jonhendry

If MIT does research related to military/defense technology, the possibility that such information was involved is probably enough to get the Feds interested, especially in the beginning.

Never happen. The crazy right-wingers will see it as a another "sign" of the UN trying to take over the US.

The US Gov also asks for the number they do have, the EIN.

"Why d&b"

Because it's the biggest database, and is international in scope. A local company providing services to a US Embassy or military base overseas is probably in the DUNS database, but probably wouldn't be in a smaller or US-focused database.

DUNS numbers are a common requirement when doing business or dealing with government for loans or contracts. That's why D&B has 150 million companies in their database.

Established businesses aren't going to have any hardship with Apple's requirement or the government's requirement, because they already have a DUNS number.

The only people for whom this is a problem are people just starting up app store-based businesses. But those are relatively few in the grand scheme of things, compared to the overall number of businesses getting DUNS numbers all the time.

But at least it's free, and mostly a one-time process, unlike getting your app submissions approved, or dealing with signing issues, or app guideline changes, etc.

Apple can't provide the number. It's not their database.

The number itself isn't the issue, it's what it represents: that your business is recorded in a large and reputable database of international businesses that is in widespread use by companies and governments.

They used D&B because D&B has by far the largest international database of businesses, and DUNS numbers have been around since the 60s. Many government agencies internationally require DUNS numbers if you want to do business with them.

It's something of an entrenched international standard. Most likely nobody wants to have to deal with multiple database companies, or a competing database with big gaps in its coverage compared to DNB.

At least it's free, even if they attempt to charge a premium for faster service.

Current brain-computer interfaces have 96 needle-like electrodes, so can interface with 96 neurons. That produces an enormous amount of data at the sampling rates used, but is already being used for things like controlling robot arms.

In 7.5 years, perhaps it'll be up to 192 neurons, if the connected computers and processors can keep up with the data flow.

7.5 years after that, maybe it'll be up to 384. Etc.

I'm not sure how you'd prove the theory that dinosaurs were cold-blooded, short of taking the rectal temp of a Stegosaur.

But you could falsify the theory by finding characteristics incompatible with being exothermic. Finding the dinosaurs with feathers and other characteristics of the (warm-blooded) birds probably helped, too.

Some of the "incorrect facts" are really theories that were substantiated to the best degree possible at the time, and no falsifying evidence existed at the time.

I suspect some, like "non-functional junk DNA", is a case of scientific qualifiers being ignored in the mainstream media and forgotten.

Humans like "facts", but we inevitably drop the error bars that originally accompanied each new "fact".

Given the source, I can't help but suspect there's an underlying desire to willfully misunderstand how science works in order to dismiss all research that could be used to support or justify regulation.

Hey, you never know, maybe in ten years we'll find out tobacco use doesn't cause cancer. Better remove all the restrictions that have been placed on tobacco until we're certain.

The upshot of the article is that little should ever be published unless you have perfect information and understanding about the subject.

No publishing on DNA until we know everything, etc.

Several of these are things that were the good-faith best effort at the time based on available knowledge and/or technology. (DNA, cold-blooded dinosaurs, star size limits, etc).

I don't much like the depiction of scientific knowledge as "manufactured facts".

"I don't suppose there's any harm in loading your children up with trivial knowledge, but I would certainly put more effort into teaching them thinking skills than specific knowledge."

I find that kids are like sponges for details like names. They'll soak them up whether you're teaching them intentionally or not. Or if you're trying to get your kid to learn animals or stars or whatever, they'll be memorizing scores of baseball statistics, or Pokemon, or airplanes.

Teach thinking skills; the trivia will take care of itself.

Learning the names with the dinosaurs seems harmless, as long as he also learns that sometimes they change, or were based on an erroneous assumption and the named creature didn't actually exist.

Dinosaur names change or get dropped, only because of more information becoming available. Extant species' names are more settled, but mostly because we have so much more information. I expect that the dinosaur species with the most fossil evidence aren't going to have their names change any time soon, unless some sort of new, general approach to naming sweeps the field leading to rethinking the whole thing.

What should be avoided is unintentionally creating the kind of mind-set that could have a hard time dealing with corrections later on in life.

Worst-case scenario, years later he finds out a favorite dinosaur of his youth was a misnamed individual of a different type, and ends up deciding that scientists are frauds and becomes a young-earth creationist.

Basically, as long as there's understanding that scientists are generally doing the best they can with the available information; that scientists in the early years of a new field may have made more mistakes due to the limited knowledge framework (early misconception of the iguanadon's thumb spike as a nose spike, etc); and that scientific errors made in good faith are a sign of science's strength, because they can be corrected by sufficient contrary evidence.

The curved mirror exhibits distortion at the edges, which doesn't seem to be a problem with the two-mirror approach.

Also the curved mirror doesn't present the image at full size, it appears smaller.

"The more people are sharing existing child porn, the less profit there is to be made in producing new material."

a) the producers aren't necessarily driven by a profit motive

b) it's not like they spend a lot on sets and crew and equipment, so 'break-even' isn't even an issue. They'd be taking that trip to Thailand anyway.

c) Porn customers value novelty, so there's pretty much always demand for new material, whether or not there's a viable business model.

"Here's a proposal. Mere possession should be legal, as Falkvinge argues. What should be illegal is purchasing child porn."

Really? Why focus on purchase, when sharing is just as bad as far as incentivizing people producing new material to satisfy demand?

People will scan and distribute books, or crack software and distribute it, purely for whuffie or reputation. They'll do the same with child porn.

And lots of Chinese mass production.

"if we had the technology to recover data after it's been overwritten, we'd be using that technology to double hard disk capacities."

If we have the technology, then like an electron microscope, it might not be feasible to implement at a size and a cost that would be viable in a storage product, but would be viable as a forensic analysis tool.

We didn't have large coastal cities with millions of inhabitants then.

Sad pie. The DX is better for reading technical books, where things like code listings look better if they're not line-wrapped to hell and back.

There's a minor hack that lets you use your own images. I don't know if it'll work as-is with the new devices, or if it needs to be updated.

"But seriously, one side of the screen or the other? Haven't they heard that people hold the Nexus 7 with one hand while reading - and not always the same hand? If I'm holding it with my left hand, it's not easy to get my thumb all the way to the right side to do a tap page flip."

Yeah, this is one big problem. One-handed reading is key for public transit, where one hand may be occupied keeping yourself upright.

I also find that when I use the Kindle app on the iPad, or iBooks for that matter, I often end up with undesired taps changing the page, or even taking me to a page far from where I want to be. With physical buttons it's easier to avoid this. With touch screens and narrow bezels, it's very easy to encroach upon the screen and unintentionally 'tap', when you're just trying to hold onto the device.

Kindles also go into screen saver mode after a while.

Perhaps because if it's profit, then it's not going to the cause you're supposedly trying to help.

"64-bit memory read. The source register contains a 32-bit byte address, which must be phrase aligned. The destination register will have the low long-word loaded into it, the high long-word is available in the high-half register. This applies to external memory only."

Which is 32-bit addressing, not 64-bit. Exactly what was claimed in the comment you're responding to.

"Comments like this do not add to the discussion."

You'd have a point if that was the extent of the response.

Yeah, the bounce-back really bugs me in contexts like OS X's Finder. I think I'd prefer some other kind of feedback.

"Why would anyone care that someone else has purchased a cheap knock off of something he owned?"

It could lead the manufacturer of the original product to end support for it, or to even go out of business.

It's more of a problem with screenshots you didn't create yourself.

If it stops one long-since-debunked urban legend from being propagated via a screenshot of an old, relative-dated post, it's probably worthwhile.

Agreed.