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Yeah, how about a write-up in English?

The bottom line is that Google Search doesn't work very well - at least, not anymore. While it previously supported search expansions which could be taken advantage of by skilled searchers, it's since been focused on quick, lowest-common-denominator responses to the most common questions. As a result, searching for slightly abstract notions is virtually impossible, and some searches which should be straightforward also fail.

One example of a simple failure: "fireworks today" or "fireworks today san francisco" returned nothing after I chanced to see fireworks the other night. Using the date ("fireworks san francisco may 21 2014"), the only relevant result was a set of Coast Guard and DHS documents describing safety precautions for the event (Giants game). Of course, fireworks games are well publicized outside of interntal government safety documents.

Your inability to find the event with your search is because you are going at it lexically backwards from the encapsulating event at which the fireworks were being displayed. The primary key is the event. Historical Google doesn't do well at this, and neither does Bing or any other search engine, which are based on you knowing approximately what you are looking for in the first place.

If instead you were to look at the people who were likely to be the most upset at an unscheduled pyrotechnic display, you'd lookf for something like "DHS san francisco scheduled fireworks"

A more abstract example: try to design a search for articles about names which are or have become insults, such as "Dick."

Yeah, this one is easy: "terrible first names"

BTW, just because they took away Altavista style search parentheticals and punctuation, like "+", nominally to make it easier for people with mobile devices and no ability to think lexically to use, doesn't mean you can't force the issue still, using ordered search terms and conjunctions like AND and OR (and note that "-" still works to omit irrelevant data). See also: https://support.google.com/web...

'That may be the most striking, prescient takeaway from the whole MetaFilter episode: the extent to which the modern Web does not incentivize quality.'

Hey, pick your comeback!

1) This actually shows how ugly web design loses popularity!.
2) It shows you shouldn't depend on Google for exposure!
3) If you want quality, check out Google scholar or a library. The internet is for......entertainment.
4) People don't incentivize quality. Google merely delivers.

Or something like that.

So I quickly checked the publication date, and recalled that Steve Graber, whose work we have been basing off of on the FSR auto levelling for the Kossel / Kossel Pro, had published a video of his setup last year:
https://plus.google.com/110997...
Sure enough, the patent was filed 20+ days after Steve Graber had published his video demostrating probeless auto-levelling.

Steve Graber's video is dated October 6, 2013. The patent application was filed October 29, 2013. That sure is damning... but wait, what's this in the very first line of the application?

RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Pat. App. 61/719,874, filed Oct. 29, 2012, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.

This is a non-provisional application of a provisional patent application that was filed a year earlier, well before Graber's video. His video may be "art", but it's not "prior".

This is not to say that (i) the patent application is valid and should be granted; or (ii) that MakerBot is above reproach, or anything else about it... but just that the article author seems to have gone off half-cocked.

The problem with diesel cars in the USA is that they're more expensive than current hybrids (particularly the Prius)

The hell they are:

2014 Jetta TDI Value Edition: $21,295

2014 Beetle TDI: $24,595

2014 Chevy Cruze Diesel (no options): $24,310

2014 Prius Base Model: $24,200

Seems to be just about the same to me, save the Jetta; mine was a bit more (~$28,000), but that's because I sprung for every option except satnav. Seems the real problem is lack of options, unless you're a VW or Chevy fan.

diesel fuel is on average more expensive at the pump than 87 octane gasoline.

Yea, but you get almost-if-not-more-than twice the miles out of the same amount of fuel, so it ends up being a net win. I will concede that the sticker shock of diesel fuel does cause a lot of people's brains to shut off, and thus, not see the benefit.

See the neologism "islamist". Usually synonymous with "islamic militant, extremist, or radical."

Even the non-offensive usage of the word is absurd. We don't call fundamentalist evangelical christians "christianists".

I gotta say, are we talking about the same Parthenon? The one built at the top of a hill overlooking Athens as pretty nearly the sole structure on the hilltop?

It doesn't precisely show the elevations, but:

https://maps.google.com/maps?o...

is one view, or perhaps this will do better:

http://www.greatbuildings.com/...

As you can see, it is pretty much on top of a mesa. So I'm not sure where your "slight dip in the terrain" could possibly be.

I only point this out not because your argument is implausible in general, but your specific example is one of my favorite places on Earth and although I've only been fortunate enough to visit it in person twice in my lifetime (so far) I remember the walk up from Athens proper quite well, including stopping in some of the many small taverns that are along the trek for octopus and retsina.

rgb

Try this link:
Google Translate of BBC Worldwide article

The BBC is not allowed to carry ads in the UK (TV or websites) so bbcworldwide.com (which is funded by ads) is blocked to UK viewers.

https://play.google.com/store/...

Google hasn't been successful, however, in the other big "new marketing opportunity", better known as mobile (smartphone/tablet). And their ability to sell traditional desktop advertising is also staring to slow, and even decline. http://investor.google.com/ear... All this, and something like 96% of Google's revenue comes from one place; online advertising. And if that business is in peril, then things can degrade quickly. I'd say Google hasn't done much in come-to-market products from consumers. Motorola buyout - fail, Nest buyout - probably a fail, everything thinks they overpaid, etc etc.

Lame article, which points to a blog, which points to another blog, which points to the wrong place on a Russian site, which copied the article from The Daily Mail. The Daily Mail, even though a tabloid, has a halfway decent article.

I'm not going to explain inertial guidance; that's what Wikipedia is for. This is better inertial guidance. Here's a popular article which describes this new class of "gyros" and accelerometers. If you really want to know what's going on here, read Advances in Atomic Gyroscopes: A View from Inertial Navigation Applications

Laser "gyros", which work by interferometery and have no moving parts, have been around for decades. The best laser gyros still have more drift, by about 2 orders of magnitude, than the best mechanical gyros. Laser gyro technology has hit the limits of what you can do with photons. The idea here is to do interferometry with coupled atoms, rather than photons. That technology has been slowly improving for a decade or so, and it looks like it's getting close to deployment for high-end applcations.

One of the more interesting possibilities here is chip-scale gyros of moderate precision. Here's a Honewell patent from 2006 for one.

Liberian oils don't want even 1 drop of it removed from the ground.

Right. A good example is that in the Android "ice cream sandwich" release, Google deliberately broke on-phone voice dialing. Now, to get hands-free dialing, you have to use Google's voice search service, which logs everything you do for ad purposes. It also won't work if you have poor data connectivity but good voice connectivity, which is common when driving. Google's voice search service assumes the user is looking at the screen, which defeats the whole point of Bluetooth headsets.

So there's Google, pulling an LG.

Right. A good example is that in the Android "ice cream sandwich" release, Google deliberately broke on-phone voice dialing. Now, to get hands-free dialing, you have to use Google's voice search service, which logs everything you do for ad purposes. It also won't work if you have poor data connectivity but good voice connectivity, which is common when driving. Google's voice search service assumes the user is looking at the screen, which defeats the whole point of Bluetooth headsets.

So there's Google, pulling an LG.

Time Warner Cable is no longer affiliated with the Time Warner which makes content.

Originally controlled by Time Warner (the film and television production company and cable channel operator), that company spun out the cable operations in March 2009 as part of a larger restructuring. Since then, Time Warner Cable has been an entirely independent company, merely continuing to use the Time Warner brand under license from its former parent

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

as much as i hate them....... that is one thing you cannot blame them for....... comcast on the other hand.....

Ah, but my point is still valid. Time Warner Cable is a content producer and distributor.

Exhibit A: A list of job postings related to video production at TWC. The details of what happened with that merger aren't as clean as you think. Yes, a lot of Time Warner related to production didn't go over to TWC...but some parts of it did, and there's been growth on top of that. Verticalization is the near future of content for video and movies. Netflix is producing television shows. Comcast is making movies. (At least Paramount got out of the goddamned amusement park business. What the hell was THAT all about?)

Classic NM McMansion out in fire country.

Ya, so that's an article about a prototype but what I asked for was a link to the consumer product that the other post was referring to. Great job being a dick and still not getting the point.

https://www.google.com/search?... -- nothing.
https://www.google.com/search?... -- nothing.

Ya, so that's an article about a prototype but what I asked for was a link to the consumer product that the other post was referring to. Great job being a dick and still not getting the point.

https://www.google.com/search?... -- nothing.
https://www.google.com/search?... -- nothing.

can you look this beautiful http://www.google.com/glass/st... while hacking the Gibson?

what makes you think anyone still uses internet explorer.

I don't think most Windows users obtain Firefox or Chrome through FTP or by downloading it to a USB flash drive on a separate computer. Even Google agrees that it should be called "Microsoft Firefox Downloader": look at what it bolds in the search results.

I've got a funny story. I had to go rack some servers at Area 71 as part of the Ingram Micro services network. Or whatever they call it. I worked at WM home office before this job, and was familiar with their data centers, anyway.

Anyway, when you pull up to the security gate, you get asked for what WM calls a "RFAR number". So I was riding with my friend, and he called it a "reefer number" right into the speaker. LOL!

They were like, "Who are you with?!" And my friend was like, "I got a reefer number!". And she was so mad...

They got so pissed!!!!! LOL! True story.

NO SHIT:::: The captcha was "intercom" How does that even happen?

You need to trust trust to trust in your compiler!

So long as your compiler can compile itself, and so long as you have access to other independent implementations of the same language, you can defeat the Ken Thompson attack with the David A. Wheeler defense. Just bootstrap your compiler with each of the other implementations (compile it with the other compiler, then compile it with the resulting binary), and if there's no attack, the binaries will converge. For example, if you have independent compilers A, B, and C, then C compiled with (C compiled with A) will be bit-identical to C compiled with (C compiled with B) unless an attack is in progress. Start by using Visual C++ Express, Clang, TCC, and even a C interpreter to verify your GCC.

I know, I'm just saying, it seems odd that you can get a tablet with a 2560-by-1600 resolution for 400 bucks, and yet you can't even get 1080p with ~12" laptops unless you venture into the 1K+ territory. It just doesn't add up.

Yeah but how effective will this be? A few tens of thousands of miles is barely 10% of the way to the moon.

Objects whiz by at tens of thousands of miles per hour (orbital velocity). By the time you focus the telescope, will it and shade already be out of sync? I am no physicist, but I understand that when things move very fast it is difficult to keep them in sync (reference: I have been to the circus and watched the motorcycles in the spherical cage). With just a telescope and a target that is easy enough, but then you have a shade orbiting between the two and all three have to be lined up correctly for this to work (reference: try drawing a straight line between three points that are not colinear).

Actually it is Dutch and means Police. Belgium is half french-speaking half dutch-speaking.

Every time I rant about this somewhere (except maybe here https://plus.google.com/+Micha... ) people complain that I'm being "elitist" for wanting to read things that are basically text instead of listening to someone else do it.

"Elitist" has become what the word "racist" has become: originally it referred to something important that should be understood and resisted. Now it just means "I have decided I don't like what you said, but I can't find any fault with it. Rather than admit my dislike of it is irrational and should be changed, I'll just call you names now."

Lots of childish people waste their energy hating reality, leading them to resent anyone who is mature enough to spend that energy looking for better ways of dealing with reality. The contrast embarasses them. Since these small-minded people are resistant to change and growth, they perform variuos mental gymnastics to convince themselves this is your fault. After all, they could go on pretending that everyone agreed with them ... until you came along.

Too bad your page does not have the interactive version either, excet after following two other links. The interactive version: https://www.google.com/logos/2014/rubiks/rubiks.html.

Every time I rant about this somewhere (except maybe here https://plus.google.com/+Micha... ) people complain that I'm being "elitist" for wanting to read things that are basically text instead of listening to someone else do it.

Maybe we can persuade The Donald to invest in space exploration.
Then no Russians would be needed.

In dollars, Musk is worth 5x Trump. Musk has made more money this year than Donald Trump's entire portfolio is worth.

In value to society, it is incalculable.

Maybe we can persuade The Donald to invest in space exploration.
Then no Russians would be needed.

In dollars, Musk is worth 5x Trump. Musk has made more money this year than Donald Trump's entire portfolio is worth.

In value to society, it is incalculable.

Chances are you'd get a faster response from Google.

Na, all you have to do is slow down the speed of light 100,000 times and you can produce that cup of tea with only 600 watts.

Yes lets just change a fundamental constant of the universal. Where did I leave that Higgs field manipulator...

You would expect that a link named "an interactive google doodle" would link to, you know, that and not an engadget article which has a decidedly non-interactive screenshot of said doodle . But hey, this is slashdot. Go here instead: http://www.google.com/doodles/

Na, all you have to do is slow down the speed of light 100,000 times and you can produce that cup of tea with only 600 watts.

But that wont happen because they'll ban the thing over irrational fear before the technology reach the point it can print a cup of earl grey.

Okay, let's say you want to make a cup of earl grey tea from energy alone. For simplicity's sake, let's pretend you are providing the cup and the only thing you need to create is 250 mL (~8 fl oz for those of us in the benighted US) of pure water at 100 C. I chose 0.95835 g/cm3 as the density of H2O @ 100 C.

Synthesizing that water from pure energy in a 100% efficient process that magically created only the appropriate molecules would require approximately 6,000 gigawatt-hours of energy, aka 2.15E16 J (hooray for e=m*c^2 being on-topic for once in forever). FWIW, the absolute minimum amount of energy required is equivalent to over 5 megatons of TNT .

For reference, the generating capacity of the entire United States is approximately 1,000 gigawatts . So, uh, in some mythical 100% efficient conversion of electricity to matter it would require the entire generating capacity of the United States for over 6 hours (line losses, oh my!) to produce the water for one cup of earl grey. If you want to stay true to concept, let's say your tea needs to be ready in 5 seconds. Okay, that represents 4.3 petawatts .

So, no, I doubt a ban will be what stands in the way of you getting your replicated earl grey.

Besides, anything that created that much power would be instantly weaponized.

But that wont happen because they'll ban the thing over irrational fear before the technology reach the point it can print a cup of earl grey.

Okay, let's say you want to make a cup of earl grey tea from energy alone. For simplicity's sake, let's pretend you are providing the cup and the only thing you need to create is 250 mL (~8 fl oz for those of us in the benighted US) of pure water at 100 C. I chose 0.95835 g/cm3 as the density of H2O @ 100 C.

Synthesizing that water from pure energy in a 100% efficient process that magically created only the appropriate molecules would require approximately 6,000 gigawatt-hours of energy, aka 2.15E16 J (hooray for e=m*c^2 being on-topic for once in forever). FWIW, the absolute minimum amount of energy required is equivalent to over 5 megatons of TNT .

For reference, the generating capacity of the entire United States is approximately 1,000 gigawatts . So, uh, in some mythical 100% efficient conversion of electricity to matter it would require the entire generating capacity of the United States for over 6 hours (line losses, oh my!) to produce the water for one cup of earl grey. If you want to stay true to concept, let's say your tea needs to be ready in 5 seconds. Okay, that represents 4.3 petawatts .

So, no, I doubt a ban will be what stands in the way of you getting your replicated earl grey.

Besides, anything that created that much power would be instantly weaponized.

Well, you can simply use Google to figure out things. However, I was curious, so I did some of this leg work. The Soyuz-ST rocket that launches 7.8 tonnes to LEO costs $61M in 2006. That was just the launch vehicle.
Now, that was just the launch, and that was almost 10 years ago. So, the price is at least 50% more (russian money has appreciated).
In addition, that does not include the costs of the progress itself. That is likely going to double the price. IOW, you are probably looking at 180M or so for a launch.
Now, how much does it launch? 2.3 tonnes. The reality is that it will carry far less due to packing material
And how much does it return to earth? 0.
So, how does it compare to SpaceX? Well, SpaceX takes up more. In addition, it is cheaper. And most importantly, it brings back items. Progress can return NOTHING. And this is a STEAL compared to the shuttle. Why? Because this needs to go up roughly 4-8 x a year to provide supplies for the ISS. The ISS does not have loads of storage. As such, the shuttle would be going up mostly empty if it was still being used right now. And it would be far too expensive (each mission was about 1500M vs less than 150 million / spaceX F9 with dragon).

because all potential candidates are vetted by the rich before you and I get a chance to vote on them. We're basically picking which corporate shill we like the best...

Current support is accomplished by interfacing to the OS, the cisco binaries are not out yet, but we can hope. And then Mozilla would still need to implement it and then it would take at least 12 weeks until it is tested and ships to the users.

Emergency services have been using things like "zombie attacks" for decades. There's a lot of reasons why. One is if a civilian stumbles onto your training exercise, they're more likely to think it's some sort of movie then to get scared. Another is it's a bit lighthearted for a serious subject and may make it more enjoyable for people involved. And, any skills or experienced from the fantasy directly carries over to real life situations.

Its a politically correct way to practice for when the Muslims change tactics from trying to subvert our democracy and freedoms to outright attack. An enemy that may look like normal people, but want to kill or convert all others ... and someone you know could become converted. Its no surprise that the authorities pick "zombies" to train for this.

https://www.google.com/search?...

Some guy who seemed to be educated in this matter wrote ( https://plus.google.com/103831... ) that the republicans wanted to stall the situation and keep it as it is where no solution can be reached which allows the ISPs to misbehave while the FCC cannot enforce the rules. Democrats voted to open the conversation for public and they're playing a bit dangerous game where they're betting that public will now go and comment and give their piece of mind at http://www.90so.tv/fccproposal and that way prevent the proposed "fast lanes", and get the ISPs reclassified under tier-2. But if that fails then the real shitstorm begins.

With that said I didn't quite understand why they cannot do so in the first place. In 2002 when they changed the classification to tier-1 it wasn't a big deal to them. But then I saw this article at Arstechnica...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

Yeah... gg USA... gg...

Actually, climate change skeptics publish in mainstream journals all the time. There's always loose threads you can pull at.

For example RW Spencer is an evangelical Christian who believes that climate change would contradict God's will. Yet he still gets published in mainstream journals.

This demonstrates the extreme open-mindedness of science, when compared to virtually any other field of human endeavor. Yes, the process is slanted in favor of the prevailing wisdom, but people who disagree with the majority opinion aren't ostracized or prevented from publishing, no matter *why* they believe what they do. Scientists believe things for all kinds of un-scientific reasons: aesthetics, hunches, even personal dislike for other scientists. Religion isn't any less scientific than any of that stuff, but you leave that stuff in the locker room when you're on the playing field, so to speak.

Naturally people whose papers get rejected by reviewers think the referees were unfair. But it's not like *other* skeptics can't get their papers published; they just have to play by science's rules.

I've met with Jeffrey Gundlach to tell him how I think he should run his business. I suggested he quit trading bonds and become the guy who takes a highlighter to your receipt at Walmart.

Elong Musk is doing just fine without your help, thankyouverymuch.

http://books.google.com/books?...

I have never in my life heard the word "thugs" used as a "code for black people". That's the honest truth.

You do know that a big part of something being "code" for something else is so that people who don't know the code don't realize it's being used that way, right?

Unless you've been living under a rock, it is probably not true that you have never heard the term used this way. I think it is true that you are fairly ignorant about racism/racial code words in present day America, which I would hope would lead you to do a cursory search about the topic instead of posting your ignorance as some kind of an anecdotal evidence, bafflingly rewarded with upvotes.

It's one thing to not be up to date on, say, who will be offended if you don't address them as "zhe", but you seem to be pro-actively denying the existence of a fairly widespread racial slur, which seems indefensible to me.

That's a silly thing to say, and it's obviously false.

*sigh*. You're right, we're living in an era of unparalleled cooperation between the two dominant political parties. The Republicans in the legislature haven't been obstinate for the sake of obstruction at all, no. *sigh*

According to polls, many Americans were opposed to the passage of the ACA; sometimes a majority.

And so this is your rationale for claiming that it was pushed down Americans' throats? That for the most part a minority of Americans were opposed to it? I suppose you're similarly opposed to any other legislation that falls short of unanimous support?

Sadly, it's unlikely that anything interesting will happen this year. I don't see the Democrat/Republican control over our government weakening any time soon. If you expect any meaningful change to come from either side of the same coin, you haven't been paying attention.

That's a silly thing to say, and it's obviously false.

*sigh*. You're right, we're living in an era of unparalleled cooperation between the two dominant political parties. The Republicans in the legislature haven't been obstinate for the sake of obstruction at all, no. *sigh*

According to polls, many Americans were opposed to the passage of the ACA; sometimes a majority.

And so this is your rationale for claiming that it was pushed down Americans' throats? That for the most part a minority of Americans were opposed to it? I suppose you're similarly opposed to any other legislation that falls short of unanimous support?

Sadly, it's unlikely that anything interesting will happen this year. I don't see the Democrat/Republican control over our government weakening any time soon. If you expect any meaningful change to come from either side of the same coin, you haven't been paying attention.

How shoelaces work to keep our shoes on our feet,

Here is a Ted Talk on how you are probably tying your shoelaces wrong. Did you know there are two versions of that knot. One is the strong version and the other is the weak version. Most people learn to tie the weak version. The weak version also causes the bows to align along the long axis of the shoe instead of lying across the shoe as it should.

If you are an official non profit (501 organization) Google provides free services including their App engine AND will provide up to $10,000 free adwords advertising a month. http://www.google.com/nonprofi...