Re:My measurement of Google's evil...
on
A Look at Google DRM
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· Score: 4, Informative
It first came to my attention that Google was evil when I did: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=winip&btnG=Go ogle+Search and got See results for Winzip and see also winipcfg in the middle of my searches.
They're accounting for the possibility that 'winip' might be a typo for 'winzip' or 'winipcfg'. Given the fact that 'winzip' is approximately 150 times more common than 'winip' (according to googlefight, at least), it's probably not an unreasonable assumption to make. If you search for "winip" (with the quotes) it only looks for exact matches, so doesn't offer up results for possible alternatives. They are actually trying to be helpful, and while it may be annoying to some, you could hardly call it malicious or evil...
That isn't necessarily a good idea for other reasons though - it encourages people to drive older cars which, apart from having lower fuel economy and higher emissions, are less likely to be as roadworthy, and don't have the safety features of modern cars, so you'll get more people suffering worse injuries in crashes, which puts more of a strain on hospitals and the like.
as fans have unpronounceably abbreviated it, ELOTH:TES
Unpronounceable? It's got 'el' (as in bell), 'oth' (as in moth), and 'tes' (as in test) - 'eloth-tes'. What's the slightest bit unpronounceable about that?
Not really, no. We're talking about big solid lumps of granite, which at the sort of temperatures they're at to start with won't undergo any significant thermal contraction even if cooled to atmospheric temperature. Plus we're only able to extract a relatively small proportion of the overall amount of heat in these deposits, so the overall temperature of the rock won't change a whole lot.
All the news and radio reports I've read and heard (including TFA) have made no mention of ships being actually turned away at this stage. So far they're just saying that the storage space at the ports is rapidly filling up, so if the processing rate doesn't improve soon they will have to look at turning ships away. But as far as I can tell, they're planning to roll back to the old system before that becomes necessary...
The other thing water does is change the composition of melt that comes off the plate when it gets subducted, so the rocks produced at a subduction zone (granites) are different to those produced at mid ocean ridges and hot spots (basalts). Granite has a lower density than basalt, which means that once produced it tends to hang around up at the surface during plate tectonic processes, where it gradually accumulates and forms the continents we have today, while the heavier basalts form the ocean basins. There doesn't seem to be the same differentiation between continental granites and oceanic basalts on Mars, which might indicate that there was never quite as much water around to aid the plate tectonics process.
What I didn't understand is why not release both males and females that were sterile.
The other thing is that you don't want the sterile males mating with sterile females - that's a waste of a sterile male. If you release large numbers of both sterile males and females, the chances of a sterile male mating with a sterile female are much higher, so the number of fertile females mating with sterile males will be much lower, which will make the whole process far less effective.
Audio books aren't anywhere near as effective for technical books as for other genres. The main trouble with converting technical books to audio is that they often use diagrams and tables to explain and illustrate things, which is kinda hard to do with an audio book.
Yeah, the 138th Episode Spectacular and Beyond The Laughter occupy about the same place in official Simpsons continuity. But still, that's the reason why everyone's saying Kentucky...
I'm not exactly sure why this is better or worse than simply pipetting bacteria into a large petri dish, though.
It's better because it allows much more detailed and accurate patterns of bacteria to be deposited - using a pipette pretty much all you can do is stick a blob of gunk on a bit of glass.
If you look carefully at the region-code map, you'll see it only covers the land-masses. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans are technically not inside any region.
IIRC, places such as cruise ships, aeroplanes, oil rigs and the like are all designated as Region 8...
Re:At last, Iain M Banks gets a bit of recognition
on
2005 Hugo Nominations
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· Score: 1
The Humanoids in the Culture are from across this Galaxy, but if they've made contact with Humanity on Earth is alluded to in a post-scrip to one of the early Culture novels.
Actually, the Culture is fully aware of Earth and the humans inhabiting it - see The State Of The Art. It's a collection of Banks' short stories - the story that gives the book its title is specifically about the Culture and Earth.
the 'new' Top Gear is crap *because* it's 1 hour (not 30 mins)
If that's what you want, you should move to Australia. We do get Top Gear (on BBC World - only available on pay TV), but it's only a half-hour edited version rather than the full hour.
I bought my PS2 in London when I was living there the past 3 years, Ive now returned (to Sydney) and want to buy and play legit games that are sold at my local stores. WTF should I buy a new console when a mod chip will do the job?
Have you actually tried.au PS2 games in your.uk PS2? I've imported a couple of games from the UK and played them on my unmodded.au PS2 no problem - I'm reasonably sure there's no real region encoding on PS2 games beyond the PAL/NTSC thing. Might be worth spending $10 on a second-hand.au PS2 game to see if it works in your.uk PS2.
Of course, this doesn't help if you want to actually play R4 DVDs on it though...
Slashdot Mirror
It first came to my attention that Google was evil when I did:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=winip&btnG=G
and got See results for Winzip
and see also winipcfg
in the middle of my searches.
They're accounting for the possibility that 'winip' might be a typo for 'winzip' or 'winipcfg'. Given the fact that 'winzip' is approximately 150 times more common than 'winip' (according to googlefight, at least), it's probably not an unreasonable assumption to make. If you search for "winip" (with the quotes) it only looks for exact matches, so doesn't offer up results for possible alternatives. They are actually trying to be helpful, and while it may be annoying to some, you could hardly call it malicious or evil...
Logos really only affect children and teens
And the primary demographic that the game companies are trying to market their products to is...?
That isn't necessarily a good idea for other reasons though - it encourages people to drive older cars which, apart from having lower fuel economy and higher emissions, are less likely to be as roadworthy, and don't have the safety features of modern cars, so you'll get more people suffering worse injuries in crashes, which puts more of a strain on hospitals and the like.
Screw a paper feeder.
:)
Yup, that'd be likely to cause the same problem as well...
as fans have unpronounceably abbreviated it, ELOTH:TES
Unpronounceable? It's got 'el' (as in bell), 'oth' (as in moth), and 'tes' (as in test) - 'eloth-tes'. What's the slightest bit unpronounceable about that?
Will it effect the ground in any way?
Not really, no. We're talking about big solid lumps of granite, which at the sort of temperatures they're at to start with won't undergo any significant thermal contraction even if cooled to atmospheric temperature. Plus we're only able to extract a relatively small proportion of the overall amount of heat in these deposits, so the overall temperature of the rock won't change a whole lot.
Just out of curiosity, who's that with? I didn't even know anyone did wireless broadband in Canberra...
All the news and radio reports I've read and heard (including TFA) have made no mention of ships being actually turned away at this stage. So far they're just saying that the storage space at the ports is rapidly filling up, so if the processing rate doesn't improve soon they will have to look at turning ships away. But as far as I can tell, they're planning to roll back to the old system before that becomes necessary...
The other thing water does is change the composition of melt that comes off the plate when it gets subducted, so the rocks produced at a subduction zone (granites) are different to those produced at mid ocean ridges and hot spots (basalts). Granite has a lower density than basalt, which means that once produced it tends to hang around up at the surface during plate tectonic processes, where it gradually accumulates and forms the continents we have today, while the heavier basalts form the ocean basins. There doesn't seem to be the same differentiation between continental granites and oceanic basalts on Mars, which might indicate that there was never quite as much water around to aid the plate tectonics process.
Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You spelled my name wrong. Prepare to die.
What I didn't understand is why not release both males and females that were sterile.
The other thing is that you don't want the sterile males mating with sterile females - that's a waste of a sterile male. If you release large numbers of both sterile males and females, the chances of a sterile male mating with a sterile female are much higher, so the number of fertile females mating with sterile males will be much lower, which will make the whole process far less effective.
Audio books aren't anywhere near as effective for technical books as for other genres. The main trouble with converting technical books to audio is that they often use diagrams and tables to explain and illustrate things, which is kinda hard to do with an audio book.
It sounds neat, if you don't have the current version.
Which suits me just fine, since I'm in Australia and we (plus all of Europe, I believe) didn't get the original anyway...
Yeah, the 138th Episode Spectacular and Beyond The Laughter occupy about the same place in official Simpsons continuity. But still, that's the reason why everyone's saying Kentucky...
Why is everyone saying Kentucky?
It's from the Behind The Laughter episode, where they mention that the Simpsons are a "northern Kentucky family".
if Excel and Access had been marketed under the same freaking product name
Microsoft Excess? Sounds oddly appropriate...
I'm not exactly sure why this is better or worse than simply pipetting bacteria into a large petri dish, though.
It's better because it allows much more detailed and accurate patterns of bacteria to be deposited - using a pipette pretty much all you can do is stick a blob of gunk on a bit of glass.
Next thing you know, someone'll have combined them both and we'll be hearing about nothing but warcasting...
Modest, too!
To be fair, that quote was from Scott Kurtz from PVP, who I don't believe is involved with the project at all...
If you look carefully at the region-code map, you'll see it only covers the land-masses. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans are technically not inside any region.
IIRC, places such as cruise ships, aeroplanes, oil rigs and the like are all designated as Region 8...
Santa used to live on mars
Yes, but only briefly when he'd been kidnapped by Martians...
Great Britain and Australia have seen their violent crime rates soar since revoking the right of ordinary citizens to own guns.
No, we haven't. (Not in Australia, at least.)
The Humanoids in the Culture are from across this Galaxy, but if they've made contact with Humanity on Earth is alluded to in a post-scrip to one of the early Culture novels.
Actually, the Culture is fully aware of Earth and the humans inhabiting it - see The State Of The Art. It's a collection of Banks' short stories - the story that gives the book its title is specifically about the Culture and Earth.
the 'new' Top Gear is crap *because* it's 1 hour (not 30 mins)
If that's what you want, you should move to Australia. We do get Top Gear (on BBC World - only available on pay TV), but it's only a half-hour edited version rather than the full hour.
I bought my PS2 in London when I was living there the past 3 years, Ive now returned (to Sydney) and want to buy and play legit games that are sold at my local stores. WTF should I buy a new console when a mod chip will do the job?
.au PS2 games in your .uk PS2? I've imported a couple of games from the UK and played them on my unmodded .au PS2 no problem - I'm reasonably sure there's no real region encoding on PS2 games beyond the PAL/NTSC thing. Might be worth spending $10 on a second-hand .au PS2 game to see if it works in your .uk PS2.
Have you actually tried
Of course, this doesn't help if you want to actually play R4 DVDs on it though...