The Daily Populous

Sunday May 6th, 2018 morning edition

image for Professor who knew Bill Gates as a student at Harvard: He was the smartest person I've ever met

Getty Images / Emmanuel Dunand As a student at Harvard in the 1970s, Bill Gates impressed more than one faculty member with his mathematical brilliance.

The anecdote resurfaced in a recent answer on the Quora thread, "How intelligent is Bill Gates?".

The story serves as a reminder that the wealthiest and most successful people among us may have been exceptional from the start.

When I was an assistant professor at Harvard, Bill was a junior.

My girlfriend back then said that I had told her: "There's this undergrad at school who is the smartest person I've ever met.".

He had moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to run a small company writing code for microprocessors, of all things.

The idea that intelligence might play more than a minimal role in individual success is an uncomfortable one to consider. »

Flint water flagged as poor weeks before free bottles ended

Authored by woodtv.com

FLINT, Mich. (AP) — Michigan environmental experts warned that Flint's water system had "significant deficiencies" just weeks before Gov. Rick Snyder announced an end to bottled water service that was introduced to allay a lead-tainted water crisis.

Snyder announced April 6 an end to free bottled water distribution, citing two years of testing showing Flint is below the federal action level for lead.

Flint is recovering from its lead-contaminated water crisis and producing "very high quality drinking water," said Tiffany Brown, a spokeswoman for the state's environmental department. »

A former NASA scientist says 'The Martian' movie 'is completely doable.' But Elon Musk's city on Mars is another story.

Authored by businessinsider.com
image for

In the 2015 blockbuster sci-fi movie "The Martian," astronaut Mark Watney lands on Mars with five other intrepid explorers in the not-so-distant future.

Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars.".

Read more about the challenges facing Mars colonization efforts: "Life in a bubble: How we can fight hunger, loneliness, and radiation on Mars". »

Google, please fix Android's slow, bloated share UI

Authored by androidpolice.com

Chrome also does something funny where it gives you a quick shortcut to share to one app right there, so you don't have to open the Share UI to begin with.

Now you wait, and sometimes wait a little bit longer, for the Share UI to populate.

In no particular order, here are the things that we think Google should fix in the Share UI. »

Illinois coroner to poor: Pay $1000 or county keeps remains

Authored by abcnews.go.com

If the family needs the death certificate to access bank accounts or life insurance, the coroner first arranges for the county to recoup its costs from any proceeds.

Of the $1,000 people pay, he says $800 goes to the funeral homes and $200 to the crematory.

The county's poverty rate of 13 percent is on par with the overall rate in Illinois. »