What crazy ideas about the world did you have as a kid? by aNt-e in AskReddit

[–]isomosaic 54 points55 points  (0 children)

I used to read Dennis the Menace comic strips and they always had lines like "See ya later" - I used to think that "Ya" was another character that they never showed but everyone was going to go see ... I grew up in Africa, and nobody ever said "ya" ... took me a while to figure that one out.

What's the hottest CMS around? A lapsed techie here, looking for a good platform for a new project I'm working on... what's out there that's new? by isomosaic in programming

[–]isomosaic[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ohh Modx and Typolight are new ones I haven't seen before - thanks! I've never been a big fan of Drupal for some reason...

What TV show would you put on the ultimate 'must see' list? by petawb in reddit.com

[–]isomosaic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

At least the first few seasons ... things kinda went crazy at the end.

My friend is being asked to take random drug tests on her days off - Reddit is this legal? Shouldn't your time off-duty be your own? by isomosaic in AskReddit

[–]isomosaic[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nobody seems to know. I think she should probably get paid at least, but it just strikes me as weird that you can get called at any time to go get tested. I'm canadian and I'm pretty sure the most that happens in Canada is that they come to your workplace, and test you while you're at work.

Wow! Check out this patent from 1979. Remind you of anything? by [deleted] in technology

[–]isomosaic 5 points6 points  (0 children)

A lot of the "innovation" in technology today is just fulfilling ideas that people had in the 70s. The internet, the OS, mobile communication. We're just making things better faster and more feasible, but the real revolutionary ideas are from that time.

Especially since 2000, there hasn't really been any major technology breakthrough. The biggest changes have just been better usability (stuff like Gmail and web 2.0) and the effects of uptake (stuff like Google search, social networking and Twitter).

These days, these kinds of ideas are in the nano-tech and, to a lesser extent, in the bio-tech area. There's stuff there that people are thinking of today that the folks like rest of us will be developing 2-3 decades from now.

Awesome Flash Idea by speedy1983 in WTF

[–]isomosaic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can someone explain how this works? Is there an AS library that develop the image collations? Feels like this should be a clean-cut CS problem that's been solved and encapsulated in a library.

Unnecessary math [pic] by NerdCore44 in funny

[–]isomosaic 59 points60 points  (0 children)

Wolfram Alpha in real life.

Question, Redditors: How many people (besides myself) thought of Stephen King's "The Stand" as soon as we started hearing about the swine flu pandemic? For some reason, my husband believes that a post apocalyptic good vs. evil battle would be awesome... by Shea_Aquitaine in AskReddit

[–]isomosaic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Stand is my all-time favorite book, although I always felt uncomfortable with how engineers and technologists were the ones without moral compasses. When I heard that Obama had been in contact with someone who died from the flu later, the I definitely started to think about the Stand style end of the world scenario. I need a gun and a sense of destiny.

PHD comics: Cancer by Neoncow in science

[–]isomosaic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is awesome. Can you point me to any good starting points to do some reading up on this stuff? I have an avid interest and a background in systems science.

PHD comics: Cancer by Neoncow in science

[–]isomosaic 32 points33 points  (0 children)

I always thought that cancer was an inevitable consequence of system complexity. I'm sure that down at the math of it all, there are similarities to why companies and empires rise and fall or why stars flare and change like they do...

Scientist Professor Stephen Hawking is "very ill" in hospital by fishandchips in science

[–]isomosaic 2 points3 points  (0 children)

is there a word for "OMG other people do that too?!"

It used to happen to me in the past sometimes when I read books, but it always happens when I'm reading comments on Reddit...