I guess I'm convinced of the high quality of APJL. However, Science and Nature do have an edge on the research in many fields that would be of interest to a general readership. I think if there is conclusive proof of dark matter, it would easily have made the cover of Science or Nature, were it a well done article. I am not qualified to evaluate the paper, but I know it will show up in the news section of Science or Nature or other academic venues, and it will get thoroughly evaluated. Then we'll see how well this discovery stands up.
I guess anyone can trademark Web 2.01 and screw these guys! But seriously, are they so dumb that they don't realize it's too late for Web 2.0? If you want to be ahead of the game, you gotta go Web 3.0. But I guess that'll be outdated too. Hmm... Assigning numerical appendages to cutesy words seems like a bad idea for a trademark/patent. BTW, if you use "Web 42.01" anywhere, you have to reference me.
Volunteers in medical studies often (nearly ALWAYS) recieve medical advice and consultation, possibly free medication, and follow-through care. It sounds like you do not want to volunteer -- please don't. Some people, however, feel that participating in a worthy endeavor is payment enough. If it leads to improved health care, great. If you are concerned about pharma companies making money, go into politics. These issues do not belong in science.
From the NASA press release: "These results are being published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters."
Two points. First, journals really hate it when press releases are made prior to the publication date. Second, this journal has an "impact factor" of ~5-6, compared to Nature, or Science, which have impact factors of ~25. Why are they publishing in some obscure journal if this is really the rock-solid proof that they claim it is?? Makes me wonder.
I tend to agree with you about the hype about it, I there definitely has to be consequences for these sorts of actions. A doctor or cop can't just say "oops" if they accidentally kill someone. Either you were evil or incompetent. Either way, there has to be consequences. In the business world it is very simple: You're Fired!
I wish there was a footnote when acronyms are used. This is an ongoing problem with Slashdot. What does "RP" stand for -- can someone please define it? I tried to trace the articles but that cleared up nothing.
FTA: The current state-of-the-art User Interface (UI) we've been enjoying has remained largely stagnant since the 1980s. The greatest innovation that has been recently released is based on video card layering/buffering techniques like Apple's Expose. But, there is a large change coming. Rev 2 of the UI will be based on multiple gestures and more directly involve human interaction. Apple is clearly working in the area as some of the company's patent filings demonstrate. Nevertheless, these videos might make Mac (and Windows) users experience a huge case of UI envy, as a lot of UI development (in XGL in particular) makes the current Mac UI seem creaky and old fashioned.
The guy seems to think that the stagnation of the UI is an entirely bad thing. It seems to me that when something works well, people like to stick to it. I really don't think the majority of people need multiple desktops floating around let alone a brain interface. The only widely practical new UI technology I saw was multi-touch interactive displays (or touch screens in general, though they have been around for a long time and are still not very popular). As far as his comment that the new-fangled UIs make the Mac seem creaky and old, well, that's his opinion I guess. Some would just say the Mac UI is useful as it is. Even some of the new features in Leopard seem unnecessary to me. It's never bad to innovate, just don't automatically assume every new cool thing is practical or useful for most people.
...who did it first or who copied who. Didn't we just have this same thread a couple of days ago at Slashdot (seems like everyday now, we have to rehash this debate -- the original post should be marked troll). All I care about is who does it better. Apple wins. Period.
You must be joking. Don't buy into those pathetic ads the MPAA put out about how "piracy" hurts the stuntman, the janitor, etc... Open your eyes, the ONLY people who make money directly proportional to DVD sales is the studio. A distant second is royalties. A much farther distant third (think Pluto), is those DVD creators. I'm glad you have friends in the industry. Good for you. Now show me the part in the law that says once I buy the DVD I can't play it on my favorite media player. Because THAT is what this is all about -- making it harder for average consumers like myself in the name of "thwarting piracy". You think ANYTHING the MPAA does will make it any harder for pirates? Nothing has worked so far. Let's get back to the article shall we? You obviously missed the point. I think the studios should do whatever the hell they want, but let's not call it consumer friendly, shall we? Don't piss on me and call it rain.
FTA: "Bautista says that one of two reasons for this is the fact that commercial content is encrypted with High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), which can only be decrypted using a HDCP-compliant graphics card that offers DVI or HDMI connections. Since there are currently no PCs for sale offering graphics chips that support HDCP, this isn't yet possible.
The second reason, according to Bautista, is that BD playback software that can decrypt HDCP isn't "released as a saleable item yet". Today, the only HDCP-supporting BD playback application is the OEM version of Intervideo WinDVD BD that's bundled with Sony's VAIO VGN-AR18GP notebook. The AR18GP also offers an HDCP-compliant HDMI connector, which makes it capable of playing commercial movies without issue."
This makes me think the drive may be OK in the future if (1) The PC has the appropriate HDCP compliance, and (2) The software to decrypt the HDCP becomes available. Apparently, the Sony laptop already has both these capabilities, so the title of this post "First Blu-ray Drives Won't Play Blu-ray Movies" is factually incorrect. It is not the first blu-ray drive, and the drive itself is not the issue.
That said, I'll get to my second point: FUCK SONY! Their rootkits, their proprietary bullshit formats, and now their heavily encumbered yet inferior HD format. FUCK THEM UP THEIR STUPID ASSES. Come on people, stop buying ANYTHING Sony and tell your friends.
FTA: "In a statement, the association said that an updated version of CSS could allow retailers to place kiosks on showroom floors and allow consumers to watch as a digital movie recording is placed on a blank DVD while they wait."
This sounds to me like their intended market. All the rhetoric about home users is a smoke screen, IMHO, to fool news agencies and some/.ers into believing the MPAA is innovating and becoming consumer friendly. The day the MPAA does anything that would be consumer friendly...well you know how it goes.
Pluto really has more of a historical importance than anything else. We do have good definitions of what a planet is (condensed remnants from star formation's accretion disk), and it should be pretty easy to prove that Pluto does not fit the bill. Size is not the important thing -- Mercury isn't huge, but it certainly is a planet. I guess NASA's New Horizons mission should help clear this up in a decade or so, but I don't think that will have to result in changing the status of Pluto -- leave it alone as a planet (even though it isn't), purely for historical reasons. The search for an object to help explain discrepencies in Neptune's orbit formed a major part of Pervical Lowell's life, and he made significant contributions to astronomy. I think the IAU astronomers may want to leave Pluto a planet as an honor to those who discovered it at a time when such discoveries were very difficult. More and more KBO's will be discovered, but will inevitably be farther and farther away. So -- 9 planets it is, even though it's really 8.
Enough of the copycat this, rip-me-off that. They both have some good features and some bad ones, and both take elements from others. How about we discuss who does it better? One would have to look at individual categories. The overall OS -- MS Windows was almost certainly a copy of the classic Mac OS, but if I remember correctly, the concept of a GUI wasn't unique to the Mac. As far as the current state of the art, OS X incorporates the best features of its previous incarnations as well as other UNIX-based OS's. I doubt few people would argue for Windows as a unique OS with nice features...uniquely vulnerable maybe.
I'm glad this issue is not going to just "go away" as the Bush administration hopes. The process of continued lawsuit, hushing up, and repeat will have to unfurl as it will. It certainly is the responsibility of every level of government to enforce its laws. When there is a conflict, it will escalate to the Supreme Court. I hope they make a wise decision there -- this is the turning point, we can return to freedom and democracy, or we can head into totalitarianism.
Steve railed on Vista for copying stuff from Apple -- This is nothing new, the Windows folks have been ripping off Macs since way back to MS Windows: The Terrible Beginning. Thing is, Microsoft hasn't really improved on the best mac features, always seems 2 steps behind. Now, you got Apple bringing their Time Machine and Spaces implementations to the masses, and it seems kind of fresh and cool. Not to mention many many of the other software features that they introduced today -- almost all having been done before in some way or another. I think "photocopying" is not a problem, if you can do it better. Sure, version backups and virtual desktops have been around, but they aren't exactly smooth and friendly. I'll hold out final judgement, but Apple's own ripping off of other features from UNIX, etc, seems like a great thing, since it is done well.
With your own ads for stuff, and presumably his sponsors' ads, won't that make the website very ad-ridden? Still an interesting business model, though...
This work is pretty interesting. My concern with complex mathematical models has always been that nearly any phenomena can be perfectly described given enough variables -- pretty much any curve, any pattern, any shape. In biology, when we try to fit models to data, we have to be very careful not to just keep trying to curve fit with more and more complex equations, because in the end we will be left with something that is not biologically very descriptive -- it leaves us with little understanding of the underlying biology. So when I hear these guys had to tweak parameters to make the reaction-diffusion equation fit the data, I am left wondering what biological factors those extra parameters are supposed to define? The original set of equations was meant to model a system with multiple morphogens that diffuse in two dimensions. When they act upon (or are acted upon) appropriate receptors, a particular "phenotype" emerges at that location. I did RTFA, but it doesn't actually say much about these things -- just makes up a dumb analogy with missionaries and cannibals in competition.
...called "dry holes" in the KV and surrounding areas, where tomb builders would build the antechamber, but then change their minds and go to another spot. So a supposed shaft, while exciting, even if what rader is picking up really was a product of ancient tomb builders, may still be a dead end.
Ironically, sites like the New York Times already use tagging to help group and link article topics...which is something/. is experimenting with apparently. The tagging function here hasn't been very useful, and I suspect many other places suffer from human lazyness. Perhaps this AI approach is the way to go.
Remember back when it was still called the Revolution and relegated to be the interesting-but-not-that-cool little cousin of the XBox360/PS3? It really is amazing how the news reports, and developer/previewer feedback have done a 180! (Take that 360). I recall Nintendo constantly stating with their chill/laid back attitude that they were staying out of the console wars and aiming for a fun, friendly product for everyone, rather than just testosterone filled fan boys. Don't get me wrong, I wish I could get all three consoles, but with the great price point and developer support, not to mention the cool Wiimote, Nintendo has really changed my attitude towards them.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess I'm convinced of the high quality of APJL. However, Science and Nature do have an edge on the research in many fields that would be of interest to a general readership. I think if there is conclusive proof of dark matter, it would easily have made the cover of Science or Nature, were it a well done article. I am not qualified to evaluate the paper, but I know it will show up in the news section of Science or Nature or other academic venues, and it will get thoroughly evaluated. Then we'll see how well this discovery stands up.
I guess anyone can trademark Web 2.01 and screw these guys! But seriously, are they so dumb that they don't realize it's too late for Web 2.0? If you want to be ahead of the game, you gotta go Web 3.0. But I guess that'll be outdated too. Hmm... Assigning numerical appendages to cutesy words seems like a bad idea for a trademark/patent. BTW, if you use "Web 42.01" anywhere, you have to reference me.
Volunteers in medical studies often (nearly ALWAYS) recieve medical advice and consultation, possibly free medication, and follow-through care. It sounds like you do not want to volunteer -- please don't. Some people, however, feel that participating in a worthy endeavor is payment enough. If it leads to improved health care, great. If you are concerned about pharma companies making money, go into politics. These issues do not belong in science.
From the NASA press release: "These results are being published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters."
Two points. First, journals really hate it when press releases are made prior to the publication date. Second, this journal has an "impact factor" of ~5-6, compared to Nature, or Science, which have impact factors of ~25. Why are they publishing in some obscure journal if this is really the rock-solid proof that they claim it is?? Makes me wonder.
I tend to agree with you about the hype about it, I there definitely has to be consequences for these sorts of actions. A doctor or cop can't just say "oops" if they accidentally kill someone. Either you were evil or incompetent. Either way, there has to be consequences. In the business world it is very simple: You're Fired!
I wish there was a footnote when acronyms are used. This is an ongoing problem with Slashdot. What does "RP" stand for -- can someone please define it? I tried to trace the articles but that cleared up nothing.
KERNAL PANIC!!!
FTA: The current state-of-the-art User Interface (UI) we've been enjoying has remained largely stagnant since the 1980s. The greatest innovation that has been recently released is based on video card layering/buffering techniques like Apple's Expose. But, there is a large change coming. Rev 2 of the UI will be based on multiple gestures and more directly involve human interaction. Apple is clearly working in the area as some of the company's patent filings demonstrate. Nevertheless, these videos might make Mac (and Windows) users experience a huge case of UI envy, as a lot of UI development (in XGL in particular) makes the current Mac UI seem creaky and old fashioned.
The guy seems to think that the stagnation of the UI is an entirely bad thing. It seems to me that when something works well, people like to stick to it. I really don't think the majority of people need multiple desktops floating around let alone a brain interface. The only widely practical new UI technology I saw was multi-touch interactive displays (or touch screens in general, though they have been around for a long time and are still not very popular). As far as his comment that the new-fangled UIs make the Mac seem creaky and old, well, that's his opinion I guess. Some would just say the Mac UI is useful as it is. Even some of the new features in Leopard seem unnecessary to me. It's never bad to innovate, just don't automatically assume every new cool thing is practical or useful for most people.
...who did it first or who copied who. Didn't we just have this same thread a couple of days ago at Slashdot (seems like everyday now, we have to rehash this debate -- the original post should be marked troll). All I care about is who does it better. Apple wins. Period.
You must be joking. Don't buy into those pathetic ads the MPAA put out about how "piracy" hurts the stuntman, the janitor, etc... Open your eyes, the ONLY people who make money directly proportional to DVD sales is the studio. A distant second is royalties. A much farther distant third (think Pluto), is those DVD creators. I'm glad you have friends in the industry. Good for you. Now show me the part in the law that says once I buy the DVD I can't play it on my favorite media player. Because THAT is what this is all about -- making it harder for average consumers like myself in the name of "thwarting piracy". You think ANYTHING the MPAA does will make it any harder for pirates? Nothing has worked so far. Let's get back to the article shall we? You obviously missed the point. I think the studios should do whatever the hell they want, but let's not call it consumer friendly, shall we? Don't piss on me and call it rain.
FTA: "Bautista says that one of two reasons for this is the fact that commercial content is encrypted with High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), which can only be decrypted using a HDCP-compliant graphics card that offers DVI or HDMI connections. Since there are currently no PCs for sale offering graphics chips that support HDCP, this isn't yet possible.
The second reason, according to Bautista, is that BD playback software that can decrypt HDCP isn't "released as a saleable item yet". Today, the only HDCP-supporting BD playback application is the OEM version of Intervideo WinDVD BD that's bundled with Sony's VAIO VGN-AR18GP notebook. The AR18GP also offers an HDCP-compliant HDMI connector, which makes it capable of playing commercial movies without issue."
This makes me think the drive may be OK in the future if (1) The PC has the appropriate HDCP compliance, and (2) The software to decrypt the HDCP becomes available. Apparently, the Sony laptop already has both these capabilities, so the title of this post "First Blu-ray Drives Won't Play Blu-ray Movies" is factually incorrect. It is not the first blu-ray drive, and the drive itself is not the issue.
That said, I'll get to my second point: FUCK SONY! Their rootkits, their proprietary bullshit formats, and now their heavily encumbered yet inferior HD format. FUCK THEM UP THEIR STUPID ASSES. Come on people, stop buying ANYTHING Sony and tell your friends.
FTA: "In a statement, the association said that an updated version of CSS could allow retailers to place kiosks on showroom floors and allow consumers to watch as a digital movie recording is placed on a blank DVD while they wait."
This sounds to me like their intended market. All the rhetoric about home users is a smoke screen, IMHO, to fool news agencies and some /.ers into believing the MPAA is innovating and becoming consumer friendly. The day the MPAA does anything that would be consumer friendly...well you know how it goes.
Pluto really has more of a historical importance than anything else. We do have good definitions of what a planet is (condensed remnants from star formation's accretion disk), and it should be pretty easy to prove that Pluto does not fit the bill. Size is not the important thing -- Mercury isn't huge, but it certainly is a planet. I guess NASA's New Horizons mission should help clear this up in a decade or so, but I don't think that will have to result in changing the status of Pluto -- leave it alone as a planet (even though it isn't), purely for historical reasons. The search for an object to help explain discrepencies in Neptune's orbit formed a major part of Pervical Lowell's life, and he made significant contributions to astronomy. I think the IAU astronomers may want to leave Pluto a planet as an honor to those who discovered it at a time when such discoveries were very difficult. More and more KBO's will be discovered, but will inevitably be farther and farther away. So -- 9 planets it is, even though it's really 8.
Enough of the copycat this, rip-me-off that. They both have some good features and some bad ones, and both take elements from others. How about we discuss who does it better? One would have to look at individual categories. The overall OS -- MS Windows was almost certainly a copy of the classic Mac OS, but if I remember correctly, the concept of a GUI wasn't unique to the Mac. As far as the current state of the art, OS X incorporates the best features of its previous incarnations as well as other UNIX-based OS's. I doubt few people would argue for Windows as a unique OS with nice features...uniquely vulnerable maybe.
I'm glad this issue is not going to just "go away" as the Bush administration hopes. The process of continued lawsuit, hushing up, and repeat will have to unfurl as it will. It certainly is the responsibility of every level of government to enforce its laws. When there is a conflict, it will escalate to the Supreme Court. I hope they make a wise decision there -- this is the turning point, we can return to freedom and democracy, or we can head into totalitarianism.
Steve railed on Vista for copying stuff from Apple -- This is nothing new, the Windows folks have been ripping off Macs since way back to MS Windows: The Terrible Beginning. Thing is, Microsoft hasn't really improved on the best mac features, always seems 2 steps behind. Now, you got Apple bringing their Time Machine and Spaces implementations to the masses, and it seems kind of fresh and cool. Not to mention many many of the other software features that they introduced today -- almost all having been done before in some way or another. I think "photocopying" is not a problem, if you can do it better. Sure, version backups and virtual desktops have been around, but they aren't exactly smooth and friendly. I'll hold out final judgement, but Apple's own ripping off of other features from UNIX, etc, seems like a great thing, since it is done well.
With your own ads for stuff, and presumably his sponsors' ads, won't that make the website very ad-ridden? Still an interesting business model, though...
This work is pretty interesting. My concern with complex mathematical models has always been that nearly any phenomena can be perfectly described given enough variables -- pretty much any curve, any pattern, any shape. In biology, when we try to fit models to data, we have to be very careful not to just keep trying to curve fit with more and more complex equations, because in the end we will be left with something that is not biologically very descriptive -- it leaves us with little understanding of the underlying biology. So when I hear these guys had to tweak parameters to make the reaction-diffusion equation fit the data, I am left wondering what biological factors those extra parameters are supposed to define? The original set of equations was meant to model a system with multiple morphogens that diffuse in two dimensions. When they act upon (or are acted upon) appropriate receptors, a particular "phenotype" emerges at that location. I did RTFA, but it doesn't actually say much about these things -- just makes up a dumb analogy with missionaries and cannibals in competition.
...called "dry holes" in the KV and surrounding areas, where tomb builders would build the antechamber, but then change their minds and go to another spot. So a supposed shaft, while exciting, even if what rader is picking up really was a product of ancient tomb builders, may still be a dead end.
Sure, you're right, but with so much of the same lame jokes, shouldn't it have occured to some editor to not choose such a retarded article title?
Ya, it's got a boner. Usually explains my bulge.
...for the ability to reason! Go Kansas! (Until the next election that is...they've flipped their so-called standards virtually every 2 years).
Ironically, sites like the New York Times already use tagging to help group and link article topics...which is something /. is experimenting with apparently. The tagging function here hasn't been very useful, and I suspect many other places suffer from human lazyness. Perhaps this AI approach is the way to go.
It seems that if the rumors of DS connectivity with the Wii are true, this could be a nice little rev up for the Wii launch.
Remember back when it was still called the Revolution and relegated to be the interesting-but-not-that-cool little cousin of the XBox360/PS3? It really is amazing how the news reports, and developer/previewer feedback have done a 180! (Take that 360). I recall Nintendo constantly stating with their chill/laid back attitude that they were staying out of the console wars and aiming for a fun, friendly product for everyone, rather than just testosterone filled fan boys. Don't get me wrong, I wish I could get all three consoles, but with the great price point and developer support, not to mention the cool Wiimote, Nintendo has really changed my attitude towards them.