Comment Re:FOSS? (Score 2) 90
I do love me a bit of Nominative Determinism now and then....
Comment Re:it sure would be nice to get a PNG.. (Score 5, Insightful) 101
True enough, but I'm just enjoying it for what it represents, a startling view of another planet.
I am quite awestruck by this, and find that all the cynicism has drained out of me ;-)
I am quite awestruck by this, and find that all the cynicism has drained out of me
Comment Re:His mansion (Score 1) 127
Great link - thanks for sharing.
Comment His mansion (Score 5, Interesting) 127
Apropos of nothing at all, I was fortunate to have a client drive me past Kim Dotcoms mansion in a fashionably distant and hilly area North of Auckland a little while ago. It was, he said with evident disdain, a "rented mansion". I've no idea how true that is.
The main gate over which heavily armed special forces apparently had to pass, is barely a metre high, and surrounded by... no fence at all.
When did we start to allow police forces in Western countries start to behave like militias?
Comment Re:Things you don't hear every day (Score 1) 173
Yes.
Comment Re:Things you don't hear every day (Score 5, Insightful) 173
A witty response, but really this is getting a bit tired.
I suppose people are free to keep reading the same old, self-reinforcing sources that insist that Perl is somehow a language of the past. And if they read enough of these cliches, the anti-Perl FUD may seem to be accurate, but as any developer who spends time wrestling with real-world problems in modern Perl will attest, the so-called modern Perl ecosystem is, (just like the modern Python or PHP ecosystems), a fabulous place to work in.
I work in all three.
Comment Re:Do not want (Score 2) 173
I'm with you. The GNU folks we are told "in general, abhor man pages, and create info documents instead.". Tis a shame.
Comment Re:Triple J? World's largest? umm.... Eurovision? (Score 1) 165
Heard of it?- yes, but only because I am from Australia. (BTW, I am highly suspicious of how some artists get airtime on this government funded station. Getting your stuff played means a lot commercially here, as the station is hugely popular and can be heard pretty much anywhere on the continent. There is no equivalent of this station in the US).
Having said all of that, there is no way that this is the "World Biggest Song Vote".
Just my $AU 0.02c worth
Comment Depending on how things turn out... (Score 2) 544
...this is either the start of the post-scarcity future so cleverly portrayed by Ian M Banks in his Culture novels. In this future we are freed from the need to work and instead choose to work, and play.
I'm hoping for the Banksian future
Comment Re:It's true (Score 2) 122
Yes, I love it that they use a device called a "DUFF which "is a sort of lab bench nuclear reactor".
Submission + - Declining Life Expectancy for Less Educated Whites (nytimes.com) 1
JThaddeus writes: "Citing mortality data, researchers assert that the life expectancy of less educated U.S. whites is declining. According to the New York Time article, "Four studies in recent years identified modest declines, but a new one that looks separately at Americans lacking a high school diploma found disturbingly sharp drops in life expectancy for whites in this group...The reasons for the decline remain unclear, but researchers offered possible explanations, including a spike in prescription drug overdoses among young whites, higher rates of smoking among less educated white women, rising obesity, and a steady increase in the number of the least educated Americans who lack health insurance." Could the Cracker problem be self-correcting?"
Submission + - Brain's 'reading centres' are culturally universal (nature.com)
ananyo writes: "Learning to read Chinese might seem daunting to Westerners used to an alphabetic script, but brain scans of French and Chinese native speakers show that people harness the same brain centres for reading across cultures.
Reading involves two neural systems: one that recognizes the shape of the word and a second that asseses the physical movements used to make the marks on a page. But it has been unclear whether the brain networks responsible for reading are universal or culturally distinct. Previous studies have suggested that alphabetic writing systems (such as French) and logographic ones (such as Chinese, in which single characters represent entire words) writing systems might engage different networks in the brain.
The researchers found that both Chinese and French people use the visual and gestural systems while reading their native language, but with different emphases that reflect the different demands of each language (paper).
Understanding how the brain decodes symbols during reading — using both visual and motor centres — might also inform learning strategies for general literacy. Harnessing the gestural system more in education might, for example, help young children with reading."
Reading involves two neural systems: one that recognizes the shape of the word and a second that asseses the physical movements used to make the marks on a page. But it has been unclear whether the brain networks responsible for reading are universal or culturally distinct. Previous studies have suggested that alphabetic writing systems (such as French) and logographic ones (such as Chinese, in which single characters represent entire words) writing systems might engage different networks in the brain.
The researchers found that both Chinese and French people use the visual and gestural systems while reading their native language, but with different emphases that reflect the different demands of each language (paper).
Understanding how the brain decodes symbols during reading — using both visual and motor centres — might also inform learning strategies for general literacy. Harnessing the gestural system more in education might, for example, help young children with reading."
Submission + - NASA working on theoretical portions of a potential warp-type drive (io9.com)
An anonymous reader writes: io9 has an article on NASA working on various components for a potential Alcubierre Drive.
So anyone up for a 2 week trip to Alpha Centuri?
So anyone up for a 2 week trip to Alpha Centuri?
Submission + - The Facebook Toll Booth (correntewire.com)
Presto Vivace writes: "Facebook charges you to talk to more than 15% of your "friends"
"According to Facebook's own advertising department, on the average, about 15% of the folks you imagine are getting your stuff are getting it. The other 80 or 85%..... not. That's one in five if you're lucky, one in seven if you're not. Ever wondered what that “promote” button at the bottom of your posts is? That's the doorway to talking to ALL your followers or friends or fans. It's the ONLY doorway, and it's a toll booth. This is not a bug, it's a feature.
Comment Re:You're welcome, buddy (Score 1) 117
You know this how?
