Comment Re:Different everywhere? (Score 1) 451
You forgot. We had a "season change" back in 2004 when those 3 hurricanes blew through. Their paths crossed over each other to make a nice asterisk right on top of where I live.
Comment Re:The most beautiful sound (Score 1) 210
I've had very similar experiences with pianos. I'm by no means a master. I don't even consider myself proficient, but the opportunities that I have had to play a really excellent piano made things totally different. From the weight of the keys and their responsiveness to my touch to the acoustic quality and shape of the box surrounding the harp, everything sounded and felt different. I've only been "lost" playing piano twice in my life. Once was on a high end traditional full grand (can't remember the make). The other time was, to my surprise, on an simple Yamaha full keyboard (a high-end electric one with only 2 "voices"). It felt and sounded as good as the grand to me. I was shocked that an electronic device could really produce that sound and have such a velvety feel. It was a dream to play.
If instruments with that level of quality were accessible to everyone I believe that the amount of truly inspiring musical compositions would begin to soar. My piano play began to wane after those experiences simply because everything else left me flat. When you truly enjoy the experience of playing a quality instrument and the instrument itself is not fighting against you in the production of a really beautiful sound your creativity level goes way up.
With the studies out that have definitively proven the link between playing music (including singing) and the increase in abilities in language, math, and science aptitude I begin to wonder if more common access to high quality instruments would help to improve the math, science, and language problems we now have in the education system. I would certainly help reduce the amount of pop-noise that pervades our society today.
If instruments with that level of quality were accessible to everyone I believe that the amount of truly inspiring musical compositions would begin to soar. My piano play began to wane after those experiences simply because everything else left me flat. When you truly enjoy the experience of playing a quality instrument and the instrument itself is not fighting against you in the production of a really beautiful sound your creativity level goes way up.
With the studies out that have definitively proven the link between playing music (including singing) and the increase in abilities in language, math, and science aptitude I begin to wonder if more common access to high quality instruments would help to improve the math, science, and language problems we now have in the education system. I would certainly help reduce the amount of pop-noise that pervades our society today.
Comment PI is NOT a Number (Score 0) 432
PI is a formula that describes a relationship of measurements regarding a circle. The problem being that we know imprecisely the results of that formula without knowing the formula. The search for a repetitive pattern (to help define the formula) in the result is, thus far, proving unproductive. I would wager to guess that, at over 2.5T digits, a found repetition will still not help.
Typically, an answer for something this daunting will be far simpler than expected and come from a kid or young adult from the least expected country on the planet.
I look forward to that jaw-dropping, Homer Simpson quoting day.
Comment Re:Yes: Removing it may cut your house resale $ (Score 2, Informative) 635
2004 - Central Florida - 3 hurricanes
Lost electricity, cell phones ran out of juice. Before that, though, the emergency responders had allocated or saturated the cell capacity.
Land lines stayed up for a month while we had no appreciable cell service or electricity.
Unfortunately, Verizon has started using the home owners electricity to "power" the land lines.
What a cluster....
Comment Here's one... (Score 1) 36
I found this. It's a product release announcement.
Comment Re:Mummy question (Score 2, Funny) 64
But I believe if the Egyptians were smart enough to use these plants for recreational use , then they should have been smart enough to cultivate them as well...
"Dude, I think I smoked the last plant...
Comment Good Review (Score 1) 224
Thanks for the review Adrian! I'm also a .Net 2.0 programmer. Being employed doing 2.0 full time makes it hard to bounce around the net trying to find cohesive 3.5 examples and explanations (that aren't just hacks.) This looks like a good place to do the concentrated study that I need.
Submission + - SPAM: Improving chip density by a factor of 100
Roland Piquepaille writes: "According to the semiconductor industry, maskless nanolithography is a flexible nanofabrication technique which suffers from low throughput. But now, engineers at the University of California at Berkeley have developed a new approach that involves 'flying' an array of plasmonic lenses just 20 nanometers above a rotating surface, it is possible to increase throughput by several orders of magnitude. The 'flying head' they've created looks like the stylus on the arm of an old-fashioned LP turntable. With this technique, the researchers were able to create line patterns only 80 nanometers wide at speeds up to 12 meters per second. The lead researcher said that by using 'this plasmonic nanolithography, we will be able to make current microprocessors more than 10 times smaller, but far more powerful' and that 'it could lead to ultra-high density disks that can hold 10 to 100 times more data than today's disks.' But read more for additional details, references and figures describing this high-throughput maskless nanolithography using plasmonic lens arrays."
Free Pascal 2.2 Has Been Released 284
Daniel Mantione writes "Free Pascal 2.2 has been released. Several new platforms are supported, like the Mac OS X on Intel platform, the Game Boy Advance, Windows CE and 64-Windows. Free Pascal is now the first and only free software compiler that targets 64-bit Windows. These advancements were made possible by Free Pascal's internal assembler and linker allowing support for platforms not supported by the GNU binutils. The advancement in internal assembling and linking also allow faster compilation times and smaller executables, increasing the programmer comfort. Other new features are stabs debug support, many new code optimizations, resourcestring smart-linking and more."
Apple Unveils MacBook Pro with Core 2 Duo 673
daveschroeder writes "Apple has just announced the upgraded MacBook Pro (15.4- and 17-inch models) with the Intel Core 2 Duo ("Merom") 64-bit dual core processor. The standard hard drive sizes have been increased, a FireWire 800 port has been added to all models (again, reaffirming that FireWire, and specifically FireWire 800, is not dead, and that Apple responded to customer requests to add it to the 15.4-inch model), and the optical drive is now dual-layer-write-capable on all models."
Human Species May Split In Two 1000
gEvil (beta) writes "According to an article at the BBC, an evolutionary theorist in London suggests that humanity may split into two sub-species within the next 100,000 years. From the article: 'The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.'" No missing link here, we already have the troll-like humans to prove it.
IBM and Lenovo Recall Sony Batteries 111
digihome writes "IBM and Lenovo are recalling 168,500 ThinkPad notebook battery packs in the United States and another 357,000 worldwide, saying the Sony-made lithium-ion batteries can 'cause overheating, posing a fire hazard to consumers.'" The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has more details.
