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User: peter303

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  1. digital vacation one day a week on How the Smartphone Killed the Three-day Weekend · · Score: 1

    No internet, email or smartphone. I'm usuualy outdoors doing something.

  2. name something you'd buy from a hacktathon? on Ask Slashdot: What Makes a Great Hackathon? · · Score: 1

    It just sounds like neither the process or participants are very mature.

  3. You should try learning English on Australia Makes Asian Language Learning a Priority · · Score: 1

    "Chinese" is a perfect acceptable English name of the national language of China. It has several other meansing too. In China they call it the Peking Dialect, the Northern Dialect, The National Languge, The Common Speech, and The Middle language among other names, beiyu, guoyu, putonhua, zhongweng, hanyu.

  4. "warp 39" in star trek terms on Over 100 Hours of Video Uploaded To YouTube Every Minute · · Score: 1, Interesting

    In original Star Trek the warp number seed was the cube of light velocity. 100 hours per minute is a 60,000-fold factor or 39-cubed. Even at that speed it would take a year and four months cross the Milky Way from one side to another.

  5. why no dark matter black holes? on Dark Matter, WIMPS, and NASA's Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Data · · Score: 1

    If dark matter only reacts to gravity, why doesnt collapse into hgh density clumps over the eons? Ordinary matter is stopped from doing this by the electronmagnetic repulsion of atoms for masses less than a few hundred Jupiters and by hadronic stong force for less than couple Suns.

    We would definately notice dark matter signularities, since there is six times more of it than the non-dark kind.

  6. more antimatter near Earth than expected on Dark Matter, WIMPS, and NASA's Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Data · · Score: 2

    The PAMELA probe sees antiprotons in the Van Alen belts. The ISS-AMS sees more positrons than expected. Whatever the ultimate expanation, its interesting to see these surpluses.

    The amounts are so small, dozens of protons for PAMELA and hundreds of thousands of positrons for AMS, that they would not be noticeable in human life.

  7. mars probes vastly more geologic stops on Opportunity Breaks NASA's 40-Year Roving Record · · Score: 1

    If you define a geological stop for at least a day to take pictures and maybe manipulate rocks/soils. The MERs have done over a thousand of these stops in their combined 6000 days of work. Lunakhod nor Apollo never came close to this number.

  8. deja vu all over again on Google's House of Cards · · Score: 1

    As a cousin of mine is accused of saying. Motifs come, leave and return in computer science as in any other discipline. Bill Atkinsons HyperCard was vey good. Web browser URLs supplanted this several later. But URLs never really captured the geometric metaphors possible in Bill's systems (chains, grids, loop, decks, etc.) .

  9. Steve Jobs 2.0? on Larry Page's Vocal Cords Are Partially Paralyzed · · Score: 1

    Whats it with tech CEOs hidign serious health inssues?

  10. gene tests not very reliable yet on Larry Page's Vocal Cords Are Partially Paralyzed · · Score: 1

    James Waston, the 3rd man to have genome sequenced, had 28 serious genetic diseases according to the published article in Nature. Yet none of them had expressed. Steve Pinker said had the gene for male pattern baldness.

  11. "we've done this for years" U-of-Phoenix Prof on Georgia Tech and Udacity Partner for Online M.S. in Computer Science · · Score: 1

    I listened to a MOOC talk by an enthusiastic state-school tenured professor last year. Then a a Univeristy of Phoenix professor in the audience arose and said they had been doing these online courses for years. They have some idea of what video and chatroom techniques work and dont work and all the cheating that goes on. The Couseras of the world are re-inventing the wheel this professor claimed. Although for-profit schools are dismissed for their fnancial sleaziness, they do have a point.And wehen the venture capitalists demand their "pound of flesh" will the Courseas be any less sleazt than the existing for-profit online schools? I am hoping for "best of both worlds" result, a merger of both best experiences.

  12. human proctored tests on Georgia Tech and Udacity Partner for Online M.S. in Computer Science · · Score: 1

    There are plenty of worldwide services who proctor in-person exams for NBAr, medical, SAT, etc. This would require one in-person visit per course, and a fee.

  13. polar shift is a branch of geophysics on Global Warming Shifts the Earth's Poles · · Score: 2

    There have been several papers on the topic every year in the geodesy section of the American Geiphysical Union meetings. Earthquakes, ice sheet melting, mantle convention velocity changes, seasonal ocean storms all cause mass shifts int he earth and a slight change in pole position. Before satellite GPS geophysicists used Very Long Baseline radio telecscope inferometry of quasars to measure pole position. VLBI is essentially a "galactic GPS" but more expensive than satellite GPS methods.

    A closely related geophhyscial measurement is Length-of-Day, that is the time between repeat viewing of stars which varies nanoseconds per day and milliseconds per year. All the same large earth mass-moveoments that shift poles also change Length of Day.

  14. completely unconsitituion on N. Carolina May Ban Tesla Sales To Prevent "Unfair Competition" · · Score: 2

    A US state cannot arbitrarily ban a good or service from another state in Article 1, sections 9 & 10. Only the federal government has this power to regulate interstate trade. This was one fears during the early years of United States that states might shut out each other, so it was banned.

  15. 3AM plumbing drips are more scary on Hand-held "Sound Camera" Shows You the Source of Noises · · Score: 1

    The quietest time of the day-night. I dream of those 100-dollar bills flying away to plumberland.

  16. vanishing new journal racks in libraries on Why Is Science Behind a Paywall? · · Score: 4, Informative

    I used to like to browse the print editions of journals in reserach libraries. These have shrunk by 80% - 90% as many libraries switch to as-much-as-you-can-electronic policy. Plus its difficult to get electronic browsing permissions if you are just a visitor.

  17. $2,500 to $5,000 per article on Why Is Science Behind a Paywall? · · Score: 2

    Nature, another annoying paywall journal (but very good), had a detailed study about two months ago on the of publishing an article in both print and pure electronic forms. This even assumed reviewers work for free. They included editorial staff, printing, distribution, archiving and all that stuff. Journals recover costs through subscriptions, author charges, and society fundraisers. In one society I am in the annual commercial convention is the largest fundraiser.

  18. 10,000 ppm in the Paleozoic on CO2 Levels Reach 400ppm at Mauna Loa For First Time On Record · · Score: 1

    Multicellular plants just getting established then with larger concentration fluctuations. However life can adjust to slow, large changes. Significant changes in just centries instead of millions of years may stress life.

  19. Re:CO2 at an active volcano? Who wudda thot? on CO2 Levels Reach 400ppm at Mauna Loa For First Time On Record · · Score: 2

    > Fortunately for science the Mauna Loa readings are in good agreement with those taken at hundreds of other sites around the globe. Roughly. Each hemisphere has the opposite season fluctuation of about 2%.

  20. 1996 teraflop 2006 petaflop on Linpack on Japan Planning Exascale Computer For 2020 · · Score: 2

    Moores law predicts 1000x per 15 years.

  21. room for one domoinant currency on Btcd - a Bitcoind Alternative Written In Go! · · Score: 1

    Its a market like auction houses or friendship networks: there basically isnt no reason fro a #2 or #3. Bitcoin may not be the winner due to it flaws, mainly speed.

  22. peopel doing this 40 years ago on The New AI: Where Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence Meet · · Score: 1

    When I was at Stanford. On a much smaller scale then due to week computers.

    I dont htink the problems of "brittleness"- unpredictable result if new inputs are presented- and "opaqueness"- weights are interpretable- have changed.

  23. soon all scifi movies will look the same on Ray Harryhausen, Visual Effects Master, Dies Aged 92 · · Score: 1

    Since J. Abrams seems to be directing all the big ones. I wont be able to tell the difference between Star Trek and Star wars anymore.

  24. anonymous is naive on Ask Slashdot: Why Won't Companies Upgrade Old Software? · · Score: 1

    He beleives organizations behave rationally. Must be a young student or soemthing.

  25. genetic sequencing in science fair projects on Device Can Extract DNA With Full Genetic Data In Minutes · · Score: 1

    I see more and more of that. Right now fairly simple things are done. But with cheap sequencing and all the genetic unknowns out there I would not be surprised by some significant science fair discoveries.