Cody Taylor

jamie found a story on research about what concussions do to athletes, with the insights coming mostly from the study of the donated brains of dead athletes. The NFL has the biggest profile in the piece, but other sports make an appearance too. Turns out that repeated concussions can result in depression, insomnia, and the beginnings of something that looks a lot like Alzheimer’s. “The idea that you can whack your head hundreds of times in your life and knock yourself out and get up and be fine is gone,” said [retired wrestler] Nowinski. “We know we can’t do that anymore. This causes long-term damage.”

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theraindog writes “Intel’s X25-E Extreme SSD is easily the fastest flash drive on the market, and contrary to what one might expect, it actually delivers compelling value if you’re looking at performance per dollar rather than gigabytes. That, combined with a rackmount-friendly 2.5″ form factor and low power consumption make the drive particularly appealing for enterprise RAID. So just how fast are four of them in a striped array hanging off a hardware RAID controller? The Tech Report finds out, with mixed but at times staggeringly impressive results.”

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cweditor writes in with an updated version of a story the likes of which you might have read before, What the Web Knows About You. But reporter Rob Mitchell found out vastly more about himself (his research subject) online than he could have even a year or two ago. The big difference is that state and local governments are putting online digitized records, often with Social Security numbers and other personal details intact. Mitchell ends by questioning how much good it does for banks or credit card companies to require 4, 5, or more independent identity “factors” before providing access to account details, when most or all of the factors they request can be found online about nearly anyone.

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