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lol not around here my friend.

Have you ever gone outside when it's -40 (C or F, it's the same)? The air is so cold that it hurts to breathe, but I love it. There is nothing like it. The humidity from your breath sticks to your eyelashes and they freeze together and you have to pick the ice off so you can open your eyes. It's amazing human beings even live here.

What are they doing 87 million doses with only 33 million people?

Here we are in an environment where it's accepted as common knowledge that embryonic stem cells are a panacea. They hold the secret of life everlasting and the cure to all of mankinds ailments. Yet, all of the advances are being made with adult stem cells.

Your first premise is false. I cite myself as a counter-example. I, like many others, do not believe that embryonic stem cells are a panacea. I believe that they are an important key to a broad field of study. There is no single panacea, and there probably never will be one.

Your second assertion is also false, as can be proven by a quick Google search. As is quite clear, while many breakthroughs are being made using adult and induced stem cells, there are still breakthroughs happening with embryonic stem cells, and the main reason that more are happening with adult and induced types is because in many jurisdictions the use of embryonic stem cells is illegal for moral/ethical reasons. In other words, more's happening with adult and induced stem cells because *gasp* more people are doing studies and experiments involving them. However, despite your assertion, breakthroughs involving embryonic stem cells are still happening.

I'm sure that you won't understand. Perhaps your ignorance isn't feigned after all. In which case, your argument becomes stronger. It's not ironic because you're not pretending to be stupid, but you actually are stupid.

So going back to my original statement, the only irony here is your insistence that other people are stupid. As you seem to have missed that point, it's because of the discordance there... you insist that other people are stupid because they can't see what's not there, and in so doing, you're actually saying that you're the one who's being stupid.

In other news, naa naa, my father can beat up your father. With that out of the way, could you possibly try to maintain some level of enlightened discourse? I know that this *is* the Internet, but theoretically Slashdot is supposed to attract the more intelligent and mature among the net denizens. (though looking at some of the trolls posting NSFW stuff, that's really not saying much)

Here is some support of Rogers benefiting from government subsidy of telecom in Canada, in the book Telecommunications in Canada. The gov't subsidized Canadian Pacific with cash and land, and CPR went on to offer telegraph services (57). A similar story happened with CN. A large stake in those networks was later purchased by Ted Rogers to use for voice communication (62).

A quick Google Search reveals a reputable site reporting that the superconductivity record as of 18 Aug 2005 was -113'C. In Kelvins, that's about 160K, more than 20 Kelvins higher than Wikipedia claims. It's entirely possible, and in fact likely (given the amount of research happening in the field), that the record superconductivity temperature will have increased in the last 4 years.

While I agree that the site looks like it was designed by a 3-year old, I can't discount it simply because Wikipedia claims that it's wrong. In this case, I know that Wikipedia's claim is, itself, wrong. That doesn't mean that TFA is correct, mind you, just that you can't claim it's automatically wrong because it disagrees with Wiki. I'll look on it with my normal scepticism until I see it reported and backed up in another publication.

or so the comment in the article says

"Father of Fiber Optics" is not Kao but Narinder Singh Kapany. http://www.explainthatstuff.com/fiberoptics.html http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Father+of+Fiber+Optics&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq= I can`t believe news didn`t name him

From one of the linked articles,

1950s: In London, England, Indian physicist Narinder Kapany (1927â") and British physicist Harold Hopkins (1918â"1994) managed to send a simple picture down a light pipe made from thousands of glass fibers. After publishing many scientific papers, Kapany earned a reputation as the "father of fiber optics."

1960s: Chinese-born US physicist Charles Kao (1933â") figured out how to make a very pure fiber-optic cable that can carry telephone signals over long distances.

According to Google Maps, it is 501 miles driving. Source.

Someone needs to check their facts. :-)

Just sayin'.

9.05052982% according to Google.

Spring Break?

Sure. Just stick it on an Aptera and you're half-way there. Just missing the flying bit.

Google first, then reply, you'll get much better results.

9V at 18 watts = 2 AMPS at 9 volts. The teenager is lying, the summary is lying, or whole thing is fake.

so this kid stumbled upon a cheap system that is 900X more efficient than the best Solar panels made by industry? either that or his solar panel is 30 feet long by 2 feet wide.

How do you figure? A 1200mA solar panel is fairly common:
http://www.google.ca/search?q=1200mA+solar+panel

"Truth is that in many markets it's now a grand choice of Intel, Intel and Intel."

Which helps explain why AMD has an antitrust suit against Intel.

Ah, the standard emotional appeal response. Never mind that it doesn't even apply to what I said.

Your article? Are you actually the author? Steve Silberman?

First, you didn't "cite" anything. You mentioned that some studies might exist. Citing them requires providing the information so that the reader might check to make sure that is actually the case. I certainly don't see any citations.

I see nowhere in your article where you make any mention whatsoever of the placebo effect size increasing in chemotherapy patients or Parkinson's disease. You mention that the placebo effect has been shown to provide relief to chemo patients, but I didn't disagree with (or even mention that). Your mention of Parkinson's is in connection with development on a drug being stopped after a phase III trial because it did not show benefit over placebo. Again, that has nothing to do with the idea that the magnitude of the observed placebo effect is significantly greater now than it was before.

Which leaves us with depression. I notice you say major depression in your post. Here is a relevant bit from your article:

Two comprehensive analyses of antidepressant trials have uncovered a dramatic increase in placebo response since the 1980s. One estimated that the so-called effect size (a measure of statistical significance) in placebo groups had nearly doubled over that time.

Again, note that at no time did I suggest either of those trials might be wrong (how could I, since you didn't provide citations so I could go check their methodology). Rather the opposite, I suggested that the results aren't really surprising. I also note the absence of any mention of "major depression." Rather, these studies seem to have looked at antidepressant trials. Now, perhaps those trials were dominated by major depressives. Again, I can't check because you've failed to cite them properly. I find it unlikely though. While depression is certainly a real, serious medical condition, it is not a novel idea that many people (most, according to some sources) who are on antidepressants probably should not be, and likely aren't really suffering from clinical depression in the first place. [1][2] You point out yourself that drug companies aren't always as careful as they should be about recruiting subjects.

Okay, so supposing that you actually are clinically depressed and you're enrolled in an antidepressant trial. In order to measure any improvement we have to have some sort of metric. We have to at least assess your level of depression before and after the treatment. How do we do that? Here are the DSM IV criteria for major depressive disorder. I chose that source because it is publicly available. You can confirm it by looking at the DSM IV itself, of course. Note that many of the criteria are subjective. Some others might be reasonably objectively assessed by following the subject (without his knowledge) for two weeks or so. How likely is it that the drug trials your "cited" studies analyzed did this? I can't tell, of course, but I find it very plausible that much of the assessment could involve the subjects reporting how they feel.

Normally I try to give science journalists the benefit of the doubt. They have a tough job and for the most part they are not trained scientists, so mistakes and misunderstandings are bound to occur. However, your posts here have demonstrated your willingness to appeal to emotional statements, misrepresentations, strawmen, and other poor tactics.

Disclaimer: I am not a physician. I am an academic researcher involved with drug trial analysis. I see you've been panned by physicians as well though.

A joke from google

I don't mind teaching this stuff (economics) in school, as long as we don't teach it as "the way we do it here is right." For example, it should include a good look at Stone Age Economics, The Gift, and the chapter of Asimov and Pohl Our Angry Earth called "How Bean Counters can Save the World." It should teach how Muslim banks work, even though they can't charge interest. It should teach the historic importance of the labour movement to those who were not born into the middle or upper class. It should also teach that economic systems can and must be changed over time to correct inequities and negative feedback loops, just as any social and cultural system can be changed.

I remember listening to a talk by David Suzuki, in which he said that, despite being a scientist, he was always intimidated by economic jargon, so he signed up for a first year economics course. The prof put a huge and complex flowchart up on the board and said, "This is Economics." Suzuki looked at it, trying to find where the boxes on the board linked up with anything he knew, and failed, so he stuck his hand up and asked, "Where is the natural environment? Where is the culture?" The prof said, "Oh, those are externalities. Suzuki commented, "I'm a scientist. I know what externalities are. I was just flabbergasted that everything that I care about could be dismissed with that word."

Yes, I'm remembering this, so the quotations are actually paraphrases. It's a good story, though, and summarizes my thinking that economics is a good servant, if its limitations are understood, but a very poor and inhuman guide to what we should be doing in any particular case.

Gareth

I don't mind teaching this stuff (economics) in school, as long as we don't teach it as "the way we do it here is right." For example, it should include a good look at Stone Age Economics, The Gift, and the chapter of Asimov and Pohl Our Angry Earth called "How Bean Counters can Save the World." It should teach how Muslim banks work, even though they can't charge interest. It should teach the historic importance of the labour movement to those who were not born into the middle or upper class. It should also teach that economic systems can and must be changed over time to correct inequities and negative feedback loops, just as any social and cultural system can be changed.

I remember listening to a talk by David Suzuki, in which he said that, despite being a scientist, he was always intimidated by economic jargon, so he signed up for a first year economics course. The prof put a huge and complex flowchart up on the board and said, "This is Economics." Suzuki looked at it, trying to find where the boxes on the board linked up with anything he knew, and failed, so he stuck his hand up and asked, "Where is the natural environment? Where is the culture?" The prof said, "Oh, those are externalities. Suzuki commented, "I'm a scientist. I know what externalities are. I was just flabbergasted that everything that I care about could be dismissed with that word."

Yes, I'm remembering this, so the quotations are actually paraphrases. It's a good story, though, and summarizes my thinking that economics is a good servant, if its limitations are understood, but a very poor and inhuman guide to what we should be doing in any particular case.

Gareth

Talking at all on a cell-phone is a bad idea; studies have found it's similar to DUI. Knock yourself out: http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=cell+phone+driving+accident

Espcially since a lot of other meanings for bank came first. The original use of bank, in terms of elevation, came into use around 1150-2000 AD, while the bank that handles money didn't exist until 1425-1475 AD. Also, the original word can trace it's origins back to the swedish word, backe, meaning hill.

I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of being against a national health-care plan as "socialist" when the US already HAS a national health-care plan - Medicare. The people who claim that a national health-careplan would "take away choice" are so full of shit it's not funny (it would give them an additional choice). That their heads don't explode due to the contraditions shows that they can not focus on more than one aspect of the question at a time, never mind multitask, AND/OR that they have ulterior motives, such as racism ("blacks and latinos would benefit more, so why should I pay") and greed ("private for-profit plans can't compete, so my shares in Kaiser Permanente will go down - better convince people that universal health-care is BAD for their health, since it's bad for my financial health").

Stupidity, racism, and greed - but mostly the latter, which exploits the first two. You already have bureaucrat-managed care via the HMOs, who are answerable only to Wall Street. Do you really trust them to do what's right if it's going to affect the bottom line - and they already have a proven history of denying valid claims and killing people? google "cigna whistleblower wendell potter" and read congressional testimony on how the insurance companies are scamming you right now.

Here, I'll save you the trouble http://www.google.ca/search?q=cigna+whistleblower+wendell+potter

Or you can start with this interview http://www.guernicamag.com/spotlight/1207/the_last_temptation_of_wendell/

Here's the first few paragraphs - there's a lot more at the linky:

Last Temptation
An interview with Wendell Potter

The former mouthpiece for insurance giant Cigna divulges his role in misleading the public, the emotional day that led to his whistle-blowing, and what should really scare you.

n June 2007, Wendell Potter was head of corporate communications at Cigna, one of the largest health insurance companies in America, when he attended the U.S. premiere of Michael Moore's Sicko. Potter was part of the team charged with discrediting Moore's film, which advance word said was highly critical of the health insurance industry. Potter "sat quietly in the back and took notes," but soon realized he had a problem. "When I saw the movie, I'll be honest: I thought it was a real good documentary. I knew from my own studies of other healthcare systems that it was an accurate portrayal of those systems and how they are able to provide universal coverage." Yet he was being paid by Cigna to tell people the opposite, that the film was full of lies.

Just a few weeks later, Potter, who is from Tennessee, read in a local paper about a free healthcare expedition being held in Wise County, Virginia. He decided to check it out. Walking through the fairground gates, Potter saw hundreds of people waiting in the rain while physicians attended to patients in animal stalls or on gurneys lying on the rain-soaked pavement. Tents had been pitched across the fairground lawns, creating a scene "like something that could've been happening on a battlefield or in a war-torn country." Tears mixed with the rain to cloud Potter's vision. "What I thought was: 'Is this the United States?' It was so remote from my reality. It just seemed impossible."

In months and years prior, Potter had grown increasingly skeptical about his job as chief spokesman for Cigna. Though he insists he never intentionally lied to a reporter, he began to spout what he thought were either misleading or less than honest statements. Moreover, his job required him to hype new programs he felt were not in the best interest of patients or the U.S. healthcare system--particularly when it came to high-deductible, or "consumer driven" plans. He came to feel he was on the wrong side of the healthcare debate and would catch himself gazing into a mirror, wondering, "Who is this?

The sum of human knowledge is far greater than the sum of academic knowledge.

That's great. But you're making an odd assumption here: that the purpose of Wikipedia is to store the "sum of human knowledge". So, OOC, what the hell gives you that idea? Last I checked, Britannica wasn't out there trying to collect the "sum of human knowledge". They specifically exist to collect and summarize academic knowledge. That's why they exist. Wikipedia, being an encyclopedia, has the exact same purpose.

In short: Wikipedia isn't what you want it to be. Yeah. Tough shit.

At one time, Wikipedia seemed like a place in which everybody could contribute to share their knowledge.

If, by knowledge, you mean unsubstantiated anecdotes, yes, Wikipedia was once such a place. They've since raised their standards. I fail to see how this is a bad thing.

And if you want a massive collection of uncited anecdotes? Easy! Just start here. It's called The Internet, and since the 90's it's become a great place for people to post every random, unsubstantiated fact, fiction, claim, or allegation they see fit.

I'm with you there. But I've heard that Wacom is making some capacitive screens. So hopefully we'll get the pressure sensitive digitizers that they already make in the same package as a capacitive touch screen.

Check out the google hits:
wacom+capacitive

Douglas Adams was a very unique writer

I disagree. There is no doubt he was unique , but only marginally so. I've read many authors which were much more unique than Adams. In fact, now that I think about it, the amount of unique ness he had was pretty common.

Douglas Adams was a very unique writer

I disagree. There is no doubt he was unique , but only marginally so. I've read many authors which were much more unique than Adams. In fact, now that I think about it, the amount of unique ness he had was pretty common.

Douglas Adams was a very unique writer

I disagree. There is no doubt he was unique , but only marginally so. I've read many authors which were much more unique than Adams. In fact, now that I think about it, the amount of unique ness he had was pretty common.

Nokola Tesla, was responsible for this technology because he had vision far beyond what most people could ever dream of having, here is his biography!

I wish we could try to find more of these types of people and invest in giving them access to certain technologies which as most people know if what makes them great. Most inventors usually look at some technology and think, why not do it this way, or if we try to change this over here, we might get better results.

The problem is finding these men (as most know it is the men that invent...) and making education of the technologies availabel, seeing as many sometimes come from an impoverished background. I guess you could call it the international think tank project, but it would definitely result in some new and fresh ideas!!

There seems to be a lot of comments about how the average joe is going to be pissy when he discovers that he can't run his windows applications on his arm netbook, or print well for that matter. That is obvious, and therefore redundant to talk about. This is a website dedicated to (hopefully intelligent) nerds, right? I'm more interested in running Linux anyway, or possibly an up-and-coming Mac OS X for ARM.

I would like to say to DELL - excellent idea!!! ARM for netbooks / smartbooks only makes perfect sense! The battery will last longer, they're fully capable of doing everything that a netbook should (including all multimedia applications), they're SILENT / FANLESS. All of that makes me (a green geek / engineer) very happy! If you could pull off an aluminium unibody, then you would have Apple beat if they ever got around to making a Mac smartbook.

My advice though, is to choose your components wisely. People won't want to wait for application contexts to be reactivated from swap, so make sure that you have enough RAM to keep everything going. Also, make sure that you prelink all binaries so that loading times are much faster! Last but not least, I would highly recommend that you choose a dual-core ARM SoC like the TI OMAP-4, which is based on the Cortex-A9 ARM family. With dual-cores, there would be many more pipelines available for concurrent threads, which means very little noticeable lag times.

Specifically for the OMAP, I really hope that the integrated PowerVR 3D graphics core and integrated video codec will get full Linux support at some point soon. TI seems pretty dedicated to supporting Linux on their devices, so I don't think that full support is unrealistic. The enhanced DSP ARM instructions will accelerate any multimedia applications in the mean time, and those are fully supported by GCC, with optimizations in the works for mplayer, ffmpeg, etc, until a decent architecture-agnostic kernel drm layer is in place, with PowerVR / IVA support.

For Windows enthusiasts, I'm sure that Windows 7 will be available at some point for ARM, as we have seen some of the demonstrations already at Computex (although Android seemed to be much easier to port). Will Microsoft even bother making a compatibility layer for ARM? I have to hand it to Apple, that they are in a better position than MS to make a fully featured ARM netbook, given their universal binary format in Mac OS X.

Yes Body Worlds is amazing! I think Body Worlds will be in Toronto's Ontario Science Centre starting October 9.

Here's a map.

I know! And those damn brits with their higher-efficiency diesel engines...

He said the Corolla costs 1/3 less than a Prius, not 1/3 the cost of a Prius. If you want to see strange "scientific" comparisons, look here http://www.google.ca/search?q=top+gear+prius+vs+m3

Maybe the reason is that luxury car owners ARE better than average people, but Prius drivers just like to THINK they are better than average people? Besides, doesn't an armour-plated Escalade just sound glittery diamond and gold-teeth awesome?

Is it not possible to calculate the thermal heat in 1L of gasoline when burned at STP at the stoichiometric ratio? If we can get BTU or BTUh out of it, we've got something to work with.

Then compare that to the kWh at your power meter to charge the vehicle enough to travel until the battery system shuts down. (Disable the gasoline system on Volt-like cars.) Count miles. Repeat, average, etc.

I was able to find the right figures for natural gas, so I was able to figure out if it was better to use a single-room space heater or turn up the furnace. (Unsurprising result: A little bit of electricity for one room is better than a lot of gas for the whole house.)

They're also throwing around figures like "40 cents to charge, for 10 kWh, at Michigan off-peak rates." OK, sure, but in Ontario, that'll set you back over a Canadian dollar, as almost nobody has time-of-day metering. Massachusetts will be closer to $2 USD (20 cents/kWh)--which is still half the price of gasoline at last summer's prices in Ontario ($1.25/L).

Here we go. 125,000 BTU in 1 gallon of gasoline, which is about 37 kWh.

So, at 40 miles/10 kWh we've got 4 miles/kWh, which I didn't need Google for but so you can see what I'm doing (show your work). That's the easy one.

I've seen 50 miles/gallon cited for the Volt, so we want miles/kWh... 1.36 miles/kWh.

Both of those are "at the pump/plug" numbers: What you use in electricity net of any generation and transmission losses, compared to volume of gasoline from the pump at your filling station net of energy used to process it from the Alberta tar sands.

(My physics teacher would freak out at that SI and US Imperial unit soup, too.)

What I want to know about all of these electric things though... especially if they're quoting Michigan off-peak power prices... what happens in winter? Those of us in northerly climates don't just throw away all of the thermal inefficiency in the internal combustion motor. We vent some of it in to the passenger cabin as "heat". I'm not giving that up; and resistive electric head for the passenger cabin will kill your battery range real fast--everyone's left just the headlights on and needed a boost at one point, right? That's only about 180 Watts (two headlights + assorted markers.)

Is it not possible to calculate the thermal heat in 1L of gasoline when burned at STP at the stoichiometric ratio? If we can get BTU or BTUh out of it, we've got something to work with.

Then compare that to the kWh at your power meter to charge the vehicle enough to travel until the battery system shuts down. (Disable the gasoline system on Volt-like cars.) Count miles. Repeat, average, etc.

I was able to find the right figures for natural gas, so I was able to figure out if it was better to use a single-room space heater or turn up the furnace. (Unsurprising result: A little bit of electricity for one room is better than a lot of gas for the whole house.)

They're also throwing around figures like "40 cents to charge, for 10 kWh, at Michigan off-peak rates." OK, sure, but in Ontario, that'll set you back over a Canadian dollar, as almost nobody has time-of-day metering. Massachusetts will be closer to $2 USD (20 cents/kWh)--which is still half the price of gasoline at last summer's prices in Ontario ($1.25/L).

Here we go. 125,000 BTU in 1 gallon of gasoline, which is about 37 kWh.

So, at 40 miles/10 kWh we've got 4 miles/kWh, which I didn't need Google for but so you can see what I'm doing (show your work). That's the easy one.

I've seen 50 miles/gallon cited for the Volt, so we want miles/kWh... 1.36 miles/kWh.

Both of those are "at the pump/plug" numbers: What you use in electricity net of any generation and transmission losses, compared to volume of gasoline from the pump at your filling station net of energy used to process it from the Alberta tar sands.

(My physics teacher would freak out at that SI and US Imperial unit soup, too.)

What I want to know about all of these electric things though... especially if they're quoting Michigan off-peak power prices... what happens in winter? Those of us in northerly climates don't just throw away all of the thermal inefficiency in the internal combustion motor. We vent some of it in to the passenger cabin as "heat". I'm not giving that up; and resistive electric head for the passenger cabin will kill your battery range real fast--everyone's left just the headlights on and needed a boost at one point, right? That's only about 180 Watts (two headlights + assorted markers.)

Is it not possible to calculate the thermal heat in 1L of gasoline when burned at STP at the stoichiometric ratio? If we can get BTU or BTUh out of it, we've got something to work with.

Then compare that to the kWh at your power meter to charge the vehicle enough to travel until the battery system shuts down. (Disable the gasoline system on Volt-like cars.) Count miles. Repeat, average, etc.

I was able to find the right figures for natural gas, so I was able to figure out if it was better to use a single-room space heater or turn up the furnace. (Unsurprising result: A little bit of electricity for one room is better than a lot of gas for the whole house.)

They're also throwing around figures like "40 cents to charge, for 10 kWh, at Michigan off-peak rates." OK, sure, but in Ontario, that'll set you back over a Canadian dollar, as almost nobody has time-of-day metering. Massachusetts will be closer to $2 USD (20 cents/kWh)--which is still half the price of gasoline at last summer's prices in Ontario ($1.25/L).

Here we go. 125,000 BTU in 1 gallon of gasoline, which is about 37 kWh.

So, at 40 miles/10 kWh we've got 4 miles/kWh, which I didn't need Google for but so you can see what I'm doing (show your work). That's the easy one.

I've seen 50 miles/gallon cited for the Volt, so we want miles/kWh... 1.36 miles/kWh.

Both of those are "at the pump/plug" numbers: What you use in electricity net of any generation and transmission losses, compared to volume of gasoline from the pump at your filling station net of energy used to process it from the Alberta tar sands.

(My physics teacher would freak out at that SI and US Imperial unit soup, too.)

What I want to know about all of these electric things though... especially if they're quoting Michigan off-peak power prices... what happens in winter? Those of us in northerly climates don't just throw away all of the thermal inefficiency in the internal combustion motor. We vent some of it in to the passenger cabin as "heat". I'm not giving that up; and resistive electric head for the passenger cabin will kill your battery range real fast--everyone's left just the headlights on and needed a boost at one point, right? That's only about 180 Watts (two headlights + assorted markers.)

Their example fails because they chose a number that has no significance on its own without including a unit of measurement. If you search 58.44 grams, instead of just the number, you get plenty of relevant results. And look at what happens if you take a famous unitless number from chemistry and do a google search. Again, plenty of good results.You can try it with the speed of light as well. A search for 3x10^8 yields nothing, but 3x10^8 m/s gives you the Wikipedia page for Speed Of Light. And as far as I can tell, Google gives you good results for useful numbers in Mathematics like the golden ratio. So I don't see what the problem is.

Their example fails because they chose a number that has no significance on its own without including a unit of measurement. If you search 58.44 grams, instead of just the number, you get plenty of relevant results. And look at what happens if you take a famous unitless number from chemistry and do a google search. Again, plenty of good results.You can try it with the speed of light as well. A search for 3x10^8 yields nothing, but 3x10^8 m/s gives you the Wikipedia page for Speed Of Light. And as far as I can tell, Google gives you good results for useful numbers in Mathematics like the golden ratio. So I don't see what the problem is.

Their example fails because they chose a number that has no significance on its own without including a unit of measurement. If you search 58.44 grams, instead of just the number, you get plenty of relevant results. And look at what happens if you take a famous unitless number from chemistry and do a google search. Again, plenty of good results.You can try it with the speed of light as well. A search for 3x10^8 yields nothing, but 3x10^8 m/s gives you the Wikipedia page for Speed Of Light. And as far as I can tell, Google gives you good results for useful numbers in Mathematics like the golden ratio. So I don't see what the problem is.

Though most that that isn't objectionable or particularly questionable, there is:

How about the litany of developers who claim their games won't run on the 360, or the fact that now that developers know how to code for the PS3, that 360 ports look worse, or that developers have had to lower draw distances for 360 versions, or that the cold hard facts show that the PS3 has more power? Again, you're offering opinions rather than facts.

[citation needed]

The complaints I've heard about the 360 centre around the fact that the hard drive isn't mandatory. That's definitely a huge issue (huge). Another issue would obviously be the 360's more limited media size. But 360 ports looking worse, and cold hard facts showing that the PS3 has more power? These are questionable. The PS3's CPU is probably more powerful, though possible harder to deal with; the PS3's GPU is lacking.

Eurogamer continues to run comparisons between multiplatform games, and many or most still lean toward the Xbox 360 (with not the least reason being that many PS3 games use Quincunx AA rather than the MSAA that the 360 does, resulting in blurry textures)

You're presenting claims of fact without presenting corresponding evidence.

Look, Xboxen are expensive

Maybe you should try this query instead of wasting your time with something already proven not to be a troll by everyone else : Plural of Box.

Many have suggested that games function as crucial gatekeepers to interest in technology, which translates into education and careers in mathematics and science-related fields. If Latinos or any other groups become disenchanted with games due to poor representation, subsequently they may have less interest in technology and its opportunities for class advancement.

I don't necessarily buy it, but none of what you or anyone else in this thread addresses the article's argument.

Look at the work of Burt, Granovetter or Podolny (head of Apple University) and tell me again that sociology isn't scientific. That social network analysis has informed biology and physics and vice-versa speaks to how ridiculous it is to try to divide the hard sciences from the soft sciences. Critique the article on its merits.

How on earth did your post get modded as Informative? You link to a site that says "The Sun's energy output has not increased since direct measurements began in 1978'. That is completely untrue, the sun's energy output varies daily, and the sun goes through 11 year cycles in which it's overall output increases or decreases. Try this article. Or this one. Or just google it yourself!. In fact, one of the articles you link to disputes the other! Maybe you should try reading a few other sources than New Scientist, as there are mountains of evidence that would suggest the science isn't as nearly as conclusive as the IPCC backers would like you to believe.

Hey, cousins marry all the time in the rest of the world. Studies have demonstrated no genetic "inbreeding" issues arise from first cousins having children.

Bullshit!
http://books.google.ca/books?id=tTz4-MmNwzkC&pg=PA285&lpg=PA285&dq=first+cousins+recessive+genes&source=bl&ots=zmwsEcZ601&sig=29u4SAuwaRFyznVKYwH0XEXs57c&hl=en&ei=VztwSoPtEJ-qtgflqf39DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3

The actual figure, from the study, is that it doubles the risk of recessive genes being expressed.

Local Safety Nazis must be involved, I bet someone found the MSDS for vacuum.

...for them to just give up like that. Scuttling programs with no real replacement.

Haven't heard of the Collapse? Haven't even noticed that food prices have doubled in the past year with many nutritional items going off the shelf or being replaced with high-fructose, high-subsidy corn syrup or high-subsidy, high-pesticide soy?

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENCA260&q=peak+oil+collapse

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/

(I bet a lot of you assumed that the Internet would be there forever, as well...)

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Which brings us back to graphical consistency.

I remember when I was playing Oblivion, I came around a corner and there was big stretches of oblivion soup everywhere. (read: blurry textures)

As you get closer, they suddenly snap into detailed mode - or they don't. Sometimes you're walking on detailed ground, and other times it's a blurry mess. The repeating textures which stretch into the distance also get very annoying. Overall, I thought it looked worse than Fable 1.

I was playing Crysis a while back(when it was released), and noted that AntiAliasing misbehaves on anything older than a GeForce 8. It's not actually applied while motion blur is, which gives massive jaggies all across the screen.

Talk about ruining the immersion!

No, it just means that you've got more space here to be a moron without getting into trouble.

I've driven in the US, Canada, and Europe. I can confidently say that you can take your eyes off the road in the US/Canada for a few seconds, and you'll probably still be in your lane, unless you have no concept of physics.
In Europe, if you did the same, you'd have run into something in that few seconds. There was a place I saw in England a few years back where a pub actually stuck a foot or so into the road. The road was obviously built before everybody had cars, probably widened a bit when the car became common, and it was widened right into where the building was.

You can see it on Google Maps right here:
http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=53.645615,-1.849557&spn=0.000714,0.001725&t=h&z=19

Roads in Europe were built to provide the easiest way for foot or equestrian traffic to travel. They frequently go around hills, clumps of trees, and such, and probably follow what were footpaths many centuries ago.
Roads in North America, on the other hand, were built mostly after the car was invented, and were built in a straight line, because your car had no problem climbing over a hill.

You basically got it all right. I deliberately put "self-sustaining" in quotes as an acknowledgement that premature babies, while developing independently of maternal placental support, may still need significant technological support (usually due to poorly developed lungs). I left the time range for nervous system complexity open for both reasons: an uncertainty in the actual appropriate level of nervous system complexity (insufficient data - we'll have a better idea after we develop Artificial Consciousness), as well as possible individual developmental variations (although the first criteria dominates the current error range).

And yeah, while consideration of the impact on donors is one of many important ethical considerations, the most important phrase in that whole post regarding the ethics of embryonic stem cell research is: an undifferentiated embryo has no nerve cells to feel, know, or want anything. If the belief that an embryo has a soul helps someone get to sleep at night in case they should die before they wake, then that's fine. But they can keep their unsubstantiated beliefs to themselves and out of medical/scientific ethics discussions. There are a lot of good reasons for keeping a strong ethical leash on human medical research, but that's not one of them.

Here is the link:
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=&daddr=Wintermute+Dr&hl=en&geocode=FeOahQIdW1YQ-w&mra=mr&sll=42.30243,-82.93065&sspn=0.216343,0.451126&ie=UTF8&ll=42.30423,-82.855453&spn=0.216336,0.451126&z=11

First off, sure, we could all log on and post multiple times to the same post, to try and bring down someone's karma, and I guess that's your prerogative, I imagine you must really feel something to log on 3 times to post to my post.

That said, I will continue...
> its generally a good idea not to use things like 'M$' that stopped being funny and/or witty >probably 4 to 5 years before you graduated high school.

Yeah it probably isnt funny or witty, luckily I wasnt going for that, I was trying to save time as I am tired of writing emails to she dsome light on the ill advised. BTW haven't been in high scholl for about 20 years now.

>I do know what VS stands for, DO YOU? There are at least 3 products produced by Microsoft that >users have refered to as VS, not counting Visual Studio
Yep, I do, and all other associated producst too, as I mentioned I clearly use it in my work environment.

>After you've actually had a job for more than a week out college you'll learn that you do in >general follow what the big fish does, that is in fact the way it works in every industry. Sorry >your teachers all told you that you were unique and special. You aren't.

Been programming for about 12 years now, son, and hate to tell you, I have been there when it was
assembler & C, and I have used all the new toys, like VS, PHP, Ruby on rails, and my fav.
Perl.

>I understand that you think you were clever in your post and that you think this clearly shows >your intelligence level. It doesn't, it shows your immaturity and lack of experience in the work >force. It shows you haven't been playing the game all that long.
Talking about intelligence, seems odd you post under one name first, then answer back under a different name, is it legal to have multiple accounts on /. is this how you and your friends
boost your karma and ranking on this site. Hmmmm.... sounds like something someone that immature might do...

>The one thing I can't stand more than the bullshit I have to deal with from MS on a regular basis >is the bullshit from people like yourself who bash because its trendy, not because you actually >know what the fuck you are talking about.

On the contrary, I do have a place in my heart for alot of M$ methodology, without them , us programmers would have
A) no real semblance of naming conventions
B) no real standard for creating components
C) no good base for creating/ instantiating classes
D) no strong basis for commenting (VSS has great comment practice for source code control)
E) we would all be trying to push our own version of standards in a world where
sharing information (even as simple as XML) might have taken many more years before being where we are today.

On the plus side, M$ has been around for many years, and have been able to amass such an arsenal of
tricks they decided to code a language environment around it (framework and CLR and API wrapping).
They then proceeded to try to force every one to go and change their code to the newer code, by saying that vb6 will no longer be supported. SO everyone that jumped on that band wagon, got themselves another 2 years of changing code into vb.net code to remain up to date.

Having been on many different contracts for WMSs or CRMs which have a heavy backend when you try to add an AI into it to think for you, you tend to stumble into road blocks along the way, that you see
even though .NET is great and cool for alot of things, will not do in a heavy transactional real-time environment, let alone a windows environment.

Putting a machine that keeps a patient alive and making his heart beat, would never be put on a windows OS...do you not agree?

Now I place down the gaunglet, and say, you want to talk code, let's say I want to create a handle
on a link that I might place inside here link www.google.ca...and create all the javascript behind it to enable me to send y