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User: ostrich2

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  1. Re:Many Windows Apps are better on Crossover Gets Quicken · · Score: 1
    Wow! Was anyone around when OS/2 was trying to break into the windows market (around version 3)? You could substitute "OS/2" everywhere you see "Linux" in the above post and get the gist of reams and reams of discussion on the subject. Discussion, I should point out, we're repeating almost verbaitim here.

    As far as I can tell, having Windows support for OS/2 didn't help it much.

  2. Re:Pantent? on Suddenly a JPEG Patent and Licensing Fee · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    As I remember, it was even worse than that. I understand that McD's kept the coffee super-heated because they found out it was cheaper to keep the temperature above humanly-tolerable levels. I can't remember the specifics of how it was cheaper, though.

  3. Re:Where does the H come from? on GM's Billion-Dollar Fuel-Cell Bet · · Score: 1
    One possibility is that it comes from oil, which seems like a wash. It could come from plant products, but if ethanol is any indication, that's an even bigger wash (i.e., you use more energy in farming than you get from the product -- maybe hydrogen production is more efficient, but I doubt it's that much more productive).

    Maybe I'm remembering things incorrectly, but isn't it ALWAYS the case that you have to put more energy INTO something than you will ever possibly get OUT OF that same something? Believe me, the energy we get out of gasoline is a paltry fraction of the energy that went into making it. The difference is that we didn't directly put the energy into it--the going hypothesis is that geologic pressure makes the oil for us.

  4. Re:Have you considered?... on Alternative-Fuel Vehicle Recommendations? · · Score: 1
    If there was a better way of doing what we're doing... we'd be doing it

    In that case, I'll power my car with FUSION POWER! It's clearly the better way to do it. It's very eco-friendly, too.

  5. Re:Plot summary of Twilight Zone ep.: Spoilers! on The True Story of Website Results · · Score: 1

    That depends...I think the point of the original piece was to illustrate the chasm in the marriage, not the fact that you could get enormous sums of money for doing nothing.

  6. no listening, either on Copyright Battle Over Nothing · · Score: 1

    "No talking!"
    "...Okay..."
    whip cracks
    "No listening! You hear me, Boy?"

  7. Re:Plot summary of Twilight Zone ep.: Spoilers! on The True Story of Website Results · · Score: 1

    The non-twilight-zone short story was a bit eerier. (Ha! take that spellcheck!) The twist was that the wife pushed the button and her husband, going to work at the time, was hit by a train and died. The money she received was from his insurance. Crrreepolicious! (And that!)

  8. colored money is for gambling on Greenbacks No More · · Score: 1
    Mark my words...this is a plot by the "gaming" companies to get their dealers to be more accurate. Think about it: you walk into a casino and haven't changed your money yet. Right now, you slap a bit on the felt, and the dealer has to look at the bill to know how many chips to give you. In the future, they just see the color and dole out the chips.

    If the colors end up as:
    Purple - $1000
    Black - $100
    Green - $25
    Red - $5
    White - $1

    You'll know their plan!

    What I don't understand is why they give you anything at all. When you put money on the table, they should just pick it up, nod a smile to you, and put the money in their till. That way, the cut out all the drama of losing it $5 at a time.

  9. Re:Nope. on Lawrence Livermore Lab On The Chopping Block? · · Score: 1
    But, please, enlighten us: What would YOU do to those who are comming to this country with the intent of killing hundreds, if not thousands, of your fellow Americans?

    First, I think I'd try to determine their intentions instead of just deciding that they were hell-bent on the destruction of the state. We have a legal system exactly because we want to stop the executive branch of the government (including police and attorneys general) from deciding what someone has done/is going to do. If they have evidence and it's reasonable, then the person is in trouble. Until they prove otherwise, however, the person is wrongly accused.

  10. Re:Copies of the contract?? on ReplayTV 4500: No Hacking, or Else · · Score: 1
    That's it. Let's go before the judge and claim that we can't be held by this "Ferenge [sic] contract." I bet he'd throw the case out right then and there!

    Incidentally, ferenge is an Ethiopean word for "white person." While eerily appropriate, I bet you meant Ferengi

  11. Re:Not applicable to /. on Personal Finance Software for Unix? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Try QHacc. It uses plain text files to store everything. It's not too shabby, if I do say so myself. (I'm the author, of course.)

  12. Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click on Announcing Slashdot Subscriptions · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think all this energy trying to fool the ad agency is completely wasted. In the end, these agencies couldn't care less if you clicked here or didn't click there. Clicks, roughly translated, means purchases. If you make a program that clicks ads but absolutely never buys anything, the advertizer is going to realise that advertizing on Slashdot doesn't pay, and pull the ads anyway.

    Now, make a crawler that actually buys random stuff occasionally, and you're on to something. It would be interesting to see what you got, too.

  13. starting their own project is a hard... on Open Source as Programming Exp. for College Students? · · Score: 1
    This sounds a little half-baked to me. I started my own project; I didn't have any idea how when I started. But I went through the EXPERIENCE of doing it, and now it's something I know how to do. Where, exactly, do you expect to get EXPERIENCE if you don't want to do the stuff you're perfectly suited for? It sounds like if the college you attended wasn't offering the Experience Class before you graduated, and now you're trying to find it somewhere else.

    If I were an employer, I'd certainly look for people that know how to set up a CVS Repository and set up a mailing list. Jobs aren't all about writing de coolest MMORPG, a lot of time is spent filling out insurance forms, and finding how an organization works.


    I just don't think the real world is much like college. There's no dropping the real-world when you're not sure you'll pass. You jump in and hopefully you can swim. Doing things you don't know how to do simply because you need to know how to do them is THE BEST WAY to get experience. In that light, it doesn't make much sense to say it's too hard to do something.

  14. Re:National db okay, national ID stupid. on Driver's Licenses to Become National ID Cards · · Score: 1
    I want biometric ID for everything. Screw an ATM machine, and a credit card swiper, and police asking for lic and reg

    Geez, I think I rather have an ID card than having to screw an ATM machine!

  15. easy does it on Geek Gift Ideas 2001 · · Score: 1

    I'd really like some slippers.

  16. killer shrews on MST3K "Manos" Arrives on DVD · · Score: 1

    They can release all the MST3Ks they like, but until the killer shrews is released, I'll keep hoping for repeats on SciFi.

  17. stop buying on Massachusetts Holds Out On MS Case · · Score: 1

    I can't help wonder what programs these states use on their desktops. If you really wanted to hurt MS, why not stop feeding their monopoly? Didn't Largo, FL switch to KDE? Any news from that locale?

  18. Re:cryptonomocrap on A Real Life Cryptonomicon Gold Stash? · · Score: 1

    I'm warning you now: give up. Put the book down. I got suckered into thinking, "well, I'm only 300 pages in, but gee, he has 700 pages to work with. Maybe I haven't gotten to the good part, yet." Oh! If only I had known that the "good part" was the 24 years I spent blissfully not-reading the book. It must have taken me 6 months to finish that book! When I had about forty pages left, I actually considered not finishing it, because I knew those 40 pages were a waste of time. Stupidly, I plowed through the pages, and I think if I hadn't, I would have been much the wiser.

  19. cryptonomocrap on A Real Life Cryptonomicon Gold Stash? · · Score: 1

    I still cannot see what the fascination is with this book! Offtopic, sure, but Cryptonomicon very nearly made me give up reading. It's long, pointless, and poorly written. I swear, half the time, I was thought Mr. Stephenson was getting paid by the word, because he had the worst habit of writing complete garbage for page on end, and discarding the entire thread in favor of "getting back to the plot." Which, I am sorry to say, is so diffuse as constantly changing as to be nonexistent.

  20. Re:substance on Rekall, Aethera, Kapital... Oh My · · Score: 1
    Man, are you speaking my language! I had more trouble installing gnucash than anything else I've ever tried. I was so frustrated, I started writing my own financial program. Now, I'm not sure how much frustration I actually saved. At the time, though, I would easily have spent $30 to have something that worked.

    <START BLATANT PLUG> By the way, my app is QHacc </END BLATANT PLUG>

  21. which major? on Computer Science vs. Computer Engineering? · · Score: 1
    Hell, you might as well choose Romantic Literature of the French Revolution. Trust me. You'll change your major. I don't care if you love computers. I don't care if you're good at working with them (in whatever capacity). Whatever you think your life's ambition is going to be, it's going to be something else.

    You'd be surprised how many people in the workforce today got all the way through college as a microbiologist, or philosophy major, and only turned to computers later in life. Some of the best consultants I've worked with had no computer courses whatsoever during college. And yes, many of the people I've worked with didn't even graduate.

    So think long; think hard; and then choose whatever major you like. You'll change in two semesters anyway.

  22. Re:Cool, but... on A Million Bucks, Mach 7.6, Straight Down · · Score: 1
    Yep. That ol' SR-71 actually had joints that didn't actually join until the machine was flying over mach 1.

    This should put into perspective the "more environmentally friendly" stuff, since getting to the point where you can start pulling H out of the air, you need to be massively environmentally unfriendly.

  23. Re:Lack of binaries hurt. on Why Are Binaries And Screenshots Good Things? · · Score: 1
    Amen! I actually started writing my own accounting program because of the trouble I had installing GnuCash. Sure, maybe that was a year ago, and maybe I shouldn't have taken such a drastic step, but getting told to compile one thing after another at compile-time was ridiculous.

    As a side note, downloading the binary didn't end up fixing the problems...I transferred the frustration from compile-time errors to segfaults. I guess you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Welcome to Linux.

  24. find something you want to fix? on How Can New Programmers Contribute to Open Source? · · Score: 4
    I've only been reading for a few minutes, but it looks like the overwhelming majority of people are saying to find a project you like and try to fix something. Or add a feature.

    I have a slightly different take: find yourself a project you like and make any change you like. Download the source, and read through it. Start by trying to add a button in a particular location that prints something on the command line, or something. Or make something display differently. The point here is just to become comfortable with how the particular program works. You'll begin to understand the code a little, and when you feel like it, you'll be ready to fix bugs or add features. But it seems to me that can't be the very first step, especially if you're new to open-source, and likely not very confident of your coding skills be begin with.

    I say to start, just break stuff and then try to fix it. Do that for a couple weeks or until you've delved into the code sufficiently to understand what it is you're breaking. Then, I think you'll be ready to take on some bugs and add some features.

    Just make sure you announce that you're still a novice. People are usually very willing to help beginnger.

  25. luddites unite! on eLection '04 · · Score: 1
    Call me old fashioned. Call me crazy. Just don't make me vote through a computer. Does anyone know why in America, $100 is the highest denomination of currency? So drug dealers and other bad people are conspicuous while moving large quantities of money.

    I like the idea that if someone is going to stuff a ballot box, they somehow need to slip a few thousand pieces of paper into a box one by one while a room full of people fails to notice. It makes cheating extremely conspicuous. This is a good thing. By contrast, voting from my armchair seems like a really, really bad thing.