Item Discussion of the Day: Orchid Malevolence (April 16th, 2013) : DotA2 Motorola developing Android phones with stock software, 'just right' size The dream of a stock Android phone that isn't too big to use with one hand was almost realized by the HTC First, but we may see some other options on the market in the near future, as well. According to a report from PC Mag, Motorola is working on new smartphones that will run 'stock' Android and will be smaller than the giant Android devices that have been dominating the market for the past couple of years. PC Mag spoke with Jim Wicks, Motorola's chief of design, who said that these new phones are the result of collaboration and influence from Google, as opposed to the other devices that Motorola has released in the time since Google acquired the company. "It will be the unadulterated version of Android, and I feel really good about our embracing Android and being the best Android experience." Wicks also touched on included software with phones, more commonly called bloatware, and said that Motorola's phones will be as bloatware-free as possible.
Red and violet are on opposite ends of the spectrum, yet we perceive violet as being between blue and red. Why? : askscience TIL that composer Charles Ives proposed that a 20th Amendment should be added to the U.S. Constitution that allowed people to submit legislative proposals to Congress. Members of Congress would then cull the proposals, selecting 10 each year as referendum TIL That the Vikings were actually much cleaner than we assume them to be today; Saxon women even preferred them to their own (Saxon)men. : todayilearned Physicists May Have Evidence Universe Is A Computer Simulation Physicists say they may have evidence that the universe is a computer simulation. How? They made a computer simulation of the universe. A long-proposed thought experiment, put forward by both philosophers and popular culture, points out that any civilisation of sufficient size and intelligence would eventually create a simulation universe if such a thing were possible. And since there would therefore be many more simulations (within simulations, within simulations) than real universes, it is therefore more likely than not that our world is artificial. Now a team of researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany led by Silas Beane say they have evidence this may be true. In a paper named ‘Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation’, they point out that current simulations of the universe - which do exist, but which are extremely weak and small - naturally put limits on physical laws. But the basic impression is an intriguing one.
TIL: Scientists May Have Evidence We Are In A Matrix-Like Simulation. : todayilearned My Dad passed away just before 3 AM yesterday morning : self Pics of what is going on in Venezuela. More info in the comments. : pics [Merlini's Mailbag] Episode 10 - Unconventional Support Heroes - [8:52] : DotA2 Facebook rolls out free voice calling for Android users in the US Mirroring its rollout of free VoIP calling for iOS, Facebook has updated its Messenger app for Android to allow free calling for users in the US. The free calling service launched for Canadian Android users in early March, so today's announcement greatly broadens the scope of the company's efforts to become the one way we all communicate digitally. In order to call a friend for free using Facebook Messenger, tap the "i" button inside a conversation and then select Free Call. You do not need to update the Messenger app to use the feature. If you're using Chat Heads to message friends, you'll need to tap the three "more info" dots next to a person's name to move the conversation to the Messenger app before you can make a call. The social network says that as of today, 24 countries now have access to VoIP calling on Android.
Chat Heads Coming To iOS Facebook App Via Update Pushing Out Anytime Now Chat Heads, the Facebook Home chat feature, will be coming to the iOS Facebook app this week, and is probably getting pushed to the store now, Facebook’s Home team said today on stage at the AllThingsD Dive Into Mobile Event. The Chat Heads implementation in the Facebook iOS app will have to live exclusively within the app itself, because of limitations placed on how developers can access iOS itself. The Chat Head bubbles will appear through the Facebook app itself, though, instead of keeping messages relegated just to the messages tab. That means you’ll be able to jump in and out of conversations while browsing profiles, your news feed, pages and events.
Larry Charles Larry Charles (born December 1, 1956) is an American writer, director, and producer. Early life and career[edit] Seinfeld[edit] Seinfeld Episodes[edit] Charles also has a cameo in the episode titled "The Parking Garage," which was written by David. Mad About You[edit] In 1995, Charles left the writing staff of Seinfeld to join that of another hugely successful mid-1990s sitcom: Paul Reiser's Mad About You. The Tick and Dilbert[edit] Curb Your Enthusiasm[edit] In 2000, Charles began his first job as a director, on Seinfeld creator Larry David's follow-up series, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Entourage[edit] Film[edit] Charles's feature debut was Masked and Anonymous (2003) which he directed, and co-wrote with Bob Dylan (under the pseudonyms Rene Fontaine and Sergei Petrov, respectively). His second feature film as director, Borat, was more successful. Talking with fans outside TIFF premiere of Religulous, 2008 Filmography (director)[edit] Live performances[edit] Further reading[edit] References[edit]
Life on Earth… but not as we know it | Science | The Observer Across the world's great deserts, a mysterious sheen has been found on boulders and rock faces. These layers of manganese, arsenic and silica are known as desert varnish and they are found in the Atacama desert in Chile, the Mojave desert in California, and in many other arid places. They can make the desert glitter with surprising colour and, by scraping off pieces of varnish, native people have created intriguing symbols and images on rock walls and surfaces. How desert varnish forms has yet to be resolved, despite intense research by geologists. Professor Carol Cleland, of Colorado University, has a very different suggestion. It is a striking idea: We share our planet with another domain of life that exists "like the realm of fairies and elves just beyond the hedgerow", as David Toomey puts it in his newly published Weird Life: The Search for Life that is Very, Very Different from Our Own. Science's failure to date to spot this weird life may seem puzzling.