Everytime I heard that the Earth's axis had been changed during the Chile earthquake, I figured it was the rotation axis. I thought it was a little far-fetched, but I wasn't one to argue with the data. However, it is NOT the rotational axis that was shifted and this article finally clarifies that. I read many others before (probably regurgitations of the real scientific paper) and they never said that.

Apparently, the axis that shifted is that of mass, called the Figure Axis, meaning the axis of symmetry in the Earth's mass distribution. We're still rotating in the same direction (defined by an axis which is not the Figure one), though.

...OR "Shit shit shit shit I'm late for work I'm gonna be fired again!" gets to you ...

Everytime I read one of these "studies" that "shows" stuff, I can't help but think that the researcher is a press whore or is just trying to get more funding by throwing out a ridiculously convoluted "theory" to explain a simple observation. After all, the "people get stressed out when they're late for work" hypothesis doesn't get you as many grants.

A few numbers in Mexico (right south of the USA...):

Minimum wage: 50ish pesos a day for 8 hours, which is around 4usd.
Average income for a family: 7,000 pesos a month, which is 500usd. (Source: Inegi, in spanish)

Price for a new hollywood release for DVD: 200-300 pesos
Price for an old movie DVD: 100 - 150 pesos
Price for a new popular album: 150-250 pesos
Price for old albums: 100-150 pesos
Price for a New PC game: 600-800 pesos
Price for a New Console game: 800-1200 pesos

Funny thing: there are still a few retail stores trying to sell Age of Empires III with the expansions for 800 pesos... geez.

(A little off-topic, but a new Best Seller book is around 300 pesos. An older or non-best-seller book from a decent editorial house is 150-250 pesos. There are cheap-ass books to be found, but usually from non-copyrighted authors (loooong dead) and with the most horrible translations ever.)

So they wrote a PDP-1 emulator for java. Maybe they should keep building emulators to run the last emulator on a newer system. Repeat ad infinitum and you never have to know more than 2 languages at a time in order to preserve it.

So, you suggest that instead of Adblock I go and install Flashblock and Noscript AND go manually edit my Hosts file, which would mean going around looking for the actual domain of the culprit ad? And you say there's no need for adblock?

Using flashblock means blocking all flash, which is not something I want. Using Noscript creates a similar problem. Whitelisting sites is posible with those two, I think, but then so it is with adblock.

That simple "like/dislike" interfase you speak of already exists in adblock. It's as simple as clicking in the red button at the top-right of my screen (on chrome, at least) and right there you see the option to whitelist either this specific site or the whole slashdot.org domain.

No, you see, people who look for add-ons like adblock don't do it to freeride the internet. Most of us are actually willing to see (and, god help us all, click) adds in the websites we visit. That's all fine and pretty. The problem arises when some stupid sites start doing flash-based advertisements; big, flashy, cpu-consuming, epilepsy-inducing, "facebook of sex" banners that keep making my head hurt and that occupy most of the real-state in a website.

Or do you think that any regular user will seek adblock in order to go around free of google text-based advertising? Hell, I even went thru the trouble of specifically white-listing google from my addblock because my problem is not with them or anyone being friendly but with those horrible flash ads that pollute many websites.

Ad blocking will not cause less diverse content. It will cause a shift of paradigm. It will change the ads and turn them into friendly things that bother very few so that the regular user will never even think about seeking ad blocking software (or even manually activating the IE9 option).

And it is precisely what happens with TV, except that for TV there is a central organism (country-specific, of course) that watches over the ad companies and doesn't allow them to do whatever they want. The internet can't have such a thing (well, it can, but we don't want it), so now we have the free market actually regulating itself, as it should. I think this is fucking awesome!

If anything, these streaming services are doing the oposite. Just go look at Youtube's Most watched videos of all times. I'll be damned if Justin Bieber isn't benefiting from that! Sure, many people use Pandora (and the likes) for finding new music and listening to different styles, but to say that the blockbusters are losing their power because of it is short-sighted.

I wonder if the FBI considers "not facing bankrupting fines and legal harrassment" an incentive...

In Mexico, when you pay certain taxes (like the "tenencia", which is a tax you pay every year for owning a car), they give you the bill and in it there are certain "voluntary donations" to stuff like the Red Cross, the Firemen, the Children Hospital and the State University. Sure, they say it's "voluntary" but they actually include it in the bill they send you every year and removing it can sometimes be a huge hassle. Not to mention the dirty looks you get from the cashiers...

I would love to see them do that because, you know, the more they try to hide it, the more Anonymous and others will do to scatter it all around the globe.

Well, that seems good to me. One of the deterrents of PC gaming is the everchanging hardware specs. If consoles have proved already that we can live with the hardware power from 6 years ago and still make games that look quite impressive (at least, sufficiently good), perhaps it's time that computer videocards slow down and allow the population to catch up. It sucks buying a $250 video card just to have to replace it in 2 years, whereas this-generation-consoles have lasted 6 years. The solution is, of course, to buy a $500 videocard, which will be good for a few years, but with that money you can get a console with controllers and one or two bundled games, so why bother? Not to mention buying a decent mouse, keyboard, screen and speakers.

Perhaps we should even learn from the wii and the indie games, which can run on computers 7 years old! Why must we have a new hyper-mega-powerful new $600 video card every year?

Sure, one could argue that video-game developers could actually take advantage of the new hardware (DX 11, anyone?) and have amazingly-looking games, but why bother? Do we really want more realism, graphics-wise, than the MOH and COD franchises currently offer? I think that the success of those franchises, specially the last three CODs, speak for itself. We don't need a new over-hyped video card every six months; we don't need a thousand different model-names that no one understands; we don't need cutting-edge technology to make games. And certainly, we don't need to have such a hostile environment like what PC gaming is, which just turns away most would-be gamers.

That is, truly, what the consoles do right. You don't have to know anything about computers or videogames to pick up one and within minutes start playing your new videogame. You need not install, tweak or configure in any way your games or consoles. You need not update to the latest card drivers. You need not replace any part of your console (except the ones that stop working) every two years; you don't need to worry about system specs, and figuring out if your GT 250 is better or worse than a GT 260 or a HD 5730. Finally, while I'm on it, you need not worry about fucking DRM in your console games, although that's another story (and perhaps the trade is fair, for PC gamers need not fear that their PC manufacturer suddenly bricks their computer... unless sony is involved).

Besides, everyone keeps complaining how games nowadays focus on looking stunning and having great sound effects and, basically, taking too much effort into the media part of the game, while slacking off in other areas, like immersiveness, story, character development and all that. Now they're saying "we should have better graphics now!". I call bullshit.

You are certainly correct. However, citing "the bible" as scientific evidence against a theory (say, evolution) is not science and should not be taught in a science class. There are legitimate objections to certain theories and by all means, those should be discusses openly in a science class, just don't get superstitions into the discussion or everything stops making sense.

In Mexico, where I live, inmates having cellphones is a huge problem because they use it to commit more crimes. Not only do they do their old drug-related deals via phone from the "safety" of jail, but they actually got creative a few years ago.

You will receive a phone call and they'll tell you that it's Captain Gonzalez (or whatever) from the Federal Police. They caught your niece (sometimes they even tell you the name of your niece, sometimes they just say niece) with drugs and unless you are willing to pay the Captain 5k pesos to let it go, she'll wind up in jail for years. Or they tell you they have your cousin, that was trying to cross the border into the US illegally and they'll have him jailed unless you pay up.

Sometimes they wouldn't even pretend to be anything and just be straightforward about it: "We know you live at ADDRESS and your wife is NAME and you have 2 daughters who attend SCHOOL from SCHEDULE. If you don't deposit 10k pesos in my account, you will regret it".

Most people payed up out of fear. It's easy enough to prove that your cousin or niece is free and about, but many people didn't do it. They just paid. My grandmather was victim of such a call, twoce. She didn't actually pay because my mother told her it was a scam, but that didn't remove the fear out of my grandma and she doesn't pick up the phone anymore.

It took only a short while for police to realize that most of these calls (which were really common up until a few months ago, probably because people now know about them and just ignore them) came from prisons, with smuggled cell phones. Absurd measures were taken but of course they didn't work. Now the calls have ceased, I believe, but just because people's awareness of the issue.

So yeah, inmates having cellphones IS dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.

Only if you're broadcasting your position to a server, which is not something GPS devices do automatically.