Comment Re:If they can do this for Influenza... (Score 3, Interesting) 205
Because the common cold is actually over 100 different strains from at least 3 different virus families. After a cold, you develop protective immunity to that strain, but there are so many other strains circulating that its just a matter time before you get infected by a "new" (to you) strain.
There is development on vaccines which will carry the conserved regions in the cold viruses, but it's a MUCH bigger task.
Comment From behind the paywall (Score 1) 205
Comment Derailing the data-driven (Score 1) 64
Lets just be careful we are not overly reliant on pure data in the first place.
Or you become susceptible to these (http://pastebin.com/p2HfGx1L) techniques.
P.S. Sorry for the pastebin link, but it looks like Venkat took down his online email archives...
Comment This explains a lot (Score 1) 156
Like why I can't seem to be able to tan at all...
Comment There is always this option... (Score 1) 421
Comment It is about time (Score 1) 1
The autisitic have always been known to be briliant in there own fields.
It makes sense that someone would do this.
I for one welcome our Autistic Overlords
Comment Well (Score 1) 2
It is about time.
Comment Well in South Africa... (Score 1) 334
We have basically have 2 television broadcasters: The national broadcaster SABC (which is free) and a private satalite based system DSTV (+- 80$).
More and more local content is being made and is being broadcast mainly by SABC. It is mostly rubbish. DSTV, however licenses a bunch of American and British channels and content.
Due to the terrible state of broadband here (I wish I could get 50 GB a month. It is more like 3 GB on average.), watching TV is the only sustainable method of content delivery (that and leaching at lan parties).
Comment Processing.org (Score 1) 180
It is a language (based on Java) made for this sort of thing. Made together with one of the guys who wrote "Visualizing Data" (Ben Fry). It is fun to play with too.