zjl56 - Slashdot User

Comment Taiwanese Media (Score 1) 303

by zjl56 on Sunday April 10, 2011 @02:49AM (#35772372) Attached to: Twitter Tax Controversy Explained In Cartoon Form

I have seen these videos on and off for some years now but its only when I have taken a close look at Taiwan to see how a vibrant media and lead to quirky informative news briefs like this. Bit insane to think an island of twenty million has as many tv + radio feeds as is, not to mention one of the hardest wired countries.

Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday November 24, 2009 @07:07PM from the snack-is-going-to-be-on-the-floor-today dept.

Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."

Spider Bite Allows Man To Walk Again 221

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @04:04PM from the web-slinger dept.

Manastorm writes "A man who was wheelchair bound due to a motorcycle accident twenty years ago gained the ability to walk again after being bitten by a recluse spider. 'I can't wait to start dancing,' he said as he looks forward to a full recovery after experiencing what some call a 'true miracle.'" I think we all know how this story is going to end. I hope The Sinister Six have been practicing.

Why Windows Must (and Will) Go Open Source 555

Posted by timothy on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @07:00PM from the lacks-the-ring-of-inevitability dept.

Attila Dimedici writes "Charles Babcock of Information Week published an interesting article suggesting that Microsoft will have to at least to some degree take Windows open source if they want to stay in business. He suggests that the money to be made from the things MS builds on top of Windows (Office, Server, SQL Server, Exchange, Sharepoint, etc.) is so much greater than what can be made from Windows itself that MS will have to give up the revenue stream from Windows in order to maintain these other, more valuable, revenue streams."

NASA Mars Rovers Hit 5-Year Anniversary 147

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 03, 2009 @01:01PM from the exceeding-expectation dept.

An anonymous reader writes "NASA's Mars rovers have been on the red planet for five years now. The rovers were originally planned to stay operational on the planet for only 90 days, but it has turned into a much longer mission than anticipated. NASA has put together a video to celebrate the anniversary. The rovers have made important discoveries about wet and violent environments on ancient Mars. They also have returned a quarter-million images, driven more than 21 kilometers (13 miles), climbed a mountain, descended into craters, struggled with sand traps and aging hardware, survived dust storms, and relayed more than 36 gigabytes of data via NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter. To date, the rovers remain operational for new campaigns the team has planned for them."

Getting Paid To Abandon an Open Source Project? 654

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday October 05, 2008 @10:24AM from the money-vs.-warm-fuzzies dept.

darkeye writes "I'm facing a difficult dilemma and looking for opinions. I've been contributing heavily to an open source project, making considerable changes to code organization and quality, but the work is unfinished at the moment. Now, a company is approaching me to continue my changes. They want to keep the improvements to themselves, which is possible since the project is published under the BSD license. That's fair, as they have all the rights to the work they pay for in full. However, they also want me to sign a non-competition clause, which would bar me from ever working on and publishing results for the original open source project itself, even if done separately, in my free time. How would you approach such a decision? On one side, they'd provide resources to work on an interesting project. On the other, it would make me an outcast in the project's community. Moreover, they would take ownership of not just what they paid for, but also my changes leading up to this moment, and I wouldn't be able to continue on my original codebase in an open source manner if I sign their contract."

Comment Re:The problem isn't the education. (Score 1) 949

by zjl56 on Monday July 28, 2008 @09:13PM (#24378469) Attached to: How Do You Fix Education?

It is true that math must be engaging, challenging, and "progressive". The reason why we're not getting the needed science majors is that math education is simply abysmal, and students often the lose the much needed early development that is intended to occur while taking Alg and Geom. We end up with stupids who were motivated in middle school, but are completely sick and afraid of math. And we also have a huge amount of willing students failing their initial calculus classes due to poor preparation. All math is built upon those few introductory classes, and they must be the best in order to correctly deliver such key knowledge.

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