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User: BlendieOfIndie

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Comments · 62

  1. Re:TIOBE algorithms on C Beats Java As Number One Language According To TIOBE Index · · Score: 1

    Another interesting one...

    Obama sucks - 70,300,000
    Romney sucks - 7,080,000

    Not a good predictor of the popular vote, either.

  2. What's the melting point of those sheep? on Scientists Clone Sheep With 'Good' Fat · · Score: 1

    Seriously, though. Please correct my understanding. Aren't the "good fats" typically oils (ie. fats with low melting points)? If these things are full of omega-3s rather than saturated lard, why is their body structure going to look like? Could sheep be harvested for their omega-3s rather than dredging for fish?

  3. Re:$500 billion? Reality check! on The Undeclared "Cyber Cold War" With China · · Score: 1

    Mod parent down.
    1) US GDB for 2010 is 15 TRILLION, not 1.5 trillion (citation is the same as above, but the parent misquoted GDP)
    2) It could be that a decades worth of IP was stollen in one year, so comparing with 2010's GDP is irrelevant and misleading.

  4. Re:I think Beck has started to believe his own con on Glen Beck Warns Viewers Not To Use Google · · Score: 1

    [Colbert] would be justified in not taking responsibility for anyone taking what he says seriously because his show is on a comedy channel.

    The great grandparent post you're responding to makes a reference to something from The Daily Show, portraying the reference as fact. Should I take that poster seriously? You're kidding yourself if you think that people don't take The Daily Show / The Report seriously. I consider The Daily Show to be one of the most influential programs on TV, particularly amongst young people. Whether its comical portrayal of information or fear mongering bullshit, if people listen to it enough, they will start to believe it. Its clear that The Daily Show and The Report are more likable and funny; I presume that's why Stuart & Colbert don't get harassed like Beck.

    For the record, I do watch the Report and TDS and I do not watch Glen Beck (or Fox for that matter).

  5. Re:Christmas on Facebook Knows When You'll Get Dumped · · Score: 1

    No, they were most likely ready to break up after not seeing their BF for three weeks over winter break. They decided to hang on to see if the relationship recovers (their always hesitant to break up), and the decide to wait until after Valentines day because its a date on the calendar, and they don't want to be lonely on the 14th when all their girlfriends are getting flowers.

  6. Re:So why the Pre-Christmas Spike? on Facebook Knows When You'll Get Dumped · · Score: 1

    Unlike the summary, I figured the spring break spike was so that guys go drink beer and hit on chicks with they guy friends. I don't know about this "my gal looks bad in a bathing suit" crap. I would imagine the winter break spike is caused by, like you said, the requirement of buying presents & meeting parents, but I'd also add in the fear of missing some wild NYE opportunities.

  7. Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong on How Google Avoided Paying $60 Billion In Taxes · · Score: 2, Informative

    Only poor people pay taxes.

    Clearly you have never reviewed the IRS' Statistics of Income. I'll quickly fill you in. People making less than 40k per year pay less than 5% of all personal income tax. That is 57% of ALL tax files pay 5% of ALL individual income tax. If you don't believe me, look it up. Now, I realize that federal income tax is only a portion of the taxes everyone pays, but PLEASE don't keep spreading the BS that you're spreading.

    IRS Statistic of Income

  8. Re:solar & wind power on Solar Power On the White House · · Score: 1

    I imagine that most people use dryers because of the convenience, not because it's against the law.

    On the other hand, I have actually just switched to air drying due to the inconvenience of buying rolls of quarters every time I need to do laundry (no, I'm not organized enough to go to the bank and buy $100 worth of quarters). I consider the greenness of the solution an added benefit, but it was the quarter inconvenience that gave me the idea in the first place. I haven't checked the lawfulness of hanging clothes on my balcony (Sunnyvale, CA), and I didn't ask the landlord either. I just figured I'd wait for someone to complain. Since I'm in an extremely cheap, slightly ghetto studio apartment complex, I doubt anyone will care. It is also possible to dry clothes with hooks I've installed in my apartment, but this takes at last 3x longer than drying outside, and it usually results in stiffer clothes.

  9. Re:And I've got a 10 inch... on Stats Show iPhone Owners Get More Sex · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If somebody's getting laid regularly, what are the odds that they're going to be visiting "OK Cupid"

    Actually, one of my friends uses online dating specifically to get laid, and he's already doing pretty well. OK Cupid has a bad reputation for this type of type of thing(the fact that its free probably has something to do with it). Online dating is a very good way to meet a lot of people in a short period of time. Its not just used by people that are desperate.

  10. Re:April Fools? on Sound As the New Illegal Narcotic? · · Score: 1

    Uncontrollable laughter? Time distortion?

    Time to take off your headphones, brah. I don't want to call for an intervention.

  11. Re:Unit conversions on NASA's Juno, Armored Tank Heading For Jupiter · · Score: 1

    WTF? No, they'd say the same thing we'd say.

    Yeah, that's what I thought, but look at the following sentence from the parent:

    1 meter = 3.2808399 feet. Wouldn't that make it ~3.2 Square feet? Or do you guys take off the square from the unit somehow, and apply it to the numbe

    It sounds like he thinks American's are weird for stating that a square measuring 3.2 feet by 3.2 as 10.7 feet squared (or square feet... it shouldn't matter what the ordering is here. I for one have never been confused by the ordering).

    It sounds like he claims that we should call this "3.2 square feet". This in my mind is a square that has a length and width of sqrt(3.2).

    Am I misinterpreting his statements? Dear god please tell me that EVERYONE calls a 3x3 space 9 square units (or 9 units squared).

  12. Re:Unit conversions on NASA's Juno, Armored Tank Heading For Jupiter · · Score: 1

    Wow, the British are the weird ones, here! Lets do some exercises:

    Exercise 1: What is the area of a triangle with a base of 3m and height of 5m?
    Mathematically: (3 * 5) / 2 = 7.5
    American: That's 7.5 meters squared
    British: That's sqrt(7.5) square meters?????
    Me: Are you really telling me that the British will take the square root of the answer JUST so they can call it "the length of one side of a square" squared meters???

    Exercise 2: Pressure is the amount of force per area. One unit of pressure is the Pascal, which is 1 Newton per meter squared (N/m^2). If I apply 500 Newtons of force to a circular area with a radius of .25 meters (force applied perpendicularly to the surface), what is the pressure exerted on that area in N/m^2 ?
    Mathematically: (500 / (3.14 * .25^2) = 2547
    American: yes, that's 500 Newtons over .196 square meters, or 2547 N/m^2
    British: that's 500 Newtons over square_root9.196) = .44 square meters... wait, I forgot to re-qsquare those counterintuitive units... .196 m*m, so that is 2547 N/m^2.
    Me: Ok, so I'm american, and I have no clue what the British do here. I'm giving the British the benefit of the doubt that they come up with the correct answer, but I don't see how their way of stating "square meters" is the right way. Correct me if I misinterpreted your post.

  13. Re:Not what I expected. on Solar-Powered Shrub Car · · Score: 1

    You have to admit the video is pretty damn funny. But as far as news is concerned, I was also disappointed that the article gave no insight as to why the thing looks like a bush. NASAs name is mentioned in this article as a marketing ploy to get people to read the article, NASA is in no way associated with this vehicle. The article also leaves (no pun intended) no explanation as to how solar power is associated with this vehicle. Maybe the battery is charged by a solar array?

  14. Re:Browser history? on Google Releases Wi-Fi Sniffing Audit · · Score: 1

    First of all, I'm actually shocked that your post hasn't gotten more attention.

    To add to the confusion, the summary states that Google is claiming they haven't analyzed the payload of packets! There is absolutely no way to detect e-mail addresses not to mention browser history from a handful of packets that were collected during a few seconds of drive by packet sniffing. I second your bullshit.

  15. Re:Doomed on HP To Buy Palm For $1.2 Billion · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is flat out incorrect

    In January 2010 HP's revenue = 31.1 B

    The breakdown by business unit is as follows:

    Enterprise Business (Services/Storage/Servers): $13.9B
    Personal Systems Group (Notebooks/Desktops/etc): $10B
    Imaging and Printing: $6.2B

    The printing segment composes less than 20% of HP's total revenue.

  16. Is this making the roads safer? on New Speed Cameras Catch You From Space · · Score: 1

    Does anybody have statistics that show this, or similar technology, is making the roads safer? How many fewer accidents? How many fewer deaths? I want proof that this is a good thing.

  17. Teenagers texting on "Skinput" Turns Your Body Into Your I/O · · Score: 1

    Just by touching different points on your arm, hand, or fingers you can tell your portable device to change volume, answer a call, or turn itself off.

    Teenagers texting will look like a first base coach on crack.

  18. Re:Read more of his blog, good sir on If You Live By Free, You Will Die By Free · · Score: 2, Insightful

    people, being so used to FREE content, will feel outraged by the concept of being charged to distributed their mundane crap videos online.

    Charging a small fee to upload videos is the key to improving YouTube. The reason people upload so many "mundane crap videos" is because there is not a fee. People who are proud of good work would be willing to pay a buck or two to upload their video. The people that upload their friend burping would hesitate to waste money their money. I'm sure you would still have some bad videos uploaded. Maybe google could use the money from bad videos to give small rebates to people with good videos.

  19. Re:Theoretical != Real World speeds on SATA 3.0 Release Paves the Way To 6Gb/sec Devices · · Score: 1

    Sorry, "two IO benchmarks" was ambiguous - I meant the difference between IOMeter (350MB/sec) and CrystalMark (1504MB/sec). There is an order of magnitude difference between these benchmarks. I suggested that one was affectively measuring cache performance, but I suppose it is possible that one was measuring reads and the other measuring writes. It could also be the number of IO streams hitting the disks. The point is that the numbers posted need to be reexamined.

  20. Re:Theoretical != Real World speeds on SATA 3.0 Release Paves the Way To 6Gb/sec Devices · · Score: 1

    If the two IO benchmarks are *that* far apart, there is something seriously wrong with the test. Mostly likely, one of the tests is reading the same data blocks over and over, and the blocks are being stored in cache (either on the disk, in the array, or on the OS). What type of interface attaches the drives? If it's a 4x SAS connection, then the max theoretical bandwidth is 1200MB/sec.

    Beyond that, using the word "sequential" with SSDs makes no sense because the internal bits aren't stored sequentially as they are on a hard disk. Perhaps you meant "read performance".

  21. Re:When big businesses get too big on Drug Company Merck Drew Up Doctor "Hit List" · · Score: 1

    We saw it in HP where leadership was so arrogant that it thought it should be able to do the things it did overstepping boundaries.

    Way to be specific.

    If you're gonna spread FUD, you should at least give some valid, specific references. If you said this about Enron your point would be obvious, but HP?

  22. It depends... on How Does Flash Media Fail? · · Score: 1

    It will depend on a lot of different variables:
    - disk manufacturer
    - what O/S
    - what application is accessing the disk
    - what interface connects the disk
    - how is the disk physically connected (what controller is the disk behind)


    If you're using a SCSI/SAS device you might see any of these errors. The O/S might see an "adapter failure" or a "time out failure". In turn, the O/S would probably just tell your application that a read/write failed and hopefully log the failure somewhere.

  23. Re:Fail on write on How Does Flash Media Fail? · · Score: 1

    I've had flash drives die all at once. It's not the norm, but there are things that can happen that will take them from "fine" to "dead" with no steps in between

    This can also happen with mechanical disk drives after a head crash. This happens when the disk head (think: needle on a record player) that reads the media breaks down.

  24. Re:FAT on How Does Flash Media Fail? · · Score: 1

    Interesting - so are manufacturers putting capacitors inside of high-end SSDs to ensure that writes are written successfully? I would imagine so. Mechanical drives use capacitors to move the disk head to a landing pad to prevent head crashes after a power failure.

  25. Re:Yahoo! + Sun on What If Oracle Bought Sun Microsystems? · · Score: 1

    I think it's more like
    1. Yahoo makes some cool cloud offerings
    2. Sun builds the cloud
    3. Cloud produces rain & thunderstorms
    4. Customers hop on the Noah's arc of Google, HP, IBM, etc.