Isotropic

HeliOS Solutions is the primary sponsor of LINdependence 2008, which claims “On July 4th, a significant percentage of Felton, Calif., will go Microsoft-free for one week…maybe an entire month. Maybe for good.”
It looks like an interesting concept, but it seems a little bit more hype than substance at the moment. Really, I just [...]

Yet another “service” bites the dust, leaving behind more consumers who probably thought they owned something permanent, only to discover that use of “their” stuff was at the whim of some entity that couldn’t care less.

Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft’s now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: [...]

After some time in June, OEMs won’t be allowed to ship PCs with Windows XP pre-installed. However, Dell and other vendors may get around that by offering to assist businesses in exercising their “downgrade rights”. Microsoft gets to count the sale for Vista, but the XP image that comes with Vista is pre-loaded [...]

I’ve installed Fedora 8 (replacing Fedora Core 6) on my Dell Latitude D820 laptop. I have three issues (so far) with this new install. I’ll whine about them here just in case some ghost of LazyWeb still exists and answers before I get around to researching them myself.
One of the few annoyances [...]

Bill Poser, in Two Dots Too Many (Language Log) discusses a murder (via knife, not gun) / suicide. He concludes with “There are several lessons to take away from this tragedy. One is that localization is a good thing. Another is that it is best not to kill people who make you angry until [...]

Sorry for the hackneyed title, but I couldn’t resist. Anyway … time for another polarizing topic.
Mark Frauenfelder, in Gun owners are the happiest people in the US (Boing Boing), quotes Arthur C. Brooks’ WSJ article Trigger Happy (may be transient link), which says ‘In 2006, 36% of gun owners said they were “very happy,” [...]

Looks like it’s gonna be a bit chilly for a few evenings.

I know I’m going to regret this….
Usually I tend to stand back from any arguments regarding fundamental beliefs, whether religious, political, or even about programming. The participants are not going to convince the other side of anything; hopefully they’ll each feel better afterward (if they don’t stroke out first).
Feel free to stop reading at [...]

Hmm. I haven’t RTFA yet (I must have been having a Slashdot moment), but according to the abstract
Rather, gender differences were captured by a relative perceptual insensitivity among men. Just as in previous studies, men were more likely than women to misperceive friendliness as sexual interest, but they also were quite likely to misperceive [...]

The statistics at Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 are disturbing. Here are some sample questions, and the percentage of correct answers (1864 adults, in 2006):
45% - Lasers work by focusing sound waves. (False)
56% - Antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria. (False)
76% - Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun [...]