Comment Monkey scribes (Score 4, Funny) 270
Empirical evidence demonstrates that it took only a finite number of monkeys a finite period of time to "randomly" produce the works of Shakespeare.
Empirical evidence demonstrates that it took only a finite number of monkeys a finite period of time to "randomly" produce the works of Shakespeare.
I came of age in the late '70s and early '80s, and my musical tastes reflect that.
There have been some new discoveries along the way. I adore Sheryl Crow, and thought Lady Gaga was a breath of fresh air. With those exceptions (and a few others) I haven't heard much of interest since the early '90s.
I remain baffled by rap.
...laura
If I saw somebody with an aol.com email I'd wonder if they were a tech dinosaur, a total hipster, or somebody who had simply stuck with something that worked.
I've had my Hotmail email address since 1996, prior to Microsoft taking it over. I've stuck with it because it works. It does exactly what Hotmail promised from the start, providing email that is independent of my ISP or employer.
...laura
Yes, they do.
An early example of getting it wrong was the City & South London Railway, the first deep-level underground rail line in London. The designers of the rolling stock didn't bother with windows because there was, supposedly, nothing to see. Passengers hated the "padded cells". Even if all you see is tunnel walls rushing by, people need to see outside.
I could see the utility of an airliner with no windows but cameras and viewing screens - it would solve some engineering problems - but for a car, the simplest is still the best. Windows.
...laura
Airliners only need one set of windows at the front, for the pilots. But there's a row of windows on either side, and the seats next to those windows are the second-most-popular (after those on the aisle) despite the fact that they're the most difficult to get in and out of, have no access to the overhead bins, and offer less head/foot room. See also: trains, buses, passenger ferries. So I think the answer is yes: robot cars will still have windows.
I see lots of announcements - not just this one - shouting about their new microarchitectures, how cool they are, the amazing benefits, and so on. But documentation of exactly what the new microarchitecture is, exactly what it does, seems thin-to-non-existent. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place.
All "big" processors nowadays have fancy pipelines, out-of-order execution, branch prediction, multiple cores, and so on. Fine. But how is Zen different from past microarchitectures? What makes it revolutionary?
Details, please.
...laura
"most probably".
Relax.
I was with my previous ISP (Speakeasy) for about a decade. They were a wonderful find when my DSL provider went under without warning, forcing me to shop for an alternative from the "comfort" of a coffee place. But as the independent DSL business consolidated (read "collapsed"), they eventually got bought out, customer service predictably declined, and (worst of all) I was still paying the same amount for the same speed I'd signed up for circa 2000
It's always fun to look up what else people have been in. One that caught my eye was Ms Whitney as an uncredited band member in the still brilliantly goofy Some Like It Hot.
...laura.
I encourage scientists* to follow up with studies of politically-driven politics. Without involving any politicians, of course.
*Social scientists, I suppose, but that's better than nothing
But if an experienced landscaper is willing to do it for $20 – because he's been "laid off" from his landscaping job (unofficially for not being in his 20s anymore), but he would still like to continue eating – why shouldn't you hire him? Hiring decisions should be based on the actual job requirement (willingness to work for the pay), not assumptions about the applicants based on someone functionally irrelevant (age).
The "review" of NASA's programs focused on studying Earth seems more like an attempt by climate-science deniers to stifle research that doesn't confirm what they want to hear, than anything to do with a supposed "turf battle with NOAA".
"Have you been the victim of recruiting spam?"
I have an account on LinkedIn, so
Which is funny/sad, because there is nothing in my linked-in profile that suggests that I'm particularly qualified for any in-demand jobs. So the spam I get is for garbage jobs, and positions for which I am obviously neither qualified nor interested.
"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will." -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"