Random Article of the Day...

[lost_soul]

Since we have a Random Video of the Day thread, it seems like this is fair. Show us any article you find interesting, or funny, or surprising, or whatever else is out of the ordinary.

 

I'll begin:

http://www.dailytech...rticle33998.htm

 

I never imagined people pissing in an elevator. Of all the strange ideas I've had in my life, that was never one of them. Personally, I suspect the thug.

 

... and this comment cracked me up.

 

"Why in the world would someone pee in an elevator?

 

Also, when the system catches someone, they don't have to call the police. All they have to do is lock the elevator doors, engage the heaters and shaking motors, and get paid ad money on YouTube for the footage. "

Edited December 29, 2013 by lost_soul

[ezze]

An unfortunately common phenomenon, but usually it does not appear in a such funny way...

 

http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2012/03/anti-cassandra-curse-how-leaders-are.html

[STiFU]

Finally a well researched article about the cleaning and decontamination plans in Fukushima, written by engineers. It is very refreshing not to read BS written by some green peace activists for once. Please don't get me wrong, I am all for saving the environment, but the articles of people like that tend to be factually wrong / exaggerated / hilarious.

 

Japanese engineers won't have any troubles finding jobs in the course of the next 40 years, the single good thing about this catastrophe.

 

"Depending on whom you ask, nuclear power stations like Fukushima Daiichi are exemplars of either humanity’s ingenuity or hubris. But [...] these metallic blobs [corium], plucked from the heart of an industrial horror, prove something else—that we humans also have the grit and perseverance to clean up our mistakes."

[Deadlove]

Idea for a guard in an elevator in TDM! We do have the animation!!

 

My grandfather worked in a government place where all the clothes were made for army/navy/marines/etc. back in the 1950's-1990's. There wouild routinley be piss, used condoms and other waste in the elevators. From what he told me, the place had like 5000 employees, so it was very not clean the majority of the time.

[Diego]

Finally a well researched article about the cleaning and decontamination plans in Fukushima, written by engineers. It is very refreshing not to read BS written by some green peace activists for once. Please don't get me wrong, I am all for saving the environment, but the articles of people like that tend to be factually wrong / exaggerated / hilarious.

 

Japanese engineers won't have any troubles finding jobs in the course of the next 40 years, the single good thing about this catastrophe.

 

"Depending on whom you ask, nuclear power stations like Fukushima Daiichi are exemplars of either humanity’s ingenuity or hubris. But [...] these metallic blobs [corium], plucked from the heart of an industrial horror, prove something else—that we humans also have the grit and perseverance to clean up our mistakes."

 

I know what you mean. Anything related to environment is at the same time extremely complicated, usually not completely understood scientifically, very important and dominated by layman people. It's frustrating and unhelpful.

[STiFU]

Idea for a guard in an elevator in TDM! We do have the animation!!

 

My grandfather worked in a government place where all the clothes were made for army/navy/marines/etc. back in the 1950's-1990's. There wouild routinley be piss, used condoms and other waste in the elevators. From what he told me, the place had like 5000 employees, so it was very not clean the majority of the time.

What the?

[lost_soul]

http://www.dailytech...rticle34795.htm

 

Hi, I'm writing this post from the future. The year is now 2065 and a 1.5 Mb/s DSL connection still costs what it did in 2014, and indeed still what it did in 2004. The only "progress" we have had is now your video streaming, VOIP, and music streaming can run slightly faster if your video/VOIP/music provider signs a contract with your ISP to not be throttled.

 

Of course they'll pass these costs along to you while they're at it.

Edited April 29, 2014 by lost_soul

[demagogue]

As an environmental lawyer, I can vouch for popular articles on the environment being usually pretty bunk.

I wrote my law thesis on the problems of reconciling technical science with doltish environmental policymaking.

 

Anyway, a friend of mine posted two interesting techy articles:

How America's Leading SciFi Authors are Shaping Your Future

Time's Arrow Traced to Quantum Source

 

The QT article in particular was interesting to me. Not that I'm a scientist, but the explanation sounded intuitive to me. Time flows because over time quantum entanglement increases, which increasingly brings the quantum information state of the whole system to a common denominator (e.g., if you defined the system in bits, you'd move from individual particles to entangled sets of them, until they're all entangled and it reaches an equilibrium, i.e., entropy rises to a maximum), and voila you have the second law of thermodynamics and time flowing. Classical physics couldn't do it by itself apparently since it's supposed to run the same frontwards and backwards.

[lost_soul]

https://neocities.org/blog/the-fcc-is-now-rate-limited

 

Funny stuff.

[lost_soul]

http://www.slrlounge.com/first-major-issue-adobe-creative-cloud Edited May 16, 2014 by lost_soul

[lost_soul]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9249698/What_about_Windows_Mr._Nadella_

 

The times... they're changing, man.

I wonder if they are going to try a version of Windows that requires a subscription? If they were, this guy would be the guy to do it. It doesn't seem like that idea would be successful now, though. They're too late. The Ipad/phone and Android have taken off. If they had tried a subscription-based Windows before all of these competitors showed up on the scene, they would have easily pulled it off. Now though? Many people would just say **** that, I'm getting an Ipad/something else.

[Paralytik]

Time's Arrow Traced to Quantum Source

Very interesting indeed! Thanks for sharing, will keep an eye on that site, lots of good stuff.

[Sotha]

Who will wet their pants first: physicists or Star Trek fans?

 

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-07/31/nasa-validates-impossible-space-drive

[Diego]

Trekkers. Physicists will simply dismiss this as baloney ;P

[Paralytik]

This was a really interesting read. It's about the .mp3 format.

http://ryanmaguiremusic.com/theghostinthemp3.html

Edited August 16, 2014 by Paralytik

[lost_soul]

http://www.kcra.com/...laints/27568370 Edited August 18, 2014 by lost_soul

[Jon Irenicus]

http://www.iflscienc...ing-descendants

 

Bizarre 505-Million-Year-Old Spiky Worm Has Living Descendants

 

[STiFU]

A great article about Snowden on wired, that reads like a techno thriller. A MUST READ!

[lost_soul]

"Look man, let's just keep making them thinner! Thinner, man, THINNER!!! I want it to be no thicker than a piece of paper!"

 

http://www.theregist...nbois_get_bent/

Edited September 24, 2014 by lost_soul

[kano]

http://www.ghacks.net/2016/12/25/microsofts-explanation-for-pushing-windows-10-upgrades-raises-questions/

 

My bullshit detector is going crazy. He says that he's sorry for what was done, yet he continues the oh-so-very tired line about wanting to get people onto a more secure product... where their webcam spontaneously stops working due to mandatory updates and where customizations to settings that the user chose are undone with these updates.

[Anderson]

http://www.ghacks.net/2016/12/25/microsofts-explanation-for-pushing-windows-10-upgrades-raises-questions/

 

My bullshit detector is going crazy. He says that he's sorry for what was done, yet he continues the oh-so-very tired line about wanting to get people onto a more secure product... where their webcam spontaneously stops working due to mandatory updates and where customizations to settings that the user chose are undone with these updates.

You certainly have a grudge on Microsoft? Is it really just over Windows 10?

Their biggest fuck up was with Games for Windows Live. On that I'm indeed angry. That GTA IV (even after this november's 2016 unexpected update) and Red Faction Guerilla and Fallout 3 were chained to this clunky, horrid disposable software. Sometimes rendering essential game functionalities unplayable.

 

AT LEAST they're sorry. Goes fine in my book. They should apologize though for Games for Windows Live that made 2008 the worst year for PC releases.

Edited December 27, 2016 by Anderson

[kano]

Its because of their business strategy. Microsoft used to dog Google in the media for tracking and data-mining people. They even proudly and loudly boasted at one point about how Internet Explorer was going to ship with the "do not track" feature turned on by default. but somewhere along the way, (long before Windows 10), Microsoft decided to become a carbon copy of Google, just without the whole giving consumers lots of free stuff to compensate for the data-mining and ad slinging that they now do. This strategy began with the release of Windows 8, and accelerated with 8.1.

[Anderson]

Its because of their business strategy. Microsoft used to dog Google in the media for tracking and data-mining people. They even proudly and loudly boasted at one point about how Internet Explorer was going to ship with the "do not track" feature turned on by default. but somewhere along the way, (long before Windows 10), Microsoft decided to become a carbon copy of Google, just without the whole giving consumers lots of free stuff to compensate for the data-mining and ad slinging that they now do. This strategy began with the release of Windows 8, and accelerated with 8.1.

It was to be expected.

 

I mean Skype isn't free for given. Ads always helped pay the bills.

Data mining is ok with me if helps them make the OS better.

 

Cortana is awesome for instance. But, even with the data mining, it's available only in a handful of countries. The settings can be manually changed, but it won't make her work as intended. https://news.microsoft.com/stories/people/cortana.html

 

Not that I'm a big Halo admirer. Especially how they botched Halo 2 with Games for Windows Live, left it at a cliffhanger and never released other Halo games on PC. But, Cortana does have a nice catch to it. Definately more aesthetically pleasing than Siri.

Edited December 28, 2016 by Anderson

[kano]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/18/explosive_ecig_broke_seven_teeth_and_sink/

 

(warning, graphic)

 

This article actually answered a question that I was wondering about. If I'm using a mobile device, and the Li Ion battery is about to go kaboom, do I get enough warning (like a rapid temperature increase or smoke) to throw it, before it does so right in front of me? Sadly, the answer appears to be "not necessarily".

 

Scary stuf...

[stumpy]

Battery with inbuilt 'fire extinguisher' developed

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38637357