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Comment Saw it opening night (Score 3, Interesting) 412

by jockeys (#34616916) Attached to: Tron: Legacy
and all I'll say is that the new one made me feel the same way (as an adult) that the original made me feel as a child. Yes, the graphics are cool, but the coolest thing is the sense of infinite possibility you get from the scenery. CGI jeff bridges looked alright but didn't sound great as they had to use old jeff bridges voice with young jeff bridges face. Lots of nods to the original, definitely rewatch before seeing the new one. Overall very good. Some pacing issues, but that is similar to the original.
Earth

Watch 200 Years of Global Growth In 4 Minutes 270

Posted by CmdrTaco from the statistics-are-fun dept.
kkleiner writes "A professor of international health in Sweden, Hans Rosling has a long history of exploring the facts and figures that surround our changing world. In the a segment of the BBC series, Rosling gives one of his most famous lectures with a new twist. Using 120,000+ bits of data and augmented reality, the exuberant professor takes us through the last 200 years of global history and its uneven growth of wealth and health." This is really worth watching. Seriously.

Comment It's just a Bourke engine rebranded (Score 1) 570

by jockeys (#34092036) Attached to: Looking To Better Engines Instead of Electric Vehicles
it's just one of these, basically:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourke_engine
plus the option of having a hybrid system. The Bourke is the cold fusion of the automotive world. We've been hearing how magical and amazingly efficient it is since it was invented in the 1920s and yet no one has managed to build one that is actually more than slightly better than a normal 4 cycle.
Social Networks

Of 1.2 Billion Twitter Posts, 71% Are Ignored 192

Posted by timothy from the stunning-underestimate dept.
destinyland writes "1.2 billion Twitter 'tweets' were analyzed over two months by analytics company Sysomos, who concluded that a whopping 71% of them got no reaction whatsoever — no online responses, and no Twitter 'retweets.' 'Only a small number of users actually have the ability to engage on Twitter in a significant way,' the researchers conclude, noting that just 6% of Twitter's status updates ever get retweeted (while 23% get a reply). And among those status updates, 85% have exactly one response, while only 1.53% of Twitter conversations are more than three levels deep — where a reply receives a response which then generates a second reply." I am astounded by the claim that nearly three out of ten tweets actually do get any response.
Image

Govt To Bomb Guam With Frozen Mice To Kill Snakes Screenshot-sm 229

Posted by samzenpus from the rodent-rain dept.
rhettb writes "In a spectacularly creative effort to rid Guam of the brown tree snake, an invasive species which has ravaged local wildlife and angered local residents, the US Department of Agriculture is planning to 'bomb' the island's rainforests with dead frozen mice laced with acetaminophen. While it might not seem difficult to purge an island of snakes, the snake's habit of dwelling high in the rainforest canopy has so far thwarted efforts to rid the island of the pest. Eradicating the snake is a priority because it triggers more than 100 power outages a year at a cost of $1-4 million and has driven at least 6 local bird species to extinction."

Comment Re:In My Experience (Score 1) 404

by jockeys (#33721982) Attached to: My Job Is..
well said. I love writing code, but not all code is the same. There are interesting and challenging programs, which I get to do rarely but not never, and there are mundane code-monkey programs which is what I am usually paid to write. Interesting!=useful (frequently, anyhow), so it makes complete sense.

There is also the factor that even a good programming job will most likely have you spending a decent amount of your day in meetings, doing documentation, testing, etc. Stuff that isn't fun or interesting but very necessary to get paid for writing software.

So I guess I would say that if I won the lotto I'd do the same thing, but pay someone else to do all the boring and mundane parts while keeping all the fun and interesting stuff to myself.
Robotics

Robots Taught to Deceive 239

Posted by CmdrTaco from the of-this-will-be-fine dept.
An anonymous reader found a story that starts "'We have developed algorithms that allow a robot to determine whether it should deceive a human or other intelligent machine and we have designed techniques that help the robot select the best deceptive strategy to reduce its chance of being discovered,' said Ronald Arkin, a Regents professor in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing."
Robotics

Robot Snake Can Climb Trees 90

Posted by Soulskill from the as-long-as-they-aren't-on-planes dept.
kkleiner writes "The latest in a line of 'modsnakes' from Carnegie Mellon's Biorobotics Lab, Uncle Sam can move in a variety of different ways, including rolling, wiggling, and side-winding. It can also wrap itself around a pole and climb vertically, and even scale a tree. You have to watch this thing in action. There is something incredibly life-like and eerie about the way it scales the tree outdoors and then looks around with its camera 'eye.' Projects like Uncle Sam show how life-mimicking machines could revolutionize robotics in the near future."

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