Comment car analogy (Score 1) 796
If you buy a british car in the US, you will get the steering wheel on the left side.
Same goes for spelling on a US site.
Oh, in case you don't know what a "steering wheel" is, it's what you call a "driving wheel".
Comment Re:Mistype (Score 5, Funny) 92
I have n "" letter n my keybard, yu insensitive cld!
Comment obligatory reference (Score 1) 227
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
Comment Re:I think it's great, but... (Score 1) 121
I know for sure it is used in France in houses especially when heating is through the floor. I have also seen the hot water underfloor heating Efficiency of underfloor heating isn't bad: if you have good insulation below the pipes, you don't loose too much heat through the ground; as the floor is warm, convection occurs naturally and the room temperature gets more uniform; you don't have the "cold feet" effect which makes you heat more (remember, no shoes inside the house).
Quoting Wikipedia: "Warm water UFH is 30% more efficient than low temperature radiators with a ground source heat pump, 20% more efficienct with an air source heat pump, and 5-15% more efficient than low temp radiators with a condensing boiler, according to a major study produced by EU-RAY, the European Radiant Heating & Cooling Association."
In France, you can also find hot water heating in habitation buildings, where you have one heater for all the appartments, and I think that similar system is used in the Russia (or at least it used to be).
Submission + - Building 3D Models on the Fly with a Webcam (scitedaily.com) 1
blee37 writes: Here is an excellent video demonstration of a new program developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge that can construct a 3D model of an object in real time from webcam video. The user can watch the program deduce more pieces of the 3D model as he moves and rotates the object. The resulting graphics are high quality.
Comment structural support? (Score 5, Interesting) 55
It provides muscular support, but what about structural support?
I suffered from a slipped disk last year, and how much it was safe to carry was not limited by muscular strength, but by how much my back could take.
Comment Re:International Bureau of Weights and Measures (Score 1) 420
There is no need to fix what is not broken. The text says "may", not "have to".
Comment International Bureau of Weights and Measures (Score 2, Insightful) 420
I am French, and I have never heard of using the point to separate thousands of hundreds, but a space is fine (11 500 and not 11.500), as you can see if you compare the "million" article from wikipedia in french and english.
Anyway, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, in their22nd General Conference, decided that:
"the dot (point on the line) [is used] as the decimal marker in all the English language versions of its publications, including the English text of the SI Brochure (the definitive international reference on the SI), with the comma (on the line) remaining the decimal marker in all of its French language publications"
And from the 7th General Conference which was held in 1948:
"Numbers may be divided in groups of three in order to facilitate reading; neither dots nor commas are ever inserted in the spaces between groups."
Those familiar with scientific publications will also not that those recommandations are enforced by editors, even american ones, because those aim an international audience. Now, you do what you want inside your country.
Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight 140
Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."
Comment British humour (Score 1) 1095
As you can see from many of the posts above, British people have a very peculiar sense of humour. It's ok, because they don't expect you to understand it. And in the case it makes you laugh, they will reasonably assume you missed the point.
More on topic, revising your vocabulary might be useful to avoid some misunderstandings.
Comment Re:Too small a target? (Score 1) 212
I live in Japan, and I have an alert on my mobile phone in case of earthquakes. I don' t remember suscribing to anything, it's part of the pack I guess. Even if the alert is one minute or two before the earth begins shaking, it gives you the time to do things that can save your life, like: close the gas valve, open the door and duck under the table. I don't understand why anybody wouldn't want that kind of warning.
Comment Re:The Progress of Lazyness (Score 1) 314
But I am sure the son will be jealous when he will know I could use clumsy fingers as an excuse for typos.
Comment And in 2030 (Score 1) 314
Computer implants could control brains.
Comment Cooking? (Score 1) 127
I hope that this laboratory kitchen is not to cooking what windows is to software.
But I can't help thinking it is...
That's such a waste of resources (food, talent, machine, time)
Comment Author, slashdot reader? (Score 1) 464
After reading the article, I cannot be sure that the US military spoke about scaling the lasers down to a shark-sized one.
My guess is that Lewis Page wanted to please the slashdot community.
