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The Muppets' 1967 IBM Sales Films 63

Posted by kdawson
from the skinny-black-tie dept.

Comment: Re:History (Score 1) 251

by EMN13 (#30184546) Attached to: New Microsoft Silverlight Features Have Windows Bias

I use both Xaml and Xhtml+Css. In fact, I write more Xaml than Xhtml+Css at the moment - but there's no doubt in my mind that in particular Css is a very very well designed abstraction, it's much easier than Xaml styling.

Xaml's more powerful; granted - but xaml's styling is inherently imperative, and that means that it exposes way more odd corner cases, exceptions, etc.

By contrast, I like xaml's semantic structure more than Xhtml; but Xaml styling is too fragile (and too slow) for my tastes.

Comment: Re:clue for the non-iphone-user (Score 1) 268

by icebraining (#30184432) Attached to: iPhone Game Piracy "the Rule Rather Than the Exception"

Reviews at iphoneappreviews.net : 493
Apps at App Store: 30 000

It's a buck. A cup of coffee. A quarter of a beer at a sporting event. Stop whining about it.

Sure, one app. If you have to buy three or four of the same type 'till you find a good one, and you need ten apps, that's 20-30$ wasted. Publishers have an alternative: provide trials. It's a piece of cake to make a trial version, so they don't have any reason not do so besides greed, exploiting the people who try to follow the rules. Fuck them.

Comment: Re:Someone please explain (Score 2, Informative) 402

by juletre (#30115634) Attached to: Copyright Time Bomb Set To Go Off
Kind of. To be pedantic (and I hope I remember my Latin correctly), campi is plural of campus, but only in certain cases.
In the original sentence he said "in college campuses (campi?)". "In" triggers the ablative case ("ablative of place"), and plural the plural version of this is "-is" [1][2]. So the correct form would be "in college campis".

So in my opinion he could argue "campus" was now an English word and use say "campuses" in the English fashion, or go Latin all the way.
Not all Latin words ending with -us is -i in plural. All 4th declination nouns have -us in plural as well. E.g. manus /hand.

[1] Ablative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablative_case#Latin
[2] Campus is second declination: http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe?campus

Comment: Local monopolies (Score 1) 439

by tepples (#30115546) Attached to: Apple Patents "Enforceable" Ad Viewing On Devices



Comment: Balls (Score 1) 232

by parvin (#29019349) Attached to: 10 Worst Evolutionary Designs
So, lets see. We have an organ, arguably the most critical organ in the male part of the species. Problem: it requires a temperature a couple of degrees cooler than core in order to function.

Option 1: Rework the design so it can function a couple of degrees warmer. Encase it safely (like the heart).

Option 2: Create a simple cooling system within the core whereby the organ, safely ensconced, can function properly.

Option 3: Stick the critical organ in a sack on the outside with a bunch of pain receptors. Thanks, Darwin!

Comment: Re:Interesting, but... (Score 1) 598

by parvin (#28977101) Attached to: Can We Build a Human Brain Into a Microchip?

At the very least, we know the brain obeys the laws of physics. A computer can simulate the laws of physics. Therefore, a computer can simulate the brain.

A computer can estimate the progression of physical systems, but cannot solve for all but a trifling few. (think three body problem). In some cases, we can estimate to an arbitrary degree of closeness, but in many cases we cannot (or at least cannot know that we are). This is the norm for complicated differential equations. An estimate which seems to be arbitrarily close to a solution might in fact be very far away. And these inaccuracies can compound and cascade in a massively parallel system like the brain.

Until we know more about just what aspects of the brain are relevant for the mind, we will have no idea of how limited the prospects are for a computer simulation. The problem may not be one of computing resources, but of fundamental limitations in the mathematics of computation.


Facebook Lets Advertisers Use Pictures Without Permission 260

Posted by kdawson
from the controlling-rights-to-your-face dept.
