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User: Whorhay

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  1. Re:Stop it, please! on Minecraft Enterprise and 16-Bit ALU · · Score: 1

    Really? My draw distance is set to "far" which is as high as it'll let me set it. I'm playing on a computer who's cpu is a few years old, with a cheapo graphics card, and 4 gigs of RAM and I get no noticeable lag in regular play. Single player that is. I had 2 gigs of RAM when I first started and the client would slow a little some times because it was competing for memory. But now I've got enough extra that I have yet to see it stutter or anything.

  2. Re:Sauce for the goose on GPS Tracking Without a Warrant Declared Legal · · Score: 1

    You could always just use a detector that looks for electromagnetic noise whether or not the device is transmitting, if it's operating it should but off something. And most cars don't have parts emmiting like that except in specific locations. That said I have no idea how hard or expensive it'd be to make something like that. But undoubtedly there are government agencies that have such devices.

    Another thing that occurs to me is the possibility of frying the GPS circuit by just blasting your vehicle with a very strong signal in the same frequency as the GPS signal. Of course doing this to a vehicle with built in GPS wouldn't be advisable.

  3. Re:USPS not so bad on State Senator Admits Cable Industry Helped Write Pro-Industry Legislation · · Score: 1

    Public and private schools also don't work as a godo comparison because the difference in cost. Even in area's where you can get a voucher for sending your kid to a private school the tuition is always much much higher than you'd ever pay in the taxes that support public schools.

  4. Re:Contradiction on State Senator Admits Cable Industry Helped Write Pro-Industry Legislation · · Score: 1

    The arguement against that is that the municipal service might end up being paid for by tax dollars. Whether in whole or in part isn't really important as any part of it paid for with tax dollars is an unfair advantage.

    The counter to this of course is that the servicing agency can simply be set up as a seperate entity whose only funding comes from bonds sales to major investors, and subscription/service fees from the customers who choose it. Project Greenlight which was one of the municipal projects that sparked this legislation works just that way. The fiber optic cable and every thing was paid for through what is the equivilant of venture capital and is being paid back by the subscribers. And it's worth noting that the level of service for the price through them is crazy when compared to anything the commercial competitors offer.

  5. Re:Put it in a library or lobby on Making Ubuntu Look Like Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    I've been doing much the same, I changed the look of XP before I did anything else on that operating system.

  6. Re:Gnome should look like gnome. on Making Ubuntu Look Like Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    I think the answer is about the same as why some women buy knock off purses. They like the look and design of the purse but realize it's not worth hundreds of dollars.

  7. Re:"But look! You can make it look like Windows 7! on Making Ubuntu Look Like Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    That should be $100 to what $500?

  8. Re:Put it in a library or lobby on Making Ubuntu Look Like Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    That's the issue exactly.

    I've recently started playing around with a ubuntu guest OS through virtual box. And while I appreciate how it works in many ways. I am also annoyed in various other ways because I have had 15+ years using Windows and am not accustomed to the very different way some things work just on the UI level. I'll probably eventually get over it but why bother learning a whole new layout if it's unnecessary.

    Reskinning a linux install to look and act in all the user friendly ways that the majority of the population is used to is a huge advance. If most people don't notice the difference in the way a linux system acts and windows it'll be easier to get them to switch to linux. For instance my wife never plays graphics intensive or modern games on her computer. The only reason she isn't using a linux OS is that A. she already paid for Vista and B. I don't know enough yet to troubleshoot linux quickly.

    Come to think of it I might try and sell her on switching to ubuntu this evening. If I can show her that she'll still be able to do all the stuff she normally does but faster and safer on linux she might go for it.

  9. Re:Countermeasures on GPS Tracking Without a Warrant Declared Legal · · Score: 1

    Better yet, collect the devices that are planted on peoples vehicles and disable any wireless capabilities temporarily. Hack them to work for the public at large, by instead transmitting their location to advertised websites located in a foreign country. And then start planting them on every marked and unmarked police vehicle you can find. Heck if we can inexpensively manufacture our own such devices it'd be worth doing. Cheap enough and we could extend to placing them on the vehicles of all public servants associated with the original tracking efforts of the police.

  10. Re:Sauce for the goose on GPS Tracking Without a Warrant Declared Legal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually I'd think it a great time to sanitize the vehicle incase you were doing something naughty. Then call in the local news media and bomb squad. Nothing like advertising what the police are doing with the publics time and money and making them use up more of it sending out the bomb squad to remove their device.

  11. New market for GPS Jammers? on GPS Tracking Without a Warrant Declared Legal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can understand why this decision turned out the way it did. Placing a tracking device on your vehicle is about the same as following you around with an unmarked vehicle. It's much harder to detect of course and so you might think you are unobserved when that's not true.

    Anyways I can see this possibly creating a small market for GPS jamming devices. The legality of such devices of course would be questionable if not outright illegal.

  12. Re:It is a balancing act on Monetizing Free-To-Play Gaming Models · · Score: 1

    Was gonna say, I started between the release of Velious and Luclin and Jboots were cool but crazy hard to get and not worth the time to farm in most cases. Now when cheap mounts became available those were practically required for raids where you could use them. The ability to constantly meditate for mana regen while moving and casting was an unintended bug that the developers couldn't bring themselves to take back.

  13. Re:Golf works like that on Monetizing Free-To-Play Gaming Models · · Score: 1

    The sweaty and smelly arguement shouldn't really be of much concern as Vibrams are supposed to be machine washable. I wish my normal sneakers were machine washable without falling apart.

  14. Re:the best part is... on Portugal Gives Itself a Clean-Energy Makeover · · Score: 1

    Except that solar panels are expensive both economically and environmentally. Once they are installed they are cheap but getting to that point is expensive enough that for large portions of the world it's not worth it. And the north eastern part of the US is a particularly bad area for trying to use solar. I guess most of that comes down to the under valueing of our environment making fossil fuels much cheaper. In an ideal world we could use breeder reactors for power but in reality we don't want those kind of facilities spread all around the world where psychoit nutjobs can get to them more easily.

  15. Re:Erm... on Google CEO Schmidt Predicts End of Online Anonymity · · Score: 1

    What a great post, and on the one day of the week that I don't have mod points of course!

  16. Re:The bigger problem is the highschools on What's Wrong With the American University System · · Score: 1

    I couldn't give you a year but it would have been so long ago that only the most wealthy of individuals could afford to send their children to a university. The goal of university was to progress your education, a degree should just signify that you've reached some milestone or another. The degree only became important in securing a higher salary for the masses when it became affordable enough that the masses could realistically dream of it. Before that no one would have advertised a job that required a degree.

  17. Re:More than meets the eye on What's Wrong With the American University System · · Score: 1

    That sounds like a really long and round about way of saying that, University is a good way to learn to think independantly, see things from anothers point of view and work ethics.

    I learned most of that without building any student debt or wasting time at a non-required school. Most people can probably accomplish the same things by getting a job where they have the opportunity to excell, reading books that aren't about emo teenage vampires and in general trying not to be a douche bag.

    People who go to a university to learn about things that interest them are a completely different subset of people from the masses that go because Daddies paying the bill and says I need it to get a job.

  18. Re:Captain obvious on Crytek Dev On Fun vs. Realism In Game Guns · · Score: 1

    This is a bit pedantic I am sure.

    What you are actually talking about is magazines. And it matters because a clip is a set of rounds that are held together by smaller bits of metal. Often Belted ammunition is actually a very long series of clips. Combining clipped ammuntion isn't something you'd do unless you had a lot more time than you'd typically find in a game.

    The some of the rifles in World War 1 actually used clips of ammunition. The loading procedure for which is much different than you'd see in any modern weapon. The clip was actually fed into the weapon down through the void where the bolt would be when it moved forward to chamber a round.

  19. Re:Captain obvious on Crytek Dev On Fun vs. Realism In Game Guns · · Score: 1

    Have you tried Alien Swarm on Steam yet?

    The game isn't all that much about realism as it has aliens, medkits that heal through seemingly magical methods and all sorts of other stuff.

    But any ammo left in a magazine when you reload is lost. Reload speed varies per weapon I believe, you can try and speed it up but if you don't get it right it takes even longer to get it done. You can only carry one primary weapon and one offhand device. And you get one slot for say a personal medkit, armor enhancement, damage booster, and the list goes on but you end up only being able to carry three things and typically one of those things you need to carry to fulfill the duries of your class.

    Oh yeah and the default is friendly fire on, and it's devastating. I'm sure you could turn it off on your own dedicated server by editing a config file but it's not a normal option in the game.

  20. Re:radiation and solar flares a serious problem on When On the Moon and Mars, Move Underground · · Score: 1

    I don't remember them having any artificial gravity. They did some hand waving early in the series that explained that the jumpsuits were manufactured with a special material in them that could be attracted to the floor plates when the power was turned on. You could replicate this with today's technology using electromagnets and clothing with metal fibers in it.

    We may not have technology exactly like it but it wasn't artificial gravity, in fact no part of it was gravity at all.

  21. Re:Not Facebook! on Man Claims 84% of Facebook, Gets Order Blocking Assets · · Score: 1

    I've pretty much avoided creating a facebook profile for the sake of my job. Every few years they re-investigate my security clearance. And I'd just as soon there be pretty much nothing related to any social networking site in the google search results for my name. It's not that I think I'd ever do something stupid enough to risk my clearance but it's better safe than sorry in my case, at least so far as it concerns sites like Facebook.

  22. Re:Anyone who is stupid enough to work with the RI on RIAA Accounting — How Labels Avoid Paying Musicians · · Score: 1

    I first heard of Dispatch, one of the most succesful fully independant bands in modern history, because my sister played one of their songs on a mix CD for me. I'm pretty sure I own a copy of almost all of their albums now. I even took a vacation to visit Boston and New York one summer because I got a ticket for one of their concerts at the Garden. Word of mouth is pretty powerful especially among people that don't commonly listen to the radio for whatever reason.

  23. Re:Know the right people on How To Build an Open Source House? · · Score: 1

    For insulation I'd recommend using sprayed on expanding foam on the exterior. Then cover that with a rubberized coating akin to rhino truck bed liner. The insulation will not sustain a flame in case of fire. When it's protected from UV and water it should last a very very long time and provide superb insulation compared to batting or pretty much anything else.

  24. Re:Don't donate it! on What To Do With Old 802.11b Equipment? · · Score: 1

    The warranty bit in particular amused me. The only thing I would ever expect to need a warranty on is equipment that is broken on arrival. Maintaining ones equipment or tools should be part and parcel of any person's job.

  25. Re:OK, so when can we buy one? on New Air Conditioner Process Cuts Energy Use 50-90% · · Score: 1

    I would really like to build a Monolithic Dome home. My wife wants a traditional stick built farm house... Guess who's winning that arguement :(