Comment Just a legal issue (Score 1) 182
The plane itself is nothing dangerous or even impressive.
Build your own if you want... start here: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=14465
Survey Shows That Fox News Makes You Less Informed 1352
A survey of American voters by World Public Opinion shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. One of the most interesting questions was about President Obama's birthplace. 63 percent of Fox viewers believe Obama was not born in the US (or that it is unclear). In 2003 a similar study about the Iraq war showed that Fox viewers were once again less knowledgeable on the subject than average. Let the flame war begin!
Rare Sharing of Data Led To Results In Alzheimer's Research 159
jamie passes along a story in the NY Times about how an unprecedented level of openness and data-sharing among scientists involved in the study of Alzheimer's disease has yielded a wealth of new research papers and may become the template for making progress in dealing with other afflictions. Quoting:
"The key to the Alzheimer's project was an agreement as ambitious as its goal: not just to raise money, not just to do research on a vast scale, but also to share all the data, making every single finding public immediately, available to anyone with a computer anywhere in the world. No one would own the data. No one could submit patent applications, though private companies would ultimately profit from any drugs or imaging tests developed as a result of the effort. 'It was unbelievable,' said Dr. John Q. Trojanowski, an Alzheimer's researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. 'It's not science the way most of us have practiced it in our careers. But we all realized that we would never get biomarkers unless all of us parked our egos and intellectual-property noses outside the door and agreed that all of our data would be public immediately.'"
At Google, You're Old and Gray At 40 543
theodp writes "Google faces an imminent California Supreme Court decision on whether an age discrimination suit against it can go forward. But that hasn't kept the company from patting itself on the back for how it supports 'Greyglers' — that's any Googler over 40. At a company of about 20,000 full-time employees, there were at last count fewer than 200 formally enrolled Greyglers working to 'make Google culture ... welcome to people of all ages.'"
Europe To Import Sahara Solar Power Within 5 Years 450
An anonymous reader writes "If just 1% of the Sahara Desert were covered in concentrating solar panels it would create enough energy to power the entire world. That's a powerful number, and the European Union has decided to jump on its proximity to the Sahara in order to reap some benefits from the untapped solar energy beaming down on Northern Africa. Yesterday, European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger announced that Europe will start importing solar energy from the Sahara within the next five years. It is estimated that the initiative will cost €400 billion ($495 billion). It's part of an EU goal to derive 20% of its power from renewable sources by 2020. From the article: 'The EU is backing the construction of new electricity cables, known as inter-connectors, under the Mediterranean Sea to carry this renewable energy from North Africa to Europe. Some environmental groups have warned these cables could be used instead to import non-renewable electricity from coal- and gas-fired power stations in north Africa.' To this the energy minister replied, essentially, 'Good question, we'll get back to you on that.'"
Comment Sure, but what about... (Score 1) 327
Lots of tears over Usenet, but what about Fidonet??
If a technology or mode of communication means soo much to us, then, given that Usenet is not owned by Comcast, what is to stop us from cooking up a free and useful solution that does work? If geeks created Usenet, why do we have to let Comcast "kill" it?
I know it is not an option everywhere, but I do know that where I live, we have more than Comcast as an option for ISP... if someone wants Usenet here, they can just vote with their feet and get a DSL line from Verizon or one of the local telcom providers. Speed may not be the same, but it is up to use to decide what is important - not Comcast. They can say, well we dropped Usenet, but speed is more important anyway... and we can say that, no, Usenet is more important, and switch ISPs.
Comment For Python (Score 1) 538
My first reference for python is:
http://rgruet.free.fr/PQR25/PQR2.5.html
I wish there was something as complete and helpful for AS3... please let me know if you come across one.
