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User: Rayban

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Comments · 339

  1. Re:Good thing on New Litigation Targets 20,000 BitTorrent-Using Downloaders · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Your analogy between "borrowing something without asking first" and copyright infringement doesn't hold water. There's a big difference between borrowing your Ferrari and making a molecule by molecule copy of it that doesn't deprive you of your car.

  2. Re:uh silverlight works in linux on Google Enhances Street View With User Photos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How does Moonlight figure into it? That's like saying Flash is open-source because Gnash exists. Both are incomplete re-implementations of proprietary plugins. Neither of them can catch up to the canonical implementation.

  3. Re:Pointless hype on How Does the New Google DNS Perform? (and Why?) · · Score: 1

    Just tunnel the traffic over a v... oh.

  4. Re:Javascript is actually a great language on Trying To Bust JavaScript Out of the Browser · · Score: 2, Informative

    All strings coerce to boolean true in JS, as they do in C (with the exception of the empty string):

    char* a = "false";
    if (a) {
        printf("a is true?\n");
    }

    In fact, most values coerce to true except integer zero, NaN, undefined, null and empty string.

  5. Re:science shows limitations to current flu vaccin on Mandatory H1N1 Vaccine For NY Health Workers Suspended · · Score: 1

    That study's results haven't been replicated yet and it was pre-publication when it was reported on. It's the scientific equivalent of a rumor.

  6. Re:Park Plus on "Smart" Parking Meters Considered Dumb · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yep, I've used Park Plus here in Calgary and I think it's great. It's convenient for first time users (walk to any Park Plus box, enter your license plate and leave). For more frequent users, the mobile version is even easier.

    Being able to pay only for the parking time you need is fantastic.

  7. Re:neat on Electricity From Salty Water · · Score: 4, Funny

    This would be a great way to power all those desalinization plants on the coast!

  8. Re:So... on How Apple's App Review Is Sabotaging the iPhone · · Score: 1

    Yeah, you nailed the point. If Apple allowed arbitrary apps to be downloaded from the web (outside of the App Store), this would be a non-issue.

  9. Re:Pictures versus digital photos... on New Developments In NPG/Wikipedia Lawsuit Threat · · Score: 1

    Exactly - copyright has never been to encourage "hard work", though it may in some cases. It is primarily for progressing the state of the arts and sciences:

    "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"

    A small (but trivial) counterpoint: many aspects of mechanical work could involve copyright, but they would have to be genuinely creative (ie: copyrighting your specific plans for laying out a mechanical motor).

  10. Re:The cool thing is... on New Binary Diffing Algorithm Announced By Google · · Score: 2, Informative

    The source for the disassembler is pretty simple.

    http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/courgette/disassembler.cc

    Porting that to parse x86 out of ELF or another executable container wouldn't be too difficult. Porting it to parse x64 or PPC would be tougher.

  11. Re:Also less overhead for Google on New Binary Diffing Algorithm Announced By Google · · Score: 2, Informative

    DeltaRPM uses bsdiff - an impressive but generic binary diff algorithm.

    Courgette is designed to replace this binary diff with one that understands compiled code well enough to optimize the binary diffs by a significant amount.

  12. Re:Interface speed only on Faulty Marvell Chips Delay SATA 6G Launch · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... "modern SSDs are nearly saturating the existing standard" ...

  13. Re:I didnt sign up for this on NASA Plans To De-Orbit ISS In 2016 · · Score: 1

    I'm either not familiar with your fancy money math here or you meant that NASA could send people to Mars for "20 billion".

  14. Re:Piracy Wars and the Halting Problem... on BD+ Resealed Once Again · · Score: 1

    If they were smart, they'd release the keys for ripping after a month and get everyone but the most dedicated pirates out of the loop. I'd feel a lot better about buying BD disks if I knew a guaranteed rip was coming one month later. As it stands right now, I'll rent them but hold off on buying them until I could possibly rip them (which I might or might not, but I like to have the choice).

  15. Re:The summary is missing something... on BD+ Resealed Once Again · · Score: 3, Funny

    Gort? Is that you?

  16. Re:Tethering lawsuit? on Apple's WWDC Unveils iPhone 3.0, OpenCL, Laptop Updates, and More · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Correction: In the USA, AT&T is the exclusive provider. In Canada, Rogers and Fido (same company basically) offer the iPhone, officially.

  17. Re:My Kingdom for a Datagrid Element! on HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash? · · Score: 1

    Why, display:table-cell of course!

  18. Re:Is New Window considered harmful? on Mozilla Preparing To Scrap Tabbed Browsing? · · Score: 1

    That was the argument against tabbed browsing in the first place (if you don't like all the windows on your desktop, get a better window manager!). That never really worked out very well for the anti-tabbed-browsing set.

  19. Re:Long commute on Mapping Hidden Twitter Data For Epidemiology · · Score: 4, Funny

    Obviously the location of the island. Now that we've discovered it, they're going to have to move it again.

  20. Re:Stock market analysis? on New Pattern Found In Prime Numbers · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've always wondering how I could figure out when someone was trying to pass off a list of fraudulent primes. Glad to see that this problem is finally solved!

  21. Re:Other bases? on New Pattern Found In Prime Numbers · · Score: 1
  22. Re:Leap Forward? on IBM Computer Program To Take On 'Jeopardy!' · · Score: 1

    *You* might not, but us 5-digiters do. Mwahahahahah.

  23. Re:I don't think that means what you think it mean on Quantum Setback For Warp Drives · · Score: 1

    Hah... it's probably just my engineering background, but I always found "atomic" as a description of a quantum unit to be funny.

  24. Re:Sherlock Holmes on Cotton Swabs are the Prime Suspect In 8-Year Phantom Chase · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Aliens did it?

  25. Re:Apple security on All Five Smartphones Survive Pwn2Own Contest · · Score: 3, Funny

    [citation needed]