Humodour

Man, you guys suck at jokes.

So guys, a? man walks into a bar, and his uncontrollable addiction to alcohol is destroying his entire family.

Whoops, forgot about the New Zealand! Something I only just discovered is that the SKA will also be used to track the movements of the Earth's tectonic plates (or any other type of geodesy we might be interested in) with extreme (millimetre) precision by using the locations of black holes* as extremely stable reference points. Apparently the Kiwis are very keen on this, which is understandable since they live on a fault line, and we've all seen what keeps happening in Christchurch. *Specifically quasars - a quasar is an intense stream of electromagnetic energy produced by the immense stresses placed on material that is accreting around, and swirling into, the event horizon of a supermassive black hole. There is a supermassive black hole at the centre of every galaxy.

There is an even more detailed summary of the SKA split-bid decision and its scientific implications here at The Conversation (a news website run by Australia's universities and research centres): http://theconversation.edu.au/the-square-kilometre-array-finally-has-a-home-or-two-7274 Basically, Africa will study the nature of gravity. Australia will study the composition of the universe (dark energy, dark matter) and its origins. It also occurs to me that one of the awesome long-term benefits of a split bid is that two of the world's few remaining decent radio quiet areas will now be locked in for preservation from mining and human encroachment for the next 40 years or so. Had either country won the whole bid, only one would have a real future of preservation. Radio quiet areas are absolutely critical for radioastronomy. Long-term, we'll probably see more and more radioastronomy enter space to prevent interference from artificial EMR. But a project like the SKA just wouldn't be possible in space (as opposed to Earth) with humanity's current level of political will. A better picture of the medium frequency aperture array Africa will be building:

Alright, so I found more info at the SKA website, and its probably also more accurate. http://www.skatelescope.org/news/dual-site-agreed-square-kilometre-array-telescope/ Australia will be building the low frequency aperture array (lots of these things): South Africa will be building the medium frequency aperture array (lots of these things): South Africa will also be building the high frequency dish array (lots of these things):

LOL. Can't say I didn't see it coming, but I guess political compromise has trumped scientific excellence. It's not too bad. The quality of scientific research will actually be just as good, but the cost of splitting the SKA up (presumably by frequency since it has been stated that SA got 2 of 3 components - there were three frequency ranges and thus 3 types of arrays making up the whole) between the two countries is going to be maybe $300 million higher. That's actually not as much as I expected, so that's good. I can see why they split the telescope - Australia and SA were essentially equivalent bids, SA was slightly favoured (due to higher elevations of the radio quiet zone), especially in terms of giving Africa a truly uplifting foreign aid project, but Australia lobbied incredibly fiercely for the SKA. I know I'm an Aussie, but I was actually rooting for Africa to win. The SKA is one of the single best things you could do to improve the quality of life in Africa - gives people a purpose, makes people want an education in science so they can work on it, creates oh so many infrastructure and construction jobs, requires the training of bucket loads of computer scientists and engineers to maintain, requires the construction of a superfast fibre optic network, requires the construction of the world's fastest super computers, means billions of dollars spent on the local economy, and makes Africa an astronomy superhub. I do like the 2:1 split solution. Us Aussies still get some awesome toys to play with and some incentive to keep training world-class astronomers. And from my perspective especially as a network engineer, it means there are still some decent job opportunities available with the SKA when I graduate. Maybe not as many as if we won the whole thing, but whatever. More details: http://www.google.co...ab962dfe344297e Background for those out of the loop The SKA stands for "Square Kilometre Array". It is the world's largest telescope ever built by far. It will be between 50 to 100 times more powerful than any existing telescope. It is a distributed computing project involving IIRC around 3000 different telescopes at varying frequencies. These telescopes will be linked together by algorithms running on the world's fastest supercomputers to produce one supertelescope image. The SKA is an interesting project because the supercomputing power required to run it is not expected to be invented until around 2020. Specifically, it requires at least exaflops of processing capacity to run. The SKA is possibly a more important scientific project than even the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The SKA is being built by the following countries: Australia New Zealand South Africa China Italy The United Kingdom The Netherlands India is looking at joining.

I already discussed those supposed 'criticisms' here.

Hey, look, here's a good summary of my argument Rostere. I recommend you take a look, and if we still disagree with eachother, then, well, that's life. But please, give this video a go first: YouTube clip comparing the Android, Windows Phone, and iPhone ecosystems

I dismiss the possibility of Microsoft's ad campaign with Windows Phone succeeding because MS has a track record of failing horribly at getting people to buy its products. C.f. Bing, Zune. Also because their ad campaign has failed so far and Nokia doesn't have much time left before it runs out of money (1 or 2 years). If Nokia goes, Windows Phone goes, because none of the other manufacturers are happy with Windows Phone OS. And I thoroughly disagree with you that there are no underlying reasons as to why one smartphone platform does well over another. That's just illogical. The main reasons driving Android adoption are: it's appealing to techies, it's appealing to developers, and its openness to manufacturers. The more techies that like a platform (assuming it is easy to use and there is no sufficient incumbent), the more the uninformed masses will like a product. This is because they have technical friends and they go to them for advice, then repeat that advice to their own friends. The more developers that like a platform, the more quality apps that product will have. You're kidding yourself if a diverse and useful app ecosystem doesn't draw even a lot of average joes. It's not secret that one of the things Microsoft is struggling with for the Windows Phone ecosystem is simply enticing developers to produce apps for it. The more manufacturers like a platform (in this case because of its openness to customisation), the more devices and support for it, meaning a larger number of people using that platform (think about your flawed logic for a moment, and lets pretend it is correct, because it does contribute a small portion to a platform's success: people buy phones randomly. In such a scenario, if 10 manufacturers put out 10 Android devices, 2 put out Windows devices, and Apple puts out just their iPhone, what, statistically, are the chances of people buying an Android phone?). Are these 3 reasons the main reasons why everyone buys Android? Not at all. Some people do just go "durr", walk into a shop, and buy a phone for a random reasons. But enough (a majority) don't buy in this manner, making the above reasons the key determinants of a smartphone's success.

****, thanks for that. The SSD I just bought is a Sandforce. :s And this is why I like things like Google Docs and the Steam cloud!

In other words, this EU beat up by a Brit is misleading and based on an incorrect premise? Gee, why am I not surprised. Maybe it was the fact that the first "news" source quoted was the Daily Mail.

Only 6,3 million units sold in the first week? PC gaming is dead, man. Doesn't even come close to the 15 million CoD units. Yeah, I'm sure Blizzard are very upset that PC gaming is dead, what with their $400 million dollars of revenue off Diablo 3 in one week. I hear Valve are going bankrupt, too, with their failing Steam PC business. Do you even think about what you post, Morgoth?

No. Yes. Unfortunately, the list of things which count as a 'felony' in the US (accepting that it varies by state) does include lots of more minor non-violent crimes as well as non-violent drug offences. Or did you disagree with some other aspect of what I said?

I've always thought the British are more of a detriment to the EU than a benefit. They should perhaps leave if they dislike it so much. As for prisoners voting... I think it's important that people are always able to vote. Otherwise you can potentially get the kinds of problems such as the US has, where hundreds of thousands of people get thrown in prison for non-violent drug offences like smoking a joint and due to this lose their right to vote. That is not at all fair.

My SSD arrived the other day and I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on it. Such a smooth experience. The mixture of Linux and the SSD has improved system responsiveness immensely over Windows 7 on an HD. I installed 'PlayOnLinux' which is an application (based on WINE) that lets you run Windows programmes. Installing Steam via PlayOnLinux is even simpler than installing it on Windows. So I've been going through my list of Steam games and testing them out. They've all worked flawlessly so far. I've tried a few GoG games, too, which have also worked without a hitch. So if being able to play your Steam games is a concern, there's no issue. Any games in particular you'd want to be able to play on Linux? I may have them and can test for you. Diablo 3 works, for instance. Might want to avoid Windows 8, then.

I've already purchased 4 copies of Torchlight 2 on Steam for $60. I'll give 3 to my mates and we can do some 4-player co-op!

Fahrenheit had the worst controls I have ever seen in a game. I found it unplayable. Whatever, can we all agree that Hassat Hunter needs to go and play TLJ right now?

Just installed a Kingston Hyper X SSD. Size is 120 gigs. First thing I did was install Ubuntu 12.04. Yay, no more Windows! The system is a whole lot faster. I think part of it is the fact that I've moved to Linux, and part of it the HD to SSD upgrade. Booting especially is incredibly quick. It's beautiful. Installing games now.

You guys are bull**** artists. Dreamfall may not have been as amazingly awesome as its predecessor (The Longest Journey - buy it if you haven't played it yet!) but it was still a very interesting and fun game. It sure beats the generic **** that publishers crank out these days. The game (Dreamfall) is worth at least $20. The Longest Journey itself is worth the kind of huge prices that publishers charge for crap like Diablo 3 and all those silly Halo and Battlefield or CoD or whatever games. To anybody feeling put off by the jokers above, please take a serious look at the game, and while Metacritic isn't the be-all-end-all, and can be gamed, in this instance reviewers gave it 75% and users gave it 86%. Make up your own mind.

So I'm going to buy the Samsung Galaxy S3 and a Mugen Power battery (should be able to get around a 5000 mAh battery, providing twice as long runtime). http://www.mugen-power-batteries.com/samsung/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-i9100/mugen-power-3200mah-extended-battery-for-samsung-galaxy-s-ii-si9100-with-battery-door.html This extended battery will provide you with roughly double your original S2 battery life. It's $98.

1.9% of smartphones sold these days are Windows phones 7% of smartphones sold these days are Blackberries 23% of smartphones sold these days are iPhones 56% of smartphones sold these days are Android phones I think Android does interest casual users. Just because something is open source doesn't mean it isn't good for casual users. Do you use Firefox or Chrome or Libre Office, for instance? I didn't say that it wasn't good, just that it wasn't necessarily BETTER. What I'm saying was that none of the inherent strengths of having an open source OS is of particular interest to the casual user. Great, except you were the one who brought up the fact that Android is open source. My initial response is: who cares? We're talking about which smartphone platform is better. But hey, you are right to being up the open source aspect, because Android being open source DOES actually make it a better platform, which I'll explain later in this post. Android was built by Google, so I doubt it would have emerged without Google, either. That said, plenty of companies were already working on open source phone platforms (mostly based on Linux) for smartphones before Google, anyway, and these died as Android took over. So I think your actual point - that an open source smartphone platform wouldn't have emerged without Google - is extremely incorrect. Actually, the point I was trying to make by bring up the examples of Firefox, and Open Office was that open source projects can drive casual user adoption on their own, as seen by the adoption rates of these products on desktop computers. More people globally use open source browsers than they do closed source browsers. Not really. It's a rational choice to buy a Mac in many scenarios, especially when you don't have the time or skill to build a hackintosh (which, by the way, is not the most reliable machine, since it's very hard to get the OS optimised for the unexpected hardware). If you're arguing that people who buy Mac are irrational, that's a mistake, because different people have hugely different goals when buying PCs. For instance, one of the target demographics of Apple tends to be technically uninformed people with lots of money to waste who want a computer that works with the least amount of fiddling and tweaking. From the perspective of those people, Apple Macs fit the bill. Just because these people are technically uninformed, or want a PC that works without fiddling doesn't make them irrational, it just means they've probably got other priorities in their lives. Another group of people for whom it would be logical to use a Mac is video editors and musicians, IIRC, as their is a larger software ecosystem for them on Mac than on Windows. And the above is why I love that Ubuntu Linux exists, as the people at Canonical are working hard to present a viable superior, open source, and monetarily free alternative to Mac (and Windows) for these people, and they're doing really well at that goal. You are expecting that everyone has high-level technical skills accross multiple areas, and that's not rational. I am really lost as to what your argument is. At first I thought it was that "Android is not suitable for casual users because it is open source" but when I showed you that most casual users prefer Android phones (as well as most advanced users), your argument morphed into an explanation of why open source isn't a factor driving Android adoption. Well, no, I disagree with that, too. Open source is a huge factor driving Android adoption. But not for techies or end users - not directly. The open source aspect of Android is a huge factor driving developer and manufacturer adoption, which in turn significantly expands the Android ecosystem (in simple terms: more apps and devices to choose from to cater to all kinds of needs and desires) and hence drives Android adoption by casual users. Right, well, until your "prediction" comes true, I'll just avoid the old, still really bad*, Microsoft and the current new Microsoft (Apple). Honestly, how much sense do you think you're making when you say "I use a Windows phone"** and then warn me against Google by saying "one day they'll become as bad as Microsoft"? *Check out what Microsoft are doing with Windows 8 to prevent people from installing alternative OSs and browsers on their machine **Or were you just saying you think they look better, but don't own one yourself?

Wesnoth is high on my list. Is it like Civilisation?

My initial response was overly confrontational - sorry about that. I have heard about accounts being banned for modifying game files from a few different sources and it concerns me, too. Do we have any actual proof it happens, though? No, I think more people should remind Valve that as paying customers we should be entitled to as many rights as possible for the games we've legitimately purchased. I don't buy that "you don't own your Steam games" bull****. If Valve wants our custom, they'll damn well act like we do own our games, legal status be damned. This is where I take issue. How much evidence do we have of Valve acting like this? I've always seen Valve act like they're acutely aware of the concept that every single customer counts. I do know that Valve bans people for cheating in multiplayer games. Not a good practice, even if they are tossers. It would be better to just disable the multiplayer part of the game instead.

Yeah, COTD regularly pull stunts like this to draw traffic - the amount of stock they have is probably something in the low three digits, and apparently the deal has notched something like 20000 Facebook 'likes' so you can calculate your odds from there, if you can even get onto the site the minute it goes up. This practice just barely skirts by consumer laws about having a reasonable number available when advertising a sale. Still, if you want to chance your arm, create an account there now, and within the sale period, stay logged in and spam refresh on the hour, every hour (since they change the item every hour "randomly") and have your card details and such ready to paste in. It's almost a perverse sport or such - thousands of people will be doing that exact same thing and you probably have less than a 30 second window to complete the transaction to actually buy one. I have to admit even I'd be tempted by a $20 D3 deal, speaking as someone who personally despises the genre, but I won't personally deal with COTD so no competition from me. I agree, and my thinking has been trending along those lines over the past few days. So far all they've asked for is my email - I figure I can unsubscribe afterwards and block their email in Gmail. But if they require registration as your suggest, that's a definite no go. My experiences with Groupon, something similar, were less then stellar. These sites represent some of the worse excesses of consumerism. I've also been thinking that I probably have lots of better things to do than sit around refreshing a website 6 days before I have 3 final exams to sit, hoping to snag a deal on a game that is a huge time waster (if its predecessor is anything to go by). I've made a list of things I want to accomplish in my 10 week break between semesters 1 and 2, and it involves building a website for group collaboration for uni students, coding neural networks in C++, learning linear algebra, electric circuit theory, building an Arduino robot, and practising discrete maths in Haskell. While it's probably wishful thinking to believe I can achieve all of this in 10 weeks, very little of this would be achievable if I owned Diablo 3.