Standard deviation is what you learn very early in school. And this was a endocrinologist - a specialist who no doubt took a lot of Biostatistics courses and such, and used a lot of statistics all through his education. And you are telling me that it's not his "job" to know? Wow! We are talking the most basic stuff that anyone with a degree in the sciences should know. It's almost like saying that an English major can be excused if he doesn't know that 2+2=4 because "it's not his job to know".

My doctor was explaining to me that my blood sugar readings should not have a standard deviation of more than 1/3rd of the average blood sugar reading. Just to test if he knew what it meant, I asked him what a standard deviation was. Oh the fun when he tried to bullshit his way out of that one! He eventually told me that when I plot my data in Excel I can ask it to give me statistics on the column and it would mention what the standard deviation value was. But when I pressed on and asked him what a standard deviation is, he shooed me off and told me to go look it up. Never did he confess that he had no clue.

A simple adage - "If it's too good to be true, it probably is". People never seem to learn it. Always falling for scams. I'm not surprised.

Get a Google voice number and any smartphone or dumbphone that accepts SIM cards. Then, get a prepaid SIM from Canada and redirect your Google Voice number to that number. When you are in the US, get a US pre-paid SIM and redirect your Google Voice number to that number.

For your internet on the go, you would rely on wifi and your notebook/netbook.

The summary doesn't mention the location...it's in New Zealand. What about US companies developing this kind of stuff? Not happening here?

This damn thread is bringing back all my deep and buried nightmarish memories - I lost of huge amount of money buying things at cyberrebate.com . Do you guys remember that company? Pay an insane amount of money upfront and get it all back as rebate a few months later - it worked well for the first few things I bought and then, when I went all in for the big ticket items, the company went under.

After being burnt like that, I have become overly conservative in my investments and have gone to the other extreme - now I own 90% of my investments in treasury bonds. At least I know that there will be something there for me when I retire.

I hate being reminded of the dot com bubble. I had some good money in blue chip stocks and good mutual funds. I saw people making money like crazy all around me by investing in mutual funds that were heavily into tech stocks. So I took out a huge portion of my money and transferred it to the tech mutual funds and very soon after, the bubble burst. I had the misfortune of buying at the peak of the bubble and lost a very large amount of hard earned money. I don't know when I'll get over that.

That's what I'm interested in finding out but there is no mention anywhere about it - will the premium features (paid version) of Picnik be free from now on? Or will Google continue the practice of charging for premium features?

Personally, I hope they make it all free. I'm cheap, in case you had any doubt.

Gray rectangles in Picasa 3 and in Irfanview 4.25 :-(

I'm not a pro photosoftware user so I guess none of what's discussed here really affects me. But still, I'm curious about Irfanview and Picasa, the two programs that I use for my photo needs. Are these affected? How do I detect the effect?

Will there be an article about the Gimp when it turns 20, too?

1 GeV/c^2 = 1.783 x 10^-27 kg.

I didn't preview my previous comment and so it came out all wrong.

From Wikipedia, 1 GeV/c^2 = 1.783 × 1027 kg . I wish summary articles were written so that most people could understand the terms used.

Maybe I was not clear when I wrote it...I'm saying that there should have been an "activate Buzz" step. I know that there isn't.

You can opt out by choosing the "turn off Buzz" link at the bottom of your Gmail page.