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Comment Thanks! (Score 1) 1521

by metalcup (#37205580) Attached to: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot

I found this site in ~2000 (about when India got TCP/IP in an affordable way) and I've been there ever since (though I only realised I could register much later).
Its been the only site that I check every day for the last 10 years. That is amazing consistency for me!

Thanks and all the best with whatever you decide to do!

Comment Re:to echo a commenter on TFA.... (Score 3, Informative) 322

by metalcup (#35403030) Attached to: Chandrayaan-1 Spots Giant Underground Chamber On the Moon

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/07dec_moonstorms/

Nope, there are moonstorms. From the link:

"All this matters to NASA because, by 2018 or so, astronauts are returning to the Moon. Unlike Apollo astronauts, who never experienced lunar sunrise, the next explorers are going to establish a permanent outpost. They'll be there in the morning when the storm sweeps by.

The wall of dust, if it exists, might be diaphanous, invisible, harmless. Or it could be a real problem, clogging spacesuits, coating surfaces and causing hardware to overheat.

Which will it be? Says Stubbs, "we've still got a lot to learn about the Moon."
Games

Submission + - Activition Cancels Guitar Hero (gamepro.com) 1

Submitted by jtillots
jtillots writes: Activision Blizzard cancels Guitar Hero citing "decling revenue of the music game genre". Also on the chopping block was DJ Hero and True Crime. Fat_bot put it best — it's the new Day the Music Died.
Science

Submission + - Researchers boast first programmable nanoprocessor (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by schliz
schliz writes: Harvard University researchers have assembled nanowires into tiny 'logic tiles' that can perform adder, subtractor, multiplexer, demultiplexer and clocked D-latch functions. While the 960-square-micrometre chips are not currently as dense as 32nm CMOS technology, the researchers say future versions could be up to 100 times more efficient than current electronics, and could yield low-power, application-specific 'nanocontrollers' for use in tiny embedded systems and biomedical devices.

Comment Re:Hi- I'm the Author (Score 1) 330

by metalcup (#34120568) Attached to: Land of Lisp
Hello Dr. Barski,

Thanks for taking part in this discussion - I appreciate it - it is always great to chat with the author of a book on a subject you like..! I have a problem that I am hoping you, as an author of a book that teaches a language, might have some insight into. Thanks for taking the time to read this :)

I've been on the internet in one way or another since the early 90's (I started out using bulletin board services, yahoo was a directory listing, and I used GOPHER/ARCHIE) on 14.4K and then 56K modems to start with - so I would like to think that I have some skill with technical stuff. However, I have tried and repeatedly failed over the years to learn any programming language -though I can hack together simple shell scripts and PERL scripts to get the job done in a pinch. I suspect this is might be because of two reasons:

a) Lack of a real problem to solve (i.e. lack of motivation)

b) Programming requires a completely different way of thinking that is alien to me. So I can never 'get it' :/

Since I am now a biologist doing my PhD in molecular genetics, where I often work with large-scale datasets (RNA sequencing data, microarray data, genome-wide mRNA expression data, etc), good programming skills would allow me to ask questions that I cannot even consider because of lack of skill. This gives me my problem that I need to solve. However, I have spent lots of time trying to learn LISP/Scheme/Python and failed miserably. I am very tempted to get your book, and I recognize that you cannot ensure that I learn programming; however, I was hoping you had some tips or suggestions on how I could approach the topic and learning the/a language in general.

Thanks!

Comment flamebait (Score 4, Informative) 883

by metalcup (#27252495) Attached to: Shell Ditches Wind, Solar, and Hydro
The post header is a flamebait - and the mods have really screwed up for not having caught it. If you read the TFA (yes yes, I know this is /.), the article headline says "Shell dumps wind, solar and hydro power in favour of biofuels" They are saying that compared to investing in wind, solar and hydro, they want to invest in biofuel reseach, since they think it will be profitable (duh! they are a company - they exist to make a reasonable profit). The impression I got from reading the slashdot post header was that shell has decided to go completely out of alternative energy (/non fossil fuels) entirely. Posting sensationalist headlines is o.k. for mags - why do that here on /.?
Space

Submission + - First Picture of Planet Orbiting Sunlike Star? (bbc.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
DigitumDei
DigitumDei writes: "It appears scientists may have obtained the first ever image of a planet orbiting a sun like star.
From the article:
The planet itself lies out at a great distance from its parent star: about 330 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. By comparison, the most distant planet in our Solar System, Neptune, orbits at about 30 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
Dr Matt Burleigh, from the University of Leicester, UK, commented: "This is a very good candidate for a first picture of a planet orbiting a normal star."

Feed Engadget: Supposed 4th gen iPod nano case designs slip out (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video


Sure, magic man and all-around seer Kevin Rose delivered the "news" that a refreshed iPod nano is coming in the form that slimmed up, tapered in, longish tube of a device -- but you might be looking for harder evidence. We've just come across two case-related designs supposedly destined for Apple's next PMP, but both raise as many questions as they answer. Chinese accessory-maker Beelan apparently has a silicon sleeve ready to drop ship to a location of your choice via Alibaba, and iDealsChina is showing off renders of the 4th gen nano and another case from "some unknown Canadian company." Unfortunately, neither design can really be verified, and as they've just appeared on the heels of last night's Rose rumor, the timing seems a touch suspect. We're wondering what the Engadget hive-mind thinks -- any meat on these bones?

[Via PMPToday; Thanks Joel]

Read - for iPod nano 4G Silicon Skin Case
Read - New! iPod Nano 4TH Gen Touch ScreenPermalink|Email this|Comments


Education

Submission + - Advanced Excel for Scientific Data Analysis (jackherrrington.com)

Submitted by
cgjherr
cgjherr writes: "If "Numerical Recipes" and "Analyzing Business Data With Excel" went to Amsterdam, got baked, and had an orgy with the entire science department of University, the love child would be "Advanced Excel for Scientific Data Analysis". It's the kind of book that only comes along every twenty years. A tome so densely packed with information that it almost dares you to try and understand it all.

A "For Dummies" book starts with a gentle introduction to the technology. The is like a "for Mentats" book. It assumes that you know Excel very well and just want to use the hell out of it. The first chapter alone will have you in awe as you see the author turn the lowly Excel into something that rivals Mathematica using VBA, brains, and a heaping helping of testicular fortitude.

When I first opened this book my mouth just dropped. It had been years since I had seen a book typeset using LaTeX. But in an instant it made sense as the book is crammed packed with the kind of equations that would have been a nightmare to build with any other tools. Chapter after chapter has everything a really smart person needs to do curve fitting, statistical measures, differential equations, time-frequency analysis. But don't expect a play by play here. You will get the equations, set within a few dense paragraphs, with maybe a spreadsheet and a chart or two to show the results.

In University style there are also some exercises that you can do along the way if you want to tweak your brain pan a little more. To amuse myself I tried a few and I believe the book would have assessed my attempts 'wanting' if it had a voice to tell me.

Where most books like this would have several authors this book has just one; Roberte de Levie. This means that the tone, style and quality of the book is consistent throughout. A fact that you will come to appreciate as the book wades in ever increasingly deep data analysis concepts as the chapters roll on.

The fact that one person wrote the book left me wondering, "Who is this guy?" In my minds eye I kinda of figured he would look like one of those pulsing brain guys from Star Trek. Turns out he is a professor at Bowdoin College. And his fields of study include ionic equilibria, electrochemical kinetics, electrochemical oscillators, stochastic processes, and a whole lot more stuff that almost seems made up to sound impressive.

When this book isn't serving as an amazing reference for both Excel, scientific problem solving, or just insane equations it serves other purposes as well. It's a handy portable IQ test, as the count of pages you can grind through in one sitting, plus 90, is roughly your intelligence quotient. And if you fail at that you can always put a copy of the book, along with the Orange Bible, under your pillow and try to osmose your way to becoming the Kwisatz Haderach.

In all seriousness, this is a great book. It represents the kind of in-depth work and research we used to see in books that came out twenty years ago. Robert is to be applauded for his work. This is an excellent resource for anyone looking to do scientific data analysis but who was unaware of the powerful capabilities that Excel provides that is likely waiting just one Startup menu click away.

The book is not without fault. I would have preferred that it had been in color, or at least have one color section to show some of the more impressive visualizations that I'm sure would look great in color. In addition the index is silly short for a book that clocks in at 700 pages. But those are only minor quibbles for what is all-in-all an amazing piece of work."
The Internet

Six Degrees of Wikipedia 296

Posted by kdawson from the finding-the-center dept.
An anonymous reader notes that someone has applied the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to the articles in Wikipedia. Instead of the relation being "in the same film," he used "is linked to by." From the blog post: "We'll call the 'Kevin Bacon number' from one article to another the 'distance' between them. It's then possible to work out the 'closeness' of an article in Wikipedia as its average distance to any other article. I wanted to find the centre of Wikipedia, that is, the article that is closest to all other articles (has minimum [distance])."
Social Networks

Communities of Mutants Form as DNA Testing Grows 161

Posted by Zonk from the okay-yeah-that's-kinda-strange dept.
GeneRegulator writes "The NY Times is running a story on communities that are forming around kids with rare genetic mutations. New technology that can scan chromosomes for small errors is being applied first to children with autism and other 'unexplained developmental delays.' It turns out that many of them have small deletions or duplications of DNA. Meanwhile, hundreds of little groups are forming around the banner of their children's shared mutations. As new research shows that many of us have small deletions and duplications of DNA that separate us from our parents, and that many of these "copy number variants" contribute to skills and senses, the families described in the story may presage the formation of all sorts of 'communities of the genetically rare' in the general population, not just amongst the developmentally delayed."

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