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  1. Re:I do not see any mention of TeX on Book Review: Microsoft Manual of Style · · Score: 4, Informative

    The CMOS and this are English style and usage guides for writers, not primarily a printing and layout guides. The CMOS is the industry standard, but it is too specific and has too many entries to be a quick reference. Most big companies have their own supplemental guide for "house style".

  2. Re:Damn unfortunate on Rutgers Student Ravi Convicted of Bias Intimidation and Spying · · Score: 1

    Hate crime is a reality and should be punished. If you mean gangs hate each other, that is true but the issue is more subtle than that.

  3. Re:Gravity defiant? on Neutrinos Travel No Faster Than Light, Says ICARUS · · Score: 1

    Everything is affected by gravity that has energy. Although the scientific way to say now is that everything exists and moves in a spacetime that is curved by massive objects (in both meanings).

  4. Re:OT: Redundancies on Almost a Million UK Homes Will Suffer 4G TV interference · · Score: 1

    undoing mod. This should be up.

  5. Re:OT Technical probs; mod points expire soon. Hel on "Liberated" Tunisia Still Censoring Websites · · Score: 1

    Yes, the dropbox selection is all that is needed. I only had your problem when working behind a company filter (shocking I know). Possibly something do do with how form posting is handled. Not my specialty, try a different login location/server if you can.

    Firefox generally works better than IE, but I have not tried Opera.

  6. Re:Description Fail on Programming Error Doomed Russian Mars Probe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The Planetary Society entry says that two modules failed and then the main computer crashed. Probably irrelevant if the computer crashed or not if there were significant failures in the electronics. Perhaps if the computer had kept going there woud have been some communication of what had gone wrong.

    One of the commenters wrote "It is rather unlikely radiation caused the failure. Russians said the failure was due to an SRAM WS512K32V20G24M from White Electronics. This part is a module containing 4 CY7C1049 chips from Cypress and is actually screened. While the Cypress part is very susceptible to Latchup," No idea if this is true or not.

  7. Re:What about OpenGL ? on Nouveau Open-Source NVIDIA Driver Achieves OpenCL Support · · Score: 0

    Mesa software implementation against low-level drivers and hardward. Wonder which is faster?

  8. Re:french military victories on India Turns Down American Fighter Jets, Buys From France · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you drive around France, even the smallest village has a WW1 monument with dozens of names on it. The decimation that France suffered in WW1, and the damage fighting the war on its own land, made many hesitant to fight again.

    While there were some collaborators, and some of them were in high places, the general mood was anti German. There was a lot of bad history there.

    This is what makes the French German cooperation in starting the European Union all the more impressive. It was a recognition that the past could not keep repeating.

  9. Re:India's defense dilemmas on India Turns Down American Fighter Jets, Buys From France · · Score: 1

    Pakistan is seen as unstable by its own citizens as well. Particularly the citizens it is waging war against.

     

  10. Re:Fresher skills? on President By Day, High-Tech Headhunter By Night · · Score: 1

    One minicomputer company I worked at (in the 80's) left the hardware design of a network interface to a colledge student. Their solution was didn't use MFM or RTZ, they used basically a high-powered TTL level. Worked fine at 50 feet or 100 feet, but the signal charged up the cable after too many 1's and caused subsequent readings to be off.

    Another company outsourced interface design to someone basically on summer break. The interface was almost impossible to code for.

    These things have happened, and I am sure some older workers did something equally dumb by not adapting to changing technology.

    Sometimes people forget common sense. Particularly if they think they can get something new and exciting for less money.

  11. Re:Good luck getting the protestors to support tha on Some Critics Suggest Apple Boycott Over Chinese Working Conditions · · Score: 1

    In the past this effort has simply led to the demise of the leader or good guy.
      I could mention several examples from the past but to pick two: televisions and CB radios (going back some way).

    There were Buy America and Buy Union drives for both of these and a few people supported them. The vast majority of people just went with what was cheaper.
    I'm sure you can generate your own list of "things you can buy at Walmarts that are no longer made in America"

    Other approaches are valid, but what I believe would work is to focus attention on working conditions and encourage each country (OK, China) to do the right thing by its people.

    If China did not have a history of failed economic planning, leading to mass starvation, the workers would not be so desperate to get work of any sort. It is not enough of course, but the current situation is better for the Chinese people that it was in the past.

  12. Re:In principle, yes. on Why We Should Teach Our Kids To Code · · Score: 2

    When I was in high school in the 60's, my father strongly suggested that I should take a typing course. In those days this was on a manual typewriter and the class was full of girls who I presume wanted to be secretaries.

    It was one of the most useful courses I took, and the skill obviously transferred to computer keyboards.

    Getting some things into "muscle memory" is good. Getting some things, like programming or language, into our brain organization is good.

    The old Visual Basic would be a bad choice, but .NET, Java, Python, or even Logo would be a start.

    It's not only useful for those who will eventually become full time programmers, it is also beneficial for anyone who uses computers in their work in any capacity. Even if it just helps them understand the limitation of computers, it would be worth it. Remember anyone saying "It's on the computer so it must be right"?

  13. Re:What a waste of time... on Coming Soon: An Open-Source, Reverse-Engineered Mali GPU Driver · · Score: 1

    Mali-400 will be a huge effort to reverse engineer, but what hope is there for the next generation with OpenCL and DirectX.

  14. Re:Good luck on Project Bifrost: (Fission) Rockets of the Future? · · Score: 1

    You are right. It's very hard to hit the sun. You could do it with less energy than the 40km/s delta implies by doing multiple slingshots, starting with the moon.

  15. Re:The open question... on 2011 Was the 9th Hottest Year On Record · · Score: 1

    Most of the land that is not currently farmed at all, and much of Canada is farmed for wheat, is not good soil. Any soil, even Florida sand, can be made fertile by adding enough (oil based) fertilizers.

    The big problem is the overshoot. If the methane hydrates increase, and there is already burning ice in the north, the average could go past 5 degrees.

  16. Re:Totalitarianism on Microsoft Pushes For Gay Marriage In Washington State · · Score: 1

    Your view of the UK is just your paranoid delusion.

    On the other hand, as most of us don't care what you feel so perhaps it is not entirely paranoia.

  17. Re:What a load of BS on Microsoft Pushes For Gay Marriage In Washington State · · Score: 1

    Yes, people tend to live places for many reasons and only one of them is where the jobs are. I would not want to live in the American south because it is so right-wing.

    A place that is tolerant of sexual orentation is often tolerant of other choices.

    I support equality even if it is just to piss of the Christian Right.

  18. Re:Wish I could understand the details of FFTs on Faster-Than-Fast Fourier Transform · · Score: 1

    I only got FFT by working forward from different frequency sine ways to triangle, sawtooth, square, and other waves. After you do this, you realize it must be possible to go the other way.

    A very coarse FFT can be calculated by multiplying the waveform by two square waves that are 90 degrees out of phase and summing each sequence. If there is no component corresponding to the square wave frequency, the two totals will be near zero.

  19. Re:Best care money can buy helps on How Stephen Hawking Has Defied the Odds For 50 Years · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I grew up in the US and now live in the UK.

    If you have money (or very good insurance) the US system is slightly better. It is always faster for non-urgent care and almost always faster for urgent care.

    I, like my relatives in France, have additional insurance. BUPA in my case ensures that any referral from my local doctor is seen quickly and I have a private room if I have an operation.

    To me that seems like a good compromise. Good basic care for everyone and extra payments will get you more convenience.

    I have some direct experience of what medical care is like in the US if you do not have very good insurance. I would not wish that on an enemy.

  20. Re:Awesome, but.. on Instead of a Wheel Chair, How About an Exoskeleton? · · Score: 1

    I have always been puzzled by what the uploading of consciousness could mean. Uploading knowledge sure, but what could it mean to upload our individual sense of being ourselves? Even something that thinks just like me is not me.

  21. Re:Why I care as a developer on Intel Demos Phone and Tablet In New Mobile Chip Push · · Score: 1

    Android on ARM development on an ARM-based laptop would give the best of both worlds. Remember that ARM has not had any motivation for high-performance chips until recently. The ARM11 was fast enough for almost all phone and embedded applications. Within two years there will be eight-core 64-bit socs with high performance GPGPUs.

  22. Re:Ah, the golden age... on Isaac Newton's Notes Digitized · · Score: 2

    The link also leads to Socianianism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socinianism and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Church_in_Transylvania founded in 1568.
    While not formally established, the Unitarian literature and thought was known in England during his lifetime. You are correct that Lindley formed a chuch in England after Newton's death. Newton had many secret writings because of his interest in alchemy. It is possible he communicated with other Unitarians in his lifetime, but destroyed the communication fearing persecution. Although the Catholic church was not in power, the Puritans were quite ready to persecute heresy.

  23. Re:Once Again... on In the EU, Water Doesn't (Officially) Prevent Dehydration · · Score: 1

    The original claim also included health benefits besides hydration. The claims were found to be unsubstantiated, the press of course simplified this to the point of hysteria.

  24. Re:Time travel on The $443 Million Smallpox Vaccine That Nobody Needs · · Score: 5, Interesting

    google "synthesis of smallpox". Bringing it back is easy. Smallpox has an interesting combination of infectiousness, fatality rate, and countermeasures. My guess is that a weponized smallpox could be done for 10-20 million.

  25. Re:Center of the universe = beginning? on World's Most Powerful Telescope Begins Search For Origin of the Universe · · Score: 2

    From here. If you went somewhere far away and checked, it would be from there. That's because space is expanding between objects, not objects moving farther apart.