In Computer Science, I think this reflects the value of the degrees to the populations in question. US Citizens don't need a graduate degree to get a good job. Foreigners do. All those tech companies mentioned in the article hire BS candidates in droves, but are not able to get government approval to hire foreigners with the same paperwork, so the foreigners need an MS to get the same job. It is crap for rules and I'm not defending it, but I think that is all that lies behind this difference in the CS field.

Man, I'm glad I'm not the only one who wanted to post this correction.

I've spoken to Neil. He insists he said that "a." It's certainly obvious that he meant to.

--Jaborandy

• Step 1: New CPU comes out
• Step 2: "Looks like we've got to make a new driver for this new CPU version."
• Step 3: "Done. The Windows 10 driver is great and we can release it. Yay!"
• Step 4: "Do we have to make Win 7 version of this driver now?"
• Step 5: "We told them we wouldn't support all the new stuff. Most of the people running old OSes are also running it on older hardware, so this won't affect that many people. Let's not do the extra work."
• Step 5: Internet freaks out.

In all seriousness, I believe these chipsets were sold in machines that originally came with Windows 10 (or not with Windows). This only affects people who bought new PCs, then manually installed an old OS because they liked it more. That's low volume stuff that is only overrepresented here on Slashdot. Most of the world doesn't even notice moves like this, because their PC came with Windows, whatever version, and it still works and updates.

--Jaborandy

My kids had trouble with an eye chart. A symbol for a calculator was identified as a phone, and a symbol for a classic phone was unidentifiable. In school testing, they asked what a key was for, and "starting cars" was deemed wrong. My kids have never seen me use a key to unlock a house door. Electronic locks and garage openers dominate. Adults often can't see how life appears to fresh eyes.

Your code that does division probably does that because division has a meaning, and you need that meaning. Trust me and everyone else here who knows math: the meaning you want does not include the case where you are dividing by zero. Dividing by zero is nonsensical in code and in life. So what went wrong with your program to get a zero into the denominator? That's the issue in your program. Is there a place where you can check user inputs to make sure they aren't insane? Is there a place where you're calculating what is supposed to be a very small number but sometimes it rounds down too low and makes your number zero by accident? Put the check there. Are you measuring or counting something that can legitimately be zero? I bet the division scenario doesn't apply in that case. Check for zero and do what does make sense. Fix your program.

--Jaborandy

Actually, I think this is literally more accurate now than phone polls are.

--Jaborandy

As a follower, how will I know how to vote? I only vote for the apparent winner, because I don't want to waste my vote, and because I trust that everyone else puts thought into their votes so I don't have to. Without the polls to tell me who the winner is supposed to be, how will I decide?

--Jaborandy

It's time for a kickstarter to buy and donate new underwater viewing windows for the whales at SeaWorld made of this transparent aluminum. How many Trekkies would chip in for that? Lots. Yeah.

ULA. We seamlessly blend the consistency of Russian engine manufacturing with the speed of American engineering and the cost effectiveness of a government contractor. What could possibly go wrong?

In order for our proposed name to stick, we need to pick one that is both obviously insulting when viewed by those who agree with us and also seemingly-acceptable and even positive-sounding when viewed by those who love ULA.

My proposals are:
* Gold Standard
* Spruce
* Exorbital (Exorbitant + Orbital)

You all have got to be able to do better than that. Come on, float your own names...

--Jaborandy

Thank you for the link, AC.

I saw two errors so egregious in the first three pages that I can dismiss that paper immediately. First the authors claimed that stellar gasses need to be sufficiently ionized that magnetic field lines could be frozen in them. This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of electromagnetism. These people could not possibly give fair treatment to an electromagnetic theory with such a basic misunderstanding. Second, they claim that obviously stars are not affected by the magnetic fields, and therefore they can falsify the opposing claim by demonstrating that gasses and stars move together. The plasma universe theories require a corresponding adjustment to our understanding of the stars themselves as strong electrically charged objects themselves, but more importantly the modeling of the flow of current is the key to understanding the electromagnetic forces acting on the gasses and stars.

Those folks took down a straw man.

--Jaborandy

It really bothers me to see quotes like this one: "There is more dark matter in the Universe than visible matter, but it is extremely elusive."

That's so matter of fact, and leaves no room for the possibility that the theory of dark matter is wrong. I feel that the certainty level around our understanding of this topic is low enough that it isn't fair to competing theories to say things like that as if they are observed fact. In fact, we've never detected dark matter. We infer its existence from a number of things that don't add up gravitationally without it, indicating we're missing something. Dark matter that interacts gravitationally allows us to model a universe that adds up, if only this invisible stuff were distributed just so.

This article shows yet another data point indicating that dark matter may not exist, because of how it continues to not react with stuff, just as it would if it weren't there at all. I don't mean to say that it's 100% wrong, but I think it's unfair to say with 100% certainty that it's true either. Shouldn't we as scientists be more careful with our words, and say that dark matter is BELIEVED to make up more of the universe than does visible matter, based on our current leading theories? I think being careful with what we know and how well we know it is important to maintaining trust with the public and with each-other.

--Jaborandy

The answer to what they're missing: Electric charge and currents.

The electric universe folks explain that galactic rotation rates do not require dark matter to make sense. The electric current through the galaxy adds forces on the charged stars and gasses that adds up to explain the observed motions. This article sheds more light on the problems with the dark matter theories. It's time to more strongly consider the possibility that dark matter isn't the answer.

--Jaborandy

I was so proud of them when they kicked IA64's ass with their amd64 architecture, beating Intel at their own game by choosing to be x86-compatible when even Intel didn't go that way. Then I was sad when amd64 started getting called x64, since it stripped AMD of the credit they deserved. Go AMD! A world without strong competition for Intel would be very bad for consumers.

Thank you for sharing your perspective like a gentleman. I respect that.

I think the core of our disagreement is with your expectation that all the things explained by LCDM must be explained by other theories. I believe it's perfectly fine for the answer to be that some things aren't connected. If we no longer assume we know the age of the universe, then predictions of element ratios no longer need to agree with observations of CMB, which may be totally disconnected from galaxy supercluster clumpiness. If red shift is seen to have some cause other than just expansion, then no unified theory has to predict how the universe got from a near-singularity to the observed state. Once you take a fixed finite timeline out of the picture, there can be different causes for different phenomena.

-Jaborandy
(Last post from me on this thread.)