Comment Re:Mathematics (Score 1) 170
Lance?
Comment Re:Mathematics (Score 3, Interesting) 170
I was friends with Nets when we were undergrads. He was just Nets Katz, then. Hawk is a translation of his Hebrew name "Nets".
Comment Israel (Score 1) 483
Israeli drivers are nuts, and that's coming from a Montrealer.
This query has to be coming from Israel, probably Tel Aviv.
Mars Images Reveal Evidence of Ancient Lakes 128
Matt_dk writes "Spectacular satellite images suggest that Mars was warm enough to sustain lakes three billion years ago, a period that was previously thought to be too cold and arid to sustain water on the surface, according to research published today in the journal Geology. Earlier research had suggested that Mars had a warm and wet early history but that between 4 billion and 3.8 billion years ago, before the Hesperian Epoch, the planet lost most of its atmosphere and became cold and dry. In the new study, the researchers analysed detailed images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently circling the red planet, and concluded that there were later episodes where Mars experienced warm and wet periods."
Apple Orders 10 Million Tablets? 221
Arvisp writes "According to a blog post by former Google China president Kai-Fu Lee, Apple plans to produce nearly 10 million tablets in the still-unannounced product's first year. If Lee's blog post is to be believed, Apple plans to sell nearly twice as many tablets as it did iPhones in the product's first year."
Comment Netsurfer Digest (Score 1) 430
That was my baby, and we had been around for two years by 1996.
Our archive of back issues is available to all. Go cruise our 1996: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v02/index.html
One sample issue, NSD 2.20, leads with the launch of Quake and the new MSNBC, whose DNS entry was suspended for lack of payment.
The main archive is here: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/backiss.html
Comment Huh? (Score 4, Interesting) 200
I have no problem with the imterpretation that these are stone tools from 1.8 MYA (and you can tell by my pretentious use of the "MYA" abbreviation that I was once on the road to related Ph.D.).
But I don't understand this:
The stone hand-axes were discovered last year...embedded in a type of rock formed by meteorites....
How or why were these tools embedded in rock formed by meteorites? This rock was either formed before or after the tools. If formed before, they could only have been embedded manually, by H. erectus miners, I guess.
If the rock formed later, then these tools survived intact a meteorite strike, which seems unlikely. (Or was the rock formed by meteorite splash sediments?)
There is one other possibility, but it's so unlikely that I reject it: that the tools and rocks were thrown up in to the air and the whole mess coalesced and solidified.
I wish the article had more info, or I could find the original paper, although here is an AP article with a photo of the rocks.
Comment By... (Score 1) 534
...games of solitaire.
Comment Re:Mag 6 is *not* naked eye visible (Score 1) 97
According to a poster above, Mag 6 is about as visible as Uranus - so if you pull your head out of your ass, you should be able to see it.
Comment Six astronauts... (Score 1) 404
...one cup.
Slashdot's Disagree Mail
264
In this week's Disagree Mail, I try to show the range of messages I get. It's not all angry or insane, sometimes it's sent to us for no apparent reason. We start off a little mad, slip into a whole bunch of crazy and finish with someone who has a complaint about racism at his favorite restaurant. Read below to get started.
Submission + - Reisier reveals wife's body (101squadron.com)
Feed Science Daily: Is Ultrasound As Useful As We Think? (sciencedaily.com)
The usefulness of fetal 'nuchal thickness' as a technique for attempting to diagnose Down's syndrome in obstetric ultrasound is overstated and reliance on this surrogate marker may result in the 'loss' of normal babies, according to a recent article. The author raises the possibility that ultrasound is not as useful as has been suggested.
Submission + - AppleWorks/ClarisWorks quietly dies (macworld.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: AppleWorks' last breath was masked by last week's iMac, iLife and iWork announcements — Apple has discontinued the product.
Apple told resellers of the demise of AppleWorks last week, announcing that the software had reached "End of Life" status. It will no longer be sold. The AppleWorks website now directs users to the iWork section of Apple's website.
Submission + - Wikipedia Changes Examined (bbc.co.uk)
whthat writes: BBC reports on a tool matching Wikipedia history records to organizations. This tool, written by Virgil Griffith of the California Institute of Technology, automates the process of matching the IP address to its registered company. This of course raises questions how common the edits to Wiki come from a bias source. The article sites several culprits including the CIA, Democrats, the Vatican and even the BBC haven edited their own page.
