Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Slashdot: News for Nerds read by wingers (Score 1) 252

by furgle (#34181292) Attached to: Google Give Searchers 'Instant Previews' of Result Pages

Slashdot is meant to be news for nerds.

Yet most of these comments are basically against a companies idea to make searching faster. The main complaints seems to be:

  • Search engines are meant to be simple and fast. This isn't simple.
  • I love my enter button, currenlty it spells E....R the middle letters are wasted away. Google is reducing the amount of times i use that button
  • What if i get a preview of Goatse, or child porn, or Broccoli (Not Broccoli)

The first complaint seems to be an argument about what made search engines good when 56K modems were all the rage. Simple meant fast loading times. Now though i don't think that this argument should be the rule of internet we have bigger and better bandwidths, why shouldn't search results be as rich as possible to save you time?

The second complaint is redundant because you can change your preferences to still need to use your loved enter button. I know what you are going to say though " i don't want to change my preferences" To which i say, "You are meant to be a nerd. Changing preferences to suit obscure purposes is what nerds do. Nerd up."

The third complaint is dumb because getting a thumb of broccoli is better than getting a full size page. Its like you've forgotten google has an image search which can produce the same broccoli results, without having to click a preview icon.

It all sounds like no-one wants any progress, things are great now. I used to think the same thing when i was forced to switch from the arrow keys to WSAD when playing games. I was wrong. I'm not saying this is right, but my guess is this won't kill google, In 5 years when google adds another feature to its search, you'll all complain about this as the good old days.

Comment Big deal (Score 1) 2

by furgle (#34044908) Attached to: 40 million years old Primate fossils found in Asia
So the monkeys existed in Asia, and travelled to Africa, - Humans kick these things asses, aboriginal tribes in very little time we travelled to every part of the world (except like Antarctica, but that was cause we were like F-that its cold. ). Take that 40 million year old monkey, you aren't so special.
Science

Submission + - 40 million years old Primate fossils found in Asia (wired.com) 2

Submitted by sosaited
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 4 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.
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Syfy cancels Caprica (ew.com)

Submitted by aapold
aapold writes: Caprica never got great ratings, and at times could be frustrating, but it was still an awesome show unlike anything else out there, dealing more with philosophical and metaphysical questions than showy action. It also at times went into gangster mode and had the trappings of a mob story that just happened to be set on an other planet with advanced tech. And now Universal/SyFy has cancelled the show.This was the last thing I cared about on SyFy, that mockery that occupies what was once the Sci-Fi channel's bandwidth.

Submission + - Researchers Find a 'Liberal Gene'

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Liberals may owe their political outlook partly to their genetic make-up, according to new research from the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University. Ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4. The study's authors say this is the first research to identify a specific gene that predisposes people to certain political views.

Submission + - What Do You Do With A Disruptive Discovery? 3

Submitted by jcohen
jcohen writes: Suppose that you've just discovered a way of making a computationally hard bit of math very, very easy. You've written out your proof, you've verified it, you've written code, and now, say, you're factorizing colossal primes at the rate of 1,000 per second. What's next? The consequences could be huge. How do you get another set of eyes on it to make sure that you're not just another crackpot, and that your results are right? Do you disclose your discovery? How? To whom? To your country's intelligence agency? To the public? What are the conceivable answers to these questions that would have the best consequences for you or for the world?
Microsoft

Submission + - Why Microsoft's Kinect Will Be the New Wii (industrygamers.com)

Submitted by donniebaseball23
donniebaseball23 writes: On November 4, Microsoft will launch its Kinect motion camera system for Xbox 360, the first platform to be controlled entirely with one's own body (no controllers involved). IndustryGamers writes that the Kinect platform will see success on a level similar to the Wii. With its novelty factor, massive marketing campaign (including an appearance on Oprah) and casual focused launch lineup, Kinect has the potential to greatly expand the Xbox audience. Microsoft has previously said it expects to sell at least 3 million units of the Kinect camera this holiday season.

Submission + - Neurons work like a chain of dominos

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As anyone who as ever picked up a guitar or a tennis racket knows, precise timing is often an essential part of performing complex tasks. Now, by studying the brain circuits that control bird song, MIT researchers have identified a "chain reaction" of brain activity that appears to control the timing of song. The song of the zebra finch is very stereotypic; each song lasts about 1 second, and consists of multiple syllables whose timing is almost precisely the same from one performance to the next. "It's a great model system for studying how the brain controls actions", says Michale Fee, senior author of the study and a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

Submission + - WikiLeaks: WMD's were found in Iraq (wired.com) 3

Submitted by
DesScorp
DesScorp writes: "Wired reports that among the latest batch of war documents that WikiLeaks released included documentation showing that various quantities of banned WMD's were found in Iraq well into 2008, though in much smaller quantities than the Bush Administration feared. Almost all were chemical or biological agents (or technologies used to make them), and years into the Iraq War, the concern shifted to Al Qaeda and their insurgent allies acquiring and using the leftover agents against US allied forces. Among the weapons that were found were 155 mm shells with mustard gas. Other documents deal with the capture of "foreign agents" helping the insurgents in an attempt to use leftover chemical weapons."
Google

Submission + - Let the tablet wars begin (fiercecontentmanagement.com)

Submitted by rsmiller510
rsmiller510 writes: As the new tablet devices from HP, RIM and Samsung slowly begin to make appearances, it will be difficult for any of them to unseat Apple after its 6 month head start, but it also makes life more difficult for publishers who have to decide where to place their bets.

Comment Re:Yes office, (Score 1) 361

by furgle (#33970406) Attached to: Australian Visitors Must Declare Illegal Porn To Customs Officers

Animals can bite, and Animals can kick - Don't tell me they can't say no...

Children can bite, and Children can kick - Hell they can also say no. So is it OK to have sexual relations with a consenting child?No a child is not smart enough to make that decision.

A child of the age of 5 we would probably think of as smarter than a smart dog, or a horse. Does that make them smart enough to consent to sex? No they aren't developed physically yet there sex organs aren't ready.

How about a child of the age of 13 is that child old enough to consent to sex(see Richie Rich)? No. why not? all the criteria i have seen here in this discussion to decied whether you are allowed to have sex says go for it

There is an element to the problem that I'm missing. I'm not sure what it is, but we can't say that aware consent is enough to allow sexual relations between any two beings.

Slashdot Top Deals

New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. - David Letterman

Close