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The Perfect Way To Slice a Pizza 282

iamapizza writes "New Scientist reports on the quest of two math boffins for the perfect way to slice a pizza. It's an interesting and in-depth article; 'The problem that bothered them was this. Suppose the harried waiter cuts the pizza off-center, but with all the edge-to-edge cuts crossing at a single point, and with the same angle between adjacent cuts. The off-center cuts mean the slices will not all be the same size, so if two people take turns to take neighboring slices, will they get equal shares by the time they have gone right round the pizza — and if not, who will get more?' This is useful, of course, if you're familiar with the concept of 'sharing' a pizza."
Debian

FreeNAS Switching From FreeBSD To Debian Linux 206

dnaumov writes "FreeNAS, a popular, free NAS solution, is moving away from using FreeBSD as its underlying core OS and switching to Debian Linux. Version 0.8 of FreeNAS as well as all further releases are going to be based on Linux, while the FreeBSD-based 0.7 branch of FreeNAS is going into maintenance-only mode, according to main developer Volker Theile. A discussion about the switch, including comments from the developers, can be found on the FreeNAS SourceForge discussion forum. Some users applaud the change, which promises improved hardware compatibility, while others voice concerns regarding the future of their existing setups and lack of ZFS support in Linux."

Comment Re:the haters won't notice, but... (Score 1) 1124

Looks like they took some hints from the chromium developers, which I think is a good thing, I like the way chromium works. It's efficient how the address bar doubles as search bar (in firefox and opera I use a lot of custom searches) and the exclusion of a menu bar gives chromium an elegant look(except for the lack of integration with the rest of my desktop...).

Comment Re:Well... yeh. (Score 1) 661

Eating slowly definitly helps you to eat less. Small bites and chew each bite 30 times (which is a lot...).

This is because the reaction of your body to your food takes a while to get going (something aroung 15-20 minutes). So you don't
feel like you've eaten untal 15 minutes after your first bite. Furthermore we have some sort of "bite counter" so
taking lots of small bites and chewing each of them very well not only increases your eating time, but also
your bite counter. You'll also be able te taste what your eating a whole lot better

Losing weight is a very hard problem, look at the sheer amount of diets there are. It's a pity none of them work.
The only thing that will cause you to lose weight and not regain it is a lifestyle change. When your're on a diet
and eating very little your body goes into survival mode and holds on to everything you eat. The results of this
is that after the diet you're body is still in survival mode and you'll regain the weight you lost really fast.

Comment Re:Is this it? (Score 1) 329

That depends on whether it is of human origin or not. If there are animal carriers it will not disappear. But the number of infected people
(especially in countries where the animal carrier does not live) will drop drastically.

There is however another risk and that is recklessness, if the chance of getting HIV gets very low (or lower, if you live in the western
world and look at the infection rate) there is a danger that people will stop being
carefull. There are already reports that people are taking less care because of improved treatment.

Furthermore as others pointed out this is just a Phase I trail, just to see whether you can actually administer the drug
in therapeutic dosages to patients without killing them and to assess parameters like the half life etc.

Comment Re:BMI is worthless (Score 1) 383

Not necessarily wrong, it's just not suitable for everybody. But is is fast and correlates quite well with diseases.

Having said that there are better measures like waist circumference which do not have the problem with "false positives" like
BMI has. Furthermore waist circumference correlates better with e.g. diabetes. It's not only the amount of fat that counts,
the location is also important. Abdominal fat is a larger risk factor than fat on your legs for example.

Comment Re:Teachers wrong here (Score 3, Insightful) 333

By posting his assignments, even after the due dates, he may be influencing his fellow students in the follow on assignments.

I really don't see anything wring with influencing your felllow students. Learning from each other is as valuable (maybe even more valuable) than learning from a book or teacher. Assuming that he did not do things the wrong way. But even if he did things the wrong way you could discuss what is wrong about his implementation and why it is wrong. Those discussions can be very helpful (whether you're explaining or trying to understand why it is wrong)

I think that the focus should not be on secrecy, it should be on openness. In the end every student is(should) there be there because they want to learn something and they should realize that by copying the work of someone they are going to get in trouble later on. Students will talk to each other and assignments that change very little will be shared anyway, so you'll might as well be open about it and motivate the students to do their own work and stimulate them to work together. That way you'll develop the skills to work together; have more fun because you can share your frustration of not knowing how to handle a certain problem (and finding out that your friends can't either) and you'll learn more because you're enjoying yourself.

Comment Re:Surprised? (Score 3, Interesting) 582

Wonder how they missed it (granulomas are relatively "easy" to spot). During lectures from pathology they would always show slides and point out a million different things only visible to them!

That said Crohn's disease is really nasty because it is a transmural (contrary to ulcerative collitis in which "only" the upper layer is inflamed) and can occur throughout the whole digestive tract (from mouth to anus...) Quite a lot of patients need repetitive surgery to remove inflamed intestine.

As other pointed out as well most of the symptoms are common which makes it a difficult to diagnose (cause you can't put every patient trough a endoscopy, for financial, patient well being and capacity reasons).

There are off course typical cases but most patients do not have the decency to stick to the symptoms they should have according to the text book ;)
PlayStation (Games)

Heavy Rain Gameplay Explained 56

David Cage, writer and director of Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain, has released a lengthy video of an entire level from the game, along with detailed commentary about how the game works. He demonstrates how to operate the UI, showing how contextual menus let you control actions, dialog, and even your character's thoughts, while also showcasing how the game's investigatory system works and even a few fighting-related quick-time events. 1Up recently spoke with Cage about his time in the games industry, including his previous work on Indigo Prophecy. They also did a Heavy Rain preview of their own, and spoke briefly about post-launch plans. The game is due out next year for the PS3.

Comment Re:Apples to Oranges (Score 1, Informative) 674

LyX is OK, but I find that Kile suits my needs better. Is has a couple of really nice features like quickbuilds, autocomplete from a bibtex file and an easy way to include environments. It's very extensible and customizable as well.

I especially like it that it does not hide the code from you so that it doesn't get in your way.

Comment Re:Aspirin vs. Acetaminophen vs. Combo pills (Score 0) 700

As for as painkillers go when you need to take them for a longer amount of time you're better of taking paracetamol (Acetaminophen, in The Netherlands we call it paracetamol).

Aspirin and all the *profen variants increase the risk of getting a stomach ulcer. So it is advisable to take stomach protection (something like omeprazole) if you need to take aspirin or *profen for a sustained period. Paracetamol doesn't really increase this risk. Furthermore you'll need to take very large amounts in order to get serious liver damage (about 6 grams, depending on body weigth etc.)

Potency is more or less the same for most of the paracetamol and *profen variants.
Google

New Google Favicon Deja Vu All Over Again? 227

theodp writes "Last June, Google rolled out a new favicon, the small branding icon that graces your URL bar when you visit Google. Which, as it turned out, bore a striking similarity to Garth Brooks' Circle-G logo. Well, Google went back to the drawing board and has come back with a new favicon, which it says was inspired by — not copied from, mind you — its users' submitted ideas. Some are also seeing inspiration elsewhere for the new favicon, which consists of white 'g' on a background of four color swatches. Take the AVG antivirus icon, for instance. Or everybody's favorite memory toy, Simon. Or — in perhaps the unkindest cut of all — the four-color Microsoft Windows logo, shown here with a superimposed white '7'. Anything else come to mind?" What comes to mind for me is just how obsessed many people are with the Google favicon.
Microsoft

Windows 7 Benchmarks Show Little Improvement On Vista 369

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy examines Windows 7 from the kernel up, subjecting the 'pre-beta' to a battery of benchmarks to find any signs that the OS will be faster, more responsive, and less resource-intensive than the bloated Vista, as Microsoft suggests. Identical thread counts at the kernel level suggest to Kennedy that Windows 7 is a 'minor point-type of release, as opposed to a major update or rewrite.' Memory footprint for the kernel proved eerily similar to that of Vista as well. 'In fact, as I worked my way through the process lists of the two operating systems, I was struck by the extent of the similarities,' Kennedy writes, before discussing the results of a nine-way workload test scenario he performed on Windows 7 — the same scenario that showed Vista was 40 percent slower than Windows XP. 'In a nutshell, Windows 7 M3 is a virtual twin of Vista when it comes to performance,' Kennedy concludes. 'In other words, Microsoft's follow-up to its most unpopular OS release since Windows Me threatens to deliver zero measurable performance benefits while introducing new and potentially crippling compatibility issues.'"

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