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Comment Re:Not really (Score 5, Insightful) 540

I think our algorithms have sucked, but it hasn't mattered much until recently.
Now we are able to make vast amounts of data available easily, so it matters a lot more.

Processing power still has a long way to go, but figuring out HOW to make use of the data is currently more important than the speed at which we can do it.

Science

Submission + - Alan Alda Challenges Scientists to Explain: What Is Time? (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: What is time? And how would you explain it to an 11-year-old? That's the question actor Alan Alda has posed to scientists in the second Flame Challenge—so named because the question in last year's competition was, "What is a flame?" The challenge aims to spur scientists to think about how they can better communicate with the public. Scientists have until 1 March to submit their answers, which will be judged by 11-year-olds around the world. Organizers will announce the winner at the World Science Festival in New York City on 1 June.
Science

Submission + - 'Marine' Fossils May Instead Represent Early Land Dwellers (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: The fossils of various frondlike and sacklike organisms that supposedly lived at the bottom of ancient oceans may actually represent some of the earliest organisms to dwell on land. That's the controversial interpretation of a new study, which suggests that rocks long thought to have been formed from sediments deposited on ancient seafloors may actually be the remnants of early soils. If true, the finding would push back life's transition from sea to land by tens of millions of years—and possibly by 100 million years or more.
Space

Submission + - Earth Avoids Collisions with Pair of Asteroids

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Science Recorder reports that according to NASA a pair of asteroids — one just over three mile wide — passed Earth Tuesday and early Wednesday avoiding a potentially cataclysmic impact with our home planet. 2012 XE5, estimated at between 50-165 feet across, was discovered just days earlier, missing our planet by only 139,500 miles or slightly more than half the distance to the moon. 4179 Toutatis, just over three miles wide, put on an amazing show for astronomers early Wednesday missing Earth by 18 lunar lengths, while allowing scientists to observe the massive asteroid in detail. Asteroid Toutatis is well known to astronomers. It passes by Earth’s orbit every four years and astronomers say its unique orbit means it is unlikely to impact Earth for at least 600 years. It is one of the largest known potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), and its orbit is inclined less than half-a-degree from Earth’s. “We already know that Toutatis will not hit Earth for hundreds of years,” says Lance Benner of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program. “These new observations will allow us to predict the asteroid’s trajectory even farther into the future.” Toutatis would inflict devastating damage if it slammed into Earth, perhaps extinguishing human civilization. The asteroid thought to have killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was about 6 miles wide, researchers say.The fact that 2012 XE5 was discovered only a few days before the encounter prompted Minnesota Public Radio to poll its listeners with the following question: If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an hour, would you want to know?"
Science

Submission + - Has the mythical unicorn of materials science finally been found? (nature.com)

gbrumfiel writes: "For years, physicists have been on the hunt for a material so weird, it might as well be what unicorn horns are made of. Topological insulators are special types of material that conduct electricity, but only on their outermost surface. If they exist, and that's a real IF, then they would play host to all sorts of bizarre phenomenon: virtual particles that are their own anti-particles, strange quantum effects, dogs and cats living together, that sort of thing. Now three independent teams think they've finally found the stuff that the dreams of theoretical physicists are made of: samarium hexaboride."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: /. has died, where to next?

An anonymous reader writes: Slashdot used to be a great place for reading up on great unix related inside stories and the latest and greatest in hardware and quantum mechanics. But with recent postings like http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/12/10/1920258/how-to-use-a-linux-virtual-private-server all of us have already abandoned ship long ago or are clawing our eyes out this very moment. So my question Slashdot: Where do you go to these days to read up on the news that used to be on the /. frontpage?
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Goes after Enterprise Customers, Raises Licensing Prices (paritynews.com)

hypnosec writes: Microsoft is trying to make up for below expected earnings following Windows 8’s and Surface RT’s lack luster adoption rates by increasing the prices of its products between 8 and 400 per cent it has been revealed. Trying to make more out of its enterprise customers who are tied under its Software Assurance payment model, Microsoft has increased user CALs pricing 15 per cent; SharePoint 2013 pricing by 38 per cent; Lync Server 2013 pricing by 400 per cent; Project 2013 Server CAL by 21 per cent.

Submission + - Global Warming Really Just a Statistical Fluke? (statisticsblog.com)

J Story writes: Matt Asher, a statistics wonk, in a blog posting (The surprisingly weak case for global warming) claims that: "Based solely on year-over-year changes in surface temperatures, the net increase since 1881 is fully explainable as a non-independent random walk with no trend."

For the programmer/statistics junkie, R code is provided.

Comment Re:Scrap signs altogether! (Score 2) 499

I've travelled through areas where the number of signs causes real information-overload.
Many are highly reflective, reducing visibility at night. Most street-lights I've see could use much better covers/reflectors too, to reduce the amount of light going directly into the drivers eyes.

More than all that though, if you pull most of the signs people will have to think about what they are doing. Scary when you're not used to it, but it makes sense that drivers who are thinking about what they are doing will do it better.

Start holding people accountable for their actions & pretty soon everyone will be paying attention to how they drive. Another good step toward achieving that would be to stop calling crashes 'accidents'. There are true accidents out there, but most crashes are the result of inattention or plain bad driving.

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