Leo's Tech Blog

An anonymous reader writes "A war has erupted on the Internet between Israel and Palestine, alongside the war being fought on the ground in Gaza. A new report claims that a group called the 'DNS Team' has defaced an Israeli Website, with anti-Israel graphical images mdash; one in a series of instances of 'e-vandalism.' This sort of e-vandalism, says the author, is not only an inconvenience for Webmasters, but many of the images contain malware links and 'redirects or Flash links to Jihadist forums or blogs.' However, while the Jihadist forums are registered in Saudi Arabia, they are hosted by companies like Layered Tech and SoftLayer in Plano, Texas. On the Israeli side, 'A fascinating approach over the last few days is being made by an Israeli Website, "Help Israel Win," which provides a download so your PC can become part of a worldwide pro-Israeli botnet. So far 7,786 have joined, already a fairly powerful global computing force...'"pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1924224amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1924224"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1924224amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/kvqxGb_Ecy8u16Xs48tgimBLgyY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/kvqxGb_Ecy8u16Xs48tgimBLgyY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/9xtf27-3shE" height="1" width="1"/

An anonymous reader writes "A war has erupted on the Internet between Israel and Palestine, alongside the war being fought on the ground in Gaza. A new report claims that a group called the 'DNS Team' has defaced an Israeli Website, with anti-Israel graphical images mdash; one in a series of instances of 'e-vandalism.' This sort of e-vandalism, says the author, is not only an inconvenience for Webmasters, but many of the images contain malware links and 'redirects or Flash links to Jihadist forums or blogs.' However, while the Jihadist forums are registered in Saudi Arabia, they are hosted by companies like Layered Tech and SoftLayer in Plano, Texas. On the Israeli side, 'A fascinating approach over the last few days is being made by an Israeli Website, "Help Israel Win," which provides a download so your PC can become part of a worldwide pro-Israeli botnet. So far 7,786 have joined, already a fairly powerful global computing force...'"pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1924224amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1924224"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1924224amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/kvqxGb_Ecy8u16Xs48tgimBLgyY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/kvqxGb_Ecy8u16Xs48tgimBLgyY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/9xtf27-3shE" height="1" width="1"/

Phil Schiller delivered the keynote at MacWorld, the first after the Steve Jobs era of keynotes. Here is Engadget's live blog. The big news, predicted by many rumor sites, was the introduction of the unibody 17" MacBook Pro. As rumored, the battery is not removable, but it's claimed to provide 8 hours of battery life (7 hours with the discrete graphics): "3x the charges and lifespan of the industry standard." $2,799, 2.66 GHz and 4 GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive, shipping at the end of January. There is a battery exchange program, and there is an option for a matte display. The other big news is that iTunes is going DRM-free: 8M songs today, all 10+M by the end of March. Song pricing will be flexible, as the studios have been demanding; the lowest song price is $0.69. Apple also introduced the beta of a Google Docs-like service, iWork.com.pa href="http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1840225amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1840225"/a/ppa href="http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1840225amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/rnK4KVi9nmtTWfH7WyeMQuNGrJk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/rnK4KVi9nmtTWfH7WyeMQuNGrJk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/hGgJ8ngRGas" height="1" width="1"/

Phil Schiller delivered the keynote at MacWorld, the first after the Steve Jobs era of keynotes. Here is Engadget's live blog. The big news, predicted by many rumor sites, was the introduction of the unibody 17" MacBook Pro. As rumored, the battery is not removable, but it's claimed to provide 8 hours of battery life (7 hours with the discrete graphics): "3x the charges and lifespan of the industry standard." $2,799, 2.66 GHz and 4 GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive, shipping at the end of January. There is a battery exchange program, and there is an option for a matte display. The other big news is that iTunes is going DRM-free: 8M songs today, all 10+M by the end of March. Song pricing will be flexible, as the studios have been demanding; the lowest song price is $0.69. Apple also introduced the beta of a Google Docs-like service, iWork.com.pa href="http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1840225amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1840225"/a/ppa href="http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1840225amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/rnK4KVi9nmtTWfH7WyeMQuNGrJk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/rnK4KVi9nmtTWfH7WyeMQuNGrJk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/hGgJ8ngRGas" height="1" width="1"/

paleshadows writes "The first issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal (DDJ) was published in January 1976. A few days ago, Herb Sutter (the chair of the ISO C++ committee and a long-time DDJ columnist) announced through his latest blog post that, 'as of January 2009, Dr. Dobb's Journal is permanently suspending print publication and going web-only.' This follows an earlier announcement that PC Magazine is to become digital-only, too, as of February 2009. To those of us who enjoy reading such stuff away from the computer these are bad news, as there seems to be no other major technical programmers' magazines left standing."pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1647259amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1647259"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1647259amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/gKhQx_06DIo0DSgO-ivqSA3xkK8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/gKhQx_06DIo0DSgO-ivqSA3xkK8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/5JtdKXGpBHc" height="1" width="1"/

paleshadows writes "The first issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal (DDJ) was published in January 1976. A few days ago, Herb Sutter (the chair of the ISO C++ committee and a long-time DDJ columnist) announced through his latest blog post that, 'as of January 2009, Dr. Dobb's Journal is permanently suspending print publication and going web-only.' This follows an earlier announcement that PC Magazine is to become digital-only, too, as of February 2009. To those of us who enjoy reading such stuff away from the computer these are bad news, as there seems to be no other major technical programmers' magazines left standing."pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1647259amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1647259"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1647259amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/gKhQx_06DIo0DSgO-ivqSA3xkK8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/gKhQx_06DIo0DSgO-ivqSA3xkK8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/5JtdKXGpBHc" height="1" width="1"/

BinaryGrind writes "I just got started taking Computer Science classes at my local university and after reading Universities Patenting More Student Ideas I felt I needed to ask: How do I tell if any of my projects while attending classes will be co-opted by my professors or the university itself and taken away from me? Is there anything I can do to prevent it from happening? What do I need to do to protect myself? Are there schools out there that won't take my work away from me if I discover TheNextBigThing(TM)? If it does happen is there anything I can do to fight back? The school I'm attending is Southern Utah University. Since it's not a big university, I don't believe it has a big research and development department or anything of that ilk. I'm mostly wanting to cover my bases and not have my work stolen from me."pa href="http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1622232amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1622232"/a/ppa href="http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1622232amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/hK7--jrS3HWD_7AuTzMIsR3XlZM/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/hK7--jrS3HWD_7AuTzMIsR3XlZM/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/BUxAWfFyLRw" height="1" width="1"/

BinaryGrind writes "I just got started taking Computer Science classes at my local university and after reading Universities Patenting More Student Ideas I felt I needed to ask: How do I tell if any of my projects while attending classes will be co-opted by my professors or the university itself and taken away from me? Is there anything I can do to prevent it from happening? What do I need to do to protect myself? Are there schools out there that won't take my work away from me if I discover TheNextBigThing(TM)? If it does happen is there anything I can do to fight back? The school I'm attending is Southern Utah University. Since it's not a big university, I don't believe it has a big research and development department or anything of that ilk. I'm mostly wanting to cover my bases and not have my work stolen from me."pa href="http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1622232amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1622232"/a/ppa href="http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1622232amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/hK7--jrS3HWD_7AuTzMIsR3XlZM/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/hK7--jrS3HWD_7AuTzMIsR3XlZM/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/BUxAWfFyLRw" height="1" width="1"/

Thelasko writes "It appears that the US Government's digital converter box program is running out of money. If you sign up after the program runs out of money, you will receive your voucher if the program receives more funding. Older analog televisions will no longer work without a converter box after February 17."pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/164255amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/164255"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/164255amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/NQ2fAmVZyP4G-x4H8jrfyddF43Y/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/NQ2fAmVZyP4G-x4H8jrfyddF43Y/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/zeC91lRNFhY" height="1" width="1"/

Thelasko writes "It appears that the US Government's digital converter box program is running out of money. If you sign up after the program runs out of money, you will receive your voucher if the program receives more funding. Older analog televisions will no longer work without a converter box after February 17."pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/164255amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/164255"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/164255amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/NQ2fAmVZyP4G-x4H8jrfyddF43Y/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/NQ2fAmVZyP4G-x4H8jrfyddF43Y/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/zeC91lRNFhY" height="1" width="1"/

ruphus13 writes "Now, the suits and the geeks can unite mdash; Barry allows BlackBerrys to serve as modems for Linux machines. From the news post, 'Barry, created by open source software vendor Net Direct, lets you not only sync your contacts and calendar but also use your smartphone as a computer modem. Sure, it's not as fast as T1 or cable, but you can't beat it if you're stuck somewhere with no Internet access. Currently, there are packages available for Ubuntu, Debian, Mandriva, and Fedora (although syncing is not supported on Fedora 9). Most older BlackBerrys work just fine with Barry, but the newest generation of devices mdash; the Storm and Bold mdash; are not yet fully supported.'"pa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/152213amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/152213"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/152213amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/2-ml11WxST1fq4sKCfVych55PI8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/2-ml11WxST1fq4sKCfVych55PI8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/gToVZzGxbTs" height="1" width="1"/

ruphus13 writes "Now, the suits and the geeks can unite mdash; Barry allows BlackBerrys to serve as modems for Linux machines. From the news post, 'Barry, created by open source software vendor Net Direct, lets you not only sync your contacts and calendar but also use your smartphone as a computer modem. Sure, it's not as fast as T1 or cable, but you can't beat it if you're stuck somewhere with no Internet access. Currently, there are packages available for Ubuntu, Debian, Mandriva, and Fedora (although syncing is not supported on Fedora 9). Most older BlackBerrys work just fine with Barry, but the newest generation of devices mdash; the Storm and Bold mdash; are not yet fully supported.'"pa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/152213amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/152213"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/152213amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/2-ml11WxST1fq4sKCfVych55PI8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/2-ml11WxST1fq4sKCfVych55PI8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/gToVZzGxbTs" height="1" width="1"/

Sol-Invictus writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE. This is the second release from the 7-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 7.0 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights: The ULE scheduler is now the default in GENERIC kernels for amd64 and i386 architectures. The ULE scheduler significantly improves performance on multicore systems for many workloads. Support for using DTrace inside the kernel has been imported from OpenSolaris. DTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework. A new and much-improved NFS Lock Manager (NLM) client. Boot loader changes allow, among other things, booting from USB devices and booting from GPT-labeled devices. KDE updated to 3.5.10, GNOME updated to 2.22.3. DVD-sized media for the amd64 and i386 architectures."pa href="http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1422224amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1422224"/a/ppa href="http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1422224amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/tdn3eCHles1M1bxrS98Y7zf0Ubk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/tdn3eCHles1M1bxrS98Y7zf0Ubk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/5YzI4gSRqoc" height="1" width="1"/

Sol-Invictus writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE. This is the second release from the 7-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 7.0 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights: The ULE scheduler is now the default in GENERIC kernels for amd64 and i386 architectures. The ULE scheduler significantly improves performance on multicore systems for many workloads. Support for using DTrace inside the kernel has been imported from OpenSolaris. DTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework. A new and much-improved NFS Lock Manager (NLM) client. Boot loader changes allow, among other things, booting from USB devices and booting from GPT-labeled devices. KDE updated to 3.5.10, GNOME updated to 2.22.3. DVD-sized media for the amd64 and i386 architectures."pa href="http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1422224amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1422224"/a/ppa href="http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1422224amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/tdn3eCHles1M1bxrS98Y7zf0Ubk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/tdn3eCHles1M1bxrS98Y7zf0Ubk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/5YzI4gSRqoc" height="1" width="1"/

CommonCents noted an Apple announcement a few hours before the anticipated keynote. He says "Apples' latest must have gadget does away with the keyboard. With the new MacBook Wheel, Apple has replaced the traditional keyboard with a giant wheel."pa href="http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1419259amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1419259"/a/ppa href="http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1419259amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Bo8Hg7eRsMi1qsv6W5ymearjDck/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Bo8Hg7eRsMi1qsv6W5ymearjDck/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/7w-eRkZdJPM" height="1" width="1"/

CommonCents noted an Apple announcement a few hours before the anticipated keynote. He says "Apples' latest must have gadget does away with the keyboard. With the new MacBook Wheel, Apple has replaced the traditional keyboard with a giant wheel."pa href="http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1419259amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/1419259"/a/ppa href="http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/1419259amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Bo8Hg7eRsMi1qsv6W5ymearjDck/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Bo8Hg7eRsMi1qsv6W5ymearjDck/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/7w-eRkZdJPM" height="1" width="1"/

ptorrone writes "Make: television debuted online and on public television (broadcast / cable tv). The series encourages everyone to invent, reinvent, recycle, upcycle, and act up. Based on the popular Make magazine, each half-hour episode hopes to inspire viewers to think, create, and, well, make. Each episode can be viewed or downloaded DRM-free, in HD on makezine.tv mdash; the show is also available on Vimeo, YouTube, blip.tv and iTunes."pa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/048212amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/048212"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/048212amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/KwDJEew2KFW4gsyPe1wKJk9JW2o/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/KwDJEew2KFW4gsyPe1wKJk9JW2o/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/IgqWup8Yze8" height="1" width="1"/

ptorrone writes "Make: television debuted online and on public television (broadcast / cable tv). The series encourages everyone to invent, reinvent, recycle, upcycle, and act up. Based on the popular Make magazine, each half-hour episode hopes to inspire viewers to think, create, and, well, make. Each episode can be viewed or downloaded DRM-free, in HD on makezine.tv mdash; the show is also available on Vimeo, YouTube, blip.tv and iTunes."pa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/048212amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/048212"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/048212amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/KwDJEew2KFW4gsyPe1wKJk9JW2o/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/KwDJEew2KFW4gsyPe1wKJk9JW2o/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/IgqWup8Yze8" height="1" width="1"/

Hugh Pickens writes "The city has always been an engine of intellectual life and the 'concentration of social interactions' is largely responsible for urban creativity and innovation. But now scientists are finding that being in an urban environment impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory and suffers from reduced self-control. 'The mind is a limited machine,' says psychologist Marc Berman. 'And we're beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations.' Consider everything your brain has to keep track of as you walk down a busy city street. A city is so overstuffed with stimuli that we need to redirect our attention constantly so that we aren't distracted by irrelevant things. This sort of controlled perception mdash; we are telling the mind what to pay attention to mdash; takes energy and effort. Natural settings don't require the same amount of cognitive effort. A study at the University of Michigan found memory performance and attention spans improved by 20 percent after people spent an hour interacting with nature. 'It's not an accident that Central Park is in the middle of Manhattan,' says Berman. 'They needed to put a park there.'"pa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/042202amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/042202"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/042202amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/JjKmYm6MXqC2eP2al_DxhycBa24/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/JjKmYm6MXqC2eP2al_DxhycBa24/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/WvOQ8hvnmKM" height="1" width="1"/

Hugh Pickens writes "The city has always been an engine of intellectual life and the 'concentration of social interactions' is largely responsible for urban creativity and innovation. But now scientists are finding that being in an urban environment impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory and suffers from reduced self-control. 'The mind is a limited machine,' says psychologist Marc Berman. 'And we're beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations.' Consider everything your brain has to keep track of as you walk down a busy city street. A city is so overstuffed with stimuli that we need to redirect our attention constantly so that we aren't distracted by irrelevant things. This sort of controlled perception mdash; we are telling the mind what to pay attention to mdash; takes energy and effort. Natural settings don't require the same amount of cognitive effort. A study at the University of Michigan found memory performance and attention spans improved by 20 percent after people spent an hour interacting with nature. 'It's not an accident that Central Park is in the middle of Manhattan,' says Berman. 'They needed to put a park there.'"pa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/042202amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/01/06/042202"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/06/042202amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/JjKmYm6MXqC2eP2al_DxhycBa24/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/JjKmYm6MXqC2eP2al_DxhycBa24/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/WvOQ8hvnmKM" height="1" width="1"/