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Australia

Man Walks Past Security Screening Staring At iPad, Causing Airport Evacuation 217

Posted by samzenpus from the paying-attention dept.
First time accepted submitter chentiangemalc writes While Australia is on "high alert" for terror threats a man walked past a Sydney Airport security screening while engrossed in his iPad and delayed flights for an hour. From the article: "This event was captured on CCTV and unnerved officials so much that they evacuated passengers. As the Sydney Morning Herald reported, the man found himself (or, perhaps, didn't) going into the terminal through an exit passage that clearly was convenient for him, but less convenient for the hordes of passengers who not only had to be removed from Terminal 3, but also re-screened. A spokeswoman for Qantas told the Morning Herald: 'The man disembarked a flight and left. It appears he wasn't paying attention, was looking at his iPad, forgot something and walked back past (the security area).'"

Comment Lightsabers ... (Score 1) 209

by Misagon (#48017047) Attached to: My toy collection is ...

I have a collection of replica Star Wars lightsaber hilts and a couple of blasters, on which I have spent many hundreds of dollars.
Sure, some people may call them "toys" but for me and for (most) other collectors in the community they were never made to be played with. I don't play with them and I don't let anyone play with them. I call them "collectibles". Anyone who calls them "toys" after I have explained it to them is no friend of mine.

Comment But will the Google Account bullshit remain? (Score 2) 139

by Misagon (#47975259) Attached to: Google Quietly Nixes Mandatory G+ Integration With Gmail

When Google forced the Google+/Google account integration on the users, it wasn't just Google's "Social Network" that was forced upon us. The first hazzle I noticed was that I could not be logged in into Youtube and Gmail at the same time using the two different accounts that I had.
When I was logged into Youtube and wanted to check my mail, instead of a login prompt, I was prompted with a page offering me to "upgrade" the account, and vice versa.
I don't want the confidential correspondence I have with my doctor to be at the same security box as my list of favourite cat videos on Youtube. Youtube is used casually, while GMail is used seriously.

I still use Youtube and GMail a lot, but for a while now I use GMail exclusively in Private Browsing windows in Chromium, so that my credentials are kept separate. But I think that shouldn't be necessary.
Earth

Hundreds of Thousands Turn Out For People's Climate March In New York City 200

Posted by samzenpus from the cooling-things-off dept.
mdsolar writes with an update on the People's Climate March. More than 400,000 people turned out for the People's Climate March in New York City on Sunday, just days before many of the world's leaders are expected to debate environmental action at the United Nations climate summit. Early reports from event organizers are hailing the turnout as the largest climate march in history, far bigger than the Forward on Climate rally held in Washington, D.C., last year. High-profile environmentalists including Bill McKibben, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jane Goodall and Vandana Shiva marched alongside policymakers such as Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and former Vice President Al Gore were also there, and more than 550 buses carried in people from around the country.

Comment Fitness (Score 1) 169

by Misagon (#47953597) Attached to: My resting heart rate:

I heard from a cardiologist that they set 60 BPM as the norm. If your resting heart rate is 60 or lower, then you are considered fit enough. If your resting heart rate is higher then you would need to shape up.
Displays

Oculus Rift CEO Says Classrooms of the Future Will Be In VR Goggles 182

Posted by samzenpus from the watch-and-learn dept.
jyosim writes "Oculus Rift isn't just for gaming. Brendan Iribe, CEO of the VR company, says the immersive tech will be "one of the most transformative platforms for education of all time." In an interview with Chronicle of Higher Education, he imagined laser-scanning every object in the Smithsonian for students to explore, and collaborating in shared virtual spaces rather than campuses. "The next step past that is when you have shared space, and not only do you believe that this object is right there in front of me, but I look around and I see other people just like we see each other now, and I really, truly believe that you’re right in front of me. We can look at each others’ eyes. If you look down at something, I can look down at the same time. And it’s every bit as good as this. And if we can make virtual reality every bit as good as real reality in terms of communications and the sense of shared presence with others, you can now educate people in virtual classrooms, you can now educate people with virtual objects, and we can all be in a classroom together [virtually], we can all be present, we can have relationships and communication that are just as good as the real classroom," he says.

Comment Re:US policy: first arm them then bomb (Score 1) 215

by Misagon (#47845233) Attached to: New US Airstrikes In Iraq Intended to Protect Important Dam

I doubt that the US gov would have supported IS directly, but I think that it is very likely that they would have supported other groups fighting the Assad regime - and that those groups' resources have been
conquered by the IS.

It is known that many fighters in Syria who belonged to other groups have been forced into squads belonging to the IS, and that many of these would deflect from IS if they had the chance.

Comment Re:Eurasia vs. oceania (Score 1) 215

by Misagon (#47845203) Attached to: New US Airstrikes In Iraq Intended to Protect Important Dam

No, he wouldn't. Saddam was funding and assisting terrorist, not fighting them.

So has the US government, when it has served its interests ...

Saddam Hussein and his regime was actually quite proficient and ruthless in clashing down on terrorists activities within the borders of Iraq.
The notion that his regime would have supported the terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda is well known to be a lie by the GWB administration to gain support for their invasion of Iraq for its oil reserves, as part of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) group's agenda.
The PNAC did first lobby for an invasion during the Clinton administration, but their top men became the government when the non-member they had chosen as front-man/scapegoat "won" the election as US president in 2000.
The PNAC's agenda, list of leaders and lobbying have always been public, even on their web site when they had it, so this is hardly any conspiracy theory that people have made up, yet many Americans are so misdirected by the fnords.

Comment Re:APL: A Programming Language (Score 1) 729

I find it kind of weird that while APL requires you to use proper symbols from mathematics and various branches of logic (binary, predicate, etc..), it doesn't have operator precedence that we are used to from mathematics and logic.

Most languages have some cases where the precedence between operators is equal, but in those cases the evaluation order is almost always left to right. In APL, it is backwards: always from right to left.

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