Comment Re:The reason for braille on drive-up ATMs (Score 1) 238
Er, isn't the real reason that not everyone has a car?
Comment Re:Riiiight. (Score 1) 882
It's funny.
A lot of the problems with driving in the US (and indeed in the rest of the world) are due to people doing what they think is right or normal, but adversely affect everyone else. I am sure they don't think they are doing anything wrong and are happy in their own little world.
I don't believe there is a law for the "zipper procedure" when merging traffic in the UK, but people sure as hell do it. It makes merging a LOT easier and friendlier. The on-ramp/slip-road is there for a number of reasons. It allows you to reach the speed of the other drivers before entering the main road. It also allows a longer distance in which to "zip-up" the two lanes that are merging. People in the US especially do not see or do not understand that it is a merge. People on the main road have legal right of way, but strictly prioritising one lane like this will rapidly result in hold-ups for both lanes. This is especially true when people have to resort to cutting in front of others to get into the main road, and also differences in opinion when some people like to use the entire on-ramp but others prefer to stop at the beginning and merge when they see a gap.
Grow up. Use the entire on-ramp. Zip-up at the end. Get the hell out of the fast lane if someone wants to pass.
Comment Re:Rocks don't use any electricity. (Score 4, Funny) 390
Comment Re:Lots of other systems had this feature (Score 1) 334
What I meant is that these systems didn't have clones, so the OS could assume all hardware was "special", i.e. one of a small number of drives. Thus it could easily make assumptions about how the drives would behave.
Comment Lots of other systems had this feature (Score 1) 334
Systems that relied on specific hardware (i.e. Acorn, Amiga, Atari, etc) were capable of this feature. It's nothing special.
Intel Envisions Shape-Shifting Smartphones 79
An anonymous reader writes "It's not sci-fi, but rather advanced robotics research which is leading Intel to envision shape-shifting smartphones. 'Imagine what you would do with this material,' says Jason Campbell, a senior researcher at Intel's Pittsburgh Lab who's working in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University. 'If you want to carry the device, you'd make it as small as possible by making it pack itself as densely as possible. When you go to surf the Web, you're going to make it big.' The material being studied is transparent silicon-dioxide hemispheres, which can roll around each other under electrical control to create different shapes. The lab has built 6-inch long actuators, which it's working to reduce to 1-mm tube-sized prototypes. When will we see a shape-shifting phone? 'In terms of me being able to buy it, that's a difficult forecasting problem, because I have to guess about manufacturing costs,' Campbell said. 'I won't do that. But we hope the science will be proved out in three to five years.'"
Comment Re:A simple answer (Score 1) 664
why didn't they require all major TV stations transmitting on analogue to overlay a continuous message informing people of the impending switch off starting around three months before the actual date?
Because they've spent all their budget putting these messages onto digital HD channels. Seriously, why do they insist on pissing us off by leaving 1/4 screen banner notices for the digital switchover on digital HD channels, and squashing the main content, destroying its aspect ratio? Oh, they switch off the notices when the commercials come on, because the channels care most about their precious ad revenue.
U.S. Plan For "Thinking Machines" Repository 148
An anonymous reader writes "Information scientists organized by the US's NIST say they will create a "concept bank" that programmers can use to build thinking machines that reason about complex problems at the frontiers of knowledge — from advanced manufacturing to biomedicine. The agreement by ontologists — experts in word meanings and in using appropriate words to build actionable machine commands — outlines the critical functions of the Open Ontology Repository (OOR). More on the summit that produced the agreement here."
Comment Re:Get a Move On (Score 2, Informative) 115
Both are digital.
Censoring a Number 1046
Rudd-O writes "Months after successful discovery of the HD-DVD processing key, an unprecedented campaign of censorship, in the form of DMCA takedown notices by the MPAA, has hit the Net. For example Spooky Action at a Distance was killed. More disturbingly, my story got Dugg twice, with the second wave hitting 15,500 votes, and today I found out it had simply disappeared from Digg. How long until the long arm of the MPAA gets to my own site (run in Ecuador) and the rest of them holding the processing key? How long will we let rampant censorship go on, in the name of economic interest?" How long before the magic 16-hex-pairs number shows up in a comment here?
IBM Heralds 3-D Chip Breakthrough 99
David Kesmodel from WSJ writes to let us know about an IBM breakthrough: a practical three-dimensional semiconductor chip that can be stacked on top of another electronic device in a vertical configuration. Chip makers have worked for years to develop ways to connect one type of chip to another vertically to reduce size and power use. The IBM technique of "through-silicon vias" offers a thousand-fold reduction in connector length and a hundred-fold increase in connector density. The new chips may appear in cellphones and other communication devices as soon as next year. PhysOrg has more details.
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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell
