Well, our words are made up of individual letters that by themselves have no particular meaning. But you have to learn them first before you can read words. I always thought the culture in that episode just had another level to learn before most language made sense. Perhaps if he was marooned with one of their children, they could have chatted away easily.
I didn't know the strike had that effect on the Dead Zone and 4400. Dead Zone was drifting away from interesting to me at the end. But 4400 that was a great show. Each season had a powerful concept arc that really drove the story forward, I thought. When you think of trying to do an X files type show or the like, it is challenging to come up with big story arcs that you can do from year to year but still add something to the episodic shows in the middle. You can go full on vision like Lost where it is mostly mapped out ahead of time. Or like 4400, each season had a big arc that also drove the shows in between. The first season you are just trying to find out what happened to the 4400 people. The season finale basically tells you. The next season drives on from there exploring the impact of the 4400. They had good arcs about the reaction of the government, the organizing of the 4400. Different factions, key characters growing in power and importance. Major changes to the status quo of who has powers and what that means. Right up to the last episode.
Yes, I was also thinking you could use the length of time as an added decision point. When a particular choice is being made the user would have to wait a second or two before entering it. Anything before that wouldn't work. You have the user choose how the time sensitive entry would work beforehand and give very few clues on the screen when it is happening.
For example, I could set things up so that when I'm entering my password, the last two keys have to be separated from the others by a timespan of between two seconds and four. It wouldn't help if someone was watching you do it, but it would help obfuscate how smudges are read after the fact to guess a password. Nothing about the smudges should indicate when they were pressed. I guess if you were doing some heat signature analysis for the fading heat of the finger press, you might be able to glean that. But that seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through and you would need full access to the device shortly after its use to even do that.
My own story is somewhat more embarrassing. I think it is safe to say, there are plenty of things about networking that I don't know. So, when I had to decide how to setup my own WiFi, I referred to a copy of 2600 I had that detailed instructions on hacking WiFi networks. Whenever the article said that getting around some security feature was out of the scope of the article, I made sure I turned that feature on. I'm sure a really good hacker could get in anyway, but at least he/she would need something better as a reference than the article I had read.
That part worked fine. But this year we had a big snowstorm (East Coast). The power went out for a while one night. When it came back, I discovered during shoveling breaks that the WiFi was down. So, one day I want to check my email and I search for local WiFi networks. I found an unprotected one. Unencrypted and still with the default SSID and everything. Just sad. So, I logged in, checked my email. Read the headlines on CNN.com and logged out. Smugly, I thought I should figure out which neighbor it is, so I could warn them.
The next day, I login to the router to fix my WiFi and I can't get in. My admin password doesn't work. The password was reset to the default password. It turns out the unprotected router was mine! It must have gotten reset during the power outage and I guess subsequent power surge.
Yes, but isn't that the point? We don't have any right to "technological liberty" from the company's perspective. I mean would this whole discussion even be happening if Apple were some small company and the ipod and iphone were niche products without a large user base? I don't think anyone would care that they required using their products (macs and sdk) to write code for their other products (ipods/iphones). Developer's want to write code for their products because they are so widely adopted and offer the capability to use a lot of the functions of the device. And they have an advantageous model for marketing and making some profit from that code. So does Android now, but I think it is safe to say the iphone sdk opened up a lot of possibilities first. (Feel free to correct me, if I am wrong on all that.)
So hypothetically...
If Apple's products were a niche market and they could do what they want, is it fair to expect them to change because they were successful and became popular?
I didn't get the heat that people felt about this argument at first, but some of that is because I already have a mac. If I was looking at developing iphone apps and had to buy one just for that, I now see how that would upset a developer.
Still though, big picture it seems to me that Apple has created a market for itself by controlling hardware and software more tightly and ensuring greater reliability and usability in their desktop/laptops. Shouldn't we have all assumed they would want to do the same thing for their mobile products?
I'm not a fanboy of Apple and I'm not excusing all the PR spin they used in this argument. But I'm not sure where this expectation comes from that Apple should do what angry developers demand of them. When that means developers moving to a development pattern where they have no control or even influence.
I don't know, someone convince me I should be more ticked off about this.
It occurs to me that Adobe and Apple might have been able to resolve all of this with some agreements to have Adobe adopt all new iphone features in their products in a timely fashion and Apple working with Adobe to give them some lead time for new developments in iphone/ipad etc. Then a little coordination to prevent "flash crashes" and save battery life. But then neither one would have complete control. And maybe the unwillingness of either company to give that up is what this thing is really all about.
The almost complete lack of errors and corrections in the text strongly suggest that it's nonsense rather than any kind of encoded message.
Granted, I know next to nothing about this controversy or Medieval history. But before conveniences like the printing press I believe it was pretty common to write out a draft and then copy very carefully the final version without errors. If someone could throw out any pages they made a mistake on, it wouldn't be too hard to come up with an error free manuscript given enough time and attention to detail. Even if the whole thing was done on some kind of prebound book, if someone had alot of practice making careful copies like this and went slow enough, an error free manuscript doesn't seem too far fetched to me.
That's not to say it isn't nonsense, but I don't know that the error rate is that strong an indicator.
There already is a central fund, but I'm sure it differs from what you had in mind. After all it was not a product of one person but of House, Senate legislation and Administrative regulations. It is the Superfund. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund
Simple. They already got the 14 billion. Now they can do anything they want. The problem isn't the government as an entity being beholden to the cell phone companies. It is that plenty of individual members of congress and the senate get contributions from them and there is no well organized call for reining in their pricing from a consumer special interest group with as much clout as the cell phone companies. As it is, I've heard some members are calling for hearings on unfair text message pricing. That alone means next to nothing, but it is usually how change gets started in Washington.
Yes, well I was going for a humorous comment in the "be careful what you wish for" vein. But even so, I'm not sure what scale you are using for the supposed maturation process. Toddler brain at 16, so what 3 to 1? 4 to 1? That means you would have to suffer through those difficult teenage years for nearly 20 years or so?!? I still think I'd stick with the body I've got, old and imperfect though it is. Plus you'd have to expect that unless your parents were similarly slow developing, they would be much more likely to up and die on you before you reached maturity. A long period of foster care could result.
But I guess if everyone was this way and the whole society changed to suit it, you would get a much longer life.
Uhm... "...with the mental capacity of a toddler"? Forgive me, if I don't stop by your assisted living facility corner to say "Hi". I hope to be too busy taking interesting college courses in my retirement with my old broken down looking body and wise old dude mind.
His running joke is that he will sell out in nearly any way to get his name out there. He'd probably love the idea and go on his show next week and urge viewers to write to WHO to ask for the rename.
Yes, I'd love to have parts of my body involved with someone else's body parts on a subatomic level with impossible to predict effects. And I would like that body part to be both irreplaceable and in very close proximity to my brain.
I'd heard great things about Grand Prix Legends, but I was never able to get it to install on my old machine. Then I forgot about it. One flight sim I remember having mods was even before full internet access was widely available. Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe by LucasArts. There was at least one total conversion mod playing a full campaign with a complex story line. And there were numerous modified planes. There were a bunch of us on AOL (back when AOL didn't even have access to the internet, it was just a stand alone network) that used to play it and try out the mods and planes and custom missions. It's not as far back in time as some that have already been mentioned, but I remember feeling like that total conversion mod was the equivalent to buying a whole new game for nothing. I can't say how popular they really were with people, but it was fun for me and some others. I still haven't found a flight sim that was as much fun as that one.
Amen to that, brother. The Hot Wheels site has a lot of flash games, too. So far, I have been able to convince my four year old that the games are not related to any toys we could actually buy. But it is only a matter of time before he figures out that I'm lying through my teeth.
I see this as just another way to do a reality show. They could follow a bunch of people alternately competing or working together to certain goals. What's the difference between a game quest and an immunity challenge? Not much. Even in the old school arcade games, you would work towards the goal of continuing the game and surviving and postponing the game over screen.
It seems as likely to me to be as interesting or completely unwatchable as most ideas for new TV shows. I wonder if they plan to immerse the watcher in the game alone, or have some interviews of the players outside of the game for their insights like so many of the reality shows do.
I did hear some controversy about a guy (I believe he was in Brazil) that flew his plane before the Wright Brothers and is celebrated as the "father of flight" in Brazil. But I always thought the real triumph of the Wright Brothers wasn't building the plane or flying it, but understanding how the aerodynamics gave the wings lift. That made it possible to really reproduce working planes and experiment with new designs and improve powered flight. Everybody prior to that seemed to be doing trial and error based on studies of bird's wings.
Of course, I could be wrong. I am no expert on aviation history. Although, I have visited Kitty Hawk as a tourist and I think I stayed that night in a Holiday Inn Express.
I don't disagree, but the problem with that definition is how do you quantify it? Is it still art if only one person is moved? Does it have to be a majority? One person could just be unbalanced or have really bad taste. However, as an example, most people are at least somewhat moved by the sadness of Romeo and Juliet. Even if it isn't your kind of story, most people upon hearing it think it is sad. But there isn't any way to say, "It is artistic and I can prove it."
This seemed to me to be the fundamental paradox of any study of the philosophy of art or even the philosophy of truth for that matter. You can't really quantify what seems to be an obvious subjective truth. But if it is subjective, the whole thing can be called into question.
Still, no one really questions that some things are art and they are emotionally moving. Some artists even played with the whole notion of what constitutes art like the Dadaists. They would make art that would incite anger in the viewer because it was so different from normal notions of art. Its pretty interesting stuff to study, but at the end of the day there are no certain answers.
And that to me is where Ebert loses the argument. He is saying it is definitely not art. But he can't prove that either.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, I also think this is not a great idea. But the aging problem, couldn't that be addressed by taking sample cells from a big batch of bred newborn puppies. Wait til they are a year or so old and you can test their ability to sniff out drugs. Then take the frozen cells you kept from the best ones and clone from them. Their cell age should not be much older than the original, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, I have only a novice's understanding of the latest genetics research.
"Just because someone can become "addicted" to something does NOT mean that it is addictive. But then, I'm not an "expert" here. Just someone who can try these so called "addictive" activities and still remain un-addicted."
Fair enough, but the argument is not whether games are addictive. The question they are trying to decide how to answer is whether compulsive playing of them, when it interferes with normal life, should be classified separately in a list of disorders. You wanted to rule out obsessive/compulsive tendencies, but I think this would probably be considered a subclass of OCD. I know gamers don't want gaming branded as being bad for people. It isn't. Neither is washing your hands. But some people do that compulsively too, so that it becomes a real problem in their lives. But I think it is a fair question whether to name it as a separate subclass of OCD in the DSM. I think the real deciding factor should be if there are different treatments for gaming as compulsive behavior as opposed to any other kind of compulsive behavior. If there is a different treatment or intervention approach, then it probably should be subclassed. That would be useful information for psychologists and psychiatrists to make the distinction between general OCD and this particular kind. But if it is always the same approach to treat gaming addiction the same way as other OCD, then I think it doesn't need a subclass of its own.
I agree the original post has poor wording and these are crazy low chances. But your use of the words "space ball" got me thinking. If there is an Oort cloud of comets around our Solar System. What if this is a common thing around other solar systems. There may be a small (like impossible to calculate small) chance that the junk could hit one of these comets first, prior to any really high radiation exposure. It's density might be low enough so the impact doesn't kill the bacteria. It might even be moving in the similar speed and direction (towards the star) lowering the impact velocity. The dirty ice consistency might have enough raw materials to allow the bacteria to thrive and make a big old bacteria laden snowball that swings right on down to alienville.
Then some light years later we get an interstellar CSI team knocking on our door with a picture of a rocket stage with an American flag on it, asking us if we know anything about this.
Okay the three posts I see here so far are all negative. As a person who enjoys Half-Life FPS mods (particularly DOD, not so much CS) I love this idea. I don't see how it will ruin any public servers unless they are the servers that are running the contests. And even then, its not terribly expensive and could be fun. The sites that run servers where I play (when I have time) regularly have just for fun tournaments and they are pretty cool.
I'll admit I don't know what the guy is talking about with the port security post, so I can't comment there. But in general I see this as being pretty cool. Like a football pool only for gaming. Nothing to take too seriously.
I disagree. The theory may have been around some time. But the article talks about the results of a study using a heart lung machine without immediate restarting of the heart. And the results seem to indicate a statistically significant improvement. This apparently successful practical application of a known theory is news. And besides, it might be an old theory to you, but as a someone who doesn't work in medicine or biology, this is the first I've ever heard of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, our words are made up of individual letters that by themselves have no particular meaning. But you have to learn them first before you can read words. I always thought the culture in that episode just had another level to learn before most language made sense. Perhaps if he was marooned with one of their children, they could have chatted away easily.
But yeah it was just a show.
I didn't know the strike had that effect on the Dead Zone and 4400. Dead Zone was drifting away from interesting to me at the end. But 4400 that was a great show. Each season had a powerful concept arc that really drove the story forward, I thought. When you think of trying to do an X files type show or the like, it is challenging to come up with big story arcs that you can do from year to year but still add something to the episodic shows in the middle. You can go full on vision like Lost where it is mostly mapped out ahead of time. Or like 4400, each season had a big arc that also drove the shows in between. The first season you are just trying to find out what happened to the 4400 people. The season finale basically tells you. The next season drives on from there exploring the impact of the 4400. They had good arcs about the reaction of the government, the organizing of the 4400. Different factions, key characters growing in power and importance. Major changes to the status quo of who has powers and what that means. Right up to the last episode.
I miss that show.
Yes, I was also thinking you could use the length of time as an added decision point. When a particular choice is being made the user would have to wait a second or two before entering it. Anything before that wouldn't work. You have the user choose how the time sensitive entry would work beforehand and give very few clues on the screen when it is happening.
For example, I could set things up so that when I'm entering my password, the last two keys have to be separated from the others by a timespan of between two seconds and four. It wouldn't help if someone was watching you do it, but it would help obfuscate how smudges are read after the fact to guess a password. Nothing about the smudges should indicate when they were pressed. I guess if you were doing some heat signature analysis for the fading heat of the finger press, you might be able to glean that. But that seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through and you would need full access to the device shortly after its use to even do that.
My own story is somewhat more embarrassing. I think it is safe to say, there are plenty of things about networking that I don't know. So, when I had to decide how to setup my own WiFi, I referred to a copy of 2600 I had that detailed instructions on hacking WiFi networks. Whenever the article said that getting around some security feature was out of the scope of the article, I made sure I turned that feature on. I'm sure a really good hacker could get in anyway, but at least he/she would need something better as a reference than the article I had read.
That part worked fine. But this year we had a big snowstorm (East Coast). The power went out for a while one night. When it came back, I discovered during shoveling breaks that the WiFi was down. So, one day I want to check my email and I search for local WiFi networks. I found an unprotected one. Unencrypted and still with the default SSID and everything. Just sad. So, I logged in, checked my email. Read the headlines on CNN.com and logged out. Smugly, I thought I should figure out which neighbor it is, so I could warn them.
The next day, I login to the router to fix my WiFi and I can't get in. My admin password doesn't work. The password was reset to the default password. It turns out the unprotected router was mine! It must have gotten reset during the power outage and I guess subsequent power surge.
Crap. I replied to the wrong post. The above post was meant as a reply to Jedidiah's "technological liberty" post.
Yes, but isn't that the point? We don't have any right to "technological liberty" from the company's perspective. I mean would this whole discussion even be happening if Apple were some small company and the ipod and iphone were niche products without a large user base? I don't think anyone would care that they required using their products (macs and sdk) to write code for their other products (ipods/iphones). Developer's want to write code for their products because they are so widely adopted and offer the capability to use a lot of the functions of the device. And they have an advantageous model for marketing and making some profit from that code. So does Android now, but I think it is safe to say the iphone sdk opened up a lot of possibilities first.
(Feel free to correct me, if I am wrong on all that.)
So hypothetically... If Apple's products were a niche market and they could do what they want, is it fair to expect them to change because they were successful and became popular?
I didn't get the heat that people felt about this argument at first, but some of that is because I already have a mac. If I was looking at developing iphone apps and had to buy one just for that, I now see how that would upset a developer.
Still though, big picture it seems to me that Apple has created a market for itself by controlling hardware and software more tightly and ensuring greater reliability and usability in their desktop/laptops. Shouldn't we have all assumed they would want to do the same thing for their mobile products?
I'm not a fanboy of Apple and I'm not excusing all the PR spin they used in this argument. But I'm not sure where this expectation comes from that Apple should do what angry developers demand of them. When that means developers moving to a development pattern where they have no control or even influence.
I don't know, someone convince me I should be more ticked off about this.
It occurs to me that Adobe and Apple might have been able to resolve all of this with some agreements to have Adobe adopt all new iphone features in their products in a timely fashion and Apple working with Adobe to give them some lead time for new developments in iphone/ipad etc. Then a little coordination to prevent "flash crashes" and save battery life. But then neither one would have complete control. And maybe the unwillingness of either company to give that up is what this thing is really all about.
The almost complete lack of errors and corrections in the text strongly suggest that it's nonsense rather than any kind of encoded message.
Granted, I know next to nothing about this controversy or Medieval history. But before conveniences like the printing press I believe it was pretty common to write out a draft and then copy very carefully the final version without errors. If someone could throw out any pages they made a mistake on, it wouldn't be too hard to come up with an error free manuscript given enough time and attention to detail. Even if the whole thing was done on some kind of prebound book, if someone had alot of practice making careful copies like this and went slow enough, an error free manuscript doesn't seem too far fetched to me.
That's not to say it isn't nonsense, but I don't know that the error rate is that strong an indicator.
But I thought freedom was just another word for having nothing left to lose?
Now, I'm so confused...
There already is a central fund, but I'm sure it differs from what you had in mind. After all it was not a product of one person but of House, Senate legislation and Administrative regulations. It is the Superfund. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund
Simple. They already got the 14 billion. Now they can do anything they want. The problem isn't the government as an entity being beholden to the cell phone companies. It is that plenty of individual members of congress and the senate get contributions from them and there is no well organized call for reining in their pricing from a consumer special interest group with as much clout as the cell phone companies. As it is, I've heard some members are calling for hearings on unfair text message pricing. That alone means next to nothing, but it is usually how change gets started in Washington.
Yes, well I was going for a humorous comment in the "be careful what you wish for" vein. But even so, I'm not sure what scale you are using for the supposed maturation process. Toddler brain at 16, so what 3 to 1? 4 to 1? That means you would have to suffer through those difficult teenage years for nearly 20 years or so?!? I still think I'd stick with the body I've got, old and imperfect though it is. Plus you'd have to expect that unless your parents were similarly slow developing, they would be much more likely to up and die on you before you reached maturity. A long period of foster care could result.
But I guess if everyone was this way and the whole society changed to suit it, you would get a much longer life.
Uhm... "...with the mental capacity of a toddler"? Forgive me, if I don't stop by your assisted living facility corner to say "Hi". I hope to be too busy taking interesting college courses in my retirement with my old broken down looking body and wise old dude mind.
I think Andre the Giant had a posse comitatus...
Thank you...
I'm in town all week...
His running joke is that he will sell out in nearly any way to get his name out there. He'd probably love the idea and go on his show next week and urge viewers to write to WHO to ask for the rename.
Yes, I'd love to have parts of my body involved with someone else's body parts on a subatomic level with impossible to predict effects. And I would like that body part to be both irreplaceable and in very close proximity to my brain.
I'd heard great things about Grand Prix Legends, but I was never able to get it to install on my old machine. Then I forgot about it.
One flight sim I remember having mods was even before full internet access was widely available. Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe by LucasArts. There was at least one total conversion mod playing a full campaign with a complex story line. And there were numerous modified planes. There were a bunch of us on AOL (back when AOL didn't even have access to the internet, it was just a stand alone network) that used to play it and try out the mods and planes and custom missions. It's not as far back in time as some that have already been mentioned, but I remember feeling like that total conversion mod was the equivalent to buying a whole new game for nothing. I can't say how popular they really were with people, but it was fun for me and some others. I still haven't found a flight sim that was as much fun as that one.
Amen to that, brother. The Hot Wheels site has a lot of flash games, too. So far, I have been able to convince my four year old that the games are not related to any toys we could actually buy. But it is only a matter of time before he figures out that I'm lying through my teeth.
I see this as just another way to do a reality show. They could follow a bunch of people alternately competing or working together to certain goals. What's the difference between a game quest and an immunity challenge? Not much. Even in the old school arcade games, you would work towards the goal of continuing the game and surviving and postponing the game over screen.
It seems as likely to me to be as interesting or completely unwatchable as most ideas for new TV shows.
I wonder if they plan to immerse the watcher in the game alone, or have some interviews of the players outside of the game for their insights like so many of the reality shows do.
I did hear some controversy about a guy (I believe he was in Brazil) that flew his plane before the Wright Brothers and is celebrated as the "father of flight" in Brazil. But I always thought the real triumph of the Wright Brothers wasn't building the plane or flying it, but understanding how the aerodynamics gave the wings lift. That made it possible to really reproduce working planes and experiment with new designs and improve powered flight. Everybody prior to that seemed to be doing trial and error based on studies of bird's wings.
Of course, I could be wrong. I am no expert on aviation history. Although, I have visited Kitty Hawk as a tourist and I think I stayed that night in a Holiday Inn Express.
I don't disagree, but the problem with that definition is how do you quantify it? Is it still art if only one person is moved? Does it have to be a majority? One person could just be unbalanced or have really bad taste. However, as an example, most people are at least somewhat moved by the sadness of Romeo and Juliet. Even if it isn't your kind of story, most people upon hearing it think it is sad. But there isn't any way to say, "It is artistic and I can prove it."
This seemed to me to be the fundamental paradox of any study of the philosophy of art or even the philosophy of truth for that matter. You can't really quantify what seems to be an obvious subjective truth. But if it is subjective, the whole thing can be called into question.
Still, no one really questions that some things are art and they are emotionally moving. Some artists even played with the whole notion of what constitutes art like the Dadaists. They would make art that would incite anger in the viewer because it was so different from normal notions of art. Its pretty interesting stuff to study, but at the end of the day there are no certain answers.
And that to me is where Ebert loses the argument. He is saying it is definitely not art. But he can't prove that either.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, I also think this is not a great idea. But the aging problem, couldn't that be addressed by taking sample cells from a big batch of bred newborn puppies. Wait til they are a year or so old and you can test their ability to sniff out drugs. Then take the frozen cells you kept from the best ones and clone from them. Their cell age should not be much older than the original, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, I have only a novice's understanding of the latest genetics research.
"Just because someone can become "addicted" to something does NOT mean that it is addictive. But then, I'm not an "expert" here. Just someone who can try these so called "addictive" activities and still remain un-addicted."
Fair enough, but the argument is not whether games are addictive. The question they are trying to decide how to answer is whether compulsive playing of them, when it interferes with normal life, should be classified separately in a list of disorders. You wanted to rule out obsessive/compulsive tendencies, but I think this would probably be considered a subclass of OCD. I know gamers don't want gaming branded as being bad for people. It isn't. Neither is washing your hands. But some people do that compulsively too, so that it becomes a real problem in their lives.
But I think it is a fair question whether to name it as a separate subclass of OCD in the DSM. I think the real deciding factor should be if there are different treatments for gaming as compulsive behavior as opposed to any other kind of compulsive behavior. If there is a different treatment or intervention approach, then it probably should be subclassed. That would be useful information for psychologists and psychiatrists to make the distinction between general OCD and this particular kind. But if it is always the same approach to treat gaming addiction the same way as other OCD, then I think it doesn't need a subclass of its own.
I agree the original post has poor wording and these are crazy low chances. But your use of the words "space ball" got me thinking. If there is an Oort cloud of comets around our Solar System. What if this is a common thing around other solar systems. There may be a small (like impossible to calculate small) chance that the junk could hit one of these comets first, prior to any really high radiation exposure. It's density might be low enough so the impact doesn't kill the bacteria. It might even be moving in the similar speed and direction (towards the star) lowering the impact velocity. The dirty ice consistency might have enough raw materials to allow the bacteria to thrive and make a big old bacteria laden snowball that swings right on down to alienville.
Then some light years later we get an interstellar CSI team knocking on our door with a picture of a rocket stage with an American flag on it, asking us if we know anything about this.
But I'm not losing any sleep over it.
Okay the three posts I see here so far are all negative. As a person who enjoys Half-Life FPS mods (particularly DOD, not so much CS) I love this idea. I don't see how it will ruin any public servers unless they are the servers that are running the contests. And even then, its not terribly expensive and could be fun. The sites that run servers where I play (when I have time) regularly have just for fun tournaments and they are pretty cool.
I'll admit I don't know what the guy is talking about with the port security post, so I can't comment there. But in general I see this as being pretty cool. Like a football pool only for gaming. Nothing to take too seriously.
I disagree. The theory may have been around some time. But the article talks about the results of a study using a heart lung machine without immediate restarting of the heart. And the results seem to indicate a statistically significant improvement. This apparently successful practical application of a known theory is news. And besides, it might be an old theory to you, but as a someone who doesn't work in medicine or biology, this is the first I've ever heard of it.