larsr

The fig filling in fig newtons is crunch because it contains seeds. ;)

Most of the commercial figs grown in California are wasp pollinated. If a fig is crunchy, it contains seeds, and if it contains seeds, the flowers inside it were likely pollinated by at least one wasp.

Here is a great article with more details :)

http://waynesword.palomar.edu/pljune99.htm

That does not appear to be true. For instance, here is Walter Willett, chair of the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health:

From many kinds of studies conducted over years, we are quite confident now that a calorie from fat will cause a similar amount of weight gain as a calorie from carbohydrate. There are some interesting questions about whether eating carbohydrate calories versus fat calories will make you eat more calories, but based on what you put into your mouth, it's pretty clear that the source of the calories is really not important.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1822118,00.ht...

not to mention that the X200 (X301 too) has got an excellent keyboard and is built like a tank

the only thing I don't like about mine is the poor quality of the screen (low maximum brightness and contrast). for a laptop that's intended to be used on the go, under different lighting conditions, it's a little unfortunate.

There are objects in the modern day Squeak image that were created when Smalltalk-80 was released. In fact, if you explore around Squeak's image, you can find all sorts of disconnected bits and pieces that nobody uses anymore, that are just along for the ride because they are in the image. Sort of Smalltalk pseudogenes. It's organic, very different, and to me as a biologist who likes to program, quite fascinating.

"Whenever I see a brilliant kid decide to join Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, or Google, I think to myself: a startup just died"

Many smart "kids" (gee, thanks dad, glad you know what's best for me!) want to solve interesting problems, not muck around with all that other stuff you have to deal with as an entrepreneur.

"We're still rolling out Buzz to everyone, so if you don't see it in your Gmail account yet, check back soon."

(doesn't work yet for me either)

When I'm reading something it helps me find my place again if I get interrupted or need to look up something in a different browser tab. It also makes text more readable when sites do odd things like put medium gray text on a light gray background (for instance HN comments with a score < 1).

One problem: humans, even in western societies, aren't strictly monogamous. Men and women both can, and not infrequently do, have more than one partner, even when married.

By promoting Ive, didn't Jobs actually affect a fairly large change in design talent? According to wikipedia:

"He is internationally renowned as the principal designer of the iMac, aluminum and titanium PowerBook G4, MacBook, unibody MacBook Pro, iPod, iPhone, and iPad"

Consumer Reports has no advertising and they buy everything they review. When possible, they test items in blind trials. The magazine is also published by a non-profit. On the other hand, Amazon reviews have been gamed by both consumers and companies (two examples: Spore, Belkin). You can't be sure the people writing reviews actually bought the products they are reviewing. In my eyes Amazon reviews are better than nothing, but they don't come close to the value of a review by an unbiased party like Consumer Reports.

Probably, but all I see is a graph and the abstract. It also depends on how the model is being used in the paper. Unless I'm mistaken, Nature puts papers through peer review, which for me personally, anyways, means I'd want to actually read the whole paper before fire and pitchforks.

It is probably a case of overfitting, but it could also be the case that they are fitting an existing model that really has 17 parameters. Without more context, it's a little hard to judge. If I remember, I'll look at the full paper tomorrow. It might make a nice example.

Hypothetically, if all I want to do is exchange emails and browse the web, why should I have to learn how to use a "real desktop computer" or a "full UI"? I'd be learning a whole bunch of things I probably don't really care about or need to know. Empower me as a user to be able to do what I want to do, don't burden me down with a whole lot of details that get in my way.

Computers can be very powerful tools, but I am not sure many people are really interested in using that power -- I think many, even those who grew up with computers, would like the details to go away.

To follow your car analogy, cars used to be much more complicated to operate than they are now. Modern cars have electric starters, automatic chokes, and in many cases automatic transmissions, for instance.

Apple is simplifying things with iPad, Google is heading in the same route with Chrome OS, and I'm sure there are many other players we haven't heard from yet. It's going to be very interesting how things eventually play out.