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User: Gavagai80

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Comments · 3,318

  1. Re:Not just Ubuntu... on LibreOffice Gets a Streamlined Makeover With 4.4 Release · · Score: 1

    Distrowatch is not a measure of users. http://stats.wikimedia.org/wik... isn't representative necessarily either but at least it's an actual measure of users of something, and shows Ubuntu as over 100 times more popular than Mint.

  2. Re:I wonder... on The Big Bang By Balloon · · Score: 0

    Space telescopes are moving at orbital velocities. Compared to that, a balloon is practically stationary.

  3. Re: to apple fan boys on Apple Posts $18B Quarterly Profit, the Highest By Any Company, Ever · · Score: 2

    If they've litigated away their competitors, why do their competitors have most of the market share by volume?

  4. Re:Perfect Business on Opera Founder Is Back, WIth a Feature-Heavy, Chromium-Based Browser · · Score: 1

    I paid for Opera, back in the day. So did many others.

  5. Re:Saddest line ever on Young Cubans Set Up Mini-Internet · · Score: 1

    Cubans, Chinese and nearly everybody except North Koreans can make posts critical of their government. It's when you try to organize a group of critical people that they come after you.

  6. They're right for once on Verizon, Cable Lobby Oppose Spec-Bump For Broadband Definition · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I used to have 15 Mbps, and downgraded to 6 Mbps to save money. Never noticed the difference. 3 Mbps would probably be fine too -- plenty good enough for 360p video. Not everybody wants HD. On the other hand, I do feel a huge difference compared to the 1 Mbps my parents have (can't really watch video with that). So I'd define broadband as being ~3 Mbps+.

    Some consumers, of course, may benefit from more. Call it broadband HD or broadband+ or something. It's important not to obscure the more important distinction between those stuck on connections too slow for the modern internet and those with broadband.

  7. Re:Sounds like wireless is a bit too juicy on Verizon About To End Construction of Its Fiber Network · · Score: 1

    Unlimited plans are for the psychological benefits of not having to pay attention to use. Personally I'm pay-as-you-go because I can only afford a few dollars a month, but that makes it a lot more stressful for me when someone keeps wrong-number-texting me and won't believe it costing me 10 cents a text, or when I have to decide whether it's worth starting a conversation that could cost a bit. People will pay extra to not have to worry, and that's legitimate and understandable.

  8. Re:Just give the option to turn it off... on Fake Engine Noise Is the Auto Industry's Dirty Little Secret · · Score: 4, Informative

    As a pedestrian, you're supposed to be walking opposite traffic. If cars are coming up behind you instead of approaching in front of you, you're doing it wrong.

  9. Re:I want silent vehicles on Fake Engine Noise Is the Auto Industry's Dirty Little Secret · · Score: 1

    Why should silence be a goal?

    Billions of people actually have to live on those streets you drive down, and the noise affects their lives and traps them inside and causes an obesity epidemic.

    Both blind and sighted people can use crosswalks. And if car engines were silent, you'd start to be able to hear the sound of the tires in the same way you can hear human footsteps when there aren't a bunch of noisy cars around. There is danger during the period when there are enough noisy cars to drown out the quiet ones and few enough quiet ones that the public doesn't expect them, but silence should certainly be the long term goal.

  10. Re:I don't get it on The Paradoxes That Threaten To Tear Modern Cosmology Apart · · Score: 1

    Particles are not all touching each other, so the distance between them is necessarily considered empty. The space between a nucleus and electrons in an atom, the space between different atoms, etc. These spaces have field energy but no particles so they're empty.

  11. Re:Only for the first year on Microsoft Reveals Windows 10 Will Be a Free Upgrade · · Score: 2

    Adobe and MS Office are things people buy. Windows comes with the computer for the vast majority of people (hidden cost), so they'll react badly to suddenly discovering they have to pay for it.

  12. Re:KILL two birds with one stone on Regular Exercise Not Enough To Make Up For Sitting All Day · · Score: 1

    I see a market for fake cigarettes that expel a realistic-smelling smoke-like vapor without any health downsides, allowing everyone to take smoke breaks.

  13. Re:Ten years behind but catching up! on Regular Exercise Not Enough To Make Up For Sitting All Day · · Score: 1

    It's also worth noting that it's not until fairly recent times that a significant number of people could afford to eat out at restaurants regularly. It may be that people who ate out regularly were always fat, but there weren't many of them. Portion size increase is almost certainly a factor as well, but perhaps a less important one than eating out in the first place.

  14. Re:Holy Carp! on Drug Company CEO Blames Drug Industry For Increased Drug Resistance · · Score: 1

    When someone is sick and needs to buy antibiotics, they do not research the environmental practices of the companies they can buy it from. People buy blind. Doing nice things that they'd approve of if they knew doesn't help sell anything.

  15. Re:Memory on Hibernation Protein May Halt Alzheimer's · · Score: 1

    AIDS is a significant lifespan factor in some countries as well.

    In Africa (and previously everywhere), people tend to live in large extended families where there's plenty of people around to share the responsibility of taking care of the old and their dementia. Plus of course they have no money to involve a doctor.

  16. Re:Not innocent on Innocent Adults Are Easy To Convince They Committed a Serious Crime · · Score: 1

    I thought that most Americans committed 3 felonies a day.

    If you thought that, it's because you never took a minute to investigate whether it was true or what the source of the lie was.

  17. Re:The Dangers of the World on Parents Investigated For Neglect For Letting Kids Walk Home Alone · · Score: 1

    that fails to account for the fact that children out by themselves are a much rarer sight now, and are seen as an oddity, not commonplace.

    I see children out by themselves every single day, be it walking home from school or just playing. Is there a certain demographic or region where it's rare?

  18. Re:Wait a minute on SpaceX Landing Attempt Video Released · · Score: 3, Informative

    The first stage of a rocket is never going to Mars, or even to orbit. They may need something different on a third stage of a Mars rocket, but that's no reason not to keep the first stage simple.

  19. Re:Waiting for Republicans to come in and defend t on Eric Holder Severely Limits Civil Forfeiture · · Score: 2

    The French got to start over a few times after failed experiments.

  20. Re:Good thing... on Virgin Galactic To Launch 2,400 Comm. Satellites To Offer Ubiquitous Broadband · · Score: 1

    Sub-orbital satellite flights with 5 minutes of weightlessness aren't going to bring much internet, so it's safe to say the satellites are not going up on Virgin's vehicle.

  21. Re: 2400 towers? on Virgin Galactic To Launch 2,400 Comm. Satellites To Offer Ubiquitous Broadband · · Score: 3, Insightful

    but as satellite communications typically suffer horrendous lag, Skype won't be a viable alternative to a mobile phone (en_US: cell phone), and the local infrastructure can continue to develop on the back of voice calls.

    The notorious lag is geosynchronous satellites, whereas this is low earth orbit satellites (which you need a lot more of to make it work, but will give you much better ping times).

  22. Re:He didn't say that on Elon Musk Plans To Build Hyperloop Test Track · · Score: 1

    The real purpose of HSR is to be a vastly cheaper way of moving people around than highways and airports.

    The problem is, HSR tickets are likely to be more expensive than plane tickets or gas money... and that means few people are going to use it, which means you still have to pay for the highways and airports.

  23. Re:Screw them on Google Glass Is Dead, Long Live Google Glass · · Score: 1

    You seem to have missed the fact that even with the early google search, they used javascript tricks to send every click on a link back to google. That is pretty darn close to spying, since it was not obvious that they were doing this. You don't seem to have noticed that you were being spied on.

    Any search engine that doesn't keep track of what links get clicked how often would not be doing their job at all.

  24. Re:Your Tax Dollars At Work on US Government Lurked On Silk Road For Over a Year · · Score: 1

    The number of people involved with silk road and thus the overall viability and impact of silk road would be severely damaged without the recreational drug market.

  25. Re:Bitcoin on Bitcoin Volatility Puts Miners Under Pressure · · Score: 1

    Your bitcoin mining machine can keep you warm!