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  1. Re:It was dead anyway on Chinese Tech Group Offers To Buy Opera; Board Endorses · · Score: 1

    I use the mobile version as it is the only browser I know which does decent reflow of text when you zoom in.

  2. How is this relevant? The algorithm is for speeding up Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analyses, which are very commonly used in science to examine posterior probability distributions for a particular model. I run MCMC codes most weeks and they're becoming increasingly more common in my field of science. Being able to speed up the analysis by a large factor to avoid model likelihood evaluations would be very valuable.

  3. Re:What is the evidence? on MH370: Fragment Is From Missing Flight · · Score: 1

    How many containers are transport? What's the probability one of them will contain a 777 flaperon with the correct serial number?

  4. Re:Interlacing? WTF? on Turning the Arduino Uno Into an Apple ][ · · Score: 1

    The Amstrad PCW also had a complex memory layout for the screen. It had a "Roller RAM" lookup table for each row which could be modified in order to achieve fast scrolling of the screen. The memory for a single character was also stored sequentially in the memory.

  5. Re:it's amazing how cheaply you can live on Economists Say Newest AI Technology Destroys More Jobs Than It Creates · · Score: 3, Informative

    Housing is the big problem in the UK. It costs a huge fraction of your income to rent or buy. Many of the foreigners doing the job are prepared to live in worse conditions and can therefore get by on the wages.

  6. Scientists at XMM? on Astronomers Discover Pair of Black Holes In Inactive Galaxy · · Score: 2

    "Scientists at XMM-Newton" - who writes this rubbish? XMM is a European space X-ray observatory in elliptical orbit around the earth. Nobody is "at" XMM.

  7. Re:Windows and Mac binaries: difficult on How To Turn Your Pile of Code Into an Open Source Project · · Score: 1

    It's not so difficult if it's pure Python and you're not compiling anything. The main problem was getting Qt to compile so I could compile my extensions. For your project, I'd make a virtual machine with something like WinXP (this makes it easier to make new releases if nothing changes), install Python and the associated PySide. Install any other modules you need. I used PyInstaller to make the runnable exe file. See e.g. here for my pyinstaller file. I then used NSIS to make an installer using this configuration file.

  8. Re:Windows and Mac binaries: difficult on How To Turn Your Pile of Code Into an Open Source Project · · Score: 1

    Well, there's Visual Studio Express 2005, 2008, 2010, and 2012. That's not so hard. You will want to use 2012 since that is the latest.

    In theory, though Python is compiled with a particular version of Visual Studio. It's rather hard to compile for yourself, as the latest versions aren't supported. Extensions have to be compiled with the same version as Python or you get cross-compatibility C library problems. This makes it tricky if you want to link a Python extension (an old Visual Studio version) against Qt (perhaps mingw when I looked at it). I ended up having to compile everything against the version of Visual Studio that Python was built with.

    Don't use the registry. DLLs = .so, installers = installers. That's about it.

    I try to avoid the registry, but you have to at least register file types there and Qt uses it to store settings be default. DLLs weren't too bad until I got to the stage of manifests and conflicting crt versions.

  9. Windows and Mac binaries: difficult on How To Turn Your Pile of Code Into an Open Source Project · · Score: 4, Informative

    It can be very difficult. My scientific plotting package, veusz, was written using Python and Qt, so it should be easily portable. However setting up a sensible developer environment on Windows to compile the Python C extensions was a nightmare. Windows is pretty developer-hostile if you're used to Linux. Trying to find and install the correct version of Visual Studio Express was difficult. I had to learn far too many things about the registry, DLLs, building installers, etc. Mac OS X was rather more difficult, however. You have to download the massive Xcode and the non-standard way that Mac OS packages executables and libraries was very difficult to understand. It took a long time to get fat binaries working.

    You do get a different class of user on Windows and Mac OS X, however. The Linux people are closer to being knowledgeable about development, whereas Windows and Mac OS people are primarily users, wanting more help and hand-holding.

  10. Re:BC Breaking changes in 3 on Interviews: Q&A With Guido van Rossum · · Score: 1

    You know it is entirely possible to write 2.7 code that works with nothing more than a pass through 2to3. That does mean that any libraries you depend on are available for 3.x but the problem of lacking support from 3rd party libraries is beginning to diminish as more are ported over at an increasing rate.

    It's also possible to write code for 2.6/2.7 which works fine with 3.3+. With the aid of the six module or similar ideas you can work around the differences. Many people think this is the best way to have joint compatibility with python 2 and 3. It also makes it possible to do the development with python3, which running 2to3 doesn't allow. As others have mentioned, there is no good 3to2.

  11. Re:Gnome3 on Fedora 19 Beta Released: Alive, Dead, or Neither? · · Score: 1

    Did they upgrade away from Gnome3, network-manager and systemd? If not, why should we even look at it?

    Fedora is actually a very good KDE distribution.

  12. Re:Worked for 4 years. on Helium Depleted, Herschel Space Telescope Mission Ends · · Score: 1

    The minimum design lifetime isn't the actual lifetime of the mission. I believe there is enough helium for three years, but the multistage cooler is designed to be able to run in the event of coolant loss. ASTRO-H replaces ASTRO-E2 which suffered a catastrophic coolant loss. There are more details here, but it's behind a paywall.

  13. Re:Worked for 4 years. on Helium Depleted, Herschel Space Telescope Mission Ends · · Score: 2

    The forthcoming ASTRO-H X-ray observatory mission will have a cooling system that will be able to run without coolent. The X-ray microcalorimeter detectors must be cooled down to 50 mK in temperature. ASTRO-H should be launched in 2014.

  14. Re:Been saying that...Wrong, Simply Wrong. on Economists Argue Patent System Should Be Abolished · · Score: 3, Insightful

    p>No CAT Scan, MRI or Cancer drugs would have been invented without patents to give the inventors time to make their years of investment back by a period of exclusivity.

    Really? Most fundamental medical advances are created in academia, mostly with public money. Many companies just take the relatively small step to a commercial product. William H. Oldendorf would have done his pioneering work on the CAT scan, whether there was a patent system or not. Indeed, looking at his wikipedia biography, he worked in public institutions for most of his life.

  15. Move to the UK? on Slashdot Asks: Beating the Summer Heat? · · Score: 1

    It has been one of the wettest ever Junes here in the UK and it is still raining heavily. When it is not raining it's heavy cloud. Although that's stereotypical weather here, it's more like what you'd expect in the winter. I'm feeling like an extra in Waterworld and shall shortly be growing gills... The problems started when drought measures were brought in to combat falling water reserves.

  16. Re:Radiation hazard? on Ask Slashdot: Are Smart Meters Safe? · · Score: 1

    the effect of radio frequency exposure upon living tissue (approximatly none) is well-studied and understood.

    Oh really? I trust that you will now go home and put your head in a microwave oven for a few minutes. Of course some radio waves are harmless and some are harmful, it's just a question of where the boundary lies. Given that you're unlikely to have a smart meter sitting next to you all day, it's pretty unlikely to be harmful.

  17. Re:First to repeat it in this story on $25 PC Prototype Gets Award At ARM TechCon · · Score: 1

    As mentioned below, it can play 1080P video:
    video.

  18. Re:Swirly flat pancake thing... on Ask The Bad Astronomer · · Score: 1

    The dark matter in the universe started with a random fluctuation field - see the pictures of the cosmic background radiation. The random distribution gives a tidal torque on matter, giving it angular momentum. As the dark matter collapses into smaller and smaller regions, the angular momentum is conserved. When smaller sub-units of matter collide together the momentum will also build up. See Peebles 1969 for one of the first papers.

  19. Re:Metro or .NET, why use any? on .NET Programmers In Demand, Despite MS Moves To Metro · · Score: 1

    Or use Qt with C++, get the high productivity and the ability to run on multiple platforms.

  20. Blurry mess on Opera 11.50 Released · · Score: 1

    Seems like Opera ignores the anti-aliasing settings. I've switched anti aliasing off in both environments, but opera blurs ahead anyway.

  21. Re:Security question on Man Mines Facebook For Security Questions, Nabs Nude Photos From Email · · Score: 1

    Facebook is guilty as well - I have a choice of 4 questions - name of 1st grade teacher - can't remember - city or town mother was born in - too obvious - last 5 characters of driver's license - okay question probably - street you lived on when you were 8 - not appropriate for me. Why can't I choose something better than this?

  22. Re:Did anyone actually use KOffice? on Does the End of KOffice Mean the End of KDE? · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately you're correct. I tried KOffice as OpenOffice does suck in many ways, but when it couldn't render text properly on paper I had to give up.

  23. Why not go USB? on Hiding Backdoors In Hardware · · Score: 1

    If you're going to the trouble of messing with PCI hardware, I'm sure one of these tiny circuits, which can be hidden in a USB socket, could be used to take over a machine remotely much more easily. Adding radio remote access would be pretty easy.

  24. So can I get others banned from the US? on UK Teen Banned From US Over Obscene Obama Email · · Score: 1

    Dear Barack - You're a prick, Yours Tony Blair and David Cameron.

    Forge an email and stop someone entering the US for life!

  25. Re:Noble but useless. on A $20 8-Bit Wikipedia Reader For Your TV · · Score: 2, Informative

    I might doubt the cost too, but 8 bit microcontrollers are very popular now, even with the widespread availability of 32 bit systems. Many consumer devices include Microchip and Atmel chips if they don't need more power. There's also a bit Arduino (Atmel) hobby crowd.