Comment Re:Strategy? (Score 1) 225
I have friends who lose their phones in bars every month. I had no idea they were strategic geniuses, I assumed they were just clumsy and drunk. Silly me!
..... Or they work for Apple (tm).
Comment Really. (Score 1) 176
Coming to a server near you. Anyone for retro?
Comment Re:Wow, that sounds painful (Score 0) 217
.............. I keep a Fedora 15 install on my Window machines via Virtal Box, and I do run the Win XP that comes with Win 7 Pro. But those are simply conveniences....
You got that backwards.
Comment Re:WTF? (Score 1) 305
Umm you think you are mainstream? Mr Joe Average? I think the last time a game was played on my TV was back when I had the C64/C128.
DISCLAIMER: I am 100% Microsoft Software Free- and sure as hell I don't claim to be Mr Average.
Comment Re:Oh yeah? (Score 1) 299
See -you'll need the processing power that only an apple could offer./endtroll\... Just thinking about it- you'd probably have to calculate 243,000,500,000,000,000,003 and then check the 2nd last digit or else it would be rounded up(allowing that the next digit is 5or greater)- wouldn't it?
Anyone got a spare cluster available and a large storage area with a lot of time available.
Damn trick questions.
Comment Re:Oh yeah? (Score 1) 299
Actually I dont think it would be too hard-just CBF working it out and quoting the command.
On a konsole generate pi; pipe to a file; grep your 243,000,500,000,000,000,002 digit then check the tail of the file..
No doubt the more geeky will give the exact command; and probably an easier way by piping straight to a konsole.
Cheers,
Comment Re:This comment not safe for 15-year-old (Score 1) 284
I'm voting No1 Australian sex party. The two major parties are both shit house it's time to help someone else have a go. And at least when it all goes to hell I won't be to blame.
Good for you mate just a quick question- do you know who their preferences are going to? According to http://www.belowtheline.org.au/ (region QLD) and their preferences in order- Australian Sex Party, Secular Party Of Australia, Carers Alliance, Liberal Democrats, Australian Democrats, Senator On-Line, The Greens, Australian Labour Party.. I humbly thankyou on behalf of Gillard for your ALP preferential vote
Comment Re:Clarification mayhaps? (Score 1) 382
Give you a clue- ever played cricket or baseball? Really- why do you think rifles traditionally had a nice wooden stocks?
Comment Vote em out I say (Score 1) 154
Bring on the next election. What is worrying is these 'crazy' ideas that keep getting pushed around- and its always the same old selling point A) Evil-Terrorists or B) Save the innocent children.
Really, if this is so 'unimportant' why the hell would you want to keep this data for 2-3 years (let alone the time frame the article suggests for the law enforcement agencys are asking for)?
Comment Re:3 people in 2 don't know math. (Score 1) 1042
Yes they do have a "Star" rating. And corporations have been caught cheating to sell more..
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/763524/fromItemId/142
Submission + - SPAM: FTC rules outlaw damned annoying robocalls on 9.1
coondoggie writes: "Nearly a year after announcing the plan, new Federal Trade Commission rules prohibiting most robocalls are set to take effect Tuesday, Sept. 1. With the rules, prerecorded commercial telemarketing robocalls will be prohibited, unless the telemarketer has obtained permission in writing from consumers who want to receive such calls. Hopefully the rules will go a long way to helping consumers eat dinner in peace without being interrupted by amazingly annoying telemarketer blather or in this case prerecorded blather. The requirement is part of amendments to the agency's Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) that were announced a year ago. After September 1, sellers and telemarketers who transmit prerecorded messages to consumers who have not agreed in writing to accept such messages will face penalties of up to $16,000 per call.
[spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Students' Scheduling Errors May Last Days 2
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Washington Post reports that thousands of high school students in Prince George's County missed a third day of classes Wednesday, and school officials said it could take more than a week to sort out the chaos caused by a computerized class-scheduling system as students were placed in gyms, auditoriums, cafeterias, libraries and classes they didn't want or need at high schools across the county and their parents' fury over the logistical nightmare rose. "The school year comes up the same time every year," said Carolyn Oliver, the mother of a 16-year-old senior who spent Wednesday in the senior lounge at Bowie High School. "When I heard they didn't have schedules, I was like, 'What have they been doing all summer?' " When school opened Monday, about 8,000 high school students had no class schedules and were sent to wait in holding spaces while administrators tried to sort things out. By Tuesday evening, that number was down to 4,000. As of noon Wednesday, 3,400 of the school district's 41,000 high school students had no class schedules, officials said. Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said that some schools didn't realize there was a problem with schedules until school started and that the trouble was exacerbated by difficulties with SchoolMax, a $4.1 million computer system introduced last school year. SchoolMax went online in Prince George's a year ago to help the county track students' grades, attendance and discipline data. Last year, the program crashed at least four times and was plagued by errors that led to botched schedules, an overcount of students and mistakes on report cards. Jessica Pinkney, a junior, said she was moved to the cafeteria Wednesday morning after two days in the gymnasium because the cafeteria had air conditioning. "We just sit and do nothing," says Pinkney. "But I'm meeting new people, so it's getting more interesting.""
Submission + - New Look at Brain Control (harvard.edu)
one_neuron_two_neuron writes:
Researchers at Harvard have taken a new look at how electricity can make neurons in the brain fire.
The scientists found some surprising things: if you stick an electrode in the brain and apply current, you don't just make a small group of neurons fire — many neurons fire a long way away from the electrode. That's probably because instead of activating the cell bodies of the neurons, what happens instead is that their axons fire. Those axons are the wiring of the brain. Your cerebral cortex is something like a big pile of unwound yoyos — if you stick an electrode into the cortex you're much more likely to hit the strings (the axons), and the yoyo connected to the string can be really far away.
So now how will you ever hook up a computer to your brain? This data shows that we need to rethink how to do that with electrical current. Stick an electrode in one place, and neurons in a totally different place will fire. New optogenetic methods (e.g. using viral delivery of proteins) might work. Or possibly we will figure out how to make the brain learn to interpret these sparse, widespread electrical patterns.
New optical techniques have made a dramatic impact on neuroscience recently, and this study uses pulsed-laser-scanning microscopy (two-photon microscopy) to take pictures of neurons deep inside the living brain. There are some pretty pictures from the journal (Neuron). And the paper is free on the authors' site.
The scientists found some surprising things: if you stick an electrode in the brain and apply current, you don't just make a small group of neurons fire — many neurons fire a long way away from the electrode. That's probably because instead of activating the cell bodies of the neurons, what happens instead is that their axons fire. Those axons are the wiring of the brain. Your cerebral cortex is something like a big pile of unwound yoyos — if you stick an electrode into the cortex you're much more likely to hit the strings (the axons), and the yoyo connected to the string can be really far away.
So now how will you ever hook up a computer to your brain? This data shows that we need to rethink how to do that with electrical current. Stick an electrode in one place, and neurons in a totally different place will fire. New optogenetic methods (e.g. using viral delivery of proteins) might work. Or possibly we will figure out how to make the brain learn to interpret these sparse, widespread electrical patterns.
New optical techniques have made a dramatic impact on neuroscience recently, and this study uses pulsed-laser-scanning microscopy (two-photon microscopy) to take pictures of neurons deep inside the living brain. There are some pretty pictures from the journal (Neuron). And the paper is free on the authors' site.
Submission + - Watermelon Juice Makes Great Biofuel (inhabitat.com)
Mike writes: "Watermelons are more than just a tasty summer snack — researchers at the USDA have determined that the fruit constitutes a promising and economically viable source of biofuel. It turns out that the relatively high concentration of directly fermentable sugars in watermelon juice can be easily converted into ethanol. Rather than grow fields of the fruit for the purpose, the report suggests that farmers capitalize on the 20% of each annual watermelon crop that is left in the field because of surface blemishes or because they are misshapen."
Submission + - The orange goo that could save your laptop (pcpro.co.uk)
Barence writes: "A British company has patented what can only be described as an orange goo that could save your laptop or iPod after a nasty fall. The amazing material is soft and malleable like putty, but the substance becomes solid instantly after impact. You can punch your fist into a ball of the material sitting on a desk and not feel a thing, according to the staff at PC Pro who have been testing the material, called 3do. It's being used by the military, the US downhill ski team, and motorcycle clothing manufacturers to provide impact protection in the event of a crash. However, it's also appearing in protective cases for laptops and MP3 players."
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