Comment Re:Furniture (Score 2) 312
My furniture came with the apartment I'm renting - it doesn't belong to me.
Comment Re:Errors are universal, humour is cultural (Score 2) 344
From TFA:
If a sense of humor is part of our basic, human thinking machinery, then why can’t we agree about what’s funny?
What’s universal about humor is the process, not the content. Everybody faces every situation with different beliefs, knowledge, and understandings about the world. And different understandings lead to different assumptions and therefore different false assumptions.
So there's not necessarily a conflict - you'd expect different cultures to have different assumptions about the world (for geographical and linguistic reasons, perhaps), and therefore have a different sense of humor.
Submission + - South Africa Passes Secrecy Bill (telegraph.co.uk)
Hermanas writes: "South Africa's parliament has passed a Protection of Information Bill which could see whistle blowers and journalists who publish "classified" information jailed for up to 25 years. On the morning of the vote, a joint editorial in the country's largest newspapers heralded a South Africa's "day of reckoning for democracy." "The spreading culture of self-enrichment, either corrupt, or merely inappropriate, makes scrutiny fuelled by whistle blowers who have the public interest at heart more essential than ever since 1994," the front page editorial said. As MPs voted on the bill in Cape Town's parliament, protesters dressed all in black gathered at the gates of the historic building where they were addressed by editors and freedom of information activists."
Submission + - Hosting Services May Be Breaking Syrian Sanctions (eweekeurope.co.uk)
judgecorp writes: "Many Syrian government sites and services are hosted outside the country, in the US, Canada and Germany. A report suggests may be breaking international sanctions against the Syrian regime, and assisting it in committing "crimes against humanity""
Comment How to make superhumans (Score 1) 240
Step 1: Find a method to determine skill (in whatever desired area) from DNA.
Step 2: Find a method to artificially combine two DNA strands that doesn't take more than a day or so.
Step 3: Be able to grow a fully-functional human from the DNA generated in Step 2.
Step 4: Start with the DNA of a few hundred people (preferably top athletes), and apply a evolutionary algorithm to combine, test, combine test, etc.
Result: Within weeks, not centuries, you'll have the DNA for super-athletes, super-nerds or super-soldiers. We're almost there!
Comment Deja vu much? (Score 4, Informative) 438
- Slashdot article from June 2006: Hawking Says Humans Must Go Into Space
- Slashdot, August 2010: Abandon Earth Or Die, Warns Hawking
Once, I would have written it off to deja vu and went on with my life. But the same article, 3 times? I might be human, but my memory is not that terrible, Slashdot!
Comment Re:Opt-in (Score 3, Insightful) 284
Is it okay with you if I reply to your comment?
Obama To Veto Anti-Net-Neutrality Legislation 355
An anonymous reader writes "In a statement of policy on Tuesday, the White House announced that President Obama will veto upcoming legislation that would undermine the FCC's net neutrality rules. According to the statement (PDF), the rules 'reflected a constructive effort to build a consensus around what safeguards and protections were reasonable and necessary to ensure that the Internet continues to attract investment and to spur innovation.' The statement continued, 'It would be ill-advised to threaten the very foundations of innovation in the Internet economy and the democratic spirit that has made the Internet a force for social progress around the world.'"
Comment Combine this with this Video (Score 1) 134
Combine the software and techniques in this article, with the software and techniques in this video, and you've got some endlessly useful software.
Comment Re:Does anyone else think this is supid? (Score 1) 312
not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five pages consisting largely of the letter S, they started by attacking the keyboard with a stone, and continued by urinating and defecating on it.
Sounds to me like the monkeys produced five pages of Snakespear.
Comment Re:Burning air? (Score 2) 91
would this not create enormous amounts of ozone as a by-product?
In the past, yes. But nowadays... shut the hell up!
Comment Re:This is cool (Score 1) 474
That's what most people said about XP when Vista was on the horizon.
And for me, it still holds true.
Comment Already approaching Petabytes? (Score 1) 239
Wow, are we already approaching Petabyte clusters? I'm still getting used to Terabyte!
Comment Re:In 2000 years ... (Score 1) 336
Not to mention the violent disputes from those who claim the message is from God (an ancient Thetan, perhaps)...
Comment "Highest revenue of 323 Apple stores worldwide" (Score 1, Insightful) 241
The firm has only four stores in China, two in Beijing and two in Shanghai; these four stores in China have generated on average the highest traffic and highest revenue of any of the 323 Apple stores worldwide according to a statement by the Chief Financial Officer peter Oppenheimer back in January.
I know revenue isn't everything, but maybe Apple should be learning something from these guys, and not the other way round...
