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Submission + - Shrinking Waves May Save Antarctic Sea Ice (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: It’s a nagging thorn in the side of climatologists: Even though the world is warming, the average area of the sea ice around Antarctica is increasing. Climate models haven’t explained this seeming contradiction to anyone’s satisfaction—and climate change deniers tout that failure early and often. But a new paper suggests a possible explanation: Variability in the heights of ocean waves pounding into the sea ice may help control its advance and retreat.

Comment Option B is the both functional and representative (Score 4, Interesting) 127

Someone mentioned above that the vote has no functional meaning. I disagree.

The glowing patterns, properly designed, can help astronauts see the relative orientation of other astronauts, particularly in low light situations. The more distinctive yet simple the pattern in terms of placement relative to the body of the wearer, the better. The first option (A) obscures this by not clearly aligning all the luminescent lines with the shape of the human body. For me, this makes "biomimicry" functionally less suitable. The third option (C) has lines on all limbs without much to distinguish between them, meaning that when observing from other orientations, there could be confusion for the observer. Granted, the illumination on the backpack mitigates this at some angles, but the second option (B) has distinctive front and back and clearly shows an observer the orientation of the wearer. Option B looks arguably most functional.

As an added bonus, the luminescent pattern in option B can also serve to symbolise the origin of the astronauts, in the highly unlikely even they come in contact with another intelligence :) The second option's (B) "technology" pattern on the front approximates the bipedal shape of a human, while the others do not.

Comment open worlds and Civ (Score 1) 669

Thanks to nexusmods.com I've been replaying the Bethesda open world games (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas) for years now. These not only still look spectacular on modern hardware, but entire new quest lines and regions are available via modifications that are easily managed via the (GPL'ed) mod management tool.

With the release of Civilization V: Brave New World DLC, Civ V has finally become a superior successor to all its predecessors (though it hasn't quite eclipsed the story orientation of Alpha Centauri), so that gets its fair share of game time, too.

Finally, I was bored the other day and decided to finally try out GTA:IV. While I had been a fan of the original two GTA games, the 3D once since hadn't managed to include sufficiently interesting story and characters to really engage me. So while I'd played the Mafia series, the recent GTA games were tried and quickly set aside. Imagine my surprise to discover that GTA:IV had actually improved. The characters are still lacking depth, but then so are those in Bethesda games. The important thing was they were finally engaging enough to not seem completely interchangeable, and the quests were aligned to some kind of plot I could follow. So for now, I'm happily playing through it and look forward to when GTA:V is released for the PC.

Submission + - Alternatives to Slashdot post beta? 8

An anonymous reader writes: Like many Slashdotters, I intend to stop visiting Slashdot after the beta changeover. After years of steady decline in the quality of discussions here, the beta will be the last straw. What sites alternative to Slashdot have others found? The best I have found has been arstechnica.com, but it has been a while since I've looked for tech discussion sites.

Submission + - Slashdot BETA Discussion (slashdot.org) 60

mugnyte writes: With Slashdot's recent restyled "BETA" slowly rolled to most users, there's been a lot of griping about the changes. This is nothing new, as past style changes have had similar effects. However, this pass there are significant usability changes: A narrower read pane, limited moderation filtering, and several color/size/font adjustments. BETA implies not yet complete, so taking that cue — please list your specific, detailed opinoins, one per comment, and let's use the best part of slashdot (the moderation system) to raise the attention to these. Change can be jarring, but let's focus on the true usability differences with the new style.

Submission + - Slashdot forces a beta site by default

kelk1 writes: As a poor submitter found out (https://developers.slashdot.org/story/14/02/05/2328224/html5-app-for-panasonic-tvs-rejected---jquery-is-a-hack), Slashdot (https://slashdot.org) suddenly forced a preview of its beta site without any warning on all its viewers.

Judging by the comments, the feedback was immediate and clearly negative.

I cannot speak for the forum moderation side, but my reaction to the front page was an knee jerk: "Oh no!, not another portal full of noise I cannot speed-read through." Text and hyperlinks are what we need, please, and as little graphics as possible. Think lynx, thank you.

Submission + - Dice, what are you getting by butchering Slashdot ? 2

Taco Cowboy writes: Before I register my account with /. I frequented it for almost 3 weeks. If I were to register the first time I visited /. my account number would be in the triple digits.

That said, I want to ask Dice why they are so eager to kill off Slashdot.

Is there a secret buyer somewhere waiting to grab this domain, Dice ? Just tell us. There are those amongst us who can afford to pay for the domain. What we want is to have a Slashdot that we know, that we can use, that we can continue to share information with all others.

Please stop all your destructive plans for Slashdot, Dice.

Submission + - Richard Nixon Announces His Approval For Slashdot Beta 3

MightyMartian writes: Former US president (and everyone's favorite funny man) Richard M. Nixon announced his approval of the Slashdot Beta site.

"I was just telling Pat this morning as I made sweet Nixon love to her that what the web needed was a whitespace-riddled atrocity. Slashdot Beta is the Tet Offensive of discussion sites, so screw you, you stupid hippies."

Henry Kissinger was said to have been very pleased as well. Dr. Kissinger was quoted as saying "In Soviet Russia, Slashdot betas you!"

Submission + - Nerd website found to make viewer's eyes bleed

grommit writes: http://slashdot.org/ is a website that is testing out a new "Beta" web design specifically crafted to make the viewer's eyes bleed. Editor samzenpus is quoted as saying, "We were hoping for at least a 70% eye bleed rate (EBR) but when we found out that we're actually generating 95% EBR, we were ecstatic. We are proud to break new ground in unreadable web design!"

Submission + - What site would you recommend to replace Slashdot? 1

koreanbabykilla writes: Now that it looks like I'm no longer going to be able to use Slashdot due to beta.slashdot.org, I need somewhere to kill a few hours a day at work. Any suggestions?

Submission + - Kim Jong Un, Ghost of Hitler, Announce Approval of Slashdot Beta

An anonymous reader writes: The Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the ghost of the former leader of National Socialist German Workers' Party have approved of the new Slashdot Beta site in a rare instance of agreement amongst the two. The two strong personalities have a history strong disagreement of the most mundane of things but united today outside the Great Pyongyang Unicorn Lair with Slashdot Editor Samzenpus to show support. "Morale at Dice [Slashdot's parent company] is at an all time low, but the show of support from such great world leaders is an encouragement to the entire team", said Samzenpus.

Submission + - CowboyNeal Locked In Basement For Opposing Slashdot Beta (dice.com) 23

Robotron23 writes: Slashdot's finest editor to date has been mercilessly locked in a basement filled with fuzzy dice Dice created to furnish Google's self-driving cars. Screaming, followed by sounds of frenzied masturbation, have been reported from the subterranean dungeon. "There's no way enough ejaculatory fluid is getting sprayed on our dice to make us care about this deluded protestor's opinion." a Dice executive commented earlier. Former Slashdot owner turned professional millionaire Robert Malda, expressed support: "No porn. More dice than a casino. Lame."

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