troymc

103 ms·

1. 1111.▲
   by troymc 16y ago

   How hard can it be to verify? If these things actually reproduce, couldn't they give some to someone else? That someone else could then check to see if the things behave as reported. The "came from space" claim is more difficult to verify,
2. 1112.▲
   by troymc 16y ago

   My first thought was, "Doesn't Backupify already offer this?" Backupify already backs up all your cloud data, so I figured it would be easy for them to index it and provide search. Digging through the Backupify website, it seems they have a
3. 1113.▲
   by troymc 16y ago

   The Facebook privacy debacle isn't about privacy, it's about trust . Facebook is a company people trusted to keep their party photos private among a close group of college friends, then one day their aunt says she can see those photos. All
4. 1114.▲
   by troymc 16y ago

   If you want to sample assorted full-length recordings of Chopin's Preludes, do a search on YouTube.
5. 1115.▲
   by troymc 16y ago

   My general point was that one can make a mathematical model that takes into account the historical value of the ambient C-14 to C-12 ratio, plus the historical value of the C-14 decay rate. C-14 dating isn't used for dating recently-dead th
6. 1116.▲
   by troymc 16y ago

   Please don't use CN as shorthand in these comments as it's short for both Conde Nast and Cheezburger Network. - on behalf of the Society for the Elimination of Ambiguity.
7. 1117.▲
   by troymc 16y ago

   Even if the rate of radioactive decay does vary periodically (with a known period), you just do a different calculation when figuring out some dead thing's age from carbon-14 measurements. Since this effect sounds like it's a small perturba
8. 1118.▲
   by troymc 16y ago

   It seems Environ is making a large-scale system whereas the system in the video is small-scale. As a small-scale system, it's a business opportunity for an individual in a developing country with lots of plastic waste - they could apply for
9. 1119.▲
   by troymc 16y ago

   Maybe some people think the space bar and the Enter/Return key "do the same thing" so they push the one that's most convenient?
10. 1120.▲
    by troymc 16y ago

    There's an interesting seasonal trend: a decline at the end of the calendar year, followed by a big jump in January. Why? Do lots of US people traditionally get laid off on Dec. 31? (The data is for US search traffic.)
11. 1121.▲
    by troymc 16y ago

    When I read the headline, I thought it would be some sort of infrared emitter that you attach to your iPhone to transform it into a remote control similar to the (Logitech) Harmony ones. It's not. Sigh...
12. 1122.▲
    by troymc 16y ago

    Installing ad-blockers could be a nice sideline business for those computer stores that offer "Virus and spyware removal - only $30" --- they could extend it to "Virus, spyware, and ad removal - only $40"
13. 1123.▲
    by troymc 16y ago

    The widespread use of ad-blockers could kill Facebook, as ads are their main source of revenue.
14. 1124.▲
    by troymc 16y ago

    I cringe when I see that quotation trotted out as some kind of truth. It's a joke, popularized by Mark Twain. Statistics can be insignificant or misinterpreted, but the statistics themselves aren't lies: they are statements of fact (measure
15. 1125.▲
    by troymc 16y ago

    I had a roommate who got an Electrical Engineering degree from Queens University (one of Canada's more prestigious universities). He then worked for Motorola somewhere in the USA (so he had the right visa) and had a few years experience. Th
16. 1126.▲
    by troymc 16y ago

    Google App Engine, Amazon S3, Google Apps Premium, Second Life Premium, Skype, Carbonite, Squarespace
17. 1127.▲
    by troymc 16y ago

    I can believe that he couldn't find out the date of the Battle of Trafalgar back in 1995. I was curious to see how hard (or how easy) it is today. First I went to Wolfram Alpha and entered "when was the battle of trafalgar?" The response wa
18. 1128.▲
    by troymc 16y ago

    Carrying that one step further: why buy "likes" from someone if you can steal them? Maybe the headline should be: Facebook Offers New Incentive for Identity Theft
19. 1129.▲
    by troymc 16y ago

    As far as I understand it, website owners have to opt out of being indexed by Google (via robots.txt), but they have to opt in to being indexed by Facebook (by adding the "Like" button). Or am I reading this wrong? If website owners add the
20. 1130.▲
    by troymc 16y ago

    I use Flush by machacks to delete my Flash cookies. I think it's for Mac OS X only. http://machacks.tv/2009/01/27/flushapp-flash-cookie-removal-...
21. 1131.▲
    by troymc 17y ago

    He forgot the Wikipedia factor: Wikipedia probably won't be using H.264 anytime soon, and it's one of the top sites in terms of traffic.
22. 1132.▲
    by troymc 17y ago

    Even if Google doesn't free VP8, Theora already exists and is used by another of the world's most popular websites: Wikipedia. As more video gets added to Wikipedia, developers of web browsers will have more incentive to support Theora nati
23. 1133.▲
    by troymc 17y ago

    Best Buy also sells Apple computers (MacBooks, iMacs, etc.). Does anyone here know if they try to sell "optimized" versions of those as well?
24. 1134.▲
    by troymc 17y ago

    At the end of the article, FT has the usual "share this" links, letting the reader share the article via email, Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn, Yahoo! Buzz, Delicious, reddit, Mixx, Facebook, stumbleupon, or Viadeo. Notably absent: MySpace
25. 1135.▲
    by troymc 17y ago

    Is there a way to find images with a particular license (e.g. CC-BY)?
26. 1136.▲
    by troymc 17y ago

    A hot-enough campfire will also create plasma. I wonder if campfire plasma kills bacteria and viruses on people sitting around it.
27. 1137.▲
    by troymc 17y ago

    Because this story was linked-to from HN, I read the article expecting the punch line would be that Isildur1 is software (or maybe a human+software team). I know there's a group at the University of Alberta that's been working on poker-play