I believe you mean until they perfect the neural interface. If the story is true, the neural interface seemed a lot closer to reality than practical quantum computing until about 3 mins ago.

If you design the experience properly you don't have to choose between an artistic and scientifically accurate rendering of the Hubble material. You can first show the artistic version and then add a scientific overlay with a basic set of data (what you're looking at, distance from earth, chemical makeup, etc). You can then transition into the wonky scientific version for a final pan across the subject matter so that you're representing the needs of multiple viewers. A decent 3D Info-graphics template can look really cool and add some production value without breaking your budget as well.

If I someone at Hubble was actually interested I'd be willing to donate some time in making a storyboard that illustrates the concept.

I had to fly through Narita once on my way to Beijing during the bird flu scare and I saw things at the airport there that I will never forget. Mainly the hordes of doctors, nurses, and security people who all boarded the plane upon landing (probably 20 people total) and put infrared cameras right in everyone's faces (like really strangely and aggressively). People who were deemed "a risk" had these funny yellow stickers attached to them by the doctors (weird!) and were herded off the plane. We were all then given "health history" forms to fill out that were in some of the most ridiculous Engrish I have ever seen - I could only barely understand about a third of the questions. The half American/half Japanese guy sitting next to me said that he considered the event and specifically the form a true embarrassment for his country and we then proceeded to repeat the medical inspection routine two more times are different points along the way to pick up our bags. You also should have seen the smoking lounge there...it's incredible and also permanently staffed with a clean-up crew in hazmat gear with masks and vacuums that attach to their backs to clean up the butts and ashes.

My point is that crazy shit happens in Japanese airports and it's best to just accept it...it comes with the territory. Jobs should have been prepared for this being the frequent jet-setter that he is. I've only been to a Japanese airport once and wasn't surprised at all by the story.

None of you have any proof of this. I don't mean to single you out here but come on. If your working knowledge of business strategies assumes that a behemoth of a company like MS has "one" strategy you need to check your working knowledge. A company like MS has multiple strategies for every business group and every market they service. If MS has shown us anything over the years it's that they are very non-committal when it comes to direct-to-consumer business strategies at the very least. It's actually one of their biggest weaknesses in the market (trying to be all things to all people) so to paint this picture of a grand MS scheme gives them too much credit. It's just not that simple.

I for one will wait for proof or a memo or something about this before I go diving in to impugn their motives.

You'll notice from your troll rating that any deviation from the standard talking point that everything MS does is an attack on open source cannot be tolerated. Maybe it is an attack and maybe it isn't but no discussion on the topic that does not assume it is cannot be viewed or discussed by others on this board. Thanks for playing and hope you do a better job of reinforcing group-think in the future.

This thread is pretty much old and dead but I thought I would just post this Onion article. It about sums it up.

Bingo! If I had a mod point I'd give it to you. The comparison is not even close to "Apples to Apples". It's like saying that people spend more time on the toilet than they do watching TV. Correction...The analogy would be that for the first time people now spend more time watching TV than they do on the toilet...which was probably hit the first year TVs came out.

Agreed. Facebook is practically it's own (crappy) operating system. It's not easy to pigeon-hole it's user personas as so many people use it for very different reason and functions. If I were to estimate off-hand (I do this for a living so know how stupid that is) the number of unique facebook user personas would be around 20 or 30.

Twitter is essentially the condensation of everything purely narcissist about Facebook and attracts that crowd in spades. Even people I respect in normal media conditions sound like such idiots on Twitter. I refudiate them.

If iPads do to the classroom what they've done for my office conference calls those kids are doomed.

I second the motion. Cook's Illustrated and by extension America's Test Kitchen are top quality technique and recipe resources. I also recommend The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion as a great resource for anyone who wants to know everything about baking. King Aurthur Flour really make incredible products and know how to use them. Their flour is worth the money and once you stop using Gold Medal and the other cheap gross kinds you'll notice a BIG difference in the quality of your food.

Agreed. Good Eats is by far the most informative cooking show on television because of a simple frame-change. Good Eats is a technique show, not a recipe show which is far more valuable if you're serious about being a good cook. All the Barefoot Contessa or even Jacques Pepin (who's my personal favorite when it comes to recipes) won't teach you to truly understand the art of cooking...just the art of repeating other people's cooking.

My only problem with Good Eats is that Alton blatantly hacked the format from Bill Nye The Science Guy but the show isn't nearly as entertaining...although if you're going to "borrow" do it from the best.

Same as I said above in another comment...Only those that live here understand the hell it becomes after an extended stay. If there were any other adult New Yorkers who read Slashdot I wouldn't have to be the only person defending it.

How incredibly uninspired. Impoverished New Yorkers shop at Whole Foods. I've seen plenty of people paying for Whole Foods groceries with EBT so you're just repeating the stereotype of only rich people shopping there. Don't confuse "You have to be rich to shop there" with the actual demographics. If you think impoverished Americans aren't the life blood that keeps McDonalds in business you clearly aren't paying attention.

I believe the point I was trying to make is that even rich kids who's parents are paying for them still live in a roach (and more than ever bedbug)-infested slanted-floor box that smells like garbage and is seated next to projects. That's not a normal rich-kid living situation. That's a NYC rich-kid living situation.

Getting out of the city regularly is an integral part of what is considered "comfortable living" here. That's part of why the "Heaven and Hell" quote was so poignant. Feel free to verify with this information with any New Yorker who lives comfortably or aspires to do so.

If you were given a tour of some of the $1000-$1500 a month apartments in the Lower East Side and didn't know their cost, you'd certainly describe them as "impoverished" living conditions. The next level of rent in NYC ($1500-$2200) doesn't generally get you space past 800 square feet in the city (New Yorkers call Manhattan "The City," not the boroughs, FYI). There is also a fee system in NYC for renting any apartment via a realtor - which is one of the only ways of getting a good place. The fee is usually a full-months rent that you pay to the realtor and never get back. So...if you're going to rent an $1000-a-month apartment here that you found via a realtor you pay the first months rent ($1000) last months rent ($1000) the fee ($1000) and a security deposit ($1000) making you're bill before moving expenses $4000. With all combined moving expenses you can easily pay $8000 to move a half-mile to a place that's the same price as the one you're living in now. All of this doesn't even factor in all the shenanigans you'll encounter while trying to beat 20 other people on signing the lease.

My wife and I live in NYC and we've estimated that for a husband and wife to live comfortably here (including going out to dinner once a week, belonging to a gym, being able to leave the city every other weekend, etc) you have to make around a combined income of $300k.

People in NYC tend to be so used to sacrificing basics to live here that they've forgotten what poverty means to the rest of the country (this includes people who make 75K here.) NYC's super-wealthy on the other-hand are these maladjusted weirdos who have nothing to do besides be paranoid about who's trying to take their money and contribute little or nothing to society. Most students here could also easily be deemed as impoverished. I've known some who go on sugar packet raids at bodegas and Starbucks as a way to save money.

I just heard a quote the other day (can't remember where) about NYC. "It's heaven and hell." That about sums it up.