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Comment Re:LIVE History in Wikipedia (Score 1) 391

We of course it exists in that form, but it is rarely used by people not editing the page. The reporters that picked up that quote didn't use it!

I've been thinking about creating a Firefox plugin that will do this, using the diff pages under history to do this. Remix the page live, as well as the slider style that Slashdot uses.

Look for it in a month or two.

Comment LIVE History in Wikipedia (Score 4, Interesting) 391

This is something I've wanted since Wikipedia became big. I'd like to have a slider bar that allows me to highlight (say, in red) everything that's been changed within the last 7 days. And everything (say, in yellow) everything that's been changed within the last month.

That way, when I'm looking at an article on Albert Einstein I'll know when there is something strangely recent put in there. Also, when I'm looking at the swine flu article, I'll be able to set the slider bars for 12 hours/3 days and see what's new.

Yes, yes, it'll be a few more database hits, but think if everything you could do with this. And not just as a viewer, but as an editor.

Now, someone with way more time on their hands than me, please Make It So.

Comment Re:Government should not be a competitor to indust (Score 2, Insightful) 621

Yeah! And we should make sure they get out of the Water business, since both Coke _AND_ Pepsi have bottled water now, right?! I mean, I can't wait until I can use the new Coke Shower or the Pepsi toilet!

And man, how cool would it be if I could drive on GM Roads! I'm sure they'd be making a profit if they had their own roads. If only it wasn't for that nasty government making all of their roads public. I mean, look at what the auto industry did for the wonderful Public Transit system was have in the U.S. now! Wow! I mean, who wouldn't want to wait for the once and hour bus, pay over two dollars a trip, and have a 14 minute trip take almost an hour! /Sarcasm

We need an IP infrastructure to be in public hands, and we need it ten years ago.

Comment Re:Islamic groups are pushing censorship worldwide (Score 1) 842

Don't forget that Lot thru his virgin daughters to be raped to protect a few "angels" he just met that day, and Abraham told two different kings that his wife was just his sister and yeah, go right ahead and bed her.

So, of course these tax exempt multi-billion dollar memetic empires need protection in law from common sense.

PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Playstation 3 new firmware upscales DVD/PS2 games!

An anonymous reader writes: Sony's official release of the V1.80 firmware, the PS3 is now capable of upconverting standard-def DVDs, non-HD Blu-ray disc content and all PlayStation games (including those for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2) to 1080p. Will this change your mind after all the much publicized failings of the PS3 into the most versatile optical disc player of all time?
Space

Submission + - Astronomers find potentially habitable planet

Anonymous Coward writes: "For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe." The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a "red dwarf," is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun. "It's a significant step on the way to finding possible life in the universe," said University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor, one of 11 European scientists on the team that found the planet. "It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions.""

Feed Sex Lube Maker Finds Personal Info Quite Slippery (techdirt.com)

As personal data leaks go, this one's more potentially embarrassing than harmful, but the maker of the sexual lubricant Astroglide leaked the name and addresses of more than 250,000 people who asked for free samples over a four-year timespan. They've even got the gall to blame the issue on Google, since it was searches there that turned up the breach, and the search engine's cached copies haven't yet disappeared. Of course, this ignores the fact that the information was kept in a place where it was freely accessible, whether by Google's spiders, or by an individual. This leak really isn't particularly surprising given the regularity with which all kinds of personal info is leaked, lost or stolen these days. It just further illustrates that any information you provide to somebody can no longer be regarded as private. So little care is taken with personal information by so many companies these days, and these continual leaks bring only minor consequences. If companies can't even bother to keep something as innocuous as a name and address private, it's hard to have much faith they won't let other, more important information slide right on out too.
Microsoft

Submission + - MS Ajax library goes Open Source with Mono in mind

Stian Solberg writes: "Gaia Ajax Widgets is now officially released under the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.

Gaia Ajax Widgets is a pure "Hijax library" for ASP.NET 2.0 meaning you don't have to write JavaScript or any other form of client code yourself but use it 100% declarative through adding up WebControls in RAD and WYSIWYG onto your webforms from your toolbox in Visual Studio. To see this live, you can visit some of the tutorials or see one of the many samples (also showing source code).

Our next big step on the release plan is to officially support Mono. Gaia Ajax Widgets supports Internet Explorer and FireFox 100% and Opera roughly 95%."
Media

Submission + - BBC takes a look at LucasFilm's Hardware

whyloginwhysubscribe writes: "The BBC has an interesting article of Industrial Light and Magic's data centre, with a 10-gigabit backbone with a 11 trillion bits / second speed network.

ILM provide LucasFilm and LucasArt's visual effects.

What I like about the article (apart from them obviously keeping their comms room clean with a robotic Roomba vacuum cleaner complete with wireless webcam) is the way they use their PC's processing power at night. Does anyone else know any more technical information about their system architecture?"
Biotech

Submission + - When the Earth was purple

Ollabelle writes: It's always been a bit of a mystery why plants absorb red and blue light while reflecting green when the sun emits the most visible light in the green part of the spectrum. Now a theory has come up with one possible answer: that the first chlorophyll-utilizing microbes evolved to exploit the red-and-blue reflected light of older green-absorbing microbes, eventually out-competing them through greater efficiency and the rise of oxygen. http://www.livescience.com/environment/070410_purp le_earth.html [note to editor: I'm baffled how to tag this story to science, and nothing else. All the "topics" seem to be anything except 'off topic'. Thanks for any insight you can give.]

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