nikMIT21 - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Outliers, much? (Score 1) 978

by nikMIT21 on Tuesday April 05, 2011 @10:16AM (#35720102) Attached to: Arizona Governor Proposes Flab Tax

From Wikipedia: According to a survey given to all NBA teams, the average height of all NBA players is just under 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m), with the average weight being close to 222 pounds (101 kg).

So for a normal, less-muscular person, 6'8" and 227 sounds about right.

The Science of Stout Beer 205

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday March 15, 2011 @12:49PM from the tiny-complex-bubbles dept.

An AC writes "Mathematicians invented a new method to can and bottle stout beers like Guinness while still getting that satisfying head. From the article: '... a crack group of mathematicians from the University of Limerick, led by William Lee, has modeled bubble formation in stout beers in detail. Their work suggests that lining the rims of cans and bottles with a material similar to an ordinary coffee filter would be a simpler, cheaper alternative to the widget. The team’s calculations show that a copious number of bubbles would form from air trapped inside the hollow fibers making up this lining. They have just submitted their work for publication in Physical Review E and are hoping that industry will soon begin testing their proposal.'"

Russian Team Prepares To Penetrate Lake Vostok 237

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 07, 2011 @04:14PM from the in-soviet-russia,-lake-uhh-nevermind dept.

Lanxon writes "Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit. The lake, which lies four kilometers below the icy surface of Antarctica, is unique in that it's been completely isolated from the other 150 subglacial lakes on the continent for such a long time. It's also oligotropic, meaning that it's supersaturated with oxygen — levels of the element are 50 times higher than those found in most typical freshwater lakes."

Netflix Touts Open Source, Ignores Linux 481

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @07:29PM from the practice-watch-you-preach dept.

Julie188 writes "If Netflix loves open source, where's the Linux client? Last week's post from Netflix on its use of open source has gotten a lot of coverage from the tech press. Too bad nobody's called the video giant out on its hypocrisy: They benefit greatly from open source, but really don't care to let their customers do the same."

Flash Comes To the iPhone Via App 182

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @11:59AM from the doesn't-seem-very-convenient dept.

An anonymous reader writes "While the HTML5 and Flash standard debate rages, Apple, a major promoter of HTML5, has allowed its iOS devices to run Flash videos. Apple has given approval to an app developed by Skyfire that translates Flash code into HTML5. According to CNN, when a user clicks on a Flash video the Skyfire app downloads the Flash video on Skyfire's server where the video is decoded and then encoded in HTML5 and is delivered to an iOS device. The app is embedded in the Safari browser."

Google Kills Wave Development 327

Posted by timothy on Wednesday August 04, 2010 @05:48PM from the harshing-on-mellow dept.

We've mentioned several times over the past two years Wave, Google's ambitiously multi-channel, perhaps plain overwhelming entry in the social media wars. Now, reader mordejai writes "Google stated in its official blog that they will not continue developing Wave as a standalone product. It's sad, because it had a lot of potential to improve communications, but Google never promoted it well, denying it a chance to replace email and other collaboration tools for many uses."

NASA Astronauts To Open New Space Station Windows 79

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 17, 2010 @01:54PM from the no-blue-screens-on-those-windows dept.

coondoggie writes "After some fancy robotic crane work over the past couple days, NASA Endeavour astronauts are preparing for tonight's final spacewalk where they will open the windows on the space station's sweet new dome-shaped observatory. The cupola observatory module is considered the ultimate observation deck. It is attached to an Earth-facing side of the International Space Station and has seven windows — six around the sides and one on top — that can be shuttered when not in use to protect them from micrometeoroids and the harsh space environment."

Comment Only if it has Google Voice (Score 1) 284

by nikMIT21 on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @03:14PM (#30597958) Attached to: Google Nexus Rumored To Cost $530 Or $180 w/Plan

If Google gives a downloadable Google Voice app, I think a lot of people like me are going to rush to buy this phone. $530 + $50/month for 5GB worth of voice, sms, and web browsing is $1730 over two years. An iPhone is something like $200 + $120/month = $2400 for the same thing.

If they don't have the app, I'll continue my silent protest and stick with my crappy free phone and 2-year verizon contract. :(

Erlang's Creator Speaks About Its History and Prospects 48

Posted by timothy on Tuesday June 16, 2009 @09:28AM from the still-coy-on-the-meaning dept.

Seal writes "Erlang, originally created at Ericsson in 1986, is a functional programming language which was released as open source around 10 years ago and flourished ever since. In this Q&A, Erlang creator Joe Armstrong talks about its beginnings as a control program for a telephone exchange, its flexibility and its modern day usage in open source programs. 'In the Erlang world we have over twenty years of experience with designing and implementing parallel algorithms. What we lose in sequential processing speed we win back in parallel performance and fault-tolerance,' Armstrong said. He also mentions how multi-core processors pushed the development of Erlang and the advantages of hot swapping."

New Firefox Project Could Mean Multi-Processor Support 300

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 07, 2009 @05:06PM from the but-should-a-browser-need-multi-processors dept.

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Mozilla Links "Mozilla has started a new project to make Firefox split in several processes at a time: one running the main user interface (chrome), and another or several others running the web content in each tab. Like Chrome or Internet Explorer 8 which have implemented this behavior to some degree, the main benefit would be the increase of stability: a single tab crash would not take down the whole session with it, as well as performance improvements in multiprocessor systems that are progressively becoming the norm. The project, which lacks a catchy name like other Mozilla projects (like TaskFox, Ubiquity, or Chocolate Factory) is coordinated by long time Mozillian, Benjamin Smedberg; and also integrated by Joe Drew, Jason Duell, Ben Turner, and Boris Zbarsky in the core team. According to the loose roadmap published, a simple implementation that works with a single tab (not sessions support, no secure connections, either on Linux or Windows, probably not even based on Firefox) should be reached around mid-July."

Sun Releases JavaFX 185

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 04, 2008 @06:50PM from the does-it-roll-off-the-tongue-or-not dept.

ink writes "Sun released JavaFX 1.0 today, in a bid to take on Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight technologies. It is Sun's first Java release to include standardized, cross-platform audio and video playback code (in the form of On2 licensed codecs). The lack of a Linux or Solaris release is a notable absence. The development kit currently consists of the base run-time, a NetBeans/Eclipse plug-in and a set of artifact exporters for Adobe CS 3&4." An anonymous reader adds a link to several tutorials accompanying the new release.

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