sorbus

66 ms·

601.
by sorbus 16y ago
"*Requires a recurring Personal Genome Service subscription at $5/month. 1 year contract required. Order for $499 with no subscription commitment." So it's really $159, with another $60 paid every subsequent year as long as you want access
602.
by sorbus 16y ago
The mass of a single base pair is about 1.08E-21 grams. That's 1.85E10^21 bits[1] of information in a single gram of purified DNA, about a forth of a zettabyte. So, if they're using DNA as the storage mechanism (the slideshow linked in the
603.
You say sin, I say disease(antipope.org)
57 points by sorbus 16y ago|50 comments
604.
by sorbus 16y ago
The second paragraph of the article, in bold red text and all-caps: "DO NOT KEEP THIS IN A BABY’S CRIB WHEN THE BABY IS IN IT. THIS IS MEANT TO TRAIN AN ANIMAL TO STAY OUT BEFORE THE BABY ARRIVES."
605.
Kinect art program(blog.makezine.com)
2 points by sorbus 16y ago|0 comments
606.
by sorbus 16y ago
My understanding of that was that the individual in question (was there more than one person?) clicked through confirmation screens without looking at them, assuming that everything would be okay. It is not Google's fault when users are idi
607.
by sorbus 16y ago
The ends do not justify the means. Ever. That doesn't mean that you can use bad means for good ends, though. It just means that you can't say that "the intend [sic] is different," and act as if that makes it okay. Bad means are always bad;
608.
by sorbus 16y ago
Google doesn't have a tendency to change their privacy policy and intentionally release private information, while Facebook does. [EDIT: Changed "the" to "their," and "rules" to "policy," as this makes my sentence both look better and more
609.
by sorbus 16y ago
Given how cheap storage is now, I wouldn't be surprised if they just had a few thousand >4GB SD or microSD cards, each labelled with a number, and randomly chose which one to carry each time - or if they carried a bunch of them around i
610.
by sorbus 16y ago
Entirely computers. Hatsune Miku and similar software are basically voice synthesizers geared towards music, as I understand it, not hugely unlike other text-to-speech programs but with more control of pitch, tone, and so forth. Also, as fa
611.
by sorbus 16y ago
Do you have any idea how quickly the corona ejection would travel, and hence how long it would take to hit earth? It would take a bit over 8 minutes for any message from a probe near the sun to reach us, and if the ejection is travelling at
612.
by sorbus 16y ago
Congratulations, you've just failed at science. Saying that a result is obvious and therefor the experiment is not worth performing is ... well, I'm having trouble coming up with how to describe it without insulting you. It's certainly not
613.
The Mystery of the Tainted Cocaine(thestranger.com)
151 points by sorbus 16y ago|78 comments
614.
by sorbus 16y ago
On the other hand, how cool would it be to wave your hand in front of your computer to mute it, or to flip through slides by moving your hands back and forth? Think less full-body motions and more simply tracking the position of hands, allo
615.
by sorbus 16y ago
"According to the report, Kinect had trouble with the facial recognition with two out of three dark-skinned employees. The system was unable to properly track two of the employees faces, but didn't have any trouble tracking their body movem
616.
by sorbus 16y ago
By comparison, I've barely noticed it. In fact, I'm actually commenting more than I used to, instead of just writing something and then closing the tab because I don't feel that it will add to the discussion. I just say things when I feel l
617.
Electronic implant allows the blind to see(newscientist.com)
1 points by sorbus 16y ago|0 comments
618.
by sorbus 16y ago
Context (since I had no idea what Serco meant): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serco_Group "The Guardian has called Serco "probably the biggest company you've never heard of." "
619.
Did somebody just try to buy the British government?(antipope.org)
98 points by sorbus 16y ago|64 comments
620.
by sorbus 16y ago
"In the private sector, the energy industry collectively invested 0.3% of sales in R&D." Does anyone know what that would be as a percentage of profits?
621.
by sorbus 16y ago
Which isn't the same as the browser being indicative of it, eh? Especially as other browsers send the OS as well.
622.
by sorbus 16y ago
It runs on windows too, so it wouldn't be a very good indicator (assuming that you're saying the people who buy macs are more affluent than those who buy pcs).
623.
by sorbus 16y ago
But he had already gotten off the airplane, and it's a lot easier to cause damage with a single bullet on an airplane than it is to cause damage with a single bullet while leaving an airport - so either he's so stupid that he'll carry the b
624.
by sorbus 16y ago
Having an alarm go off at the right time is a relatively small usecase? That's a bit surprising, as alarms seem like a pretty basic feature.
625.
by sorbus 16y ago
You have to empty your pockets, take belts off, and so forth[1], even with backscatter scanning (I just put all of my stuff in the boxes which go through the x-ray machine), so that's not an advantage. It's also slower than metal detectors;
626.
by sorbus 16y ago
Happily, that can't spread via malware - and would be visible to the user, though a long delay could possibly avoid that (is there any way for a device connected via usb to figure out when the computer is idle?). But yes, when you plug some
627.
by sorbus 16y ago
As part of your experiments, have you also changed the downvote threshold, or modified it to be based on average karma, not total karma? I ask because I notice that I've lost the ability to downvote - not that I'm especially irritated, as I
628.
by sorbus 16y ago
The problem is that it's completely off-topic, and, to people unfamiliar with the show, makes absolutely no sense.
629.
by sorbus 16y ago
"I'm pretty curious about all this since he didn't reply to my reply." So he emailed PG back, and didn't get a response. Having attempted that, I would say that posting on HN is exactly the thing to do, at least in this case.
630.
by sorbus 16y ago
I think that it's a pretty valid argument for why it isn't a user-configurable option, but yes, it doesn't quite make sense.

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