xdancergirlx - Slashdot User

Submission + - Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New St (dailygalaxy.com)

Submitted by

movesguy

on Friday July 03, 2009 @01:22PM

movesguy writes: "Stephen Hawking said in his lecture: Life in the Universe that "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution" From the article: "At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information." "I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race," Hawking said. In the last ten thousand years the human species has been in what Hawking calls, "an external transmission phase," where the internal record of information, handed down to succeeding generations in DNA, has not changed significantly. "But the external record, in books, and other long lasting forms of storage," Hawking says, "has grown enormously. Some people would use the term, evolution, only for the internally transmitted genetic material, and would object to it being applied to information handed down externally. But I think that is too narrow a view. We are more than just our genes." http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/stephen-hawking-the-planet-has-entered-a-new-phase-of-evolution.html"

Comment Bittorrent link (Score 1) 142

by xdancergirlx on Wednesday May 20, 2009 @03:54PM (#28030181) Attached to: Moblin 2.0 Released, Intel's Linux For Netbooks

In case you actually want to try this sometime in the next few days. I suggest getting via bittorrent. It is on the bay:

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4904993/moblin-netbook-ux-beta-20090518-004

Comment Language is a part of culture (Score 1) 554

by xdancergirlx on Saturday April 04, 2009 @11:19AM (#27457683) Attached to: Quebec Says 'Non' To English-Only Video Games

First of all, as the update to the article says, this doesn't make it illegal to sell english versions of video games, only that if there is a french version available it must be sold along side of it. This does not lead to delays of games and will not make companies stop selling French versions. Actually, since 2007, the opposite has been true with most new titles having french options which broadens the game market, not shrinks it (ie. there are lots of people in quebec who don't speak english).

Remember that the *only* official language in Quebec is French. Moreover, 80% of the population speaks French as their mother tongue, vs. 8% english.

Finally, language is important part of culture. Language protection laws have been really successful in Quebec and are part of what makes it such an amazing place with a really vibrant, rich, cosmopolitan, and arts-rich province. If you live in Quebec and have seen the rest of Canada (I mean for more than your 3 or 4 year university degree), I think you will agree that Quebec is a unique and special place, due mostly to it's french background. Canada is so huge and has a huge amount of diversity, Vancouver, the BC. mountains, the praries, the badlands, Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, Northwest, Northeast, Canadian Sheild, the north praries... and many more, each distinct for different reasons.

Why are all these anglophones so upset about a bill that promotes french culture in Quebec without affecting them nor preventing any gamers in Quebec from getting english games on the same schedule they would have without the law?

Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch Provokes Bomb Scare 186

Posted by samzenpus on Friday March 20, 2009 @06:38PM from the how-does-it-um-how-does-it-work dept.

Bomb disposal teams were called in and a nearby pub evacuated after water company engineers mistook a Monty Python film prop for a hand grenade. After nearly an hour of examination by bomb experts, they counted to three. No more. No less. Three was the number they counted, and the number they counted was three. Four they did not count, nor two, except to proceed to three. Five was right out. Once the number three had been reached, being the third number, they declared that the grenade was actually a copy of the "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch" used in the film Monty Python And The Holy Grail. A police spokeswoman confirmed that the device was a toy and that it had been no danger to the public.

Comment People supporting Redhat supports community distro (Score 5, Insightful) 199

by xdancergirlx on Saturday August 09, 2008 @01:16AM (#24535257) Attached to: Paid Support Not Critical For Linux Adoption

Don't forget though that the ability of bigger enterprise-driven companies like Redhat and Novell to pay full-time linux programmers has had a tremendously postive effect on community distros.

It is hard to imagine what the linux desktop would look like today without the contribution of Redhat and Novell programmers during the last 5 years.

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