Comment Re:17.5 billion kilometers (Score 1) 245
An interesting conjecture, but wouldn't anything using reaction drives light itself up quite nicely when it moved around? That is one of the conclusions over at Atomic Rockets.
Comment Re:Android... (Score 2, Informative) 716
Try AppBrain. It gives you online searching, an install queue, and user defined lists (which I find quite useful for managing possibilities/recommendations I might want to try later).
Comment Re:Because of the kind of people who buy Apple (Score 1) 595
Largest app store by an order of magnitude (i seldom pay for anything, tons of free stuff available that do what I want)
Just to be a bit pedantic, "order of magnitude" is false. Android's Market has about 66000 applications, Apple's App Store has something just over 200000. So about three times larger. Three times is not an order of magnitude.
Comment Re:Not very good? (Score 1) 240
Hey, how is Jolicloud? I tried to run it on in virtual machine to try it out and something in the install hung up past my desire that day to look into it. What's your first hand review?
Comment Re:Kudos to Opera (Score 1) 284
Extreme love of Jailbreakers?
Comment Re:Look Ma, another layer of indirection (Score 1) 117
It's a pity the advertisers won (at least they seem to have done so at the moment) the race against micropayments for how to fund "progress" on the web. Great swaths of the web falling into TV2 type drivel seems almost inevitable now. [This comment brought to you by Folgers.]
Comment Re:Better name (Score 1) 93
"Potanets"
Comment Foresight on the towel choice (Score 1) 99
Wouldn't it make the problem easier if the towels had some corner highlighting and a pattern to show the orientation? Then the company that sells you the towel folding robot can be sure to have a towel customer for a while.
Submission + - Parrot beats humans in investment contest
Norsefire writes: "A Parrot named Strawberry performed better than many humans in an investment competition. The human competitors were able to select any stock they wanted while the Parrot randomly selected the stocks with its beak. Strawberry had a 13.7% return, the human average was a 4.6% loss. Only two humans outperformed Strawberry."
Submission + - 3D Images Reconstructed of 300M Year Old Spiders
Hugh Pickens writes: "Scientists at Imperial College London have created detailed 3D computer models of two fossilized specimens of ancient creatures called Cryptomartus hindi and Eophrynus prestvicii, closely related to modern-day spiders. The researchers created their images by using a CT scanning device, which enabled them to take 3,000 x-rays of each fossil then compile them into precise 3D models, using custom-designed software. Both spiders roamed the Earth before the dinnosaurs during the Carboniferous period, 359 — 299 million years ago when life was emerging from the oceans to live on land. C. hindi's front pair of legs were angled toward the front, suggesting they were used to grapple with prey, an "ambush predator" like the modern-day crab spider, lying in wait for prey to come close. Another finding from the models is that E. prestivicii had hard spikes along its back, probably as a defensive measure making it less palatable to the amphibians that would have hunted it. "Our models almost bring these ancient creatures back to life and it's really exciting to be able to look at them in such detail," says researcher Russel Garwood adding that the technique could be used to return to fossils that have previously been analyzed by conventional means. "Our study helps build a picture of what was happening during this period early in the history of life on land.""
Comment Re:We use the search engine that goes bing! (Score 3, Informative) 443
Here is the link for you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCITMfxvEc
Comment Re:I did it. (Score 1) 220
Very good. Thank you. Can hardly wait till all the Frontlines ever are there.
Comment Re:William James Sidis (Score 1) 583
Can you imagine the scale of the machinery this battery is supposed to be powering?
Something like this?
NASA Purchases $19M Russian Space Toilet 245
Gary writes "NASA has paid $19 million for a Russian-built international space station toilet system. The toilet system, similar to the one already in use in the station's Zvezda Service Module, is scheduled to arrive at the space station in 2008 and will offer more privacy for a crew expected to double from three to six by 2009. The space station toilet physically resembles those used on Earth, except it has leg restraints and thigh bars to keep astronauts and cosmonauts from floating away. NASA says purchasing the multi million dollar toilet is a bargain compared to developing one from scratch."
Motorists Sue Over 'Hot' Fuel 572
i_like_spam writes "Motorists in 13 states have filed lawsuits against big oil companies and gas retailers alleging unfair pricing practices related to fuel-pumping temperatures. From an industry standard developed in the 1920's, the price for a gallon of gasoline is based on the density of the fuel at a temperature of 60 degress F. A gallon of gas at higher temperatures is less dense, and therefore contains less energy. The lawsuits claim additional costs of 3 to 9 cents per gallon without temperature adjustments. The fuel industry claims that the costs of installing temerature-adjustment sensors on every pump would be prohibitively high. These sensors are already installed in Canada, however, where the colder temperatures favor consumers."
