I haven't found a single post that doesn't miss the point.

Being able to buy/sell futures of commodities such as oil ties the bit coin to the real world in a way we haven't seen before. A potential user of bitcoins may be put off by the volatile nature of the value of the bitcoin itself, but if he can pin it down to the value of oil or gold by trading those futures, it makes holding bitcoins a much more sensible, or at least much less financially treacherous prospect.

Imagine... I could sell 1000 USD and buy 100 bitcoins (no idea how this compares to the real exchange rate, bear with me...)
I could then, with my 100 bitcoins, buy gold futures. Even if the value of a bitcoin plummetted meanwhile, I'd be making all that money back as the price of gold (expressed in bitcoins) skyrocketed. I'd be essentially immune to the fickle price of a bitcoin and merely invested in gold. I could further stabilise my finances by SELLING gold futures in USD. If I did this right away, for a small cost, I would essentially have pegged the value of my bitcoins at 1 per every 10 USD.

The creators of bitcoin have been very smart to introduce this market. It enables the use of bitcoins without the fear of volatile price moves. Surely the biggest barrier to entry for most potential users.

downloading 'cookie maker' or whatever game the 6yo is asking for also requires the password, and once daddy's entered it, it's valid for 15 minutes of all-you-can-eat smurfberries

Not necessarily. There is surprising variation from person to person, and even the same person depending on the time of day.

Here in Japan, adult average seems to be around 36.4.. people are 'told' that 36.5 is normal, pretty much everyone agrees that 37 or above is fever territory. I, with a temperature of 36.8-37C am regularly told I have a light fever by doctors. I always have to tell them "No, that's normal for us whiteys.". My previous GF was regularly in the high 35s.

I heard Charlie Sheen was doing coke in the back room whereas Linus, the party boy, had brought his own stash of Jolt.

Yes, they do give those out anymore.

Quoted from: http://www.vaccineinformation.org/polio/qandavax.asp

Who should get this vaccine?
All infants should get this vaccine unless they have a medical reason not to.

>The vaccine is certain to be more dangerous than the disease

Really? I wonder why they still use it then?

How safe is this vaccine?
The IPV vaccine is very safe; no serious adverse reactions to IPV have been documented.

Completely agree. I'd mod you up if I had points.

Who in the world would dual boot a machine just to use a web-browsing-specific OS?

I can tell from the book title it's something to do with websites, but it hardly helps to "spread the word" when you don't even mention in TFS what Drupal is or does?

A strongly worded opinion. Well written, with references and links. It's not even a controversial topic, From what I see this is rather a majority opinion on slashdot.

Who the hell modded this flamebait?

I don't think it matters just who wrote it,
As for the 'why'.. for the same reason L Ron Hubbard wrote about the thetans. The same reason Joseph Smith wrote his own little book.

Here in Japan the majority of phones on sale have had the ability to 'video call' over 3G using a front camera for several years. My wife's crappy old sharp which is ready to be thrown in the bin included.

My current iPhone was a step back in that regard, and it'll be pretty amusing once Softbank starts selling the iPhone alongside phones which can video-call over 3G and has to tell customers that the iPhone is 'wifi only' for some goddamned reason.

Cos, y'know... what's the point in buying one if you've already got one?

"Light of other days", is all I can find. I think that's Clarke, though.

Anyway I remember it, I liked that story. A bit sad at the end, though, when the guy flips his glass over so he can look into his own house and see his late wife as she was 10 years ago.

For 99% of people the universe of what apple lets you install is easily enough. With the added benefit of every app having been screened for malware.

It's easy to find an app that does what you want, in one place, relatively cheaply, and relatively well on the iPhone platform (I'm extending that to the iPad.. I don't own one of those yet). On the Windows platform you have to fish around for a whole bunch of apps just to get to the pre-installed functionality. And that is a bit of a slog, the road paved with malware and complete crap you have to search through from a multitude of different sources. Much of which is old versions that don't work on whatever version you happen to have.

On the Apple platform, if you really want to hack, they always make it relatively easy to jailbreak. I doubt this is an accident.

FTFS: If a machine could write a Mozart sonata every bit as good as the originals, then what was so special about Mozart?

The fact that you are not asking

"If Mozart could write an Emily Howell (the machine) sonata every bit as good as the originals, then what is so special about Emily Howell?"

answers your question.

Good artists borrow. Great artists steal. and by 'steal' I mean add creativity on top to the point where you are the one people want to emulate. That this machine can emulate prolific composers is great, but not a massive surprise to me. I'd be a lot more surprised if it could write something like -- but more importantly *as original as* -- Mozart's Requiem, or the score for Star Wars.