the Marijuana particle: found in the Netherlands, of course
as for the Hicks-Boozehound particle: they're looking in Switzerland, but if you ask me they'd be better of scouting the southern USA
the names for these particles are a bit strange, but not without a certain charm imho..;-)
Before getting too excited, also keep in mind that this asteroid is fairly small (8 to 18m). It mentions in TFA:
"If the asteroid did strike, it would probably explode in the upper atmosphere â" a fine spectacle, but harmless."
So yes it almost hit us, but even if it had we would have no real reason to worry.
While out of all the countries, the US is definitely home to the most readers of this site, the majority of the readers are not US-based. Those are two different things. If you look at the stats on Alexa you can see that 47.1% of the readers are from the US, while he second place goes to India with a mere 8.8%. That still means that 52.9% of the readers live outside the US though, so the FAQ seems either false or outdated.
are you americans arent able to realize that internet has become a global place still to the extent that you think staggering majority of people here are americans ?
get over yourselves. you are living in a global world and its name is internet.
Please don't assume everyone on this site is American, it's annoying.
More seriously though, I found it surprising that slashdot is so specifically US-centric (given the FAQ mentioned below). It has always seemed like a global tech site to me, and I am not from the US either.
Oddly, I've not seen anyone mention the (fairly decent) Office 2010 ad. It was made in movie trailer form, and it didn't come across nearly as forced or cheesy as all the other ads they've produced.
When I saw it, I thought they might have finally learned their lesson, but that was before the "Windows 7 launch parties" debacle, so it appears I was wrong there.:-)
For the Office 2010 ad, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUawhjxLS2I&hd=1
There's a lot of talk about inflation in the comments, but most people seem to forget about the US Dollar not being what it used to be, on the world stage. And Hollywood is definitely a worldwide business.
For example, if Europeans spent two billion Euros on movies 5 years ago, Hollywood would've made two billion Dollars.
If Europeans spent the same money on movies now, Hollywood would make three billion instead.
Agreed, someone very close to me is suffering from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which makes me very interested in how effective this could be, and how fast these human trials will start.. And if it does work to counter these diseases, how to get access as soon as possible (the disease is usually fatal within a few years).
I suspect it is too much to hope that this will both prove effective, AND expect it to be available within, say, a year or so.. But it never hurts to ask:-/
Perhaps it would take too much energy to change itself. If it's not broken, why fix it?
Just in case you are serious (or someone else who reads this thinks you are), let's get this straight.
Evolution does not work that way. A single lifeform does not change into something else during its lifetime. Change happens over (many) generations. If some trait gives one lifeform a higher chance of producing offspring than another, then these traits will be more represented in the next generation (children look like their parents).
What is needed is a good exorcism. IE6 needs to be cast out from the net and its bloated carcass nailed to a tree as a lesson to others.
The last time society cast someone out and nailed him to bits of tree, it started one of the world's most popular religions.
Please, let's not make IE6 a martyr. We'll never be rid of it!
Like you, I disagree with these "comparison charts" which let the marketing people cherry pick what options they want to show and completely hide all others. However, an important difference lies between the way these two charts are set up. The items on the chart at Mozilla are actually things that the browsers have or do not have (boolean values if you will), and therefore at least the checkmark is appropriate. On the Microsoft chart, they use the same checkmark system for things that are not 'true' or 'false' at all, like "Security" and "Privacy". They use this to suggests not only that IE is better at these fields, but that the others do not have this feature at all.
It's a subtle difference that is very important to how people read the chart.
Football is not a violent contact sport, it's a friendly game where players kick a ball around and are barely allowed to touch each other. It's the fans that are violent about it.
Get your facts straight, you insensitive american clod!
IE8 consumes more resources than Vista?
on
Chrome Vs. IE 8
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The article mentioned in the summary states that IE8 (beta) consumes more resources than XP, not Vista. That's quite a difference I think..
More general research years ago has already shown that wearing red gives one an advantage. The researchers here just proved that that also holds for this more specific arena. Not really news worthy in my humble opinion:-)
For an article about previous research:
http://www.livescience.com/health/050518_red_wins.html
Opera users can't compete, that site actually broke in the middle of the quiz for me using Opera. The result: When I eventually reloaded the page, minutes had passed and I came out having an IQ of 62:-(
I call this election for the smartest browser rigged!
What the Open Source community is really lacking at this point is news they do not want to hear.
The news that filters through to/. is basically like the news as it ends up in China; passed through a dozen filters so that no one will find it disagreeable, and it will promote the glory of the republic. This is not a constructive way to deal with the world. Self-delusion leads to arrogance instead, where extra effort might be needed.
I am not trying to be negative here in any way, I wish the Open Source community all the best, but I think it's time to be more open minded here and not just listen to news as we would like it to be, if Open Source is going to move forward.
The reason for this comment is (besides numerous previous posts) the word "Admits" in the title of this article. If some analyst had predicted the victory of Closed Source, it would never have been labeled as such.. Please people, let's stay open minded so we can do what needs to be done, rather than celebrate while happily deluding ourselves.
Change is scary. The slashdot crowd has endlessly criticised MS for endlessly rehashing the same programs, too afraid of changing anything to do any proper innovation. It's rather saddening that the one time they actually took that risk of people being afraid of something new, and seem to have done it RIGHT (that is, rebuilt the entire interface from a user perspective), they now get bashed for changing their interface.
Given the choice, would you continue to use the same horrible interface you have been using for 20 years, for the sole reason that you have been using it for 20 years... Or would you have the guts to actually admit you were wrong and create an interface the users would actually like more in the long run?
What's even more sad, is that your comment was immediately modded insightful, probably simply because you flamed MS.
I know Ill probably get modded 'troll' or something, with possibly some cynical comment along the lines of "you must be new here." but maybe one person will actually start thinking because of this, instead of automatically assuming that everything opposite to what MS does is The Right Thing To Do.
I was about to post the exact same comment, until I found yours. I agree, I have had a thorough dislike for MS Office for a many years now, because I could just never seem to use its interface. I was very pleased to see they'd totally reinvented it with the 2007 release, and I actually switched from OpenOffice (which I had used for years) to MS Office 2007, because I find this new interface more pleasant to work with.
I think the problem with many of these projects is that they're rather unwieldy projects. By the time something is becoming really good, it's a lot of work to radically remake things, and it feels like you're jeopardizing years of work that is only just starting to pay off. It shouldn't have to be like that, in a modular design. The functionality in something like MS Office 2007 is still the same, the way to control those functions has just changed.
How is this different from http://www.google.org/recharge/ which I read a while ago?
Seems like it's pretty much the same project.. But maybe there are subtle but important differences that I'm overlooking?
Speaking from experience, a person who can use Word 97 will have little difficulty adapting to Word 2007, nor will they have much difficulty using OpenOffice for all of the basic stuff that 95% of us use it for.
Sadly you chose a poor example, instead you should use Word 2003. From 2003 to 2007 is actually a huge step interface-wise, and I have seen a lot of people getting confused by the new Office 2007 look, when they were used to the old one.
On a more personal note, I think the new interface is actually a step up, it is the only product I know of where MS has taken a radical approach and faced their own mistakes in user interface design to redo it from scratch. I find it to be more intuitive to work with than the older versions, which required the user to know X toolbars of N buttons with obscure icons on them. Never having been able to get along with word processors before, I find it refreshing to see a new, more thought-through approach. Of course, it takes a while to get used to it, but everyone here seems to agree with me that that shouldn't be a concern, so long as the product is better;-)
I can't resist correcting this text.. It's either Elfs and Dwarfs (the original official english rule), or the Tolkien style: Elves and Dwarves. Hobbits are still hobbits though;-)
That's the beauty of having an open format. Everyone can use the program they like best to deal with the documents. In this person's case, the best program is MS Office.
Slashdot Mirror
the Marijuana particle: found in the Netherlands, of course ;-)
as for the Hicks-Boozehound particle: they're looking in Switzerland, but if you ask me they'd be better of scouting the southern USA
the names for these particles are a bit strange, but not without a certain charm imho..
Before getting too excited, also keep in mind that this asteroid is fairly small (8 to 18m). It mentions in TFA: "If the asteroid did strike, it would probably explode in the upper atmosphere â" a fine spectacle, but harmless." So yes it almost hit us, but even if it had we would have no real reason to worry.
If they are really like us, it will mostly be a movie about female chimps showing off various badly filmed body parts in exchange for bananas
While out of all the countries, the US is definitely home to the most readers of this site, the majority of the readers are not US-based. Those are two different things. If you look at the stats on Alexa you can see that 47.1% of the readers are from the US, while he second place goes to India with a mere 8.8%. That still means that 52.9% of the readers live outside the US though, so the FAQ seems either false or outdated.
are you americans arent able to realize that internet has become a global place still to the extent that you think staggering majority of people here are americans ?
get over yourselves. you are living in a global world and its name is internet.
Please don't assume everyone on this site is American, it's annoying.
More seriously though, I found it surprising that slashdot is so specifically US-centric (given the FAQ mentioned below). It has always seemed like a global tech site to me, and I am not from the US either.
Oddly, I've not seen anyone mention the (fairly decent) Office 2010 ad. It was made in movie trailer form, and it didn't come across nearly as forced or cheesy as all the other ads they've produced. When I saw it, I thought they might have finally learned their lesson, but that was before the "Windows 7 launch parties" debacle, so it appears I was wrong there. :-)
For the Office 2010 ad, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUawhjxLS2I&hd=1
There's a lot of talk about inflation in the comments, but most people seem to forget about the US Dollar not being what it used to be, on the world stage. And Hollywood is definitely a worldwide business. For example, if Europeans spent two billion Euros on movies 5 years ago, Hollywood would've made two billion Dollars. If Europeans spent the same money on movies now, Hollywood would make three billion instead.
Agreed, someone very close to me is suffering from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which makes me very interested in how effective this could be, and how fast these human trials will start.. And if it does work to counter these diseases, how to get access as soon as possible (the disease is usually fatal within a few years). I suspect it is too much to hope that this will both prove effective, AND expect it to be available within, say, a year or so.. But it never hurts to ask :-/
Of course they would go to Fermilab, what else is a particle physicist going to do?
Perhaps it would take too much energy to change itself. If it's not broken, why fix it?
Just in case you are serious (or someone else who reads this thinks you are), let's get this straight. Evolution does not work that way. A single lifeform does not change into something else during its lifetime. Change happens over (many) generations. If some trait gives one lifeform a higher chance of producing offspring than another, then these traits will be more represented in the next generation (children look like their parents).
What is needed is a good exorcism. IE6 needs to be cast out from the net and its bloated carcass nailed to a tree as a lesson to others.
The last time society cast someone out and nailed him to bits of tree, it started one of the world's most popular religions. Please, let's not make IE6 a martyr. We'll never be rid of it!
Like you, I disagree with these "comparison charts" which let the marketing people cherry pick what options they want to show and completely hide all others. However, an important difference lies between the way these two charts are set up. The items on the chart at Mozilla are actually things that the browsers have or do not have (boolean values if you will), and therefore at least the checkmark is appropriate. On the Microsoft chart, they use the same checkmark system for things that are not 'true' or 'false' at all, like "Security" and "Privacy". They use this to suggests not only that IE is better at these fields, but that the others do not have this feature at all. It's a subtle difference that is very important to how people read the chart.
Football is not a violent contact sport, it's a friendly game where players kick a ball around and are barely allowed to touch each other. It's the fans that are violent about it. Get your facts straight, you insensitive american clod!
The article mentioned in the summary states that IE8 (beta) consumes more resources than XP, not Vista. That's quite a difference I think..
More general research years ago has already shown that wearing red gives one an advantage. The researchers here just proved that that also holds for this more specific arena. Not really news worthy in my humble opinion :-)
For an article about previous research:
http://www.livescience.com/health/050518_red_wins.html
Opera users can't compete, that site actually broke in the middle of the quiz for me using Opera. The result: When I eventually reloaded the page, minutes had passed and I came out having an IQ of 62 :-(
I call this election for the smartest browser rigged!
What the Open Source community is really lacking at this point is news they do not want to hear. The news that filters through to /. is basically like the news as it ends up in China; passed through a dozen filters so that no one will find it disagreeable, and it will promote the glory of the republic. This is not a constructive way to deal with the world. Self-delusion leads to arrogance instead, where extra effort might be needed.
I am not trying to be negative here in any way, I wish the Open Source community all the best, but I think it's time to be more open minded here and not just listen to news as we would like it to be, if Open Source is going to move forward.
The reason for this comment is (besides numerous previous posts) the word "Admits" in the title of this article. If some analyst had predicted the victory of Closed Source, it would never have been labeled as such.. Please people, let's stay open minded so we can do what needs to be done, rather than celebrate while happily deluding ourselves.
Change is scary. The slashdot crowd has endlessly criticised MS for endlessly rehashing the same programs, too afraid of changing anything to do any proper innovation. It's rather saddening that the one time they actually took that risk of people being afraid of something new, and seem to have done it RIGHT (that is, rebuilt the entire interface from a user perspective), they now get bashed for changing their interface. Given the choice, would you continue to use the same horrible interface you have been using for 20 years, for the sole reason that you have been using it for 20 years... Or would you have the guts to actually admit you were wrong and create an interface the users would actually like more in the long run? What's even more sad, is that your comment was immediately modded insightful, probably simply because you flamed MS. I know Ill probably get modded 'troll' or something, with possibly some cynical comment along the lines of "you must be new here." but maybe one person will actually start thinking because of this, instead of automatically assuming that everything opposite to what MS does is The Right Thing To Do.
I was about to post the exact same comment, until I found yours. I agree, I have had a thorough dislike for MS Office for a many years now, because I could just never seem to use its interface. I was very pleased to see they'd totally reinvented it with the 2007 release, and I actually switched from OpenOffice (which I had used for years) to MS Office 2007, because I find this new interface more pleasant to work with. I think the problem with many of these projects is that they're rather unwieldy projects. By the time something is becoming really good, it's a lot of work to radically remake things, and it feels like you're jeopardizing years of work that is only just starting to pay off. It shouldn't have to be like that, in a modular design. The functionality in something like MS Office 2007 is still the same, the way to control those functions has just changed.
I've studied this for a while, and even taken courses about this exact subject. For a detailed explanation of this principle and its background in philosophy/psychology, check http://www.amazon.com/What-Things-Philosophical-Reflections-Technology/dp/0271025409/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201672012&sr=8-1. I have that book on my shelf, and it sets off these theories against the background of "philosophy of technology" (as the general field is called), to explain why people (and other primates) can interact this way with tools.
How is this different from http://www.google.org/recharge/ which I read a while ago? Seems like it's pretty much the same project.. But maybe there are subtle but important differences that I'm overlooking?
Sadly you chose a poor example, instead you should use Word 2003. From 2003 to 2007 is actually a huge step interface-wise, and I have seen a lot of people getting confused by the new Office 2007 look, when they were used to the old one.
On a more personal note, I think the new interface is actually a step up, it is the only product I know of where MS has taken a radical approach and faced their own mistakes in user interface design to redo it from scratch. I find it to be more intuitive to work with than the older versions, which required the user to know X toolbars of N buttons with obscure icons on them. Never having been able to get along with word processors before, I find it refreshing to see a new, more thought-through approach. Of course, it takes a while to get used to it, but everyone here seems to agree with me that that shouldn't be a concern, so long as the product is better
I can't resist correcting this text.. It's either Elfs and Dwarfs (the original official english rule), or the Tolkien style: Elves and Dwarves. Hobbits are still hobbits though ;-)
That's the beauty of having an open format. Everyone can use the program they like best to deal with the documents. In this person's case, the best program is MS Office.