The really funny thing is that 00000000 is a potential edge case. There could have been a bug in the system where 00000000 is rejected because it's misinterpreted as a null value. Out of a billion possibilities, they chose the one that might not actually have worked.

Technological civilisation rises,
which eventually causes climate change,
which eventually causes technological civilisation to crumble,
which eventually allows the climate to recover,
which eventually allows technological civilisation to rise again,
etc.

There's your cycle. Study that.

How do we know Snowden wasn't a CIA plant? that the leak wasn't a CIA effort to try and rein in NSA operations, freeing up budgetary funds to go to CIA operations instead. And that this is the CIA working to disavow their man?

Clearly the CIA and NSA need to spend more time spying on each other and their own employees, and leave the rest of us alone.

The CME was the Sun's defense mechanism when it saw the comet coming right at it. It ejected in self-defense.

I think you are conflating different ideas. Here is how I break it down:

well known - play the music for many people; how many have heard it before determines how well know it is
likable - play the music for many people; how many like it determines how likable it is
popular - both well known and well liked
good - find a bunch of outspoken pretentious assholes who care far more about being recognised as music authorities than would any normal person; what they say they like is considered "good"

"got 2 grams for $40" - the story is really about the US adopting the metric system

Or, they could use a star itself and modulate the light coming from it, like stellar semaphore.

One method that has been proposed http://www.iterate.com.au/SETI/SETI.htm uses a swarm of self-replicating robots. Given raw materials to work with it could in time create a large enough structure or cloud in front of the star so as to be able to send a signal to a large percentage of the heavens. This would be detectable over much greater distances than 1200 ly.

Let's say I have the genuine ability to tell if the number of grains in an unoponed sugar packet is even or odd, 60% of the time. How is it trivial for me to demonstrate this ability? I wager that wouldn't even get past Randi's application process as it would be deemed unfeasable to test. I've read their case files, that is how the process works - if they don't think their amateur investigators with limited resources and budget can test your ability, then you get rejected right off the bat.

Discovering new science is hard. Most of the stuff that is trivial to demonstrate was discovered long ago. That's why we build thing like multi-billion dollar supercolliders, because Higgs Bosons just don't fall into our laps. It takes effort to detect them. It's why we have scientists.

If 99.99% of people with claims of the paranormal are frauds or deluded, then you need very careful and propper procedure to identify the 0.01%. Any moron can claim to debunk psychics, and they'd be right almost all the time, even if their methods are hopelessly flawed. A brick with the words "debunked" painted on it could do the job and be right 99.99% of the time. But it would never find the 0.01%.

Kudos to Randi. He's parlayed his little dog and pony show into a nice little livelihood, making money off the arrogance of skeptics through appearance fees and books. You'd think skeptics might be more skeptical of a man who spent decades perfecting the art of deception and manipulation, but apparently not.

I don't. The point is that a professional magician is specifically trained in deception and trickery. When a magician offers you a chance to win some of their money, it is safe to assume that the game is hopelessly rigged in their favour. That is what magicians do.

When a professional magician offers you a chance to win $1 million, you have absolutely no chance to win $1 million.

Thanks!

Of course that video is an actual advertisement for the app. So possibly they didn't post it in the story because Slashdot isn't being paid to run commercials for this app. So instead they post an interview to avoid being criticised for running an ad, and they get criticised for not showing the demo. And then they still get criticised for running an ad. lol.

The Slashdot editors make their share of mistakes, but sometimes I don't think they can win no matter what.

Probably unrelated to TFA, but I made an amazing discovery about the webkit-based browser Rekonq 0.8 in Kubuntu 11.10 - it doesn't show commercials in streaming video. Whatever mechanism is commonly used to insert commercials into a flash video stream - it doesn't work in this version of Rekonq. I'm talking youtube, ustream, livestream, social cam sites, porn sites, and television networks that stream their own shows - no commercials ever. It's glorious =)

I'm actually reluctant to upgrade in case this "bug" has been fixed.

I wonder if solar-assisted trains would make any sense. Lot of nice flat surface area on all those freight cars roofs.

Sure, a zapper that might indiscriminately spray bug guts onto the people walking below =)

Transparent spinning blades with lights on them attached to light poles. I wonder if moths and other insects end up getting attracted to the light and then get whacked by the blades. Hopefully birds are smart enough to stay clear.