...patent shizzle: We need a death squad killforce to squash these patent trolls from existence. Their being here is a burdon to all, and therefore, their life grant should be revoked. ASAP.

Are we capable of processing and relating to the currently available amount of (diverging) information?

If this issue is a backwards trend, it's one that is only possible because in a reality which has been shaped by the preceding two decades where we've seen a trend with exposure us to an increasing, almost infinite, amount of information.

The core human instinct is to seek and relate to similar peers. We need a "home base" to feel safe, where the things that worry us in some way relate more directly to ourselves and the close peers we identify ourselves with. I don't think we're *really* cognitively equipped to relate to and empathize with an entire world of differing opinions, cultures, and problems.

It's an ideal that must be pursued, because I agree with Eli that we may be digging ourselves (willingly as well as unwillingly) into these "bubbles" of safe havens where we aren't questioned, provoked or adequately challenged. Especially since I believe that knowingly or unknowingly, we all seek these bubbles for the same reason that all this information exists: We simply cannot cope with the sheer magnitude of it. Processing information properly requires relating to it, be it global warming, riots in Lybia and neighboring countries, death camps in North Korea, radiation from Fukushima, US foreign policies, local elections, slaughterings in Darfur, Palestine and Israel, starving children in Africa, Indian workers killing themselves for pennies making our clothes... The list goes on and on, and just writing this fraction of events down which we're all supposed to relate to, makes me want to crawl into a bubble.

So yes, we should make sure that these algorithms don't aide us in our instinct to reclude ourselves, but a 9-minute talk is nothing but a baby step in even explaining the magnitude of the task at hand.

...getting strangely aroused by this thought of miniature sattelites of something-point-something cm length being launched anywhere...?

...the cut scene frenzy and extreme linearity of playing Assassin's Creed makes it very much like watching a movie, so it makes sense they may just as well make them full-fledged ones. Not much point in interacting anyway, when all you're doing is helping to drive a plot forward.

Where I'm from - Denmark - companies aren't allowed to keep credit card information stored. Why is this allowed in the USA? It seems completely retarded and totally unnecessary. If you're making so many purchases that you're getting arthritis from putting in your credit card data every time, get a paypal account and put some money on that instead.

"1-click buy?" When did saving a couple of dozen of keystrokes become good reason to allow someone to store your credit card data?

Interesting. My colleague just said, "Ha! They've probably been stalking him for years, and just decided that it was time now as they couldn't benefit any longer from him being alive."

"You crazy conspiracy theorist," I said, and while going to the coffee maker I thought, "Even if that were true, why would they choose now to do this anyway?" And then I thought about how the US is bummed for money, and quite frankly cannot afford the current level of foreign military involvement, and having Osama taken out could be used to justify starting to pull troops out again.

Then I thought, "Damn - this guy's NOT gonna make me believe his crazy theories! And even still, no way Americans would be fooled by this to convince them it's valid cause to start pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan!"

And then I start checking my RSS feed, and this is comment #1:

Damn! :D

Having to buy the target device hardware you're developing for and having to buy new hardware to provide your development platform are two different things. The argument made was not whether or not you should buy a phone (both dev environments provide emulators anyway), but if you were forced to buy a new computer.

Then he'd use that.

Well, if the users are a reason not to use it, then you have a problem. That being said, I've only had problems with my latest Mint endeavor, and I'm not going there again!

Is Obama the new jellyfish?
Is toilet paper the new newspaper?
Is 7-Eleven the new Victoria's Secret?
Are public schools the new Wall Street?

Let's discuss this! Oh wait, let's not, because I have no arguments, and my point is retarded. Sorry!

How did this article make it through to my RSS feed? Is all you need these days to reach the masses produce infantile observations and deliver it with the noun, "Apple", in the heading?

Reading through this article is a genuine pain. The author clearly has no insight in half of his subject, has only limited insight in the other half, lacks journalistic education, is biased, makes wrongful and outdated "observations", and draws parallels where no parallels exist. Just to name a few. It's a class book example of misconclusions - and even that is giving it more credit than it deserves.

The aim here is not to present a subject for discussion (one must sincerely hope, anyway, because in that case, the author is beyond professional salvation), but a cheap trolling trick to mass up clicks and tweets pointing to his site. It's blatantly obvious, and I have to say, "Shame on you, slashdot, for letting this one slip through!"

Depending on your router, you may be able to use QoS (Quality of Service) directives to prioritize an IP on your network over others. I do this on mine.

This would require you to either use a static IP, or your router to be able to assign specific IPs outside of its DHCP range (usually 192.168.1.100-255) to specific network cards based on their MAC addresses. You can use this first to make sure your computer gets a specific IP address when it connects to your router, and then set up QoS afterwards to ensure that that IP gets first bids on bandwidth.

If your router supports VoIP, it should feature QoS as well.

I use this strategy on my router, and it works very well.

One thing that's particularly funny about this relocation of apps' menu bars to the "unified" bar in Unity. Mac introduced it waaay back, presumably for the same reasons as Unity are using: To release more vertical pixel space for actual app content.

These days, on Macs, we have humongous screens, up to 2560*1600 on the iMacs, and never less than 1280x800 on the 11" Air. I.e., there's plenty of vertical pixels now.

Unity was with early netbooks in mind, i.e. vertical resolutions as low as 640 pixels. Made sense. Truth is, even netbooks these days match regular notebooks' resolution. Basically, the point for moving the menu bar to a global bar is already moot. All we get is buggy behavior, because it's not yet properly implemented.

Give it a couple of years, and when netbooks have full HD resolution, they'll probably have ironed out the quirks ;)

While arguably 3D TVs and projectors for movies and the like are still just a gimmick, having 3D-like screens on gaming devices make a lot more sense.

Especially considering the form factor of the 3DS, it's nice. For more serious gaming, though, we still want this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

Purse mirror, eh? Right next to the credit card, eh? No problem with that extreme magnetism, eh?

Or surely, your girl friend requires only cash?