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Comment: The Software! (Score 2) 591

by MarkusQ (#43357703) Attached to: If I could change what's "typical" about typical laptops ...
Current hardware is amazing, but we've become so inured to bad software (chose any definition of "bad" you like, slow, bloated, buggy, insecure, incompatible, leaky...except perhaps "ugly" which we're doing Ok on) that so far no one else has even mentioned it. Until we start addressing that, better hardware will just lower the bar on the next round of software.

Comment: Etymology of online/offline (Score 1) 457

by MarkusQ (#42567973) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Practices Impede Developers' Productivity?

"Online" and "offline" in the meeting sense considerably predate the internet sense. Originally it referred to equipment that was in the main production flow or pulled to the side for repairs, dating back to perhaps WWII and possibly further. The meeting sense was in use by the 1970s at least, and didn't seem new or strange then.

-- MarkusQ

Comment: Re:/. worthy? tech section? (Score 2) 992

by MarkusQ (#41261851) Attached to: Texas Opens Fastest US Highway With 85 MPH Limit

what's "tech" about raising the speed limit? why is this on /. anyway?

I think it's because of the effect it could have on all the car analogies. Raising the speed limit might subtly alter the impact of such arguments, strengthen some or totally invalidate others.

If you think of the car analogies we routinely use to explain technical subjects to a non-technical audience as cars, our shared cultural assumptions about cars (how many wheels & doors they have, how fast you are allowed to drive them, etc.) are like the fuel those cars run on. Changing the rules is like changing the fuel. Some will run better, other worse or not at all.

--MarkusQ

The Media

+ - Are climate skeptics "too rational"?-> 1

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes "An opinion piece in Nature by Dan Kahan, a professor of psychology at Yale Law School, suggests that the 'problem' with many people that reject the conclusions of climate science is not that they are 'irrational', as recent media reports suggest-but, if anything, that they are too rational.
As Kahan says in the piece: "If anything, social science suggests that citizens are culturally polarized because they are, in fact, too rational — at filtering out information that would drive a wedge between themselves and their peers.
For members of the public, being right or wrong about climate- change science will have no impact. Nothing they do as individual consumers or as individual voters will meaningfully affect the risks posed by climate change. Yet the impact of taking a position that conflicts with their cultural group could be disastrous.
Take a barber in a rural town in South Carolina. Is it a good idea for him to implore his customers to sign a petition urging Congress to take action on climate change? No. If he does, he will find himself out of a job, just as his former congressman, Bob Inglis, did when he himself proposed such action."
He suggests part of the solution would be for the media to avoid "catchy simplifications" in their reporting of psychological studies."
Link to Original Source
Medicine

+ - Scientists Explain How the Brain Cleans Itself-> 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Every organ in the body has to expel waste somehow. Despite the brain's importance in the body, scientists were previously unclear as to how the brain flushed out its toxins, because it did not have a lymphatic system like other organs, which filters out waste. The previous theory stated the cerebrospinal fluid, in which the brain is encased, expelled junk, as waste floated through tissues and made its way onto the surface – but that seemed wildly inconvenient for the amount of waste that the brain must produce. Now, researchers have discovered a second, faster cleaning system on top of the cerebrospinal fluid, and it may shed some light on what happens during disorders that affect the brain."
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Mars

+ - Curiosity survives brain transplant, prepares for first drive->

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes "If you thought your OTA update took too long, how about four days? That's how long the Curiosity "brain transplant" took, and is now finally complete. This now means that the main computers have switched over from landing mode, to surface mode — and thus we hope — meaning the rover's good to go. That said, it's still a painfully slow process, with Curiosity's wheels likely remaining steadfastly motionless for at least another week — and even then we're looking at a trip of just a few meters. When it comes to interplanetary travel, though, slow and steady definitely wins the race — in the meantime, you can soak up the view."
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+ - Ask Slashdot: How to ensure data would survive a Carrington event 2

Submitted by kactusotp
kactusotp writes "I run a small indie game company and since source code is kind of our life blood, I'm pretty paranoid about backups. Every system has a local copy, servers run from a raid 5 nas, we have complete offsite backups, backup to keyrings/mobile phones, and cloud backups in other countries as well. With all the talk about solar flares and other such near extinction events lately, I've been wondering though, is it actually possible to store or protect data in such a way, that if such an event occurred, data survives and is recoverable in a useful form? Optical and magnetic media would probably be rendered useless by a large enough solar flare and storing source code/graphics in paper format would be impractical to recover, so Slashdot, short of building a Faraday cage 100 km below the surface of the moon, how could you protect data to survive a modern day Carrington event? http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/03/06/3446150.htm"
Book Reviews

+ - Survey of Human Centered Informatics->

Submitted by kodiaktau
kodiaktau writes "My exposure to HCI or Human Computer Interaction (now Human Centered Informatics) has been largely aged and limited to some brief early interaction with the Association of Computing Machinery. Since then I have been loosely following trends in usability but haven't really focused on the actual science behind the work we do on a day-to-day basis in creating user interfaces and using web applications. When I picked up this book I assumed it would be some unifying theory of HCI that would catch me up with where the science is today, but found it to be quite different.

In 113 pages, including the author biography, Yvonne Rogers winds a curious path through not only the theories behind HCI, but also a significant portion of time is spent giving some background in the history of the study. I was pleased to find that science is evolving and has spent a significant amount of time working with other social science disciplines as well as technical interaction. It was also interesting to see that like other social based disciplines there are many forks from the origin. I liked this book's style of simple presentation around theories. Most authors would trip over themselves trying to find long and complicated ways of explaining theory and purpose. This author is straight to the point and has practical examples for the different phases of the HCI theory evolution. In particular I really liked the way she included "...in a Nutshell" summaries of each theory. In a very small area she re-stated theory in an easy to digest manner. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a "For Dummies" kind of book, but the presentation is simple, elegant and well, usable.

The limited number of pages in the title may dissuade readers from purchasing, however this is not a case of more-is-better. I spent a lot of time reading this book in small chunks so I could completely understand each theory and how it evolved from previous models both inside the science and from other disciplines. While this book isn't for everyone I would certainly recommend this to someone moving into HCI studies, or for those who have interest in user interaction and classical theory. My biggest disappointment with this title was the quality of some diagrams supporting the theories. There is a lot of pixelation in some of the art and the fonts used in them can be a little hard to read. Really the publisher should have fixed those issues before going to print. As a survey of the body of knowledge I think this is really good. It is a little on pricey side at $35 for the amount of material, but the quality and uniqueness seems to be about right for the price."
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+ - Brutal July heat a new U.S. record-> 1

Submitted by gollum123
gollum123 writes "The July heat wave that wilted crops, shriveled rivers and fueled wildfires officially went into the books Wednesday as the hottest single month on record for the continental United States. The average temperature across the Lower 48 was 77.6 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.3 degrees above the 20th-century average, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration reported. That edged out the previous high mark, set in 1936, by two-tenths of a degree, NOAA said. n addition, the seven months of 2012 to date are the warmest of any year on record and were drier than average as well, NOAA said. U.S. forecasters started keeping records in 1895. And the past 12 months have been the warmest of any such period on record, topping a mark set between July 2011 and this past June. Every U.S. state except Washington experienced warmer-than-average temperatures, NOAA reported."
Link to Original Source

+ - About the $25 Billion Settlement for Foreclosure Wrongs ->

Submitted by
FayPax
FayPax writes "In April, the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers finalized the agreement of a landmark $25 billion settlement with a coalition of state attorneys general and federal agencies? The settlement was supposed to address past mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure abuses and fraud, provide substantial financial relief to borrowers harmed by bank fraud, and established new homeowner protections for the future."
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Robotics

+ - Solar-Powered 3D Printer Robot Creates Buildings From Sand-> 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Stone Spray is a solar-powered robotic 3D printer that can create entire buildings out of sand. The robotic device blends soil sourced on-site with a binder and then sprays the mixture onto a surface. The soil solidifies as the machine works, allow it to create furniture, load-bearing walls and support-free sculptural shapes. The device runs on solar power, and unlike other 3D printers it has the ability to print in multiple directions on both the vertical and horizontal plane."
Link to Original Source

+ - Ask Slashdot: How do I join the math geeks?

Submitted by phrackwulf
phrackwulf writes "In college I majored in materials science and now support myself as a contract engineer providing various technical services to a wide variety of companies. As I've gotten older, I've found myself more and more attracted to big data analytics and combinatoric and applied math because of the idea of using math to solve real world problems and a lifelong passion for mathematical logic. My question is this, what does someone in their mid thirties do to get admitted to a graduate program in applied mathematics? What undergraduate work should I consider doing first and what types of things would make me more marketable to a school with a highly competitive program?"
NASA

+ - Curiosity on LEGO CUUSOO climbing the ranks!->

Submitted by
nemaki
nemaki writes "A JPL engineer who worked on the actual Curiosity rover has submitted a model of the rover to the LEGO CUUSOO website where users can vote on submissions for LEGO to make into official sets. The model is very detailed and even has a functional rocker-bogie suspension. The maker includes a 46 page PDF of step-by-step instructions, itemized list of the required pieces, a Lego Digital Designer file as well as plenty of pictures and a video of the rover in action."
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Comment: "Own" the music? (Score 1) 390

by MarkusQ (#40370753) Attached to: Young Listeners Opt For Streaming Over Owning

Doesn't it get absurdly expensive to "own" the music?

Oh wait, you meant own a copy of the music. Or is it own a license (non-transferable) to a single physical copy...well, there's fair use of course.

I am so glad no one has gotten to the point of trying to build business models around breathing.

-- MarkusQ

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