Comment Re:This is just faulty math (Score 1) 1260
Actually, if you define 0.999... as having an infinite number of decimal points
Mathematics grammar nazi says:
"It has an infinite number of decimal places, but only one decimal point"
Comment I'm eagerly awaiting... (Score 1) 46
... the juicy novelization of what _really_ happened, by Cory Doctorow of course :-)
Plenty of puns to choose from for the title ("Damn, Green", the "Green and the Damned", "The new Dambusters").
Submission + - Gladiator Grave Found in UK (cnn.com)
a-zarkon! writes: Scientists have discovered a grave site in York containing 80 skeletons of people presumed to have been gladiators. Skeletons show evidence of bite marks that appear to have come from lions, tigers, or bears (oh my!) Evidence also leads them to believe the men came from areas throughout the Roman empire and shows evidence of heavy musculature and weapons training from a young age. Full story available from CNN at http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/06/07/england.roman.cemetery/?hpt=C1
Submission + - Linux dev up says Eclipse Foundation survey
An anonymous reader writes: The Eclipse Foundation released its 2010 Eclipse Community Survey results, which reveal an interesting snapshot of one slice of the development community. Despite the bias (most of the respondents are Eclipse users), the results show the rise of Linux as a favored platform for development. This year, 32.7 percent of respondents cited Linux as their development platform, up 5.8 percent from 2009, and 12.7 percent from the 2007 survey. However, blogger Brian Proffitt points out a troubling finding — that open source participation seems to be stalled. According to the report, in terms of corporate policies towards open source participation, 48% of the respondents in 2009 claimed they could contribute back to OSS versus only 35.4% in 2010.
Comment Re:One requirement (Score 1) 233
>>As hard as it is to get a law onto the books, it's almost impossible to get a law off the books
Robert Heinlein's suggestion from "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" kind of resonates here:
“I note one proposal to make this Congress a two-house body. Excellent -- the more impediments to legislation the better. But, instead of following tradition, I suggest one house of legislators, another whose single duty is to repeal laws. Let the legislators pass laws only with a two-thirds majority... while the repealers are able to cancel any law through a mere one-third minority. Preposterous? Think about it. If a bill is so poor that it cannot command two-thirds of your consents, is it not likely that it would make a poor law? And if a law is disliked by as many as one-third is it not likely that you would be better off without it?”
( http://www.halexandria.org/dward272.htm )
Robert Heinlein's suggestion from "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" kind of resonates here:
“I note one proposal to make this Congress a two-house body. Excellent -- the more impediments to legislation the better. But, instead of following tradition, I suggest one house of legislators, another whose single duty is to repeal laws. Let the legislators pass laws only with a two-thirds majority... while the repealers are able to cancel any law through a mere one-third minority. Preposterous? Think about it. If a bill is so poor that it cannot command two-thirds of your consents, is it not likely that it would make a poor law? And if a law is disliked by as many as one-third is it not likely that you would be better off without it?”
( http://www.halexandria.org/dward272.htm )
Comment Could have done it for real... (Score 2, Informative) 102
This technology exists e.g. http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Text_Mode_Doom - would have been way cooler to actually implement the option permanently than just upload this Video
Is the Line-in Jack On the Verge of Extinction? 411
SlashD0tter writes "Many older sound cards were shipped with line-out, microphone-in, and a line-in jacks. For years I've used such a line-in jack on an old Windows 2000 dinosaur desktop that I bought in 2000 (600 Mhz PIII) to capture the stereo audio signal from an old Technics receiver. I've used this arrangement to recover the audio from a slew of old vinyl LPs and even a few cassettes using some simple audio manipulating software from a small shop in Australia. I've noticed only recently, unfortunately, that all of the four laptops I've bought since then have omitted a line-in jack, forcing me to continue keeping this old desktop on life support. I've looked around for USB sound cards that include a line-in jack, but I haven't been too impressed by the selection. Is the line-in jack doomed to extinction, possibly due to lobbying from vested interests, or are there better thinking-outside-the-box alternatives available?"
Why Time Flies By As You Get Older 252
Ant notes a piece up on WBUR Boston addressing theories to explain the universal human experience that time seems to pass faster as you get older. Here's the 9-minute audio (MP3). Several explanations are tried out: that brains lay down more information for novel experiences; that the "clock" for nerve impulses in aging brains runs slower; and that each interval of time represents a diminishing fraction of life as we age.
Living In Tokyo's Capsule Hotels 269
afabbro writes "Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 once offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home. Now with Japan enduring its worst recession since World War II, it is becoming an affordable option for people with nowhere else to go. The Hotel 510’s capsules are only 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide. Guests must keep possessions, like shirts and shaving cream, in lockers outside of the capsules. Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas says, 'It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep. You get used to it.'”
Comment 2.36 TeV - How much is that... (Score 3, Informative) 347
in standard media units
- Two female mosquitos colliding at 1.652 km/h? http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/lhc_glossary.htm
- An unladen African swallow falling off a grain of sand?
- The calorific value of 1 cornflake unleashed over the space of a fortnight?
- Two female mosquitos colliding at 1.652 km/h? http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/lhc_glossary.htm
- An unladen African swallow falling off a grain of sand?
- The calorific value of 1 cornflake unleashed over the space of a fortnight?
Comment Re:Delusions of grandeur (Score 1) 345
The problems you describe under "capital-M Methodologies" sound similar to "Cargo Cult Software Engineering" http://stevemcconnell.com/ieeesoftware/eic10.htm
Comment Re:a fucktonne? (Score 1) 345
>>How many shitloads are in a fucktonne?
It depends:
- British or American shitload?
- Land or nautical fucktonne?
Comment This is the real world calling (Score 1) 842
Umm hello? The 2nd biggest selling point of Windows probably back to 3.0 after a GUI was so-called "multi-tasking" - i.e. multiple applications, is MS trying to jump back a full 2 decades in one go?
Looking at my desktop
- Browser (never less than 2-3 tabs)
- File explorer
- Instant messenger (being generous and counting as one, since you can use Pidgin, Digsby, Trillian etc)
- Email client
- Text editor
- One application actually doing the work (office, an IDE or whatever)
3 times over the limit already, although I guess that as long as you allow yourself to be voluntarily locked into their propriatary applications (IE, Microsoft Live, Outlook) you may be given just that little more...
Looking at my desktop
- Browser (never less than 2-3 tabs)
- File explorer
- Instant messenger (being generous and counting as one, since you can use Pidgin, Digsby, Trillian etc)
- Email client
- Text editor
- One application actually doing the work (office, an IDE or whatever)
3 times over the limit already, although I guess that as long as you allow yourself to be voluntarily locked into their propriatary applications (IE, Microsoft Live, Outlook) you may be given just that little more...
