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Comment Flawed (Score 5, Funny) 542

Let's see, walking is not zero carbon because of the food energy.

After the carbon cost of making the bike, biking's not zero carbon either, for the same reason.

But I only ride my bike for exercise, thus I don't save anything vis-a-vis my commute to work, and I have the food energy cost. Therefore my bike riding definitely has a carbon footprint.

Oh noes. Guess I better stop riding and turn into an obese blob for the sake of the environment.

Programming

Ask Slashdot: Am I Too Old To Learn New Programming Languages? 772

ProgramadorPerdido writes "I have been a developer for 25 years. I learned Basic, VB, C, FoxPro, Cobol, and Assembler, but the languages I used the most were Pascal and Delphi. I then concentrated on a now-non-mainstream language for 11 years, as it was used at work. One day I had the chance to move into Project Management and so I did for the last 2 years. Now, at almost 40 years old, I'm at a crossroad. On one side I realized developing is the thing I like best, while on the other side, the languages I'm most proficient with are not that hot on the market. So I came here looking for any advice on how to advance my career. Should I try to learn web development (html, xhtml, css, php, python, ruby)? Should I learn Java and/or C#? Or am I too old to learn and work a new language? Should I go back to PM work even if I do not like it that much? Any similar experiences?"

Comment Re:LG sells Android phones... connection? (Score 2) 196

And forgive me for possibly stating the obvious---

If LG were to sue Apple directly, Apple might throw a hissy and stop buying LG's panels.

So to prevent that, LG creates a shell/shill to bring the suit, on the presumption that Apple won't see right through it and continue to buy panels as if nothing was wrong.

Anybody else buying that?

Comment Drones? (Score 1) 81

If we can have drone aircraft, why not drone humvees?

A convoy of remote control humvees, followed by a couple of humvees full of troops to keep the locals from planting bombs, cutting the cargo off, etc.

With the added benefit of any IEDs in the road probably explode when the first or second humvee goes past, and the wetware in the back is relatively safe.

(No, I didn't read the article.)

NASA

NASA Briefing on New Mars Finding This Afternoon 231

ipsender writes with a NASA announcement: "NASA will host a news briefing on Thursday, Aug. 4, at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) about a significant new Mars science finding. The briefing will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The new finding is based on observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2006." You can catch the briefing online at the NASA TV site.

Comment What, no one size fits all solution? (Score 5, Insightful) 496

If I learned anything from my teacher wife*, it's that there are dozens of ways that children (and adults) learn, and you have to tailor the learning experience for each of them.

Some children may do very well with things like the Khan Academy. Others will not.

Anyone who tries to shoehorn all children into the same learning solution is likely to leave a large percentage of them behind.

* and my own experience in contrast to my brother, and my own two childrens' very different learning experiences in public schools.

Music

Activision Trying To 'Reinvent' Guitar Hero 144

In an interview with Forbes, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick spoke about the rise and fall of the Guitar Hero franchise, saying "it became unsuccessful because it didn't have any nourishment and care." He then revealed that after effectively canceling the franchise last year, the company is looking for ways to resurrect it. "We said you know what, we need to regain our audience interest, and we really need to deliver inspired innovation. So we're going to take the products out of the market, and we're not going to tell anybody what we're doing for awhile, but we're going to stop selling Guitar Hero altogether. And then we're going to go back to the studios and we're going to use new studios and reinvent Guitar Hero. And so that's what we're doing with it now." Kotick also addressed Activision's lack of foresight regarding DJ Hero: "...in hindsight, if you step back – and it really would have been a simple thing to do – we should have said, 'Well, how many people really want to unleash their inner DJ?'"

Comment Re:Did he predict the Internet? (Score 1) 278

Er, well, okay. But the original topic was about predictions made in the 60s.

A lot had changed by the 80s. And still nobody like Clarke was predicting tech solutions to the impending problems, including the one you describe. And here it is 30 years later and most of us still only have the non-tech, oops, my electric bill is going through the roof, I'm going to turn down/off the A/C solution.

Comment Re:Did he predict the Internet? (Score 1) 278

No doubt lots of other scifi/futurefi 'predicted' power shortfalls and other unhappy stuff. That wasn't really my point. My point was more about lookee here, see this newfangled intarwebs, it'll do all sorts o' kewl things AND turn off your AC when voltage on the grid drops kinds of predictions by the likes of Clarke and Kurzweil, or rather the lack of thoughtful predictions about unhappy kinds of things.

And more to the point, you yourself say in Make Room, Make Room, they don't have smart meters and remote power off, so other than predicting power shortages, Harrison didn't predict the gadgetry at all.

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