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Comment I don't care if it is harmless (Score 4, Insightful) 130

If CarrierIQ is making money from studying my behaviors, then I want a cut or I want to uninstall their craptastic software. I should not be forced to consume software I do not want. If Android wants analytics, then build it into Android OS. My relationship is with my phone manufacturer and the OS manufacturer. I should be able to decide what other relationships I want. CarrierIQ can contact me if they think their software somehow adds value to my experience. Otherwise, do more testing.

Submission + - Google releases the source for Android 4.0 and 3.0 (google.com)

LWATCDR writes: Google is dropping not just the source code for Ice Cream Sandwich but also Honeycomb. I can hardly wait for Cyanogen to get to work on this. I wonder how it will run on my wife's GTab and my Evo 4G. I guess the worries about Google not releasing the source to Android can now be put to rest. Check out the announcement here https://groups.google.com/group/android-building/msg/c0e01b4619a1455a?pli=1
Science

Submission + - Macroscopic wave–particle duality (archives-ouvertes.fr)

advid.net writes: A 'walking' drop on a liquid surface behave like a particle with wave properties: diffraction, interference patterns, vibration quantization.

First, in a vibrating container they put a liquid like silicon oil, vibrations are just bellow the Faraday instability threshold. Then a drop of the same liquid is dropped on the surface, but it does not coalesce, it bounces. And further bounces make a static wave pattern on the liquid surface just bellow the drop and its immediate neighborhood. As the spike grows, instability increases and the drop slides down the spike, and start moving horizontally.

Then they have a combo object drop+wave pattern moving at 1/10th the speed of wave in this liquid, straight. They call it a walker.

What is really amazing is that the wave pattern below the drop has some kind of memory: it has accumulated energy from several drop bounces. It can also make the drop see "forward", as the small wave pattern bounces back from nearby obstacles. So the drop is "aware" of its environment and "recall" the path it has followed.

Diffraction is observed and explained by the multiple reflexions the wave makes when the drop passes through a small hole, randomizing the wave pattern and the angle of the path afterward. Interference patterns observed are explained a la de Broglie: as the drop passes through one of the two holes, its associated wave passes through both, carrying forward the message of the second hole to the drop and changing the statistical repartition of the drop's path direction. One more stunning result: they are circling the drop by moving the container (Coriolis), then the associated wave adopts a discrete series of pattern, depending on the speed and radius. Very much like the energy quantization of electrons.
English (and French) abstract
A short article (French but it has photos and formulas)
Full thesis (French,10Mb)

Comment Re:It was part of his job, but... (Score 1) 267

Technically a company should not let you bring anything of yours that benefits the company or they are stupid. For one, most non-competes try to claim gray matter that has been imprinted with company proprietary information, but thankfully I get to keep that. Do not let people use their own resources at your company unless they are a contractor. And I am not sure about your assertion that because you did company work on your resource, that they cannot demand to inspect your computer. That seems pretty risky to a discovery, of course, of child pornography or have German authorities put a keylogger on your machine.

Comment Re:It was part of his job (Score 3, Insightful) 267

You are coming to a conclusion backwards. Because he had a twitter account with the company's name in it and they did not pursue a trademark violation, this does not mean that he did it with their permission. How do you reach this conclusion when it could be Phonedog did not protect their mark and he was improperly using their mark. If anything, I would be afraid if I was phonedog as being seen as complacent about enforcing their marks.It seems their may be a gray area here.

However, may be like software development, if his tweeting was done with company resources, it may indeed be Phonedog's to keep.

China

Submission + - Why Is China Building Gigantic Structures In the M (gizmodo.com)

cornholed writes:

New photos have appeared in Google Maps showing unidentified titanic structures in the middle of the Chinese desert. The first one is an intricate network of what appears to be huge metallic stripes, the second structure seems to be some kind of giant targeting grid, and the third one consists of thousand of lines intersecting in a titanic grid that is about 18 miles long.


Comment Re:I'm going to go out on a limb here... (Score 1) 465

Is this for a part on Glee where 40 year olds portray 18 year olds?

I do not believe the anecdotal assertion. Prove that there is age bias. Do you hire for instance and you use age as a determining factor in hiring? That would be good testimony, but not scientific to the point we can generalize the phenomenon across the industry.

In any case, going back to my first statement, how many actors are way older than the parts they play? I think it has more to do with how young or old you look than whether you can fit the part.

Comment Re:This is how the industry works (Score 0) 465

What evidence is there that there is age discrimination in the movie industry except anecdotal evidence? Please provide any scientific evidence of this effect, otherwise it is hearsay and no better than people who looked at the earth as flat.

In addition, I do believe birth certificates are public record which means her age is public domain.

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