Comment Re:I'm getting old. (Score 1) 385
I'd rather never live to experience the delight an episode of King of Queens could bring.
Comment Re:Lets get the facts straight :-) (Score 1) 285
I seem to recall having met a few auto enthusiasts over the years who had made modifications to vehicles that rendered them no longer street legal, but the modifications weren't illegal nor was there intent to commit a crime, because they didn't drive the vehicles in the street afterwards (being used instead off-road, etc.) How is this case any different?
Boy Finds £2.5M Gold Locket With Metal Detector 169
Instead of bottle caps and ridicule from his peers, 3-year-old James Hyatt found a locket worth millions with his metal detector. James and his dad found the gold locket last May in Essex. Since then the 500-year-old treasure has been appraised at around £2.5million. From the article: "James’s father Jason, 34, said: ‘My son is one of the luckiest people ever. If we go to the doctors he’ll put his hand down the side of the sofa and pull out a tenner.’"
40 Million Year Old Primate Fossils Found In Asia 91
sosaited writes "It has been widely believed that our ancestors originated out of Africa, but a paper published in Nature by Carnegie Museum of Natural History scientists puts this in doubt. The paper is based on the fossils of four primate species found in Asia which are 40 million years old, during which period Africa was thought to not have these species. The diversity and timing of the new anthropoids raises two scenarios. Anthropoids might simply have emerged in Africa much earlier than thought, and gone undiscovered by modern paleontologists. Or they could have crossed over from Asia, where evidence suggests that anthropoids lived 55 million years ago, flourishing and diversifying in the wide-open ecological niches of an anthropoid-free Africa."
Collision of Two Asteroids Spotted For the First Time 31
sciencehabit writes "Astronomers report that a small asteroid located in the inner asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter took a major hit early last year. Previously rendered only in artists' conceptions, the first asteroid collision known in modern times revealed itself in a tail of debris streaming from what astronomers at first assumed was a comet. Instead of a steady stream of dust, however, they found boulders near the object with dust moving away from them."
Comment 3d hype. (Score 1) 218
I don't get the hype lately for 3d that requires glasses, I seem to recall 3d movies being around since The Three Stooges, let alone Jaws 3d and the like. I know it's not exactly the same as modern movies, but how is it so very different? A 3d display that doesn't require glasses, that's finally something worth getting interested in.
Concrete That Purifies the Air 88
fergus07 writes "Although much of the focus of pollution from automobiles centers on carbon emissions, there are other airborne nasties spewing from the tailpipes of fossil fuel-powered vehicles. These include nitrogen oxides (NOx). In the form of nitrogen dioxide it reacts with chemicals produced by sunlight to form nitric acid – a major constituent of acid rain – and also reacts with sunlight, leading to the formation of ozone and smog. Everyone is exposed to small amounts of nitrogen oxides in ambient air, but exposure to higher amounts, in areas of heavy traffic for example, can damage respiratory airways. Testing has shown that surfacing roads with air purifying concrete could make a big contribution to local air purity by reducing the concentration of nitrogen oxides by 25 to 45 percent."
Space Photos Taken From Shed Stun Astronomers 149
krou writes "Amateur astronomer Peter Shah has stunned astronomers around the world with amazing photos of the universe taken from his garden shed. Shah spent £20,000 on the equipment, hooking up a telescope in his shed to his home computer, and the results are being compared to images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. 'Most men like to putter about in their garden shed,' said Shah, 'but mine is a bit more high tech than most. I have fitted it with a sliding roof so I can sit in comfort and look at the heavens. I have a very modest set up, but it just goes to show that a window to the universe is there for all of us – even with the smallest budgets. I had to be patient and take the images over a period of several months because the skies in Britain are often clouded over and you need clear conditions.' His images include the Monkey's head nebula, M33 Pinwheel Galaxy, Andromeda Galaxy and the Flaming Star Nebula, and are being put together for a book."
Comment Re:More than a million? (Score 1) 395
Oh and apparently it comes to 1095000 total, I guess I may not be so far off after all
Comment Re:More than a million? (Score 1) 395
At the time of posting, 14% say they have written more than a million lines of code. Seriously, I don't think so.
A million lines means 100 lines of code every working day of every year for 50 years. And that doesn't count debugging, documentation, developing data for test cases, meetings, and all the other stuff software folks do.
I've only been in the coding business for 42 years, and counting just the major projects I worked on, I reckon I've written around 320,000 to 360,000 lines of code.
I guess I'll total a million in just another 90 years of coding.
A few hundred a day for 30 years feels like a million anyway
Comment Re:Visual Studio replacement on Linux (Score 2, Informative) 310
Code::Blocks is a good one for Linux, it's not quite Visual Studio but it has most of the same features, the ones you actually use on a regular basis. I haven't tried the Windows version, but I know one exists as well.
Mars Images Reveal Evidence of Ancient Lakes 128
Matt_dk writes "Spectacular satellite images suggest that Mars was warm enough to sustain lakes three billion years ago, a period that was previously thought to be too cold and arid to sustain water on the surface, according to research published today in the journal Geology. Earlier research had suggested that Mars had a warm and wet early history but that between 4 billion and 3.8 billion years ago, before the Hesperian Epoch, the planet lost most of its atmosphere and became cold and dry. In the new study, the researchers analysed detailed images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently circling the red planet, and concluded that there were later episodes where Mars experienced warm and wet periods."
Comment Re:Some kind of... (Score 1) 340
Encoding dates as hexadecimal, perhaps? For instance, encoding Christmas 2009 as 0x122509 - the lower nybble/year is 9. Make it 0x010110 - New Year's Day 2010, and the lower nybble is now 16.
I correct myself, I really should have said byte.
Comment Re:Some kind of... (Score 1) 340
Encoding dates as hexadecimal, perhaps? For instance, encoding Christmas 2009 as 0x122509 - the lower nybble/year is 9. Make it 0x010110 - New Year's Day 2010, and the lower nybble is now 16.
Comment Re:A few great Amiga ideas I'm still waiting for (Score 1) 383
Another feature I miss from the past was common in 8-bit systems like the Commodore 64: Instant booting. You pressed power and the system was on! It was pretty bare, but it booted (from ROM) in less than one second. There are still times when I would gladly trade the modern features like disk caching for instant booting or shutting down.
