More people dream of opening a bar than becoming an astronaut: related news

More people dream of opening a bar, than becoming an astronaut

INTERNATIONAL. More Brits dream of opening a pub than becoming an astronaut, more than 90% of whom said the catering industry has become more appealing due to a foul mouthed chef and a school dinners campaign.

A dancer performs at the opening ceremony of the Baoshan International Folk Arts Festival in Shanghai yesterday. The festival has attracted more than 1,900 artists from home and abroad and over the next week, more than 410 people from 18 countries and reg

A dancer performs at the opening ceremony of the Baoshan International Folk Arts Festival in Shanghai yesterday. The festival has attracted more than 1,900 artists from home and abroad and over the next week, more than 410 people from 18 countries and regions will participate in free performances across the Baoshan District and other parts of the city. The festival was first organized in 1995 with the aim of developing international cultural exchanges. So far, 68 art groups from 37 countries and regions have appeared on the stage in Baoshan. -Shanghai Daily

Unhappy People Watch More TV

Hugh Pickens writes "A new study by sociologists at the University of Maryland concludes that unhappy people watch more TV, while people who describe themselves as 'very happy' spend more time reading and socializing. 'TV doesn't really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does,' says researcher John P. Robinson. 'It's more passive and may provide escape — especially when the news is as depressing as the economy itself. The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise.' Unhappy people also liked their TV more: 'What viewers seem to be saying is that while TV in general is a waste of time and not particularly enjoyable, "the shows I saw tonight were pretty good.

SA companies becoming more proactive about IT securityÂ

SA businesses are becoming more proactive about IT security. That is according to Securicom’s Richard Broeke, who says the IT security company is conducting more vulnerability assessments of corporate IT environments than ever before - a sign, he believes, that local companies are adopting a more focused and proactive approach to their IT security.

Democrats More Politically Active than Republicans

Liberal Democratic voters in the US are engaging in far more political activism than other partisan groups and are more strongly connected to the upcoming election than are conservative Republicans or other voters, according to research from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, reports MarketingCharts.

Accessibility is more than just alt-text

I found this great article today on writing accessible Web pages: Understanding Disabilities when Designing a Website. It's great because the first thing it does is explain exactly why you want to be accessible - statistics. For instance, from their sources, if you make a site inaccessible to visually impaired people you are ignoring potentially 12 million people in the United States and the United Kingdom. And there are lots of other English-speaking countries out there that you're ignoring their visually impaired people as well. Personally, if I could get 1% of those people to come to my site every day, I would be ecstatic. If I could get 0.1% of those people to come to my site every day, I'd be really happy. I don't want to turn away customers.

Linux Supports More Devices Than Any Other OS

Linux Blog recommends an interview up on the O'Reilly site with Greg Kroah-Hartman, long-time Linux kernel hacker and the current Linux kernel maintainer for the USB driver core. He updates the free Linux driver program announced almost two years ago, which has really caught traction now with more than 300 developers volunteering. The interviewer begins by asking about Kroah-Hartman's claim that the Linux kernel now supports more devices than any other operating system ever has. "[One factor is] the ease of writing drivers; Linux drivers are at normally one-third smaller than Windows drivers or other operating system drivers. We have all the examples there, so it's trivial to write a new one if you have new hardware, usually because you can copy the code and go.

Amazon In 3D? Is That Useful?

Earlier this year, we talked about getting beyond the "webpage" metaphor when setting up online shopping experiences, and noted how Borders was testing a virtual bookshelf system that seemed more gimmicky than useful. Well, now it appears that Amazon has one-upped Borders by offering WindowShop, a 3D shopping experience... and once again I find myself underwhelmed. While it also has something of a shelf metaphor, it has some advantages in that clicking on any individual "product" can bring up audio, video and text about the product. However, it still feels rather gimmicky rather than useful. For years people have tried to create 3D browsing systems online and they never seem more useful than just straight webpages. In fact, in trying to replicate a 3D environment, it often feels like they're more limited than what a single webpage could d

More than 10,000 people across Ireland in choirs - report

Singing in choirs is one of Ireland’s most popular arts activities, with more than 10,000 people in 400 choral groups right across the country, a new report from the Arts Council reveals.

People who still own PDAs in 2008

30% of people in these professions own PDAs, more than twice as many as the national average of 13%. 66% of professionals, managers and executives own laptops, significantly more than employed Americans in any other field of work. The semi-skilled workers can be found on the other side of the gadget ownership spectrum. They are significantly less likely than professionals, clerical workers and managers to own any of the gadgets (13% do not own any type of computer or gadget, including cell phones). Additionally, only 7% of semi-skilled workers own PDAs, compared with 19% of employed Americans who own PDAs. Only 76% of Americans working in semi-skilled trades own cell phones, while 89% of all employed Americans own cell phones, according to Pew Internet Project.

Britain has more rats than people

LONDON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Pest control experts say population figures indicate there are more rats living in Britain than people.

Microsoft Reveals the Dream-Build-Play 2008 Winners and Makes Indie Game Development Dreams Reality

Microsoft Corp. today announced the highly anticipated winners of its Dream-Build-Play 2008 game development contest, which encouraged independent and hobbyist game developers to create innovative and fun-to-play video games for Xbox 360 using XNA Game Studio. Four winners received a total of more than $70,000 in cash prizes to pursue a development career, and will have the opportunity to receive an invitation to publish their games on Xbox Live Arcade. This year's global Dream-Build-Play competition garnered more 350 games from over 100 countries, nearly doubling the number of community members who enrolled in and submitted Dream-Build-Play titles in last year's competition. Many of those games will have the opportunity to appear on the Xbox Live Community Games Channel when it launches to millions on Nov.

Consumers Plan to Spend Slightly More Online

Consumers intend to spend less in stores this holiday season than last year, but slightly more online, according to a The Conference Board and TNS report. The Consumer Internet Barometer, a quarterly report produced by The Conference Board and TNS, surveys 10,000 households across the country and tracks who's doing what on the Internet. "Free shipping, exclusive online deals, coupons and discounts are among the incentives consumers will be expecting this season," said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center. The report found that bargain hunting will remain the driving force behind online sales. Online households planning to spend more than $500 in stores declined to 16 percent from 21 percent last year. Those planning to spend more than $500 online rose to 5 percent from 4 percent last season.

Cloud Computing Is for Stupid People - Richard Stallman

In an interview published by The Guardian on Monday, Richard Stallman says "The concept of using web-based programs like Google's Gmail is "worse than stupidity. Cloud Computing - where IT power is delivered over the internet as you need it, rather than drawn from a desktop computer – has gained currency in recent years. Large internet and technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Amazon are pushing forward their plans to deliver information and software over the net But Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, said that cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time.

Videogamers More Influential Consumers than Non-Gamers

Americans who play video games are more likely than non-gamers to influence their friends’ attitudes about pop culture and new technology purchases and are more social than commonly thought, according to a study from IGN Entertainment and Ipsos Media CT, MarketingCharts reports.

"More Than Three Teams" Working On Halo Games

1Up reports on comments by Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Game Studios, which indicated that several different teams are working on Halo projects at the moment. Quoting: "When GamesIndustry.biz then pointed out that it puts the Age of Empires franchise in a similar position as Halo after Bungie departed from their partnership with Microsoft, that's when Spencer dropped this intriguing tidbit: 'Well, there's more than one team building Halo games right now. There are more than two or three teams building Halo things right now. Some of them we will own, some of them we won't. It's never been, for me, about who you own or don't own — it's about working with the best creative talent in the industry,' he said."

Do you want community on your site?

Many people, when they think about communities, only think about the community they have with people in person. But online communities are getting more and more popular. From Facebook and Twitter to more conventional online communities like forums, online communities are gaining a lot of traction. In some ways, the people I chat with online are better friends than my neighbors. So I definitely want to build community online. And I hope you do too. Another way to build community is to participate in blog carnivals like the "community" blog carnival I am participating in.

Shuttleworth: There's more to Linux development than kernel hacks

As I've noted before, there is more to open-source development than lines of code written, important though that activity is. There is, for example, the critical work done by Canonical, the company behind the ubiquitous Ubuntu Linux distribution, which tends to involve more ease-of-use development than core kernel development.

Pantech Matrix Dual Sliding Phone Has More Buttons Than Sense

Formed from the same genetic ooze as Pantech's Slide Duo smartphone and rebranded Helio Ocean handset, the Matrix is a mildly frustrating device: spec'd with the best, but dressed in the worst. An HSDPA-enabled handset with GPS, a full QWERTY keyboard in addition to a dialpad, and two cameras should have the software to leverage the hardware, but AT&T and Pantech have chosen to stick with an in-house OS rather than opt for Windows Mobile as they did with the Duo QWERTY smartphone. Still, it doesn't look like a bad feature phone for people who message more than they talk, and it's available today at AT&T stores. [Crave]

Odd Planet Confuses Scientists

eldavojohn writes "While there's been a lot of debate about what is a planet, there is a recent discovery that has scientists even more confused. COROT (COnvection ROtation and planetary Transits) spotted an object that appears to be the size of Jupiter yet is 21.6 times more massive ... and orbits its star in a mere four days and six hours. Now, the other piece of the puzzle is that the star it orbits is more massive and only slightly larger than our Sun. But they can't describe this thing orbiting it. So far they think it is more likely to be a 'failed star' but have settled with 'member of a new-found family of very massive planets that encircle stars more massive than the sun' to describe it accurately."

Lower Income People Are The iPhones Fastest Growing Demographic

The fastest growing user base of iPhone owners are lower income people, who are using the multi-purpose device in order to ditch other Internet and entertainment services, according to comScore (NSDQ: SCOR), which is releasing its first report detailing iPhone demographic data on Thursday. ComScore found that while 43 percent of iPhone owners earn more than $100,000 per year, the strongest growth in users is coming from those who make between $25,000 and $50,000. Between Jun and Aug. 2008, users in this income bracket jumped by 48 percent, making it three times that of those earning more than $100,000 per year. Overall, iPhone penetration grew 21 percent. “These data indicate that lower-income mobile subscribers are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to access the Internet, e-mail and their music collections,â€� said com

Game Makers Accusing Innocent People of Piracy in the UK

eldavojohn writes "It's a topic that a lot of game makers like Atari don't want the public hearing. Game makers wrongfully accusing clearly innocent people of piracy. From the article, 'According to Michael Coyle, an intellectual property solicitor with law firm Lawdit, more and more people are being wrongly identified as file-sharers. He is pursuing 70 cases of people who claim to be wrongly accused of piracy and has spoken to hundreds of others, he told the BBC.' If only a few are coming forward after receiving extortion letters ('Pay £500 OR ELSE!'), what's the actual number of those out there being wrongfully accused?"

Win An Afternoon With NASA Astronaut, Winston E. Scott!

HAMPTON ROADS, Va., Sept. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- This school year starts with a space defying opportunity. NASA Astronaut Winston E. Scott is participating in a national contest, Win an Afternoon with Winston E. Scott -- the Astronaut, providing students the extraordinary opportunity to meet and interact with a real-life astronaut. Launched on the first of September, educators who purchase Astronaut Scott's latest release, Reflections from Earth Orbit, have an opportunity to win a school visit from Astronaut Scott.

Survey: More women than men shopping online

More women than men are shopping online, and making purchases more frequently over the Internet, showed the latest survey on online shopping habits issued by MasterCard here on Monday.

Study: Too Many 401(k) Choices Can Lead to More Risky Investments

p>The typical 401(k) plan offered 18 funds choices last year. Savvy investors often relish the array of options and seek out the lowest fees and best returns. But for an inexperienced retirement saver, confusing terms, fine print, and seemingly indecipherable differences between mutual funds can seem daunting. And new research indicates that too many choices in a 401(k) may even lead inexperienced investors to take on more risk than they would with fewer options.

A Rutgers School of Business, University of Texas-Austin, and University of Pittsburgh study found that many employees without extensive investment knowledge will choose a heavier concentration of stocks in their portfolio when confronted with more fund options. A large fund assortment more than doubled investment in stocks among those less knowledgeable, from 29 percent t

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