Comment Re: spelling (Score 1) 183
Extended ASCII
alt+0231 ç
alt+0232 è
and so on.
Comment Re:Exaggerate much? (Score 1) 560
From the Edmonton sun December 15, 2009
Edmonton was the coldest place in North America yesterday morning and the second chilliest in the world. The Edmonton International Airport saw a record low of -46.1 C and -58.4 C with the windchill, outfreezing even the Arctic.
http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/edmonton/2009/12/13/12141366.html
Yes I was exaggerating slightly I should have said -30C.
Comment Re:5.5? Feh! (Score 5, Insightful) 560
Yeah, and if the temperature in southern California dropped to -40C and dumped 2 feet of snow, California would be shut down for a week and the national guard would be called in.
Where as in Edmonton, Alberta that's a regular Tuesday (in January).
It's all a matter of perspective.
If your on a ocean going vessel and your hit by a 30m rouge wave that's a minor incident.
If on the other hand your riding your bike through the park and get hit by a 30m rouge wave You may drown and the event is going to make headlines the world over.
Alberta Scientists Discover Largest-Ever Cache of Dinosaur Bones 154
Cryolithic writes "The largest cache of dinosaur bones ever found has been unearthed in Alberta. From the article: '... officials at the Royal Tyrrell Museum say the Hilda site provides the first solid evidence that some horned dinosaur herds were much larger than previously thought, with numbers comfortably in the high hundreds to low thousands. ... Rather than picturing the animals as drowning while crossing a river, a classic scenario that has been used to explain bonebed occurrences at many sites in Alberta, the research team interpreted the vast coastal landscape as being submerged during tropical storms or hurricanes. With no high ground to escape to, most of the members of the herd drowned in the rising coastal waters. Carcasses were deposited in clumps across kilometers of ancient landscape as floodwaters receded.'"
Comment Re:Apple. (Score 1) 539
We have tried all sorts of systems like Anarchy, Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Dictatorship, Fascism, Feudalism, Monarchy, Theocracy, and Tyranny
Why not try something else like a Demarchy.
At the least it would make it harder for people to bitch about decisions made because it just might be them making the next big decision.
Comment Re:Missing option (Score 1) 594
In Canada the debit card is king. Every store from Walmart to the smallest convience store takes interact and has since 1993.
The only time I used to use cash was for pizza delivery but now with the wireless machines I don't even need that. Pennies are no longer needed as far as I am concerned in fact any cash is the exception as opposed to the rule.
Exception is vending machines why can't I use debit card at vending machines?
Submission + - DRM strikes again (yahoo.com)
dmonney writes: Looks like the new Avatar DVD out on blue ray won't play unless the player has an updated security firmware. So if you have a blue ray player that isn't connected to the internet, it won't play your new movie. Yet again, the move makers install DRM into what they sell and all it accomplishes is pissing off regular consumers. In other news pirated copies of the movie were available since january.
Submission + - Adobe responds to Apple's flash snub (cnn.com)
colin_faber writes: Adobe has finally issued a response to Apple's snub of flash on their mobile platforms. Kevin Lynch (Adobe CTO) writes on his blog Thursday evening:
"... Given the legal terms Apple has imposed on developers, we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple devices for both Flash Player and AIR. We are working to bring Flash Player and AIR to all the other major participants in the mobile ecosystem, including Google, RIM, Palm (soon to be HP), Microsoft, Nokia and others,". To the submitter this sounds like Apple users will be left out in the cold and yet another reason to avoid Apple mobile devices all together.
"... Given the legal terms Apple has imposed on developers, we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple devices for both Flash Player and AIR. We are working to bring Flash Player and AIR to all the other major participants in the mobile ecosystem, including Google, RIM, Palm (soon to be HP), Microsoft, Nokia and others,". To the submitter this sounds like Apple users will be left out in the cold and yet another reason to avoid Apple mobile devices all together.
Comment Re:Let's check the timeline (Score 2, Interesting) 296
This Businessweek reference seems a little hokey to me...
Bill and Melinda Gates
(2003-07 GIVEN OR PLEDGED (MILLIONS)) - 3,519
(ESTIMATED LIFETIME GIVING* (MILLIONS)) - 28,144
Net Worth 59 Billion
Percentage 48%
What is the "Estimated Lifetime giving" ? All the other Philanthropists have a much smaller difference between estimated and given. The article says that the estimated is "*Based on public records and interviews with donors"
So what I get from this is that there is a record of 3.5 billion given but when asked in a interview Bill said he has given away 28 billion. Yeah, sure Billy, and I gave 2 trillion to orphans last year.
Also is that money from them personally or money they have raised thru the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation?
I hate to be petty but it bugs me when a rich guy gets a bunch of kudos for giving away money that he could not possibly spend in his lifetime yet poor slobs who proportionally give a lot more aren't even recognized.
Submission + - Apple RAISES eBook Prices for Everyone
Nom du Keyboard writes: I was informed by my publisher this week that they would have to raise my eBook prices because they planned to sell them through the Apple iBooks store. How could this happen? A lot of my individual stories sell in the $1 to $3 range, which is well within the impulse purchase amount for many people. In this price range a 50 cent price difference may well be the difference between a purchase and a pass. Meanwhile Apple is touting their new "Agency Model" whereby the publishers set the prices. However, it seems that Apple requires books sold in their iBook store have prices ending in .99 – nothing else. Furthermore, Apple requires that if you sell books through them that you absolutely cannot sell them for less through anyone else. To my understanding Amazon also requires this, so Apple and Amazon prices should be identical in the future, but Amazon doesn't force prices to end in .99. What this means is that an eBook that the author was quite happy to sell for $2.29 or $2.49 is now going to cost you $2.99 from everybody. While that sounds like only a few extra cents, it adds up over time and can lead to resentment against author for charging higher prices, even though they have little real control over pricing. I, for one, do not understand why Apple computers only understand numbers ending in .99, or just how Apple is making it better for the consumer this way.
Submission + - Micro$oft Tag - Embrace, extend and extinguish (eweek.com)
JO_DIE_THE_STAR_F*** writes: "Microsoft has been innovating again. From Microsoft's website — "Microsoft Tag is a breakthrough technology that transforms everyday things in the real world into live links to online information and entertainment." So whats wrong with QR Code? "QR Code is free of any license. The QR Code is clearly defined and published as ISO standard. Denso Wave owns the patent rights on QR Code, but has chosen not to exercise them."
Submission + - License an Abandonware Game? (slashdot.org) 3
WolverineOfLove writes: I'm recreating a 1980s abandonware game with copyrights that have been seemingly unused for the past 18 years.
The situation is detailed in a Slashdot Journal entry I just wrote, but in short: Is it worth dealing with all the copyrights and paying money if I want to recreate an abandonware title as an open source game?
I know there are legal implications to certain decisions I might make, but there is a real possibility that this game's copyright holder will do nothing with the rights, and I'd much prefer preserving it for others than letting it fade away.
Submission + - The attacks the security industry can't stop (idg.com.au) 2
angry tapir writes: "Both Mariposa and the Google attacks illustrate the same thing: Despite billions of dollars in security spending, it's still surprisingly hard to keep corporate networks safe. That's because for these advanced attacks to work, the bad guys need to find only one vulnerability in order to sneak their malicious software onto the target network. Once they get a foothold, they can break into other computers, steal data, and then move it offshore. Because of this, traditional security products are simply not much help."
Submission + - IBM's speed of light chip to chip communications (gizmag.com)
ElectricSteve writes: Researchers at IBM have made important progress toward creating silicon circuits that communicate using pulses of light rather than electrical signals. This is thanks to a device called nanophotonic avalanche photodetector (NAP), which is the fastest of its kind and is a major step toward achieving energy-efficient computing that will have significant implications for the future of electronics.
Submission + - Does HTML5 Really Beat Flash (engadget.com)
gollum123 writes: Think we'd all be better off if HTML5 could somehow instantly replace Flash overnight? Not necessarily, according to a set of comparisons from Jan Ozer of the Streaming Learning Center website, which found that while HTML5 did come out ahead in many respects, it wasn't exactly a clear winner. they did find that HTML5 clearly performed better than Flash 10 or 10.1 in Safari on a Mac, although the differences were less clear cut in Google Chrome or Firefox. On the other hand, Flash more than held its own on Windows, and Flash Player 10.1 was actually 58% more efficient than HTML5 in Google Chrome on the Windows system tested. As you may have deduced, one of the big factors accounting for that discrepancy is that Flash is able to take advantage of GPU hardware acceleration in Windows, while Adobe is effectively cut out of the loop on Mac According to Ozer, the differences between HTML5 and Flash playback on a Mac could be virtually eliminated if Flash could make use of GPU acceleration. Hit up the link below for all the numbers.Mike Chambers has performed some additional tests that he says shows that "does not perform consistently worse on Mac than on Windows. ( http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/03/01/relative-performance-of-rich-media-content-across-browsers-and-operating-systems/ )
