Ok, so I watched the video twice, enjoying it immensely both times. It shows just how fragile that little slice of atmosphere is which shields us and allows us life. The soundtrack was was appropriate to the visuals, providing a sense of awe. And then, I come back to Slashdot, expecting to see respectful comments. Silly me, being surprised to find a bunch of wankers posting drivel. Come on, the video provides a sense of how humanity has impacted the viewing of our planet (note the nighttime shots which shows population density based on how we illuminate the night sky). How wonderful the aurora is, viewed from an angle few will ever see. Based on the existing comments, I weep for the future of our species. Based on the video, there is still hope.

I think the simulation is an interesting idea... but it's a transient experience after which the participant will go back to being steady and 'normal.' Imagine going into a restaurant, ordering lunch, and then having the food shake and fall off your fork whenever you try to take a bite. Embarrassing? You bet! Demoralizing, knowing that this is going to continue for the rest of your life and only get worse? Yep.

Living with a disability sucks. Any project that increases awareness of how a disability can inhibit an otherwise coherent individual from doing everyday tasks (like buttoning a shirt), is worthwhile in my (not so uninvolved) opinion.

As for Rush mocking Michael J. Fox, Here's his response on NBC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... As Michael states in the video, without medication he'd be frozen (Google 'Parkinson's Frozen' to see what he means by that... it's pretty freaking scary). While I lean more towards Republican viewpoints than Democrat, I find Rush's insinuations in this instance distasteful, ignorant, and hurtful.

Robin Williams committed suicide during early stages of Parkinson's, possibly due to the idea of living with this disability for the rest of his life. Not having an entire foundation at my disposal, when I get to his stage of Parkinson's, I obviously cannot expect to have as finely tuned medication dosing as Michael has.

My goal is to live my life as well as I can, as long as I can. That's all any of us can do.

Sorry to break it to you, but Parkinson's symptoms are nothing at all like orgasm. Nope, not even close. I wish.

I saw the spoon video, and I want one. Now. In the meantime, I use my unaffected left hand to hold the spoon. It's a compensating method that's free...

Ok, as a person with Parkinson's, this is the funniest first post I've seen in ages. I think I'm going to adopt this as my new motto. "I'm not low on Azilect, I'm just gettin' jiggy with it!"

You know what's harder than lining up the pixels perfectly on adjacent panels? Getting the brightness, contrast, color, and gamma matched. It's not as noticable when screens are separated on your desk, but put them side by side and all those little hot and cold spots are going to create a very noticable demarcation line at the seam.

I think Microsoft is doing the right thing here. Did the feds forget to include the double-secret gag order with their request/demand? Proclaiming this demand far and wide is going to put it squarely in the public eye.

Not that I personally have anything to worry about, as I always assume people are reading my emails. And being bored to tears by them.

About 5 years ago when NoScript was relatively small and unknown, I donated some money to the author. He sent me a very nice thank you reply. Honestly, Adblock and Noscript work so well, that it's a shock when I see sites on other peoples computers. Of course, I always turn off the "limited advertising allowed" checkbox in Adblock settings.

There are a few sites that I care enough about (liliputing.com for example) to whitelist them. I don't click on their ads, but their advertising is subdued enough to avoid being obnoxious.

My main desktop PC has two mice from the MX-5500 keyboard/mouse set. These are the ultra-rare MX mice with bluetooth built in. They're so special that, while you can order the dongle or the keyboard as a repair part, the bluetooth mouse itself is not available as a repair part. Luckily, I was able to find a spare keyboard/mouse/dongle in mint condition at my local goodwill store. I have both mice on my desk, one in use and the other in the charging station. When the in-use mouse stops working, I swap the two mice. Honestly, I don't know why Logitech never figured out that selling a comfortable bluetooth mouse might be profitable... Check out the eBay listings for the MX-5500, it's crazy what people will pay for these!

I live in Phoenix Arizona. Any season but summer would be fine with me. A while back I bought a BBQ meat thermometer to measure the temperature of the seats in my car. The LCD on the meat thermometer couldn't handle the heat. In the early part of summer, the seats (where I put my delicate hiney) measured out at 197F. I keep a set of insulated gloves in the center console, so that I can hold the steering wheel with more than just my fingernails without getting burned.

Like I said, any season but summer!

All of my computers boot and have their frequently used programs stored on SSDs, for maximum responsiveness. However all of my media is stored on a my server in an array of spinning WD Red drives (10TB, yeah baby!). With gigabit ethernet, I have no problems streaming the media as needed.

Each type of storage has it's strong and weak points... the key is to use them appropriately.

I have to agree with this... When my girlfriend broke her iPhone 4, she tried to decide which phone to get. Basically, it came down to the iPhone 5 (with it's tiny screen) or the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (with it's ginormous screen). She ended up with the Note and was happy, especially after all her friends were jealous. After all, creating envy in friends is one of the prime purposes of a premium phone!

Your post was made in jest, but my mom used to keep her box of wine on top of the desktop PC. It put the dispenser at just the right place to refill her glass without moving from the keyboard. She liked her Chillable Red slightly warm, so it was perfect for her.

It took me a while to figure out why her CD drive drawer wouldn't open, when the wine had dripped down and glued the door shut. When I went to upgrade her PC, the inside bottom of the case was a gooey purple color.

I lived in China for a while, and there's nothing discreet about the availability of pirated media. Every mall has at least one store right out in plain sight which is jammed with music and DVDs, all of which are ripped copies. It's out there in public, and nobody thinks anything about it. If you buy the movies which are currently in theaters, you'll often get to see silhouettes of folks who stand up in front of the camera in the theatre. Software? It's usually about 2 bucks for a disk. Photoshop? Microsoft Office? Windows Server? You name it, it's available for basically nothing. Of course, you have no way of knowing what trojans or viruses are installed along with the software...

There is *no* enforcement of of copyright in China. Now, what makes this case different from most China copyright cases is that that the guy left China, and sold to American agents. If he'd kept it inside China, he'd have been fine.

Most police patrol cars have multiple displays for the driver to easily read information (radar gun displaying speed of oncoming vehicles, license plate scanner scrolling information about the registration status of nearby cars, laptop, etc). If *my* car is going to be required to block any distractions while I am driving, then surely the public safety officers need to be similarly coddled and babysat.
This is a stupid idea.