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Kinda...see 24m20s (great video by Neil deGrasse Tyson)
The middle-east region had a great period for astronomy (and art, math, biology etc). Which was then followed by al-Ghazali - who brought the world Sufism.
So it was in spite of Islam that the region did so well, not because of it.

Sweet but untrue.
Violence is not solely in the human domain.
A simple example:
http://www.google.com/search?q=monkey+cannibalism&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Bullshit. Blackberries dont require constant resets or tweaking. they just work, out of the box.

Except when they don't.

OWA support on Blackberries, btw, is an absolute fucking joke.

Mines trouble free and is teh FIST

Wow. I worry about any phone that is "teh FIST." I mean, seriously, they have creams for that.

https://plus.google.com/104560124403688998123/buzz Mark has 4890 followers. Mark is following 16. Block Mark

There's FuTTY, which contains the PuTTY Tray patch.. http://code.google.com/p/futty/

You can still get his number of friends and followers here: https://plus.google.com/104560124403688998123/buzz

Yes, his profile is still visible at https://plus.google.com/104560124403688998123/about . Only the details like number of followers, followings etc has been made private.

Click on the Buzz tab.

Yeah, and he's following sixteen others.

He didn't quit Google+ he just changed his privacy settings so that you can't track how many friends/followers he has. You can still see his profile right here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104560124403688998123

Yes, his profile is still visible at https://plus.google.com/104560124403688998123/about . Only the details like number of followers, followings etc has been made private.

Lets see, one OS you have the source code to look for vulnerabilities, one you don't. I assure you that people DO look for vulns in Linux, especially those who use it for their file and web servers. The only folks looking for vulns in Windows are black hats looking for virus vectors, and white hats fighting the black hats.

What's that saying about Many Eyes? (PDF from Wash U, "Many Eyes Hypothesis") Wait, now I remember -- Linus' Law.

Linus's Law is a claim about software development, named in honor of Linus Torvalds and formulated by Eric S. Raymond in his essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".[1] The law states that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"; or more formally: "Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix will be obvious to someone." Presenting the code to multiple developers with the purpose of reaching consensus about its acceptance is a simple form of software reviewing. Researchers and practitioners have repeatedly shown the effectiveness of the reviewing process in finding bugs and security issues,[2] and also that reviews may be more efficient than testing.

In Facts and Fallacies about Software Engineering, Robert Glass refers to Linus' Law as a "mantra" of the Open source movement, but calls it a fallacy, stating that research has found that the number of bugs found decreases with too many inspectors, and that no research supports the Law as stated.[3] Interestingly, closed-source practitioners tacitly support the law's notion, by promoting stringent, independent code analysis during a software project's development.[4][5]

That's odd he's off the top of the list, maybe given special status or I'm following an impostor? Because he's still in my dbag circle ...

My search for a good version of tabbed putty still continues. Currently I'm using Superputty. Unfortunately, it is far from a finished product - the main problems being lack of proper keyboard shortcuts and non-regain of focus on maximize/minimize.

If someone knows a good tabbed putty version, my life would become a lot simpler.

Cygwin + openSSH + minTTY is an utter godsend on windows; minTTY is the best terminal emulator I've used on windows by a long shot and IMHO knocks the one included with putty into a cocked hat.

Why MS chose to use the same god-awful terminal for their all-singing all-dancing powershell is beyond me.

http://code.google.com/p/mintty/

Features I'm waiting for before I buy an e-book reader:

1. I'm not touching anything with DRM, because any book I buy with DRM is virtually guaranteed to be unreadable in four years.

2. A decent selection of books.

3. Good support for books with equations in them.

Iriver apparently fails #1. The WP article on google ebooks says it's touted as open, but actually uses DRM.

A quick search for books by an author I like shows that only a small fraction of his books are available, so fail on #2 as well.

All epub-based formats basically fail #3. Dunno about the formats supported by google ebooks.

Additionally, you can't create a profile for a non-person entity such as a pet or business.

At least they have some integrity. That statement right there is sacrificing a lot of money for a better system. I get so pissed off when some business expects me to do this or that on their Facebook page*. The interesting thing is that you don't have to be a user to view Google+ pages, so they could have stolen a lot of those business users away from Facebook but they chose not to.

Ford Motor Company certainly seems like a business to me. I'm sure they'll refer to Ford's google+ page as something other than a "profile" to lawyer their way out of that one. :)

One interesting thing I noticed is that even though I don't have any problems viewing Google+ pages with Safari/Firefox, a little box tells me there is a problem. It doesn't appear on Chrome. That's a little underhanded. I even checked to make sure everything worked just like it worked in Chrome.

It's quite obnoxious of google to claim that the version of firefox which was released with debian stable a year ago and is well-supplied with security updates is not a "modern browser". A googler I know says this alert is just because they haven't done any testing on these versions, but the red inline, scrolling pop-up is still quite obnoxious. I recommend they make it an ugly rectangular image file that says "Best viewed in Chrome at 800x600 resolution!" a la the mid 1990s. :)

Speaking of that annoying red pop-up, if they are going to confusingly subsume the use of red(well almost-red) for the currently active google feature in the top menu and the active Circles and the like, they really shouldn't also use red for the more conventional meaning of an alert/warning message like this. User interfaces should be consistent.

...but if they're requiring real names...

They don't, and haven't as of yet, they want your "common name". Here's their remarkably readable brief policy.

from that page:

Google Profiles requires you to use the name that you commonly go by in daily life.

Am I missing something? What distinction are you making between a "real name" and a "common name"? What Google is asking for appears to be exactly what the GP doesn't want to give (neither do I). Google does demand your real name.

Before anyone mentions the "modes" that page describes, they control who you appear to be to other people, not Google itself. And "other people" might not mean all third parties, just the other common users like you. And even if you like the idea of these "modes" then you still have to trust Google's intentions and competence to keep them from leaking.

And, with a slightly more satirical bent, Brass Eye.

Where else can you get a closed source compiler for $5.00

The compiler in Xcode is Clang, which is not closed source. $5 for the IDE though, that's neat.

In comparison, Microsoft wants $800 [microsoftstore.com] for their blessing to build on their platform. There are workarounds on the Express editions, but it's more trouble than it's worth.

What workarounds? If you develop for Windows Phone, you download VS Express for WP, and that's that.

Which platform is easiest?

It's a wrong kind of question to ask. WP is probably the easiest for a really simple, barely-above-Hello-World kind of app, but the major problem there is with platform limitations (lack of APIs, no native code etc). On the other hand, Android is clearly the hardest to work with, as tools are nowhere near as polished as either VS or Xcode, but you can do some nifty things there that are downright impossible on other platforms.

...but if they're requiring real names...

They don't, and haven't as of yet, they want your "common name". Here's their remarkably readable brief policy.

Google Book search can help: http://books.google.com/books?id=zAEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA72&dq=falcon+northwest+mach&hl=en&ei=eMkcTqnSM5DCsAO0r9mUDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CEYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=falcon%20northwest%20mach&f=false

There can only be one.

A Google employee confirmed that support for Google Apps is coming. I think the more interesting point is that it sounds like Google Apps users will be able to send G+ messages to people only within their Apps domain. So it sounds it will be a service sort of like Yammer for Google Apps users.

Darn. :(

As far as I know, there is no reason why you can't have open source android applications. Example: the ADW Launcher for Android, of which I use a modified version called VTL.Launcher.

Furthermore, the app store is a convenience, not a necessity, on Android. I can download and install an apk from anywhere I like.

And, lastly, there are closed-source and non-free Linux applications.

"Linux" != "open source," does it? They generally coincide, but they are not equivalent.

Also, you can modify various kernels and build "distros" of Android. I'm running a "distro" on my viewsonic g tablet. I have tried two others, as well.

Actually, everything works except G+ and Buzz. It just has to be turned on by your administrator. (I use latitude all the time with my apps account)

Sent, and please consider adding the awesome Felicia Day to your circles :)
https://plus.google.com/110286587261352351537

Felicia Day is already on G+, so all is good on the Internet...
https://plus.google.com/110286587261352351537

To article's summary, you can gate twitter and Facebook using a Chrome add in called Extended Share +
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oenpjldbckebacipkfbcoppmiflglnib

I believe they already got their invites...
https://plus.google.com/104560124403688998123/posts
https://plus.google.com/112063946124358686266/posts

I believe they already got their invites...
https://plus.google.com/104560124403688998123/posts
https://plus.google.com/112063946124358686266/posts

OH COME ON

Suggesting otherwise is slanderous.

Chiropractics has numerous reported cases of injury. So sue me?

I'm running the Tricorder App on Android and it agrees, there is no life on iPad.

Here's one I recently came across while researching something... Interestingly, it's currently owned by Google:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=MlfIAAAAEBAJ

Or a couple of random picks from searching for "software" on Google Patents:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=4fqFAAAAEBAJ
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=aYGbAQAAEBAJ

Now remember, to show prior art, you have to look at the CLAIMS and find one or more earlier references that knock out each and every element in the claims. The above patents should be easy, they have some of the briefer claims I've seen. Have at it.

Here's one I recently came across while researching something... Interestingly, it's currently owned by Google:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=MlfIAAAAEBAJ

Or a couple of random picks from searching for "software" on Google Patents:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=4fqFAAAAEBAJ
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=aYGbAQAAEBAJ

Now remember, to show prior art, you have to look at the CLAIMS and find one or more earlier references that knock out each and every element in the claims. The above patents should be easy, they have some of the briefer claims I've seen. Have at it.

Here's one I recently came across while researching something... Interestingly, it's currently owned by Google:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=MlfIAAAAEBAJ

Or a couple of random picks from searching for "software" on Google Patents:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=4fqFAAAAEBAJ
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=aYGbAQAAEBAJ

Now remember, to show prior art, you have to look at the CLAIMS and find one or more earlier references that knock out each and every element in the claims. The above patents should be easy, they have some of the briefer claims I've seen. Have at it.

Google Profiles have been around since April of 2009. I want some of what you are smoking. =) http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/history.html

Are just pulling this out of thin air or why are people spreading complete crap here? Just because Germany has such machinery it doesn't mean most of the electricity is from coal.

Here that's last year's energy mix in Germany: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F7%2F74%2FStrommix-D-2010.svg

Yes, that's 43% coal in total, but not the majority. It's a huge share, too huge if you ask me. But it won't increase significantly next years. The coal plants that are planned to be build until 2022 are mostly replacements for the old, aging and really dirty plants that are currently running. They were planned to be build either way, no matter if we shut down the nuclear power plants or not. So that share won't be affected.

What will be affected is the 22% nuclear energy share (it will drop to 0 by 2022) and the renewable energy share (currently around 17% if I calculated right) which is supposed to exceed 30% by 2022. Calculate in the saving by not exporting as much electricity and you'll see that there is no need to produce more electricity from coal.

Now put that into perspective with China (78% coal, 2% renewable energy) and the US (50% coal, 9% renewable energy) and then you'll see that you better think twice before telling anyone how to produce electricity.

This is what MS were forced to do with IE and it causes major issues because it encourages people to write to particular versions. It means people are inclined to do things like only target one browser ("your browser is unknown because it is too new"), it gives them another reason to only support old versions of code ("well my users can use compat view") rather than update their code and it makes browsers harder to write because you can't drop old code and potentially have to keep adding more and more engines to support all the old quirks. I gather this is one of the reasons why HTML5 no forces authors to signal which version of HTML they are targeting...

The last official version of Firefox 3.6 to support PowerPC Mozilla has not supported PowerPC (or 10.4) since Firefox 3.6.

News International papers targeted Gordon Brown
Newspapers obtained details from the former prime minister's bank account and legal file and his family's medical records - Thanks to Jeff Jarvis for the story.

'that' research. what research ? there are more than 1 research. there were two researches pointing to the same result, one from lausanne, switzerland, and one from india, Punjab University in Chandigarh.

http://alerte.ch/etudes/4-presentation/76-la-telephonie-mobile-perturbe-le-comportement-des-abeilles.html

that is the lausanne study

http://www.google.com/search?q=Sharma%2C+V.P.+and+Kumar%2C+N.+K.+2010.+Changes+in+honeybee+behaviour+and+biology+under+the+influence+of+cellphone+radiations.+Current+Science+98+(10)%3A+1376+%E2%80%93+1378.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

that is the punjab study.

im calling you a zealot, because despite you could have reached to the above results with a little bit effort, you went in a foray to discredit an 'original' study thinking that there was only one, ranging from ranting about statistic samples to controlled environments. there now, you can proceed on to working on these two papers trying to discredit them, since now you know that there isnt only ONE research, but more. you didnt even know that just a post ago, but you were raving all around.

even the effort i expended above on YOUR behalf is way too much. apparently the inconvenience of accepting something you find convenient harms your environment hits your nerves.

that study was verified by other studies concluded in different parts of the world.

http://www.google.com/search?q=cell+phones+kill+bees&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

cell phone signals repulse, confuse and disorient bees. this leads to the colonies to disappear.

Best part of reading this story was watching the video and discovering that the iPlayer volume goes to 11.
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=bbc+iplayer+volume+goes+to+11

I've been largely assembling circles these past couple days and was undecided about uploading an actual picture of me because there's no way to suppress that from being visible to people outside my circles. Sure, Google's put out an informative privacy center but I'm pretty sure in Facebook there is a way to hide nearly everything from people searching for you on the site.

Google seems to be offering me a different strategy. I found the option to make my profile unsearchable but if someone got a hold of the crazy URL for my profile, they can see my name and picture without being in my profile. I'd rather be searchable and when unknown people find my profile they don't get much (maybe my name and nothing else) until they add me to their circle and I subsequently add them to mine. I think this is the desired functionality of nearly all my friends and that's how we use Facebook.

I haven't said anything about this as when I first joined, I could not even control the access to my picasa albums as they were automatically imported. This was particularly worrisome as I had some photos of my family around Christmas so I just deleted the albums. A few days later I saw the privacy controls though so I'm guessing the above should be added. Google+ is really undergoing a lot of changes still.

One complaint I had that isn't privacy related is how taxing the UI is. I just deleted a circle this morning and the action failed twice and then worked the third time. When it worked, there was a row of circles on my screen and the circle I deleted was pushed forward and rolled to the left in front of all the other circles off my screen and then the circles closed their ranks. Cute and pretty ... but not when you're on a low performance computer. Granted, it was probably a lot lighter than Flash, I'm not interested in a social network that's going to include elaborate animations for very simple actions. At least give me a way to disable that.

Also on The World Bank, and the Exchange Stabilization Fund.

Which means reading up on a guy called Harry Dexter White. None of these organizations are lily white. They exist to project power and achieve geopolitical aims, which makes the recent Dominique Strauss-Kahn controversy highly suspect.

Anyway, the US government already hit the debt ceiling a month or two back, what they have been doing in the meantime is raiding federal employees pension schemes, to the tune of several hundred billion dollars. Once that is all gone (real soon now), they'll start closing down government departments and selling stuff to pay the bondholders. There will be no default even if the ceiling is not raised.

In the meantime, if you hold government bonds which you know are going to decrease in value, what do you do? You sell them and put the money elsewhere. Where? Stock market. The recent rally in the stock market is the smart money getting out of US government bonds ahead of the next set of auctions, at least till the debt ceiling is sorted. It certainly isn't because the economy is running on all cylinders, heading for another recession is more likely.

(Oh, also read up on Fractional Reserve Banking, the source of all these problems in the America and Europe: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2550156453790090544)

Would ANY military in the world allow a mildly retarded person to fly their multi-million dollar airplanes? ABSOLUTELY NOT! http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=345494 Thanks for playing.

Buffet is a raider who makes his money by scavenging failed and distressed companies. Of COURSE he is in favor of whatever policies will suck all the capital businesses need out of the economy and into the Treasury.

You are an idiot. Buffet invests in successful companies when market conditions make the asset attractively priced to him, not because they are failing.

Does this look like a distressed company: NYSE:LZ? That's one of his latest acquisitions.

But go ahead and believe whatever makes sense in this made-up world view of yours. You probably think the theory of evolution is a lefty plot too.

The games will be the online apps that Google is promoting via Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore. It won't take much for them to integrate those into Google+, open them to other (compliant) web browsers, and there you have a decent alternative to Facebook games (if you're into that sort of thing).

Do it yourself,

http://www.google.com/reviews/t