Comment Re:WHAT IS IS LIKE TO KNOW YOU ARE GOING TO HELL ? (Score 1) 259
One of my favorite Mark Twain quotes is "I want to go to heaven for the climate, and hell for the company."
I don't know how exactly I've got that, but it is the gist...
Comment Re:Innovation in perspective (Score 1) 206
Yes, but he also wasn't Jonas Salk or Ghandi or Pasteur or Einstein or Justus von Liebig or any of a thousand others who had far greater impact of human life and culture and health. He had a brilliant design sense and he was a brilliant marketer but this whole "He changed the WORLD!" thing is more than a little overblown.
He made better gadgets and made a metric crapload of money doing it. More power to him, but his contributions are incremental and not terribly important.
Comment Re:Wait, nobody has said this yet? (Score 1) 173
That explains these boat eggs...
(Okay, those were swans. Still...)
37 Android Patent Lawsuits 154
An anonymous reader writes "37 lawsuits have been filed against Android in a little more than a year, the latest one of them being Microsoft's lawsuit against Barnes & Noble, Foxconn and Inventec. ReadWriteWeb says 'the number of patent lawsuits related to the Android operating system is unprecedented' and shows an infographic that is also available on Twitpic and as a PDF file, on Scribd. The first two suits were filed in March 2010 by Apple and MobileMedia against HTC. The original source of the chart, the FOSS Patents blog, says that Android's market share is only one factor, other reasons being that Google's patent portfolio is 'far too weak for what's undertaken in connection with Android'; that Google doesn't do 'inbound licensing' from trolls; and that Google tends to ignore patent issues because Google itself is rarely sued: in most of these cases, Android device makers are under attack."
Comment This is what you get (Score 1) 794
(as others have noted) when you filter at all.
By opting to edit "objectionable material" they have opened themselves up to this.
I think people who think gayness can be "cured" are idiots. But for all I know these app developers are actually following my personal code of business ethics: "1. A fool and his money are my target market, and b. It is morally wrong to allow stupid people to keep their money."
(Or is this a free app?)
I'm firmly of two minds: The first is my standard response whenever anyone objects to any media content: You don't have to buy/watch/listen. There's an "off" switch. Use it.
The other mind is every company that appoints itself guardian of my content should have its arse sued into oblivion.
All I know is that my next device will be android. Not because of this specific case, but because of Apple's consistent impulse for control. The iPhone served me well as a user, but as a developer it rather sucks and the android platform and range of devices have come along nicely.
Comment Re:I've mostly bought AMD over the years but... (Score 1) 180
My i7-2600 on a Gigabyte P67 mobo is running just fine right now. I'm only using the SATA3 ports, so this problem will never affect me. Regardless of this, Gigabyte has already publicly declared that I will be able to exchange my mobo for a new one once they've gone and _made_ those new ones.
this i7-2600 is the _fastest_ cpu I've ever run into. It's an absolute screamer -- running TEN kvm VMs under ubuntu 10.04.01, at a posted load average of 1.02. to the kernel, the hyperthreading makes it look like an 8-way box, and my world community grid numbers (overnight, when the kvm machines are shut down) are smokin'.
I'd rather this hadn't happened, but Intel/Gigabyte are handling this like pros. I'll be using this server until such a time as the new mobos are available.
DIY FireHero Project 27
If you have a propane tank, an ultrasonic sensor, a copy of Guitar Hero and a touch of pyromania, this is the project for you. From the article: "For version 1 of FireHero, the player simply watches a video of the guitar hero chart and plays on the guitar accordingly. Version 2 of FireHero will have a much better system, with Autoplay functionality. I will be able to take a custom guitar hero chart, convert it into a MIDI file, and use Processing to analyze it and play FireHero to the track."
British Pizza Chain To Install Cones of Silence 122
itwbennett writes "British pizza chain Pizza Express is installing iPod docks and soundproof domes in booths of their new iPizzeria stores. 'The idea is that you can plug in your iPod and play whatever music you like without disturbing other diners,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'But I'm sure it'd work for talking about government secrets and other spy stuff, too.'"
Cooking With Your USB Ports 188
tekgoblin writes "Wow, I would never have thought to try and cook food with the power that a standard USB port provides, but someone did. A standard port provides 5V of power, give or take a little. I am not even sure what it takes to heat a small hotplate, but I am sure it is more than 5V. It looks like the guy tied together around 30 USB cables powered by his PC to power this small hotplate. But believe it or not, it seems to have cooked the meat perfectly."
Astronaut Sues Dido For Album Cover 264
An anonymous reader writes "Astronaut Bruce McCandless is suing Dido for her album cover that uses a famous NASA photograph of a tiny, tiny, tiny McCandless floating in space. McCandless doesn't own the copyright on the photo, so he's claiming it's a violation of his publicity rights ... except that he's so tiny in the photo, it's not like anyone's going to recognize him."
Selling Incandescent Light Bulbs As Heating Devices 557
Csiko writes "The European Union has banned by law trading of incandescent light bulbs due to their bad efficiency/ecology (most of the energy is transformed into heat). A company is now trying to bypass this restriction by offering their incandescent light bulb products as a heating device (article in German) instead of a light device. Still, their 'heat balls' give light as well as heating. So — every law can be bypassed if you have some creativity!"
High Fructose Corn Syrup To Get a Makeover 646
An anonymous reader writes "With its sweetener linked to obesity, some cancers and diabetes, the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) doesn't want you to think 'fructose' when you see high fructose corn syrup in your soda, ketchup or pickles. Instead, the AP reports, the CRA submitted an application to the FDA, hoping to change the name of their top-selling product to 'corn sugar.'"
Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 44
I haven't done the actual math but I think it would be either 2 or 1 depending on whether you started with an odd or even number of companies...
Frustrated Reporter Quits After Slow News Day 178
Norwegian radio journalist Pia Beathe Pedersen quit on the air complaining that her bosses were making her read news on a day when "nothing important has happened." Pedersen claimed that broadcaster NRK put too much pressure on the staff and that she "wanted to be able to eat properly again and be able to breathe," during her nearly two-minute on-air resignation.
Fine-Structure Constant Maybe Not So Constant 105
Kilrah_il writes "The fine-structure constant, a coupling constant characterizing the strength of the electromagnetic interaction, has been measured lately by scientists from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia and has been found to change slightly in light sent from quasars in galaxies as far back as 12 billion years ago. Although the results look promising, caution is advised: 'This would be sensational if it were real, but I'm still not completely convinced that it's not simply systematic errors' in the data, comments cosmologist Max Tegmark of MIT. Craig Hogan of the University of Chicago and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., acknowledges that 'it's a competent team and a thorough analysis.' But because the work has such profound implications for physics and requires such a high level of precision measurements, 'it needs more proof before we'll believe it.'"
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Interchangeable parts won't.
