I really don't understand. While other manufacturers like HTC have been working to reduce the footprint of their UI over Android, Samsung wants to increase it?
I have a Galaxy Nexus and I absolutely love it. But I wouldn't have bought it if it had included their old Touchwiz UI which generally was considered the worst out of the three major manufacturers. Vanilla ICS is a great experience and leaps leaps over previous versions. However the new UI on the Galaxy III looks even more intrusive and has pretty much generated nothing but mocking on Android fan sites. It seems as if Samsung is taking a step back.
And while the Google/Motorola thing might be on their minds, Google has done nothing but signal that the deal is about patents and Motorola won't be favored. Most recently this has been signaled by the fact that they want to open the Nexus program to all manufacturers rather then doing what they've done in the past and just picking one.
Most real pirates don't download content for free. They spend money on their internet provider, often being forced to chose more expensive options for no cap. Many subscribe to so called storage lockers like rapidshare and others which have subscription based services usually starting around $10 a month.
The reason? Legal options are terrible.
This was driven home to me several nights ago. My wife wanted to see the last episode of a show that she had missed last week. I said that would be easy, fired up the network website, found the episode and started streaming it. The quality was terrible but watchable. However for some reason the commercial breaks were not synced right and about a minute after the commercials the show would freeze and then fast forward two minutes. Out of a twenty minute episode we maybe were able to watch fifteen minutes of it. And then were forced to watch another five minutes of adds.
Frustrated, I looked for a pirated copy of the show online, downloaded a much better quality version and streamed it to my television. No commercials, no errors in the playback, higher quality, more convenient, and it took less then five minutes to download.
It seems like every time I try the legal options the experience is terrible.
Population growth rates have nothing to do with porn and video games, however, since low population trends in first world countries have been happening since the 60s. It has everything to do with several complimenting influences. First of all first world countries have more access to education on sex and contraception, which allows people to make better decisions on when they want children. Also women have the ability to support themselves by getting an education and working and supporting themselves, allowing them to delay marriage and having children (but also reducing the number of fertile years a woman has where she is actively trying to create a family). If you're growing up in a country where the birthrate is high, like Nigeria for instance, you may have no access to contraception at all and you'll most likely be married before your legally considered an adult in most first world countries. The other thing that affects this is in first world countries having a lot of children is a liability. Children are expensive; education and medical expenses pile up when you have children, not to mention giving them all the clothes and toys they want. In poorer countries having children is a boon because you don't worry about the educational and medical expenses and you start to use those children early on to help support the family. Having them work on the farm from an early age or even sending them to factories to work, having a bunch of children to support the family makes a certain amount of economic sense. It has very little if nothing to do with porn or gaming.
While I've heard a lot about how NASA is undergoing drastic spending cuts, I haven't found any hard numbers for it. In fact, a cursory look at wikipedia and NASA's own published budget shows the opposite; NASA's current budget is actually historically above average. It is certainly higher then it was for most of the 1990s and 1980s. In fact according to wikipedia the average budget of NASA has been 15 billion, and yet it sits at around 17 billion today, actually increasing from 15 billion to 17 billion in 2007 and maintaining that level of spending for the foreseeable future.
This seems to be backed up by NASA's own numbers (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/622643main_FY%2013%20Budget%20Presentation.pdf). So my question is, what are we really talking about here? What am I missing? They only way that NASA is getting less funding right now is if you take it as a percentage of Federal spending in general, but that's more a sign that Federal spending has ballooned the last ten years rather then NASA not being funded. Is there really a NASA budget crisis, and if so why are they having time operating despite ending the fairly expensive shuttle program and despite receiving more money then they have historically since the space race?
The difference is, when you're watching something with 'blur reduction' or anything like that you're watching 24 frames per second stretched into 48 fps instead. It's the same amount of information, every frame is just being played twice. It gives the illusion of higher framerate.
On the other hand this was 48 fps from a source that was filmed at 48 fps.
Many of the reviewers who were also at the screening were quick to point out that it did not have the soap opera effect but something else entirely. Sadly this is obviously something very subjective.
Up here in Washington state there is quite a bit that parent's can do online. For instance all teachers use the same unified program to input grades, which means that my grade book is essentially open and online as long as you have a password. Any parent can log in at any time and see every grade I've given their student (obviously the information is limited only to their students and nobody else). Some teacher's don't like it because grade books tend to be messy things with placeholder assignments inputted for future projects or having blank grades simply because some periods have been graded and others haven't. Helicopter parents hate it when there's a blank for a grade, for any reason. On the other hand I do know many teachers, including me, that do have personal websites, and some that even update them with weekly assignments. My website is hardly checked at all by parents, so I may not be keeping it going much longer. Ultimately though the problem with going to a completely paperless system is that, as amazing as it is, not every student has access to the internet. In my school somewhere between 50-60% of students are children of migrant farm workers and all live in a rural area where the internet is not dependable and expensive. I have no idea how many of the 150 students I see every day don't have internet access, but I would not be surprised at all if more then 50 did not. Obviously this might be different in the suburbs, but even there I think people would be surprised how many did not have regular access to the internet. It is still considered by many a luxury, not a necessity. Until that changes schools are forced to rely on low tech means to reach parents.
Except that Freshwater was immediately suspended without pay following the allegations, which is as good as firing, until the hearing was completed. The length it took had to do with the very difficult to prove allegations. The fact that most parents weren't willing to press charges is one of the reasons it was so difficult to fire him. Not only that but some of the more extreme examples from the case like the burning were almost impossible to prove as the student who claimed it was never allowed to be physically examined and never went to a hospital, despite the fact it almost certainly would have warranted it. In fact that was not why he was terminated since the person in charge of investigating reported that “Once sworn testimony was presented, it [became] obvious that speculation and imagination had pushed reality aside." Instead he was fired for incorrectly teaching evolution. Depending on the state it;s actually not that difficult to fire teachers, despite what you might hear in the media, you just need cause. The fact that Freshwater sued for wrongful termination has nothing to do with a broken school system and everything to do with the legal system. He had a right to sue, and he lost costing him almost a million dollars as well.
Except that using Radon to predict earthquakes is not recognized by the scientific community as there has been no statistical correlation between the two. The issue has been studied extensively since the 1970s when a case study found an increase in radon in the ground water prior to an earthquake. At the time it was thought it might be the key to unlocking earthquake predictions, which still are incredibly difficult to narrow down (some faults for instance only produce major earthquakes every few hundred years, so the range of when that fault could go off has a plus or minus of centuries). However after extensive studies over the next two decades there was no statistical proof that Radon was any predictor. Most earthquakes occur without any increase in radon prior, and by the same token radon increases have been monitored without any corresponding earthquake.
What makes radon even more disreputable is that it is used by charlatan's out to get their names in the paper, because if they predict earthquakes enough every once in a while they get it right (which is easy to do since Earthquakes generally occur in narrow zones on the earth and active faults can produce hundreds of earthquakes a year). The scientists on trial were most likely reacting strongly because the warning was based on a disproven hypothesis. Sadly it's difficult to ascertain whether they were really being negligent and saying there's no possibility of any earthquake at all (which seems like a stupid thing to say since obviously there's always a chance in a major fault zone) or if they simply were debunking this particular lab tech who was making noise in the media trying to make a name for himself. Unfortunately since all the news is secondary sources summarizing and retelling the truth is difficult to gauge. Ultimately though the real problem here has to do with the lack of enforcement of earthquake codes which would have saved lives.
Unfortunately I don't think a Memento/Inception comparison is really valid since there's an important variable that you're not controlling for; name recognition. Hollywood knows far too well that people like to go see things that they are familiar with, whether it be a franchise they like or a director they trust. Which is why the Matrix Reloaded made more then the Matrix despite being generally considered a far inferior film. People like things they are familiar with. This is also why Steven Spielberg's name is used in any project he's remotely connected to despite not having done anything of much significance in the last decade; Spielberg's name brings warm memories and increased sales.
Memento had the misfortune of being directed and written by a little known guy named Christopher Nolan who's only previous film, Following, was known mostly to movie geeks. Inception on the other hand was directed and written by a big name director Christopher Nolan, who was responsible for Batman Begins and the Dark Knight. People like what is familiar, which is why we'll never be rid of sequels and remakes.
The problem is that once the attack happens it's already too late. Which is why this drug is better then the vaccine.
The thing with a biological attack like this is you don't need to coordinate an attack on the US. All you need is a few containers to spray the virus in a major airport or over a major metropolitan area. It can take twelve days after infection for any symptoms to appear but the vaccine needs to be taken three days after exposure, and after they do the effectiveness of the vaccine drops significantly. In other words, following an attack it could be two weeks before any countermeasures are deployed, and in that time air travel will spread the virus across the world. In other words, by the time we know we've been attacked it will be too late, and in that case the vaccine will only really help those who have not yet been exposed, not the tens of thousands that are exposed before. The death rate of smallpox is about 30% but it may be higher now that it has been a generation since it has been taken out of the general population and no one has a natural immunity to it anymore. What's more the smallpox vaccine is a particularly nasty vaccine and is not safe for pregnant women, those with already compromised immune systems, and is not even given to first responders anymore. It's estimated that 25% of people in the US would be ineligible to receive the vaccine and would have to avoid people who had received the vaccine afterwards.
This is a little like complaining about reinforcing pilot's doors before 9/11. It seems like a waste of time and money until people start dying. Many experts have been warning about the danger of the use of these diseases as biological agents by terrorists for decades. I remember the first time I heard about it was in an International Relations class in college in 97. Smallpox is estimated to have killed between 300-500 million in the last century before it was eradicated. It's certainly nothing to take lightly.
About six years ago I developed a kidney stone that refused to pass. I was right out of college, had just lost my health coverage and did not have a job with insurance. The pain was chronic and possibly dangerous (I won't go into the details but also fairly rare). Finally I went to my local hospital and paid out of pocket. After four or five visits along with a CT scan and a trip to the emergency room (and about six hundred dollars in hospital bills) they finally told me that I needed lithotripsy to destroy the stone. Because I had no insurance the cost of them blasting the stone in an out patient operation (basically going into the hospital that morning and being kicked to the curb by lunch) was roughly 8000 dollars.
Instead I flew to Germany where a weeks stay in the hospital and two lithotripsy operations (because the stone did not break up the first time) along with x-rays, ultrasounds and other tests cost me 3000 dollars. Add in a plane ticket that cost about 600 and I paid less then half to fly across the world to get the operation done then I would have paid here in the states (even worse, if I had to have two operations in the states the total would have been 16,000, whereas the German doctors only charged me a few hundred more for a few more days in the hospital).
I had grown up hearing all my life about the horrors of socialized medicine. About long waits and incompetent care. What I experienced was the opposite. I had longer waits in US hospitals (including a two hour wait for a CT scan, I never waited more then half an hour for anything in Germany). What shocked me more was how brazenly I was treated by the doctors here in the US, who seemed almost uninterested in what I had to say and were more interested in getting me out of their office. I also had the unfortunate experience in the US during this time of having one of my samples switched with someone else's and had the doctor (erroneously) call me into the office to tell me I had Hepatitis C. I wasn't amused.
They're charging a 100 pound difference in the UK between the Xoom and the iPad2? Wow. In the States it's much less, the difference between the comparable models is $60, or 36 pounds. The 32 gb Xoom costs $799, while the 32 gb iPad2 costs $729 over here.
And not to be that guy, but your argument against 4G formats could be used against 3G formats too... 3G formats are just as fragmented as 4G, and I would be stunned if the next iPhone doesn't go to 4g.
Federal law requires that they have had the equivalent hours of a science major before they can be "highly qualified" to teach science. For instance I'm a Social Studies teacher who majored in History in college, but recently I've considered getting an endorsement to teach Science to make myself more marketable. I already have a minor in Geology. To get a science endorsement I would have to take the equivalent of a BS in Chemistry or Biology before I can be hired as a Science teacher. While I technically wouldn't have 'majored' in science, the program hours would have to be equivalent or I cannot be endorsed. The summary is misleading.
For the most part (and the article says this) teachers don't teach evolution because they're attempting to avoid controversy and angry calls and visits from parents. My father is a science teacher and when he gets to his one month section on evolution (a unit he developed) he does all sorts of things to try to placate parents like send home letters before hand. My father isn't one to duck controversy, but parents are a pain in the ass.
Back then most public libraries kept copies of phone books from around the U.S. Phone numbers and addresses are information that has always been freely available, it's only more convenient online, not necessarily less secure.
I'm not sure that Slashdot is the best place to get perspective on Facebook partly because I don't think people who make up slashdot are the backbone of Facebook users.
From my obviously very subjective perspective, most active facebook users are women. There doesn't seem to be any age specific to it's use either. Men on the other hand are far fewer, and the older they get the less likely they are to use it. For instance I have six aunts aged 40-60. All six are active on Facebook. Can you guess how many of their husbands are? If you guessed 0, then you would have been right. By the same token, my 80 year old grandmother is on facebook. Do you think my grandfather has an account? Of course not. My 55 year old dad is very computer literate and probably spends a lot of his day on computers. Does he have a facebook account? Of course not. However my mom does, a woman who hates computers and blames them for pretty much any societal ill she can think of.
The trend continues down to men my age (in their 30s), although it's not as strong. For instance both my sisters are on Facebook, but their husbands aren't. As far as cousins it's about half and half, with all of my female cousins and wives of cousins having accounts, and about half of my male cousins and husbands of cousins on facebook.
The most active users that are my friends (of course I don't have a lot of friends who are younger then 20, so I can't speak to that) tend to be bored housewives.
Which is why I'm not sure Slashdot has the best perspective on it, we're not exactly the target demographic.
Is it dying? Well what are the alternatives? It seems like everyone who's tried to come up with something to replace facebook has failed miserably. Witness Google's Buzz and Apple's Ping.
I think it does fulfill a need. Certainly you can get most of what you have on facebook in other places. For instance I have a few chat clients, I have email, I even have a website and a blog. I could set up an online photo album if I wanted. And if I need to get a hold of someone I could always call them on the phone. What a lot of people aren't getting when they talk about these alternatives is it isn't that those things aren't available, it's that facebook offers all those things integrated into a very simple design. I'm sure my mom could figure out with enough time how to create websites, create photo albums, get a chat client and then find her friends and direct them to her website... but signing up for facebook did all that for her with very little effort and almost no learning curve.
Of course facebook is silly to a lot of people on slashdot, that kind of integration isn't a huge selling point to them. Most people here like complexity and they don't necessarily value contact and communication in such a shallow form. That doesn't mean that it isn't important to other people. I'm not saying Facebook is going to stay around forever, it could easily be replaced by something else, but I would argue that facebook offers something that even myspace never did, and it wasn't just that myspace was too open or often messy. And for something to replace facebook it would have to offer what facebook offers but in a better format. Until that happens don't expect it to go away.
I think the comparison is apt. There are all sorts of things I don't tell my wife, not because I'm a bad person or I don't trust her, but for the sake of our relationship. For instance I don't tell her when she works hard on dinner and it turns out terrible. My first thought may be "This is the worst thing I've ever tasted," but I would never tell her that. Similarly I don't tell her every time I think another woman is attractive or if I think she's in the middle of an argument with a friend and she's probably being the unreasonable one. The same goes the other way, I'm sure she has thoughts that she keeps to herself along the same vein. It's called a relationship. However if all those private thoughts over the years were suddenly dumped out on her in succession without context our relationship would most likely be heavily damaged.
From what I've seen that has come out so far, most of it fits in that category. Frank discussions of allies that just aren't flattering, some of the messiness of diplomacy, etc...
Gaining the House doesn't really help Republicans much at all without having the Senate. And of course anything that they can get through the Senate can still be vetoed by the President. But having the House does allow subpoenaing power, and it's not surprising that already the right leaning NLPC has started preparing for what will certainly be a very long two years of investigations and hearings.
Actually Capitalism is any economic system where the means of production are owned and profited by private individuals and organizations rather then the state. What you're talking about is a strict free market where the government doesn't do anything but enforce contracts. Also it is sometimes called Laissez-faire economics. Which is why you can be a firm capitalist and still believe that the Government has the right to stop the selling of lead laced toys.
I would say that is fairly typical of the last five years. The reason? Testing. Since No Child Left Behind emphasized testing as a basis for federal funds the way we teach has changed. Social Studies, however, is not tested. Math and Science on the other hand are two key indicators that Federal Law focuses on, so achievement in Math is directly related to how much funding schools get. It's not surprising that Math gets so much of the budget of the school. Science has always demanded more money but that's simply the nature of the subject.
I work in the Social Studies department in a High School, and while I agree that math is important, there is an emphasis on math that takes away from other subjects. Class size of math classes in my school are all around 20 kids per class, whereas all of our classes in Social Studies are at least 30 kids per class(and it is not uncommon for us to not have enough desks for students in certain periods and having to set up tables in the back for them). They do that by hiring more math teachers. In my school, a fairly small HS of about 600, there are four Social Studies teachers and six Math teachers, despite them both being core subjects and students needing roughly the same amount of math and SS credits to graduate. Every teacher in the math department has a smart board and projector, while the Social Studies department shares one projector between four teachers. I really do appreciate that math is important, but we invest far more in the teaching of math then we do a lot of other subjects, at least in our public schools.
The droid operating system has had voice commands for a long time now, my Droid 1 came with them back in December when I bought it. It's even been featured in commercials before.
What this is isn't so much as a new program as it is a polished expansion of what was already there. They added more commands and those voice commands can now interact with other apps more easily. The voice recognition also seems improved, but I could be wrong since it was never a feature I used very much. The widget was also updated slightly.
Really this is just one of many updates that have come with the release of 2.2 and the Droid 2.
First of all these numbers directly contradict the numbers presented a few weeks ago that only 20% of Android users would buy another Android phone. Here it says that 71% of Android users would buy another Android phone. Still lower then Apple's 91%, but that can partly be ascribed to the fact that Apple has built a very strong brand loyalty over the last several years.
Secondly, there is a direct negative correlation between the release of the Motorola Droid (which began the release of many droid phones like the Incredible) and the drop in recent acquirers of IOS4, going from 34% to 23% in the same period that droid went from 6% to 27%. Now this could be that people were holding out for the iphone 4, however the trend started nine months ago. It's doubtful most people were holding out nine months for the latest iphone. There were probably a few, but I don't think that explains these numbers.
Third these numbers are going to be dramatically different in the third quarter simply because the hype of the release of the iphone 4. Because the new iphone is released rarely compared to a most other phones that event atmosphere lends itself to what I'm sure will be a spike in iphone sales. What will be most telling is what happens in Q4 as things balance out.
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I really don't understand. While other manufacturers like HTC have been working to reduce the footprint of their UI over Android, Samsung wants to increase it? I have a Galaxy Nexus and I absolutely love it. But I wouldn't have bought it if it had included their old Touchwiz UI which generally was considered the worst out of the three major manufacturers. Vanilla ICS is a great experience and leaps leaps over previous versions. However the new UI on the Galaxy III looks even more intrusive and has pretty much generated nothing but mocking on Android fan sites. It seems as if Samsung is taking a step back. And while the Google/Motorola thing might be on their minds, Google has done nothing but signal that the deal is about patents and Motorola won't be favored. Most recently this has been signaled by the fact that they want to open the Nexus program to all manufacturers rather then doing what they've done in the past and just picking one.
Most real pirates don't download content for free. They spend money on their internet provider, often being forced to chose more expensive options for no cap. Many subscribe to so called storage lockers like rapidshare and others which have subscription based services usually starting around $10 a month. The reason? Legal options are terrible. This was driven home to me several nights ago. My wife wanted to see the last episode of a show that she had missed last week. I said that would be easy, fired up the network website, found the episode and started streaming it. The quality was terrible but watchable. However for some reason the commercial breaks were not synced right and about a minute after the commercials the show would freeze and then fast forward two minutes. Out of a twenty minute episode we maybe were able to watch fifteen minutes of it. And then were forced to watch another five minutes of adds. Frustrated, I looked for a pirated copy of the show online, downloaded a much better quality version and streamed it to my television. No commercials, no errors in the playback, higher quality, more convenient, and it took less then five minutes to download. It seems like every time I try the legal options the experience is terrible.
Population growth rates have nothing to do with porn and video games, however, since low population trends in first world countries have been happening since the 60s. It has everything to do with several complimenting influences. First of all first world countries have more access to education on sex and contraception, which allows people to make better decisions on when they want children. Also women have the ability to support themselves by getting an education and working and supporting themselves, allowing them to delay marriage and having children (but also reducing the number of fertile years a woman has where she is actively trying to create a family). If you're growing up in a country where the birthrate is high, like Nigeria for instance, you may have no access to contraception at all and you'll most likely be married before your legally considered an adult in most first world countries. The other thing that affects this is in first world countries having a lot of children is a liability. Children are expensive; education and medical expenses pile up when you have children, not to mention giving them all the clothes and toys they want. In poorer countries having children is a boon because you don't worry about the educational and medical expenses and you start to use those children early on to help support the family. Having them work on the farm from an early age or even sending them to factories to work, having a bunch of children to support the family makes a certain amount of economic sense. It has very little if nothing to do with porn or gaming.
While I've heard a lot about how NASA is undergoing drastic spending cuts, I haven't found any hard numbers for it. In fact, a cursory look at wikipedia and NASA's own published budget shows the opposite; NASA's current budget is actually historically above average. It is certainly higher then it was for most of the 1990s and 1980s. In fact according to wikipedia the average budget of NASA has been 15 billion, and yet it sits at around 17 billion today, actually increasing from 15 billion to 17 billion in 2007 and maintaining that level of spending for the foreseeable future. This seems to be backed up by NASA's own numbers (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/622643main_FY%2013%20Budget%20Presentation.pdf). So my question is, what are we really talking about here? What am I missing? They only way that NASA is getting less funding right now is if you take it as a percentage of Federal spending in general, but that's more a sign that Federal spending has ballooned the last ten years rather then NASA not being funded. Is there really a NASA budget crisis, and if so why are they having time operating despite ending the fairly expensive shuttle program and despite receiving more money then they have historically since the space race?
The difference is, when you're watching something with 'blur reduction' or anything like that you're watching 24 frames per second stretched into 48 fps instead. It's the same amount of information, every frame is just being played twice. It gives the illusion of higher framerate. On the other hand this was 48 fps from a source that was filmed at 48 fps. Many of the reviewers who were also at the screening were quick to point out that it did not have the soap opera effect but something else entirely. Sadly this is obviously something very subjective.
Setting the bar lower for the other 49 states since 1912.
Up here in Washington state there is quite a bit that parent's can do online. For instance all teachers use the same unified program to input grades, which means that my grade book is essentially open and online as long as you have a password. Any parent can log in at any time and see every grade I've given their student (obviously the information is limited only to their students and nobody else). Some teacher's don't like it because grade books tend to be messy things with placeholder assignments inputted for future projects or having blank grades simply because some periods have been graded and others haven't. Helicopter parents hate it when there's a blank for a grade, for any reason. On the other hand I do know many teachers, including me, that do have personal websites, and some that even update them with weekly assignments. My website is hardly checked at all by parents, so I may not be keeping it going much longer. Ultimately though the problem with going to a completely paperless system is that, as amazing as it is, not every student has access to the internet. In my school somewhere between 50-60% of students are children of migrant farm workers and all live in a rural area where the internet is not dependable and expensive. I have no idea how many of the 150 students I see every day don't have internet access, but I would not be surprised at all if more then 50 did not. Obviously this might be different in the suburbs, but even there I think people would be surprised how many did not have regular access to the internet. It is still considered by many a luxury, not a necessity. Until that changes schools are forced to rely on low tech means to reach parents.
Except that Freshwater was immediately suspended without pay following the allegations, which is as good as firing, until the hearing was completed. The length it took had to do with the very difficult to prove allegations. The fact that most parents weren't willing to press charges is one of the reasons it was so difficult to fire him. Not only that but some of the more extreme examples from the case like the burning were almost impossible to prove as the student who claimed it was never allowed to be physically examined and never went to a hospital, despite the fact it almost certainly would have warranted it. In fact that was not why he was terminated since the person in charge of investigating reported that “Once sworn testimony was presented, it [became] obvious that speculation and imagination had pushed reality aside." Instead he was fired for incorrectly teaching evolution. Depending on the state it;s actually not that difficult to fire teachers, despite what you might hear in the media, you just need cause. The fact that Freshwater sued for wrongful termination has nothing to do with a broken school system and everything to do with the legal system. He had a right to sue, and he lost costing him almost a million dollars as well.
Except that using Radon to predict earthquakes is not recognized by the scientific community as there has been no statistical correlation between the two. The issue has been studied extensively since the 1970s when a case study found an increase in radon in the ground water prior to an earthquake. At the time it was thought it might be the key to unlocking earthquake predictions, which still are incredibly difficult to narrow down (some faults for instance only produce major earthquakes every few hundred years, so the range of when that fault could go off has a plus or minus of centuries). However after extensive studies over the next two decades there was no statistical proof that Radon was any predictor. Most earthquakes occur without any increase in radon prior, and by the same token radon increases have been monitored without any corresponding earthquake. What makes radon even more disreputable is that it is used by charlatan's out to get their names in the paper, because if they predict earthquakes enough every once in a while they get it right (which is easy to do since Earthquakes generally occur in narrow zones on the earth and active faults can produce hundreds of earthquakes a year). The scientists on trial were most likely reacting strongly because the warning was based on a disproven hypothesis. Sadly it's difficult to ascertain whether they were really being negligent and saying there's no possibility of any earthquake at all (which seems like a stupid thing to say since obviously there's always a chance in a major fault zone) or if they simply were debunking this particular lab tech who was making noise in the media trying to make a name for himself. Unfortunately since all the news is secondary sources summarizing and retelling the truth is difficult to gauge. Ultimately though the real problem here has to do with the lack of enforcement of earthquake codes which would have saved lives.
Unfortunately I don't think a Memento/Inception comparison is really valid since there's an important variable that you're not controlling for; name recognition. Hollywood knows far too well that people like to go see things that they are familiar with, whether it be a franchise they like or a director they trust. Which is why the Matrix Reloaded made more then the Matrix despite being generally considered a far inferior film. People like things they are familiar with. This is also why Steven Spielberg's name is used in any project he's remotely connected to despite not having done anything of much significance in the last decade; Spielberg's name brings warm memories and increased sales. Memento had the misfortune of being directed and written by a little known guy named Christopher Nolan who's only previous film, Following, was known mostly to movie geeks. Inception on the other hand was directed and written by a big name director Christopher Nolan, who was responsible for Batman Begins and the Dark Knight. People like what is familiar, which is why we'll never be rid of sequels and remakes.
The problem is that once the attack happens it's already too late. Which is why this drug is better then the vaccine. The thing with a biological attack like this is you don't need to coordinate an attack on the US. All you need is a few containers to spray the virus in a major airport or over a major metropolitan area. It can take twelve days after infection for any symptoms to appear but the vaccine needs to be taken three days after exposure, and after they do the effectiveness of the vaccine drops significantly. In other words, following an attack it could be two weeks before any countermeasures are deployed, and in that time air travel will spread the virus across the world. In other words, by the time we know we've been attacked it will be too late, and in that case the vaccine will only really help those who have not yet been exposed, not the tens of thousands that are exposed before. The death rate of smallpox is about 30% but it may be higher now that it has been a generation since it has been taken out of the general population and no one has a natural immunity to it anymore. What's more the smallpox vaccine is a particularly nasty vaccine and is not safe for pregnant women, those with already compromised immune systems, and is not even given to first responders anymore. It's estimated that 25% of people in the US would be ineligible to receive the vaccine and would have to avoid people who had received the vaccine afterwards. This is a little like complaining about reinforcing pilot's doors before 9/11. It seems like a waste of time and money until people start dying. Many experts have been warning about the danger of the use of these diseases as biological agents by terrorists for decades. I remember the first time I heard about it was in an International Relations class in college in 97. Smallpox is estimated to have killed between 300-500 million in the last century before it was eradicated. It's certainly nothing to take lightly.
About six years ago I developed a kidney stone that refused to pass. I was right out of college, had just lost my health coverage and did not have a job with insurance. The pain was chronic and possibly dangerous (I won't go into the details but also fairly rare). Finally I went to my local hospital and paid out of pocket. After four or five visits along with a CT scan and a trip to the emergency room (and about six hundred dollars in hospital bills) they finally told me that I needed lithotripsy to destroy the stone. Because I had no insurance the cost of them blasting the stone in an out patient operation (basically going into the hospital that morning and being kicked to the curb by lunch) was roughly 8000 dollars. Instead I flew to Germany where a weeks stay in the hospital and two lithotripsy operations (because the stone did not break up the first time) along with x-rays, ultrasounds and other tests cost me 3000 dollars. Add in a plane ticket that cost about 600 and I paid less then half to fly across the world to get the operation done then I would have paid here in the states (even worse, if I had to have two operations in the states the total would have been 16,000, whereas the German doctors only charged me a few hundred more for a few more days in the hospital). I had grown up hearing all my life about the horrors of socialized medicine. About long waits and incompetent care. What I experienced was the opposite. I had longer waits in US hospitals (including a two hour wait for a CT scan, I never waited more then half an hour for anything in Germany). What shocked me more was how brazenly I was treated by the doctors here in the US, who seemed almost uninterested in what I had to say and were more interested in getting me out of their office. I also had the unfortunate experience in the US during this time of having one of my samples switched with someone else's and had the doctor (erroneously) call me into the office to tell me I had Hepatitis C. I wasn't amused.
Actually after including Falstaff in Henry IV and then mentioning his death in Henry V, Shakespeare brought him back for The Merry Wives of Windsor.
They're charging a 100 pound difference in the UK between the Xoom and the iPad2? Wow. In the States it's much less, the difference between the comparable models is $60, or 36 pounds. The 32 gb Xoom costs $799, while the 32 gb iPad2 costs $729 over here. And not to be that guy, but your argument against 4G formats could be used against 3G formats too... 3G formats are just as fragmented as 4G, and I would be stunned if the next iPhone doesn't go to 4g.
Federal law requires that they have had the equivalent hours of a science major before they can be "highly qualified" to teach science. For instance I'm a Social Studies teacher who majored in History in college, but recently I've considered getting an endorsement to teach Science to make myself more marketable. I already have a minor in Geology. To get a science endorsement I would have to take the equivalent of a BS in Chemistry or Biology before I can be hired as a Science teacher. While I technically wouldn't have 'majored' in science, the program hours would have to be equivalent or I cannot be endorsed. The summary is misleading. For the most part (and the article says this) teachers don't teach evolution because they're attempting to avoid controversy and angry calls and visits from parents. My father is a science teacher and when he gets to his one month section on evolution (a unit he developed) he does all sorts of things to try to placate parents like send home letters before hand. My father isn't one to duck controversy, but parents are a pain in the ass.
Back then most public libraries kept copies of phone books from around the U.S. Phone numbers and addresses are information that has always been freely available, it's only more convenient online, not necessarily less secure.
I'm not sure that Slashdot is the best place to get perspective on Facebook partly because I don't think people who make up slashdot are the backbone of Facebook users. From my obviously very subjective perspective, most active facebook users are women. There doesn't seem to be any age specific to it's use either. Men on the other hand are far fewer, and the older they get the less likely they are to use it. For instance I have six aunts aged 40-60. All six are active on Facebook. Can you guess how many of their husbands are? If you guessed 0, then you would have been right. By the same token, my 80 year old grandmother is on facebook. Do you think my grandfather has an account? Of course not. My 55 year old dad is very computer literate and probably spends a lot of his day on computers. Does he have a facebook account? Of course not. However my mom does, a woman who hates computers and blames them for pretty much any societal ill she can think of. The trend continues down to men my age (in their 30s), although it's not as strong. For instance both my sisters are on Facebook, but their husbands aren't. As far as cousins it's about half and half, with all of my female cousins and wives of cousins having accounts, and about half of my male cousins and husbands of cousins on facebook. The most active users that are my friends (of course I don't have a lot of friends who are younger then 20, so I can't speak to that) tend to be bored housewives. Which is why I'm not sure Slashdot has the best perspective on it, we're not exactly the target demographic. Is it dying? Well what are the alternatives? It seems like everyone who's tried to come up with something to replace facebook has failed miserably. Witness Google's Buzz and Apple's Ping. I think it does fulfill a need. Certainly you can get most of what you have on facebook in other places. For instance I have a few chat clients, I have email, I even have a website and a blog. I could set up an online photo album if I wanted. And if I need to get a hold of someone I could always call them on the phone. What a lot of people aren't getting when they talk about these alternatives is it isn't that those things aren't available, it's that facebook offers all those things integrated into a very simple design. I'm sure my mom could figure out with enough time how to create websites, create photo albums, get a chat client and then find her friends and direct them to her website... but signing up for facebook did all that for her with very little effort and almost no learning curve. Of course facebook is silly to a lot of people on slashdot, that kind of integration isn't a huge selling point to them. Most people here like complexity and they don't necessarily value contact and communication in such a shallow form. That doesn't mean that it isn't important to other people. I'm not saying Facebook is going to stay around forever, it could easily be replaced by something else, but I would argue that facebook offers something that even myspace never did, and it wasn't just that myspace was too open or often messy. And for something to replace facebook it would have to offer what facebook offers but in a better format. Until that happens don't expect it to go away.
I think the comparison is apt. There are all sorts of things I don't tell my wife, not because I'm a bad person or I don't trust her, but for the sake of our relationship. For instance I don't tell her when she works hard on dinner and it turns out terrible. My first thought may be "This is the worst thing I've ever tasted," but I would never tell her that. Similarly I don't tell her every time I think another woman is attractive or if I think she's in the middle of an argument with a friend and she's probably being the unreasonable one. The same goes the other way, I'm sure she has thoughts that she keeps to herself along the same vein. It's called a relationship. However if all those private thoughts over the years were suddenly dumped out on her in succession without context our relationship would most likely be heavily damaged. From what I've seen that has come out so far, most of it fits in that category. Frank discussions of allies that just aren't flattering, some of the messiness of diplomacy, etc...
Gaining the House doesn't really help Republicans much at all without having the Senate. And of course anything that they can get through the Senate can still be vetoed by the President. But having the House does allow subpoenaing power, and it's not surprising that already the right leaning NLPC has started preparing for what will certainly be a very long two years of investigations and hearings.
Actually Capitalism is any economic system where the means of production are owned and profited by private individuals and organizations rather then the state. What you're talking about is a strict free market where the government doesn't do anything but enforce contracts. Also it is sometimes called Laissez-faire economics. Which is why you can be a firm capitalist and still believe that the Government has the right to stop the selling of lead laced toys.
I would say that is fairly typical of the last five years. The reason? Testing. Since No Child Left Behind emphasized testing as a basis for federal funds the way we teach has changed. Social Studies, however, is not tested. Math and Science on the other hand are two key indicators that Federal Law focuses on, so achievement in Math is directly related to how much funding schools get. It's not surprising that Math gets so much of the budget of the school. Science has always demanded more money but that's simply the nature of the subject.
I work in the Social Studies department in a High School, and while I agree that math is important, there is an emphasis on math that takes away from other subjects. Class size of math classes in my school are all around 20 kids per class, whereas all of our classes in Social Studies are at least 30 kids per class(and it is not uncommon for us to not have enough desks for students in certain periods and having to set up tables in the back for them). They do that by hiring more math teachers. In my school, a fairly small HS of about 600, there are four Social Studies teachers and six Math teachers, despite them both being core subjects and students needing roughly the same amount of math and SS credits to graduate. Every teacher in the math department has a smart board and projector, while the Social Studies department shares one projector between four teachers. I really do appreciate that math is important, but we invest far more in the teaching of math then we do a lot of other subjects, at least in our public schools.
The droid operating system has had voice commands for a long time now, my Droid 1 came with them back in December when I bought it. It's even been featured in commercials before. What this is isn't so much as a new program as it is a polished expansion of what was already there. They added more commands and those voice commands can now interact with other apps more easily. The voice recognition also seems improved, but I could be wrong since it was never a feature I used very much. The widget was also updated slightly. Really this is just one of many updates that have come with the release of 2.2 and the Droid 2.
First of all these numbers directly contradict the numbers presented a few weeks ago that only 20% of Android users would buy another Android phone. Here it says that 71% of Android users would buy another Android phone. Still lower then Apple's 91%, but that can partly be ascribed to the fact that Apple has built a very strong brand loyalty over the last several years. Secondly, there is a direct negative correlation between the release of the Motorola Droid (which began the release of many droid phones like the Incredible) and the drop in recent acquirers of IOS4, going from 34% to 23% in the same period that droid went from 6% to 27%. Now this could be that people were holding out for the iphone 4, however the trend started nine months ago. It's doubtful most people were holding out nine months for the latest iphone. There were probably a few, but I don't think that explains these numbers. Third these numbers are going to be dramatically different in the third quarter simply because the hype of the release of the iphone 4. Because the new iphone is released rarely compared to a most other phones that event atmosphere lends itself to what I'm sure will be a spike in iphone sales. What will be most telling is what happens in Q4 as things balance out.