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POPSLottery Adds To Prizes "To be sure, some see the gas prize as a kind of bait and switch" HA! I'd take the quarter million any day.
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POPSPolaris Poker Bot Defeats Professional Poker Players Polaris, a poker playing program developed by the computer poker research group at the University of Alberta. competed On July 3-6, 2008, against six human professional poker players in the Second Man-Machine Poker Championship, held in Las Vegas. Polaris defeated the human players convincingly with 3 wins, 2 losses and 1 tie.
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POPSThe Urge To End It All "Quite inadvertently, the British gas conversion proved that the incidence of suicide across an entire society could be radically reduced, upending the conventional wisdom about suicide in the process. At least a partial answer is that many of those Britons who asphyxiated themselves did so impulsively. In a moment of deep despair or rage or sadness, they turned to what was easy and quick and deadly — “the execution chamber in everyone’s kitchen,” as one psychologist described it — and that instrument allowed little time for second thoughts. Remove it, and the process slowed down; it allowed time for the dark passion to pass."
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POPSAnother Second Life resource... I am wondering where the market is for these services. If you have spent any amount of time in Second Life you will quickly realize everyone and their cousin is a consultant for Second Life. If you ask a consultant who their target is, they always want to bring in Big Corporate. My question is: Why? Are these consultants truly listening to their market? From what I am seeing, those interested in Second Life are there because they enjoy the environment. That is the fun of Second Life-getting in there and doing it yourself. My advice to Big Corporate: be very aware of intellectual property laws. Read Linden Research Labs fine print.
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POPSMore Evidence for a Revolutionary Theory of Water The current study is the most recent addition to a growing body of evidence for a new theory about the structure of liquid water. In 2004, Nilsson and colleagues sparked controversy with a paper published in Science that suggested the tetrahedral model of water was incorrect. Nilsson agrees that the debate is far from settled and that much work remains before a clear picture of liquid water emerges. "Over the last decade or so we have discovered that materials once considered homogeneous exhibit complex nanoscale order," said Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory director Jo Stöhr. "In my view, the work on water is yet another example of the actual complexity of matter, this time within a simple liquid. Modern X-ray work appears to be triggering a new understanding of liquids and we may have only seen the beginning of a paradigm shift in our understanding."
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POPSBush praises McCain for GI Bill McCain opposed McCain vehemently opposed this (Webb) bill, yet here's Bush thanking him for helping pass it! What is with these guys? McCain offered a skimpier version, insisting that paying college for Iraq vets would encourage them to leave the service when they could (better to offer them worse benefits so they'll stay, I guess, is the old soldier's plan). 32 Second video at link.
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POPSObscene Military Budget is much biger than Reported Legally see the article for the cuts behind the figures here: Now, imagine that, due to a little more Pentagon/Bush administration wizardry, even this black budget estimate is undoubtedly a low-ball figure. One reason is simple enough: The proposed $541 billion Pentagon 2009 budget doesn't even include money for actual wars. George W. Bush's wars are all paid for by "supplemental" bills like the $162 billion one Congress will soon pass -- so the Department of Defense's $34 billion black budget skips "war-related funding." This means that even the overall figure for that budget remains darker than we might imagine (as in "black hole"). The Pentagon not only produces stealth planes, it is, in budgetary terms, a stealth operation. If honestly accounted, the actual Pentagon yearly budget, including all the "military-related" funds salted away elsewhere, is probably now more than $1 trillion a year.
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POPSWriting in the Digital Age This is a guest post by Alex Reid for the On the Horizon series on distributed learning environments. Alex is an Associate Professor of English and Professional Writing at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. His research focuses on issues of rhetoric, composition, and pedagogy in media networks and emerging media technologies. His recent book, The Two Virtuals: New Media and Composition (Parlor Press, 2007), received honorable mention for the W. Ross Winterowd Award for best book in composition theory in 2007.
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POPSBusiness presence in Virtual Worlds It appears to me virtual world inhabitants expect everything to be free. I have yet to see profit from direct sales as a result of a business' existence in a virtual world.
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POPSBest use of technology award The key question that seems to go unanswered is: Is NBH making a profit or even just earning revenue from its presence in Second Life?
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POPSDalai Lama’s 18 rules for living # Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before. # Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other. # Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.