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Archive for the ‘Google Reader’ Category
Massachusetts Lottery Broken
01
Aug
wiredog sends in a story about how knowledge of lottery rules and statistics has allowed opportunistic players in Massachusetts to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on tickets while being assured of a massive payoff. Quoting:
"Because of a quirk in the rules, when the jackpot reaches roughly $2 million and no one wins, payoffs for smaller prizes swell dramatically, which statisticians say practically assures a profit to anyone who buys at least $100,000 worth of tickets. During these brief periods — 'rolldown weeks' in gambling parlance — a tiny group of savvy bettors, among them highly trained computer scientists from MIT and Northeastern University, virtually take over the game. ... Srivastava calculated that a gambler who bought 200,000 Cash WinFall tickets during four rolldown weeks in a year would win enough to cover the $1.6 million investment and earn a profit of $240,000 to $1.4 million — without ever winning the jackpot."
Farewell Flash? Adobe Launches HTML5 Web Animations Tool “Adobe Edge”
01
Aug
Today, Adobe is launching a new tool called Adobe Edge which will allow creative professionals to design animated Web content using Web standards like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. Not Flash.
Aimed to coexist with Adobe Flash, not replace it, the Web design software is Adobe's big bet on how it will continue to solidify its position as a top player in the infrastructure of the modern Web, especially as the Web goes increasingly mobile. In this new mobile context, the Web has become a more hostile environment for Flash, which has no place on Apple mobile devices, and likely never will.
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HTML5 vs Flash...or HTML5 and Flash?
Although Flash still accounts for the majority of website animations today, that won't always be the case.
So does Edge's launch mean that Adobe caved and ceded the battle to HTML5 over Flash? Adobe doesn't see it that way. Although battles make for good headlines here in the world of tech journalism, it's not really an either/or scenario when it comes to the "Flash vs. HTML5" conundrum in the professional world. For today's Web designers and developers, both technologies are still used.
Adobe's Support for HTML5 Continues with Edge
"HTML5 is an opportunity for Adobe," explains Devin Fernandez, Group Product Manager for Adobe's Web Pro Segment, "that's not to say there aren't opportunities for Flash." He contends that Flash will continue to push forward, and, as we have reported previously, it will focus on areas that HTML5 cannot yet address as well - like 3D gaming for example. (Although even there, HTML5 is making inroads.)
Still, with HTML5 being a relatively new technology, it doesn't today deliver a consistent experience across the widest range of devices and browsers. For example, Windows XP, which even to Microsoft's own chagrin remains a fairly popular computer operating system, can only run up to Internet Explorer 8. That means it can't take advantage of the many major leaps in terms of HTML5 support introduced in IE 9.
In other words, Adobe believes Flash still has a solid future here on the Web for some time. But when the Web is ready for an entirely Flash-free existence, this is surely Adobe's plan for maintaining its relevance among the creative professionals crowd, including developers and designers alike.
What Does Edge Do?
Adobe claims it has been a strong player in HTML5, going back to April 2010, when it first began introducing support for the technology in its product line, including Dreamweaver, Illustrator, its Digital Publishing Suite and, more recently, its Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool, Wallaby.
Now, with Adobe Edge, it aims to provide the tools that will help professionals build Web animations, and in the future, even simple games. At present, Edge will focus on its core animation engine, but in the future, it plans to add more HTML5 features, including Canvas support, support for HTML5 Audio and Video tags, richer support for animating SVG graphics and more.
The software (for both Mac and PC) is designed to have an intuitive paneled user interface, a fast startup time, and will include, at the bottom, the familar timeline feature creative professionals already know and understand. Edge users can import existing HTML documents and graphic assets including SVG, PNG, JPG and GIF and then sytle them with CSS3. Panels on the left and right provide access to properties of the .EDGE file and the various elements the designer is working with. And in the center, there runs an embedded version of the WebKit browser.
When a project is complete, it will work on modern Web browsers like those that run on Android, iOS, HP's webOS, the BlackBerry PlayBook, plus Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer 9.
Where to Get Adobe Edge
Starting today, Adobe Edge is available as a free download while in its public preview period. The 1.0 product is expected to launch next year.
This is a hugely important launch for Adobe - one that IDC analyst Al Hilwa, says is "the biggest thing they have done so far." Hilwa likes Adobe Edge, and believes it shows that Adobe is really in-tune with designer needs.
"Adobe has started working on HTML5 and has brought many little things, showing that they can pivot nicely to new trends," Hilwa told us. "It shows that they can remain the premier tools vendor no matter what the technology inside is."
Will designers agree with Hilwa's sentiment, though? In time, we'll know.
DiscussDrink More Wine, Get Less Sunburned [Health]
01
Aug
How an argument with Hawking suggested the Universe is a hologram
31
Jul
The proponents of string theory seem to think they can provide a more elegant description of the Universe by adding additional dimensions. But some other theoreticians think they've found a way to view the Universe as having one less dimension. The work sprung out of a long argument with Stephen Hawking about the nature of black holes, which was eventually solved by the realization that the event horizon could act as a hologram, preserving information about the material that's gotten sucked inside. The same sort of math, it turns out, can actually describe any point in the Universe, meaning that the entire content Universe can be viewed as a giant hologram, one that resides on the surface of whatever two-dimensional shape will enclose it.
That was the premise of panel at this summer's World Science Festival, which described how the idea developed, how it might apply to the Universe as a whole, and how they were involved in its development.
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Social Media Propaganda Posters by Aaron Wood
31
Jul
Who would you join up with to win the “war�
Love these social media propaganda posters from Aaron Wood.
You can buy them on Etsy. Found via Google+.
Share This: Twitter | Facebook | Discover more great design by following Design Milk on Twitter and Facebook.
© 2011 Design Milk | Posted by Jaime in Art | Permalink | 1 comment
Postcards To The Future
29
Jul
There’s plenty of footage out there showing what people thought the year 2000 would bring from the 1950s and 60s but what about the view from 1900?
A series of postcards from German chocolate company Hildebrands gives us a glimpse into their thoughts on life at the turn of the millennium, a far more whimsical (and corseted) vision of what was to be.
A Quick Stroll on the Water
The Moving Pavement
House-Moving by Train
Televised Outside Broadcasting
Personal Flying Machines
Combined Ship and Railway Locomotive
Weather Control Machine
Undersea Tourist Boats
Roofed Cities
Personal Airships
Police X-Ray Surveillance Machine
Summer Holidays at the North Pole
Source: paleofuture
A series of postcards from German chocolate company Hildebrands gives us a glimpse into their thoughts on life at the turn of the millennium, a far more whimsical (and corseted) vision of what was to be.
A Quick Stroll on the Water
The Moving Pavement
House-Moving by Train
Televised Outside Broadcasting
Personal Flying Machines
Combined Ship and Railway Locomotive
Weather Control Machine
Undersea Tourist Boats
Roofed Cities
Personal Airships
Police X-Ray Surveillance Machine
Summer Holidays at the North Pole
Source: paleofuture
What is Really Happening in Washington D.C.
29
Jul
One of the best depictions of the debt “crisisâ€:
KAL’s cartoon | The Economist.
© 2011 Armstrong Media, LLC. All rights reserved. No republishing without permision. This post was originally written by Jon Armstrong for blurbomat.com.
Permalink |
9 comments
Sheer Numbers Gave Early Humans Edge Over Neanderthals
29
Jul
By Kate Shaw, Ars Technica
Between 35,000 and 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals in Europe and Asia were replaced by the first modern humans. Why and how this transition occurred remains somewhat controversial. New research from the journal Science suggests that sheer numbers may have played a large role in modern humans’ eventual takeover; archeological data shows that early populations of modern humans may have outnumbered Neanderthals by more than 9 to 1.
Because of the difficulties in estimating long-ago populations, the researchers used a few different proxies for population sizes and densities. They analyzed the number of occupied sites in each era, the size of these sites, and the accumulation rates of stone tools and animal food remains. Through these proxies, the researchers could get good estimates of population dynamics during the transition from Neanderthals to modern humans in Aquitaine.
From the Mouterian to the Chatelperronian era, there was very little increase in the number of rock-shelter sites. There were about 26 sites occupied in the Mouterian era, and 31 in the Chatelperronian period, suggesting that the Neanderthal population was not growing quickly. However, there were about 108 sites occupied by modern humans in the Aurignacian period. The increase is similar for occupied open-air sites. Adjusted for time scales, these figures suggest that, between the last Neanderthal-dominated era and the first era dominated by modern humans, the population numbers and densities increased by a factor of about 2.5.
A similar trend was seen in the sizes of occupied areas, with the Neanderthal sites averaging less than 200 square meters, while several of the modern human sites reached up to 600 square meters. From the size differences of the sites, the researchers estimate population increased up to 3 times as the Neanderthal-dominated era ended and modern humans occupied their sites.
Finally, the accumulation of stone tools and animal remains tells a similar story: modern humans were far more numerous than the Neanderthals they replaced. The densities of stone tools and animal food remains skyrocketed between the Chatelperronian and Aurignacian eras—according to these differences, the modern human population probably outnumbered the Neanderthals by a factor of about 1.8.
Each of these statistics, taken alone, tells only part of the story. Since these archaeological proxies was developed independently, the estimations can be looked at cumulatively to get a better idea of the different population sizes. When evaluated as a whole, these estimations show that the population size and densities of modern humans may have been more than 9 times those of the Neanderthals around the time of the population’s transition. It’s very likely that a numerical advantage that large played a significant role in modern humans’ dominance over their earlier counterparts.
While the study did not directly address the features that gave modern humans a population advantage, the authors suggest that it was probably due to a combination of factors such as improved food storage, an increase in social cohesion, and the potential for trade and the exchange of goods.
Source: Ars Technica
Image: A comparison of Neanderthal and human settlement density and size about 30,000 years ago. (Science)
See Also:
- Neanderthals Mated With Humans Outside of Africa
- Neanderthal Genome Shows Most Humans Are Cavemen
- Ancient Teeth Show Neanderthals Were Righties
- Neanderthal Babies: Fast-Growing and Cute
- Spring-Loaded Heels Gave Extra Step to Early Humans
Citation: Science, 2011. DOI: 10.1126/science.1206930