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Comment Doctor Who is Gallifreyan for Deus ex machina (Score 1) 762

personally I love the absurdity of their story lines. It just wouldn't be Doctor Who without it.

I agree with you its the absurdity that makes Doctor Who.

The problem I have with the rebooted Doctor Who is that the plots make absolutely no sense - even within the framework of the show. Its like the writers continually write themselves into corners that they aren't clever enough to write themselves out of. So... they just keep letting "impossible things happen."

My favorite counter-example: the movie Time Bandits. That film was totally absurd, just like Doctor Who, but it all made sense. You never got the feeling the writer was messing with you.

-S

Comment You're being silly... (Score 1) 473

Its true that Science can't prove, in the mathematical sense, the non-existence of God simply because you can't mathematically prove a negative. But that's true of everything in Science, including crazy ideas such as Gravity, Electromagnetism and Kepler's laws of planetary motion.

The old trope, "Absence of proof is not proof of absence" misses the point. Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of absence.

So, it makes perfect sense to me that people with a higher level of education ( people with more evidence ) would see less need for God or a prescriptive religion.

-S

Comment Add Software Patent Examiner... (Score 1) 314

... to the list of worst IT jobs.

Can you imagine spending your day reading nonsense like:

Contexts are selected and combined into new information structures called alternates, which are combinable with contexts into preferred situations. The preferred situations in turn are combinable with the foregoing components into meta-situations.

I mean, it sounds like the output of an unholy mind-meld between a scientist and a marketing manager.

-S

Comment NPR's On The Media reported on this recently (Score 1) 136

Unlike most news and analysis programs, "On The Media" actually took some responsibility for their role in hyping this story:

The other guilty party here is us, and by us, you do mean us, among everybody else [LAUGHS] in the media. We aired an interview with Heap back in May, and we were quite impressed with his story. You say that Heap has proved to be catnip for the media. Why do you think his narrative is so appealing?

That's an admission you don't hear too often in the press, oblique though it was.

-S

Image

Icelandic Company Designs Human Pylons 142

Lanxon writes "An architecture and design firm called Choi+Shine has submitted a design for the Icelandic High-Voltage Electrical Pylon International Design Competition which proposes giant human-shaped pylons carrying electricity cables across the country's landscape, reports Wired. The enormous figures would only require slight alterations to existing pylon designs, says the firm, which was awarded an Honorable mention for its design by the competition's judging board. It also won an award from the Boston Society of Architects Unbuilt Architecture competition."
Image

Plagiarism Inc. 236

Here's an interesting article on the life and times of 24-year-old Jordan Kavoosi, who has made a business of plagiarism. His Essay Writing Company employs writers from across the country, and will deliver a paper on any subject for $23 per page. In addition, his company will get it done in 48 hours, and he guarantees at least a B grade or your money back. From the article: "'Sure it's unethical, but it's just a business,' Kavoosi explains. 'I mean, what about strip clubs or porn shops? Those are unethical, and city-approved.'"
Crime

Mom Arrested After Son Makes Dry Ice "Bombs" 571

formfeed writes "Police were called to a house in Omaha where a 14-year-old made some 'dry ice bombs' (dry ice in soda bottles). Since his mom knew about it, she is now facing felony charges for child endangment and possession of a destructive device. From the article: 'Assistant Douglas County Attorney Eric Wells said the boy admitted to making the bomb and that his mother knew he was doing so. The boy was set to appear Tuesday afternoon in juvenile court, accused of possessing a destructive device.'" She's lucky they didn't find the baking soda volcano in the basement.

Comment If we can't get CGI characters to act human... (Score 4, Interesting) 264

...then we sure as hell aren't going to be able to get robotic characters to act human.

CGI animators, in some sense, have a much easier task then the roboticist. Its much easier to program a full musculature into an animated character than to physically build a robotic one.

The difficulty of all this is exemplified by Robert Zemeckis' dismal "Polar Express" and "A Christmas Carol". Even when capturing hundreds of control points on the faces of the actors, you're still left teetering on the edge of the Uncanny Valley.

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Avatar" were more successful because they did complete surface capture of the actors faces rather than point-capture.

Which gets back to the difficulty of making robots appear human. Its the same problem, magnified 1000 times by the fact that, in essence, you have to pack the equivalent of a millions of "control-points" into the robots face.

Not an easy task.

-Sean

PlayStation (Games)

BioShock 2's First DLC Already On Disc 466

An anonymous reader writes with this quote from 1Up: "Trouble is brewing in Rapture. The recently released Sinclair Solutions multiplayer pack for BioShock 2 is facing upset players over the revelation that the content is already on the disc, and the $5 premium is an unlock code. It started when users on the 2K Forums noticed that the content is incredibly small: 24KB on the PC, 103KB on the PlayStation 3, and 108KB on the Xbox 360. 2K Games responded with a post explaining that the decision was made in order to keep the player base intact, without splitting it between the haves and have-nots."

Comment Great for the International Space Station (Score 1) 240

... or any other isolated work environment, like a submarine, military base, etc.

But as soon as those plastic sheets start making it home in people's brief-cases and notepads, the cost of operation starts to creep up.

Its an interesting niche product that solves one problem ( consumables ) at the expense of creating another problem ( proprietary, expensive print substrate ).

-S

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