ascuttlefish

Can anyone enlighten a cuttlefish about what this means/does?

Bit of a stretch, like most predictions.

When I was a boy, I spent many an hour wondering what dinosaurs actually looked like. This is amazing! I'm wondering, though, how sound it is to extrapolate from what the shape of the melanin container says about colour today to what it said about colour in the past?

Apparently I have a unique browser fingerprint as well. With so many different plugin and font combinations, I think that there are bound to be quite a few uniques.

Kind of terrifying, really.

But seriously, IP is a very useful concept... for me to poop on!

No, they just don't work very well.

Single page: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/01/25/100125f...

You make a good point. But I think most people, given the right external stimulus, will become aware of a thirst for knowledge. I think it's an open question as to whether anamnesis is real or not, and whether only people with a predisposition toward knowledge can be wakenened to it. Personally, I believe that given an appropriately interesting, tailored goad, anyone can be stimulated to wonder and curiosity, and the concomitant desire to de- and reconstruct. I think a book or an FAQ can be that goad.

The CBC recently aired a related documentary profiling Johns: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/01/11/f-prostitution-cur...

How trivial are the placement of the payload and its subsequent retrieval?

My experience with current LCD screens seems to indicate that they're next to useless in very bright situations, including bright sunny afternoons. I have a Nikon D90, which has a pretty amazing LCD, but on very bright days, I rely more on the histogram to gauge exposure because the LCD display is hard to see in bright light.

As for the rest of the article, I give it a big meh. To quote a truism I read on flickr all the time, "It's not the camera that takes the pictures, it's the photographer". Get out and take pics. If the small form factor of this camera floats your boat, use it! If you want a bigger sensor and a wider lens selection, keep using your dslr.

When I go to that site, it gives me a "Missing License Key Error".

I, too, lost skype credit several years ago, but it was my own fault. After repeated warnings, I failed to take action. The fault was mine entirely.

I believe thirst for knowledge can be learned. Ask any child (or adult!) who gets their mind blown what they see through a magnifying glass or a telescope. Maybe that's not learning thirst for knowledge so much as kick-starting it, but I think it's close enough.

I'm not sure about clever ingenuity, but it's not a stretch to say that that's a faculty that can be exercised and cultivated, no matter how paltry or weak it is initially. A lot of things can be learned, states of mind included. Ask any Buddhist monk.

edit: formatting

I didn't know that different frequencies would affect blocking effectiveness, but it makes sense. My initial design was for some kind of copper mesh, but my friend, practical and cost-cutty as he is, said to go with tinfoil to get a similar effect. Those idstronghold wallets look a touch more professional than my duct-tape wallet.

A friend of mine recently made me a duct-tape wallet lined with tinfoil. The theory is that this will act as a Faraday cage to protect my Mastercard with Paypass. I haven't tested it yet, but next time I'm at a Paypass place, I'm going to give it a try. Anyone have any idea if this is sound physics, or just paranoia?

Well, it puts an end to certain types of programmes that use loan histories. For example, some libraries allow people to check their personal loan histories. This is useful if you've ever dug deeply into a given subject at a library, and would like to check what you've read already. Another example is the use of loan histories to generate lists of recommended material. So there is a cost, but I think it's a cost that librarians were willing to pay to protect people's privacy.

I see your point though, the costs to Google and their users is higher.

This is brilliant. I could have used this in draughty old apartments in Montreal, with their 12' ceilings and giant old radiators. Yet another of those "Why the ass didn't I think of... ah forget it" ideas.

The steering wheel is enigmatic.

{hushed voice} how awful...

Link to the NASA page: http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/welcome

Kleenex is a verb?

I have trouble viewing this as landscapes. I have to really focus to make them anything more than abstract textures. And for some reason all the craters look like they're convex, not concave. Great images, really makes me nostalgic for a future of planetary exploration that will, alas, probably not happen till I'm either senile or dead. The Big Picture strikes again! Thanks, tdedecko.

Sometimes others find the words better than I can, so I sign a generic form letter to my member of Parliament. It's not really spam. It's heartfelt.

Edit: I just wanted to add that while generally I agree that writing letters has little to no effect, I think it's important for people to start DOING something. If it starts with writing letters, maybe the upshot will be that people are embolded to participate in bigger future actions, like taking part in demonstrations and more when the time comes. Cynicism and defeatism aren't the right starting attitudes for a fight. Just my two cents.

Thanks for the great tips. I've been bored with the usual suspects in my bookmarks, and have returned to reading dead trees again. I'm loving it! But I suspect your advice here will help me rejuvenate my love affair with the internet.

They scorched the earth in The Matrix, and that didn't go so well...

And still none can compare with a paperback.