKID Blog

Viewing posts from January, 2009

popularity-and-server-problems

Apologies to anyone who tried to reach our server this weekend. We had an unexpected surge in interest in downloading the server. We have moved the non-torrent downloads to ftp and will be adding bandwidth over time. In the meantime, please use the torrent!!

south-carolina-considers-taking-dna-from-anyone

Hat tip: To The People for pointing out that South Carolina is considering creating a DNA database of the presumed innocent.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell says swabbing a suspect's mouth is no more invasive than taking fingerprints.
Except that there is an actual database of fingerprints to check them against, correct? There isn't a huge federal DNA database. Is there? Or is that part of TIA?

punishment-and-security

There is a very article in the NY Times about how groups can profit by punishing members, in particular, by punishing free riders.

In the experiment, investigators at the University of Erfurt in Germany enrolled 84 students in the investment game and gave them 20 tokens apiece to start. In each round of the game, every participant decided whether to hold on to the tokens or invest some of them in a fund whose guaranteed profit was distributed equally among all members of the group, including the "free riders" who sat on their money. Because the profit was determined by a multiple of the tokens invested, each participant who contributed to the fund enjoyed less of a return than if the free riders had done so as well.

i-for-one-welcome-our-ceylon-overlords

From the Register:

A US defence department advisory board has warned of the danger that American war robots scheduled for delivery within a decade might be riddled with malicious code. The kill machines will use software largely written overseas, and it is feared that sinister forces might meddle with it in production, thus gaining control of the future mechanoid military.

i-can-dig-it-he-can-dig-it-she-can-dig-it-we-can

With apologies to Friends of Distinction: An article I wrote for Howtoforge has made the front page of Digg. So can you digg it. baby?

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