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Comment Thing is Adam's vision was fully implemented with (Score 3, Interesting) 189

by djconrad (#34990958) Attached to: BBC To Dispose of Douglas Adams Website
Thing is, Adam's vision was fully implemented with Wikipedia + smartphones. Or Google, or some other combination of teh tubes . But any way you cut it H2G2 is a site for fan boys and not a really useful Guide - such Guides exist elsewhere. I'm all for fanboydom, but everyone's cutting budgets (my department has lost a prof and lots of grad student support); this seems a fairly inconsequential thing to lose.

Submission + - Suo-yo duh doh dhr-dang

Submitted by ColdWetDog
ColdWetDog writes: According to an interesting graphic in TMW it may be time to brush up on your Mandarin:

"China gained 36 million additional internet users last year meaning there are now over 440 million internet users in the country. English has long been the most widely used language on the internet but with Chinese Internet growth rising at the rate it is, it could be less than five years before Chinese becomes the dominant language on the internet."

A tiny bit more in an Atlantic Blurb. Basically it's them and us on the Internet. Time to review those old Firefly episodes.

Christmas Cheer

Submission + - Santa's Naughty/Nice list compromised (sophos.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Reports from the North Pole have confirmed that Santa's Naughty/Nice list has been compromised.

The list is said to contain the name, stocking address and naughty/nice score (the child equivalent of a credit score) of every child on earth. Absent from the leaked data is the "What I want for Christmas" list which is said to be stored in a separate database.

Submission + - Reason Mag: Net Neutrality Ain't Necessary (reason.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Curious to know what people think of Reason magazine's (libertarian) explanation of why Net Neutrality is not needed.
Earth

Submission + - What if the earth stood still

Submitted by crus0e
crus0e writes: As the german weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT reports [Google-translated link to the article], the german computer-scientist and expert for geographical information systems, Witold Fraczek, simulated how a total slowdown of the earth rotation would affect the shape and the appearance of mother earth. Though he does not claim his simulation to be perfectly correct, it seems to be a nice intellectual game to play.
Science

Submission + - Scientifically, You Are Likely In The Slowest Line (hothardware.com) 1

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "As you wait in the checkout line for the holidays, your observation is most likely correct. That other line IS moving faster than yours. That's what Bill Hammack (the Engineer Guy), from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois — Urbana proves in this video. Ironically, the most efficient set-up is to have one line feed into several cashiers. This is because if any one line slows because of an issue, the entry queue continues to have customers reach check-out optimally. However, this is also perceived by customers as the least efficient, psychologically."

Submission + - Skype Slowly Restores Service To Users (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Skype continues to slowly recover after an outage caused by problems with its peer-to-peer interconnection system. The latest estimates say that 10 million users are now online, according to a blog post. Skype's outage began on Wednesday. Skype continues to slowly recover after an outage caused by problems with its peer-to-peer interconnection system. The latest estimates say that 10 million users are now online, according to a blog post. Skype's outage began on Wednesday.
Patents

Submission + - Will Patent Make NCAA Football Playoffs Impossible

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mark Cuban recently announced plans to create a college football playoff system, which many people (including President Obama) have been claiming has been needed for years. However, after doing so, Cuban received an odd emails, claiming that he'd better watch out, because a college football playoff system is patented and anything he did would likely infringe. The patent wasn't named, but Techdirt believes it has found the patent in question, along with another pending patent application (which has some amusing errors in it — such as an abstract that says it's about a boat fender, rather than a sports playoff system). So is it really true that some random guy in Arizona is the only person who can legally set up such a college football playoff system?

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