Comment Re:Control system (Score 1) 80
If I only had mod points... so true!
Comment Re:Duh. (Score 1) 897
Are you kidding? How long have you lived in Minnesota? The interstates are snow white from Jan to March at least.
Comment Re:Shops - Showrooms (Score 1) 725
This is exactly the reason that social media is so relevant today (online ratings and reviews, blogs, etc) - I don't necessarily feel the need to try out a keyboard for myself.. the first thing I will do is search for reviews that tell me which netbooks have good keyboards, and which ones are too cramped, then buy the one that has good reviews. Spending 10 minutes reading reviews is a much more effective use of my time than driving across town, parking, finding the right model in the store, etc. I see a day where the need for those showrooms largely goes away.
My $0.02
Whisky Made From Diabetics' Urine 226
It's doubtful that any other distillery will come up with a whisky that tastes like Gilpin Family Whisky because of its secret ingredient: urine. Researcher and designer James Gilpin uses the sugar rich urine of elderly diabetics to make his high-end single malt whisky. From the article: "The source material is acquired from elderly volunteers, including Gilpin's own grandmother, Patricia. The urine is purified in the same way as mains water is purified, with the sugar molecules removed and added to the mash stock to accelerate the whisky's fermentation process. Traditionally, that sugar would be made from the starches in the mash."
Comment Re:Stereotypes usually have some kernal of truth (Score 1) 669
MOD PARENT UP - anyone who says that gender roles are learned and not intrinsic has never had children. I've got both boys and girls. My older boys will make the dolls 'fight', and my younger daughter picks up 2 motorcycles and has the mommy motorcycle take care of the baby motorcycle. This stuff isn't learned - it's how they come.
Abused IT Workers Ready To Quit 685
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that new research is suggesting as many as a quarter of all IT staff in small to medium businesses have suffered some sort of abuse and are looking for careers elsewhere (PDF). "The study also found that over a third have suffered from sleepless nights or headaches as a result of IT problems at work, while 59 percent spend between one and 10 hours a week working on IT systems outside normal hours. ... The biggest cause of stress among IT staff is problems arising from operational day-to-day tasks, the survey found. Another major cause came from loss of critical data, according to Connect."
Interesting Uses For a USB LED Screen? 403
Hogwash McFly writes "My boss gave me one of those USB-powered red LED scrolling displays as a Christmas gift, and while cycling the usual 'I read your emails' and 'ID10T Error' messages will be entertaining for a day or two, I was wondering if it could be put to more constructive uses. The configuration file is plaintext and supports different scroll speeds, flashing, bitmaps, and WAV sounds. The font is defined as 5x5 pixels per character, also stored in plaintext as 5 hex values, one for each vertical line of pixels. A dynamically generated message could prove useful in my day-to-day work on the helpdesk, but are there any interesting uses beyond network notifications and news feeds?"
Lame Duck Challenge Ends With Free Codeweavers Software For All 433
gzipped_tar writes to tell us that The Codeweavers "Great American Lame Duck Presidential Challenge" has ended in surprise and free software all day Tuesday (October 28, 2008) at the Codeweavers site. A while back Codeweavers gave President Bush a challenge to meet one of several goals before he left office. One of these goals was to lower gas prices in the Twin Cities below $2.79 a gallon, which has since transpired. "How was I to know that President Bush would take my challenge so seriously? And, give the man credit, I didn't think there was *any* way he could pull it off. But engineering a total market meltdown - wow - that was pure genius. I clearly underestimated the man. I'm ashamed that I goaded him into this and take full responsibility for the collapse of any savings you might have. Please accept our free software as my way of apologizing for the global calamity we now find ourselves embroiled in."
Comment Re:in other news (Score 2, Insightful) 1065
You're obviously never had kids. Do you have any idea how often the triple-screen (or now quad-screen) is wrong? I've personally known 3 different families who had learned during the pregnancy that their child supposedly had some deformality or defect, only to learn these predictions were false once the baby was born.
Science isn't 100%, as much as some people here would like to believe.
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