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Comment Re:Another viewpoint on calculators and exams... (Score 1) 636

by Xhris (#35787724) Attached to: Are Graphical Calculators Pointless?

Hell, why do we even allow calculators to be used in ANY exam? What's the point in "teaching" math if you let the calculator do 90% of the work? .

You obviously have never done any sort of serious math, or are still in high school. Math is not about adding up numbers - thats just some of the raw ingredients needed at the start.

NB: In Australia only very basic casio style scientific calculators ($20 jobs) are allowed in exams. There is a list and your calculator must be on the list.

Comment Not my experience (Score 1) 242

by Xhris (#32996650) Attached to: Google's Free Satnav Outperforms TomTom

I find this hard to believe. In Sydney (Australia) the Google stuff gets if wrong ALL the time. U-turns on major highways, not knowing about no left or no right turns and missing some connecting roads. So far (knock on wood), my TomTom has NEVER instructed me to do something impossible. Now comparing which gives the best route is almost impossible in Sydney. The traffic is so unpredictable the only sure way to device which was the best route would be to send out two cars simultaneously, with drivers of similar "style".
Science

The Proton Just Got Smaller 289

Posted by samzenpus from the size-does-matter dept.
inflame writes "A new paper published in Nature has said that the proton may be smaller than we previously thought. The article states 'The difference is so infinitesimal that it might defy belief that anyone, even physicists, would care. But the new measurements could mean that there is a gap in existing theories of quantum mechanics. "It's a very serious discrepancy," says Ingo Sick, a physicist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, who has tried to reconcile the finding with four decades of previous measurements. "There is really something seriously wrong someplace."' Would this indicate new physics if proven?"
Image

NHS Should Stop Funding Homeopathy, Says Parliamentary Committee Screenshot-sm 507

Posted by samzenpus from the how-am-I-going-to-align-my-chakras-now dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Homeopathic remedies work no better than placebos, and so should no longer be paid for by the UK National Health Service, a committee of British members of parliament has concluded. In preparing its report, the committee, which scrutinizes the evidence behind government policies, took evidence from scientists and homeopaths, and reviewed numerous reports and scientific investigations into homeopathy. It found no evidence that such treatments work beyond providing a placebo effect." Updated 201025 19:40 GMT by timothy: This recommendation has some people up in arms.
Java

Sun's Project Darkstar Game Server Platform No More 82

Posted by timothy from the dropped-off-the-moving-truck dept.
sproketboy writes "Project Darkstar, an open source software platform from Sun labs that simplifies the development of horizontally scalable servers for online games, is being discontinued as of the Oracle acquisition. This project, mentioned a couple of years back on Slashdot, was a unique concept for building an application server specific to on-line gaming. Sadly they were so close at version 0.9.11 (which is still very stable). Hopefully the open source community can get involved and help continue work on this project."
Math

Man Uses Drake Equation To Explain Girlfriend Woes 538

Posted by samzenpus from the less-math-more-social-science dept.
artemis67 writes "A man studying in London has taken a mathematical equation that predicts the possibility of alien life in the universe to explain why he can't find a girlfriend. Peter Backus, a native of Seattle and PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, near London, in his paper, 'Why I don't have a girlfriend: An application of the Drake Equation to love in the UK,' used math to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. In describing the paper on the university Web site he wrote 'the results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.'"
Image

Woman Blasts Off Boyfriend's Penis With Firecrackers Screenshot-sm 8

Posted by samzenpus from the isn't-there-a-simpler-way dept.
A Russian woman who became irate that her boyfriend did not want to marry her tied firecrackers to his penis and set them off. The evening started off pleasantly. The couple shared a nice dinner, some laughs and quite a few drinks. Exploding genitals never crossed 33-year-old Alik D's mind as he passed out. Moments later his girlfriend Kira tied the mini-explosives to his manhood and sent it to the hereafter in a shower of sparks and a bang. Alik remains in intensive care and Kira faces up to 12 years imprisonment even if he lives.
PC Games (Games)

The Realities of Selling Independently Developed PC Games 120

Posted by Soulskill from the working-for-a-living dept.
Not long ago, we discussed the realities of selling a game on the iPhone App Store. Now, spidweb sends in his experiences with a realistic level of success as an independent PC game developer. He writes "There is a lot of excitement about casual gaming and Indie game development these days, but there's also very little public information about how many games actually get sold, or the sort of income one can reasonably expect in this line of work. We've released full sales figures for a recent product to illustrate what sort of earnings can be generated by a quality niche product that isn't a massive hit. From the post: 'I am not the first Indie developer to reveal this sort of information. However, most public sales figures come from projects that were either blockbusters or disasters. Our games have never landed in either pool. I have been doing this for a living for almost fifteen years.'"
Education

Are My Ideas Being Stolen? If So, What Then? 508

Posted by timothy from the patent-your-own-idea-stealer dept.
BinaryGrind writes "I just got started taking Computer Science classes at my local university and after reading Universities Patenting More Student Ideas I felt I needed to ask: How do I tell if any of my projects while attending classes will be co-opted by my professors or the university itself and taken away from me? Is there anything I can do to prevent it from happening? What do I need to do to protect myself? Are there schools out there that won't take my work away from me if I discover TheNextBigThing(TM)? If it does happen is there anything I can do to fight back? The school I'm attending is Southern Utah University. Since it's not a big university, I don't believe it has a big research and development department or anything of that ilk. I'm mostly wanting to cover my bases and not have my work stolen from me."

Steve Jobs Issues Update On His Health 320

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can't-believe-this-is-news dept.
i4u writes "Rumors about Steve Jobs' health have been flying high again after Apple announced that he will not be holding the keynote at the Macworld 2009. Today Steve Jobs issued a letter with a rather personal update on why he was losing weight in 2008. The reason for losing weight in 2008 is a hormone imbalance that has been reducing proteins. The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward according to Jobs. Steve and his doctors predict that he will have normal weight again by Spring. So stop the rumors and enjoy Macworld 2009."

Overzealous AirTran Boots 9 Passengers Off 1002

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fear-mongering-works dept.
An anonymous readerwrites "On Friday the wonderfully customer centric AirTran decided to remove a family of 9 US born Muslims after a comment between two family members regarding how close to the Jet engine they had been seated. The wonderful part is that after the FBI cleared the family 2 hours later, AirTran refused to fly the family, and refused to rebook them on their way from Washington to Orlando, Florida. The family purchased additional tickets on US Airways later that day, after AirTran requested that the irate father be escorted from their booking podiums by security. This whole story highlights the pathetic customer service we are getting from the Airlines these days — they actually treat us like criminals first and ask questions later. Just don't get me started on Delta." It's nice to see that stupidity still knows no bounds.

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