Comment Send the whole thing! (Score 2, Interesting) 170
Just send the whole ISS. Most of their experiments don't care where the station is, so long as it is space, and plenty of instruments are already onboard.
Comment Simple answer (Score 1) 402
Developers: "Yes"
Everyone Else: "No"
Comment Awareness of the world (Score 4, Insightful) 360
How about: Awareness of the world makes people more depressed.
Comment Re:Who has best "worker/car output" ratio? (Score 1) 264
That depends on the car, and the worker. Can you imagine UAW workers making a C8 Aileron?
Comment Re:Actually "Oceans of melted coal" (Score 1) 347
I wonder what happens when you melt graphite under equally high pressures, then cool it in similar conditions...does it become diamond? Where does the crystalline structure come from?
Comment Cheaper = Worse? (Score 5, Insightful) 264
So you're telling me that something cheap isn't as well made as something expensive? Allow me to go re-evaluate my life...
Comment Not outmaneuvering (Score 5, Informative) 152
It isn't outmaneuvering, I'm sure this is what Google had in mind. No licenses being broken, and a strong modder community.
Comment Not a bug. (Score 1, Informative) 150
This isn't a bug, it is a property of flash memory. That is like calling a car that eventually runs out of gas poorly designed.
The only way around it would be a new type of "defrag" where unused blocks were cleared in advance and partially used blocks consolidated.
Comment Re:Ubuntu is not up to scratch (Score 1) 710
Yeah, because those are common tasks...just the other day my mother was wanting to do that.
Comment British Law? (Score 1) 1188
Not sure where British law stands on this topic?
I know it is legal for me (in the USA) to set up my tripod on the street outside someones home in an affluent neighborhood and snap away, then post those pictures on the internet. I would think the CCTV-soaked Brits would be even more forgiving.
Comment Importance of information? (Score 5, Interesting) 313
As recording things became easier, more things were recorded. At some point we began recording things that no-one will ever care about, and now keep things recorded that we didn't even know were recorded (care to see my router logs?).
The less significant something is, the less we need to worry about preserving it.
Of course, there are things worth preserving, but most of it just isn't.
Comment Once again... (Score 5, Insightful) 235
Only cheaper if your time is worth nothing.
Still, very cool. But not particularly novel or groundbreaking.
Comment Google's eternal beta-status (Score 5, Insightful) 69
It seems Google treats their beta products better than most treat their production stuff. Fitting, considering Google has more users of their beta stuff than other companies have paying users.
RIAA May Be Violating a Court Order In California 339
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In one of its 'ex parte' cases seeking the names and addresses of 'John Does,' this one targeting students at the University of Southern California, the RIAA obtained an order granting discovery — but with a wrinkle. The judge's order (PDF) specified that the information obtained could not be used for any purpose other than obtaining injunctions against the students. Apparently the RIAA lawyers have ignored, or failed to understand, that limitation, as an LA lawyer has reported that the RIAA is busy calling up the USC students and their families and demanding monetary settlements."
Inside Dean Kamen's Seceded Island of Geekery 187
mattnyc99 writes "The new issue of Esquire has a long, in-depth, intricate profile of Dean Kamen and his quest to invent a better world. Earlier this month, we discussed Kamen's Sterling-electric car, but this piece goes into much more detail about how that engine works — he got the original idea from the upmodded Henry Ford artifact in the basement of his insane island lab — and about how his inventions often go overlooked, including the Slingshot water purifier that Stephen Colbert made famous but that no one has actually bought yet. Quoting: 'To get the Slingshot to the 20 percent of the world that doesn't have electricity, Kamen came up with the idea of splitting it in half. Leaving the Stirling aside, he would try to develop a market for his distiller in parts of the developing world that have electricity but not reliable clean water. "There are five hundred thousand little stores in Mexico," he says. "If we can put one of these in 10 percent of them, that's enough to put it in production." That may be the killer app for the distiller.' So, is this guy all hype with overpriced devices, or is time for someone to take his genius (Segway aside) to the mass market?"
