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Rio 2.0 rates potential signs of extraterrestrial life from 0 to 10, with 10 equivalent to ‘an alien shaking your hand’ Rates a 3.0 on the silly notion scale
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My system is far easier; every potential contact is rated on a scale of zero to zero.
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My systems has only two settings: "yeah, right!" and "run, hide!".
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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As we wind down work on standardizing the XML stack at W3C it’s worth looking at some of what we have accomplished and why. W3C XML, the Extensible Markup Language, is one of the world’s most widely-used formats for representing and exchanging information. The joy of angle brackets
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XML on the Web is Dead - Douglas Crockford
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When we talk about COBOL the first question on everyone’s mind is always Why are we still using it in so many critical places? "Math class is tough"
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Given that some COBOL programs have been running (with successive modifications) successfully for over 40 years, if you were looking at rewriting that, which technology would you use that you felt confident may have anything like that longevity. I suspect that may be a major factor in its continued use.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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That's a really good article!
For a great many of us, the inherent inaccuracy of floating point variables is never really an issue but when things get recursive those tiny little rounding errors can result in huge differences. The Muller recurrence sequence is an excellent example of the way that a series of marginal errors can suddenly explode into spectacular wrongness - the "butterfly effect" in full effect.
Similar things are going on somewhere in a computer system somewhere near you right now, albeit probably in a much less dramatic way. That's maybe something you don't want to ponder too deeply while the autopilot's flying your 'plane.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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Tech firms like Facebook should be made liable for "harmful and misleading" material on their websites and pay a levy so they can be regulated, British lawmakers said, warning of a crisis in democracy due to misuse of personal data. For the record: I never 'post fake news', just 'news, posted fakely'
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With the caveat that "fake news" is whatever news the accuser disagrees with.
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To a certain extent, yes. But seeing some of the “news” sites debunked on snopes, there is some truly fake news out there.
TTFN - Kent
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Yes, but that's not what most politicians are complaining about.
(Unless politicians are concerned that it IS "the year of Linux on the desktop".)
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True dat (especially whenever politicians are involved).
Wait?! It’s not The Year of Linux?
TTFN - Kent
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The "fake news" hysteria has never been about actual fake news; only politically inconvenient news.
It seeks to censor disadvantageous news and highlight advantageous news on social media, regardless of the truth or fiction of either.
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Seriously? You cited Snopes as a viable defender against "fake news"?
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Yes. They actually do research and have been shown to be much more accurate than say InfoWars. Except when dealing with the news about his own ugly divorce and business dealings, of course.
TTFN - Kent
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Kent Sharkey wrote: They actually do research and have been shown to be much more accurate than say InfoWars.
So...InfoWars is now something other than the lowest possible bar? One better:
"Snopes: They have more journalistic integrity than Mad magazine!"
Love ya Kent, but seriously.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
- Hanlon's Razor
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Feel free to show me ones they've had wrong, or better fact checkers (for random internet nonsense mostly).
I picked InfoWars after making the mistake of looking at Facebook and Twitter the other day, and it seems to be used as a news source there more than Mad Magazine. 
TTFN - Kent
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Fair, but Mad magazine is less ridiculous by leaps and bounds.
I'll grant you, the number of people that classify InfoWars as news is super sad. I was mostly teasing you over the comparison, i.e. literally saying nothing about the credibility of Snopes.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
- Hanlon's Razor
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Ah, true. Sorry, I overreacted.
And the Spy vs. Spy comic seems to be prescient these days. 
TTFN - Kent
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Save The Onion!
Oh sanctissimi Wilhelmus, Theodorus, et Fredericus!
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Microsoft is putting together a service aiming to take the pain out of procuring, provisioning and managing Windows 10 devices that it's currently calling the 'Microsoft Managed Desktop.' "Extended warranty?! How can I lose?"
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Someone might want this, but we hope we never meet them. My Inbox will be so grateful
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All of the apps appear to have been recently acquired by a little-known company. I guess they don't block everything then?
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A new survey of 6,000 tech workers by workplace app Blind shows that over 60% feel they’re not paid enough. "I'm in the hi-fidelity first class travelling set and I think I need a Lear jet"
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