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Comment Re:Definitely (Score 1) 385

no equations doesn't mean no math. Equations generally do a pretty poor job in explaining things. I'd much rather read an article containing "because acceleration is inversely proportional to mass" than one containing "because F=ma"

That's interesting, I would much rather read "the black body specific intensity is given by B_lambda (T) = (2 h c^2 / lambda^5) / [exp(hc / (lambda * kT)) - 1], where lambda is the wavelength, T is the temperature, c is the speed of light, h is Planck's constant (energy divided by frequency for any particle), kT is the temperature in units of energy, and exp(x) = e^x, than "the black body specific intensity is given by twice Planck's constant times the speed of light squared over the wavelength to the fifth power, all over 1 less than e raised to the Planck's constant times C over the wavelength thermal energy power. There's a reason formulas are the language of mathematics and physics. They are concise, easy to parse, and unambiguous. Contrary to your example, it is easy to see scaling relations without having to add the words for what type of proportionality it is (again, there is a symbol for proportionality that lets you write a simple, easy to understand formula for it). Moreover, you can easily manipulate formulas to show something new. Not so with sentences.

Comment Re:So... (Score 1) 532

Though I agree with you, you're not giving IE enough credit. If you're behind, you have two choices: stay behind, or get ahead. The latter is preferable. Now, IE might not be ahead of the future releases of Chrome and Firefox (that's a test I like to see) but you can't criticize it for getting better when you don't know how it stacks up to the next releases of other browsers.

Comment Re:How many iPhone killers is that? (Score 1) 617

I live on a mountain range, and one major reason I didn't get an iPhone until 3G was that the normal Edge signal doesn't reach here. 3G works fine, and I find reception to be much better than my old Verizon phone, where I would have to walk around my office looking for the sweet spot.

I like the iPhone's battery life. Especially desirable is the fact that I can fully charge it during the 15 minutes it's plugged into my car on the way to work every morning.

Space

Submission + - French Threat to ID Secret US Satellites (beskerming.com)

SkiifGeek writes: "Space.com has reported that the French have identified numerous objects in orbit that do not appear in the ephemeris data reported by the US Space Surveillance Network. Since the US has claimed that if it doesn't appear in the ephemeris data, then it doesn't exist, and the French claim that at least some of the objects have solar arrays, it seems that the French have found secret US satellites.

While the French don't plan to release the information publicly, they are planning to use it as leverage to get the US to suppress reporting of sensitive French satellites in their published ephemeris.

The Graves surveillance radar (the French system) and a comparable German system may form the basis of a pan-European Space Surveillance network — another system that the Europeans don't want to rely on the US for."

Security

Many Antivirus Tools Fail in LinuxWorld Test 234

talkinsecurity writes "In a public, side-by-side test conducted last night at LinuxWorld, ten antivirus products were confronted with 25 known viruses. The results were surprisingly disparate. Only three of the products caught all of the viruses; three only caught 61 percent, and one caught an abysmal 6 percent. The test, which wasn't particularly complicated, proves that there still are wide differences in the effectiveness of AV tools. A lot of people think all AV tools are the same — they're not!"

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