When Android hit the market, Blackberry was just introducing the Blackberry Storm, and it was kind of a big deal. The refinement of Android and the phones it ran on was absurd. I think the biggest thing that's changed is that you now have much smoother interactions with phones and computers. I think it may be in Blackberry's interest to try to work with big media providers (Amazon, perhaps) to try to match the ecosystems Google and Apple have formed.

I've read the abstract and several stories that cite it, and I haven't seen some specific numbers that would make this story more relevant. They talk about the number of retractions being up sharply, and the number of those pulled for "misconduct" being up as well. The abstract and other sources have yet to put either number in relative terms. Of the number of papers published, is the percentage of those papers that are retracted up? Of those retracted, is the percentage of retractions due to misconduct up?

I got a bait and switch. Love Potion #9 turned out to be a mis-type. Now all these stupid pigeons won't leave me alone.

No, my point is that if you're spreading the local gossip and a rival newspaper is printing the same thing, you're going to want to be paid for that, mostly to dissuade the rival from using your stories. I'm saying that the story presented non-rival newspapers repeating stories that the rulers of the country are committing these atrocities, and I could understand where, in cases like that, you might not hunt down every newspaper that's reprinting your article.

There's a lot to be said here about the ends you're trying to achieve. Getting the news of the Boston Massacre out was more important than who makes the money selling the paper. There's also the consideration that republication happened in markets that weren't competing with the original source newspaper. In a time when horse and buggy was the primary mode of transportation, newspapers in other cities reprinting the stories was just how the story was distributed. There was no way to reach everyone, and telling how atrocious the British were being was everyone's goal.

http://books.slashdot.org/story/12/05/16/1950216/book-review-the-logic-of-chance

To be fair, 3 weeks is a long time.

This isn't surprising, given that 5 out of 4 people have difficulty with fractions.

I have a similar problem. When Fallout New Vegas came out, I played about 3-4 hours a day for 4 or so weeks, then stopped playing. Each expansion got about 10-12 hours spread out over 2-3 days. When Skyrim came out, I played for 3-4 a day for about 4 weeks. Then I went a couple of months without playing anything. Then the Diablo 3 open beta weekend happened. 2 hours a day for three days. Now, I'm back to just reading.

From the summary:

I agree with you and add this point: Since when are reunions about moving on with your life? At best you're reuniting with the people who knew you before you became who you are, at worst you're trying to use other people to feel better about where you are in life.

I suppose it is true that you can do both on facebook now. You can even get drunk and hit on that girl who turned you down that now has three kids, you just don't have to wait for some arbitrary multiple of five years to do it.

Well, if it's anything like politics, you can pretty much say whatever you want if you follow it up with "Not Intended to be a factual statement".

I've never heard of this before. Interesting stuff. In the idea you've come up with, we'd be preserving consciousness in the Matrix powered by a perpetual motion machine. It takes away the human body from the equation, which solves a great many problems (and I'm expecting humanity to change anyway. If we haven't evolved any further on these timescales by choice or by chance, that would be very strange). Now I'm imagining humanity becoming flying brains and creating the Infosphere.

Look, I know it's a bit far out, but haven't we pretty much concluded even if the Big Rip doesn't happen and that protons don't decay, entropy will eventually cause the heat death of the universe? I mean, I realize that it's around 10^14 years out and won't really be a concern if we can't escape the earth in the next 1.4 billion years or so. Don't get me wrong, I think humanity is perfectly capable of saving itself from asteroid bombardments and the death of stars. But, my (admittedly limited) understanding of what's going to happen to the universe keeps me from really getting excite about projects like this.

On the other hand, the goal here is to make sure we live long enough to face these problems. And that's pretty important.

I'd visit more often if they would give people an apple upon request. Of course, they'd probably be McIntosh. In that case, I probably wouldn't stop by. Too soft for me. However, if they gave away Cameos...

Nah. Still not close enough (30 mile drive to the closest Apple store, which is much further than the 5 mile drive to the closest grocery store.)

Why Does the Sun Shine?