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Comment Re:Inability to forget is hardly smart (Score 4, Insightful) 259

Exactly. My first thought was savant. There seems to me to be a balance between how many details one remembers and how well one can create abstractions. People who are very good at abstract thinking are so because they throw away irrelevant details and remember the bigger picture. Their pattern matching has gone up a level if you will.
Google

Submission + - Ubuntu switches default Firefox search to Yahoo (ubuntu.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Starting in Lucid, the default search engine for Firefox will be switched from Google to Yahoo. The switch has been made after Canonical "negotiated a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo!". Google will still be available as a choice. Since Yahoo search is now powered by Microsoft's Bing, does this mean Microsoft will be paying people for using Ubuntu?
Apple

Submission + - iPhone App or Mobile Website? 2

Bad Mamba Jamba writes: I've noticed a trend on the Apple app store where well known websites are putting out their own iPhone application. Sites like Amazon, IMDB, Engadget, Fandango, etc. Yet the iPhone comes with a quite capable Safari browser; Javascript and all. Most of the iPhone apps I've seen could be done in HTML and Javascript as best I can tell. So why do people do an iPhone app? Especially when doing a web app would hit more devices than just the iPhone as the iPhone isn't the only mobile device with HTML and Javascript support.

I get the shopping experience is better on Amazon's app and because they may have put some smarts on the iPhone to offload servers and provide a snappier user experience. Or maybe you want to work disconnected. So there are technical arguments in some cases.

But in the case of the IMDB and Engadget apps, they just seem to be repackaging database content into a mobile UI. It seems like a lot of trouble to write an app that will only reach iPhones, when I could write an HTML Javascript version and hit way more mobile devices.

I suppose you could argue that being in iTunes gives you some kind of advertising angle, and maybe you can charge for the app (which the big dogs don't do) but a small specialized company might.

I'm currently considering ways to bring a mobile presence to my website and don't have a lot of experience in this space. I'd like to see what the Slashdot community has to say; iPhone app or mobile version of a website and why?

Comment Re:Any systems depend on a pulse (Score 1) 465

First responders cannot formally declare anything, that's true, but if they think she is dead she won't get much help. Maybe she hit her head or maybe she has something blocking her breathing. She might just freeze to death because someone mistook her for dead and didn't wrap her in blankets.
That said, I am undergoing training as a first responder and we are instructed to not bother with checking the pulse, too many false readings, both positive and negative. We check breathing and whether they respond to voice, touch or pain (in that order). If they don't have pulse, they are not breathing, and if they are not breathing you do CPR no matter if they have pulse or not.
Medicine

Artificial Heart Recipient Has No Pulse 465

laggist writes "A heart patient in Singapore has been implanted with an artificial heart that pumps blood continuously, allowing her to live without a pulse. From the article: '... the petite Madam Salina, who suffers from end-stage heart failure, would not have been able to use the older and bulkier models because they can only be implanted in patients 1.7m or taller. The 30-year-old administrative assistant is the first recipient here to get a new artificial heart that pumps blood continuously, the reason why there are no beats on her wrist.'" The story is light on details, but an article from last year in MIT's Technology Review explains a bit more about how a pulse-less artificial heart works.

Comment Re:Tip calculator?! (Score 1) 332

or divide by ten and increase by half? And it's not like it has to be exact. Seriously, do it a few times and it sure is faster than punching in the numbers on some device. And it might help keep your brain oiled up. Although, I live in country where you generally don't tip, so admittedly I never have to do this.

Comment Re:Why... (Score 1) 239

Yes let's all start eating concrete instead of expecting a responsive UI.

The thing I am talking about mostly is how Fx closes your tab and delays of a noticeable amount of time before relaunching it in a new window. It also loses the state of running flash applications like videos (which Safari and chrome handles). The whole experience gives me the feeling that it is a hack emulating chrome and safari rather than stable functionality.

Comment Re:Why... (Score 1) 239

I run Fx as well, but I'm not very happy with it. Chrome is a pleasure to use except for the lack of adblock (and a working osx implementation). Worst with Fx right now (besides feeling a bit slow at times) is the way its tabs work. It is so much worse than the competition it's embarrassing (drag between windows and such).

Comment Re:There's very few swedish crowns.. (Score 1) 102

Har man bara någon enstaka beloppsuppgift, kan man med fördel skriva 800 Swedish kronor (800 Swedish crowns fungerar i princip också men är mycket ovanligare i bruket). Har man flera beloppsuppgifter, är det bättre att använda den etablerade valutaförkortningen SEK och följa internationell konvention med baklängesskrivning: SEK 800. Första gången man använder beteckningen SEK kan man gärna förklara vad det står för (d.v.s. 'Swedish kronor'). Språkrådet.

Dock nämnder svenska språkrådet översättningen "Crowns" i förbifarten i en disskussion rörande något annat.

Sorry about the swedish, what I am writing is that both kronor and crowns seem to be considered ok by "authorities" on the Swedish language.

On the other hand, I guess this is more of a question about the English language; I think kronor is generally preferred, but both seem understood and usable (e.g. Wikipedia mentions crowns as an informal alternative to kronor).

Comment Re:Ozone depletion... (Score 1) 306

once when a dentist used N2O on me to extract four teeth in preparation for braces..

What a *horrible* experience.

The drug is not everything.

Set and setting.

"Set and setting describes the context for psychoactive and particularly psychedelic drug experiences: one's mindset and the setting in which the user has the experience. This is especially relevant for psychedelic or hallucinogenic experiences; the term was coined by Timothy Leary. The set is the mental state a person brings to the experience, like thoughts, mood or expectations. The setting refers to the physical or social environment. Social support networks have shown to be particularly important in the outcome of the psychedelic experience [1]. They are able to control or guide the course of the experience, both consciously and subconsciously. Stress, fear, or a disagreeable environment, may result in an unpleasant experience (bad trip). Conversely, a relaxed, curious person in a warm, comfortable and safe place is more likely to have a pleasant experience."

Also, it's like biking or anything else, you have to practise to get good at it.

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