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User: mikeee

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  1. Re:Serious questions on The Votemaster Is...Andrew Tanenbaum · · Score: 2, Insightful

    think a good diplomat could have bargained with France, Germany, and Russia and gotten them on board. I know that seems impossible now, but that's only because Bush has so alienated them that it's difficult for even them to imagine ever helping us.

    Oh, please. They were sitting on billions in defense and oil contracts ready to go when they finally got the UN sanctions lifted; and none of them have the logistics to put a really significant force (>10k men) on the ground in Iraq anyway.

    They won't support firm action against blatent genocide in Sudan, and you think they would have backed Kerry in Iraq? Madness.

  2. Re:The hidden cost to the public of Wal-Mart jobs on Wal-Mart Squeezing Record Labels to Cut CD Prices · · Score: 0

    That's assuming that Walmart could pay Macy's wages and still employ all those people at all.

    They couldn't.

    The comparison is not Walmart vs Macy's, but Walmart vs. unemployment. That one will look a little better for Walmart.

    And you aren't considering the increase in living standards of Walmart customers (who obviously think it's a better deal than the alternative, or they wouldn't be shopping there).

  3. Re:Is this STILL open to question? on A New Species Of Giant Ape? · · Score: 4, Funny

    So your plan is, you want to use a short range stun gun designed to briefly knock out a human, use it on an unknown species of ape which hunts in packs and may or may not be able to kill lions with its bare hands. And then you're going to stick your hands in it's mouth while it's 'stunned'.

    Can't say I'm surprised no one has implemented your plan.

  4. Re:Killing Lions? on A New Species Of Giant Ape? · · Score: 1

    Not to mention the chimp's brains; gorillas are relatively clever, but not like chimps. I wouldn't be astonished to see them using clubs or carrying stones for throwing.

  5. Re:instead of a land-based vehicle on Hydrogen Vehicle Generates Its Own Fuel · · Score: 1

    Actually, the USAF is looking at this. No, seriously; with enough extra solar panels to power a couple thousand pounds of radios and radar gear...

  6. Re:Wars are rarely started by acts of bloodshed... on S. Korea Claims N. Korea Has Trained 600 Crackers · · Score: 1

    No, we disagree. The Chinese are happy with us paying the NK off and getting nothing.

    We tried bilateral talks in the 90s, and they didn't work.

  7. Re:Wars are rarely started by acts of bloodshed... on S. Korea Claims N. Korea Has Trained 600 Crackers · · Score: 1

    On the contrary, that's exactly the point.

    The only possible outcomes of US-NK talks are
    a) nothing
    b) we pay them off, and they pretend not to make nukes for a while.

    Possible outcomes of US-China-NK talks also include:
    c) China tells NK to sit down, shut up, and quit the nuke business.

  8. Official North Korean News Agency on S. Korea Claims N. Korea Has Trained 600 Crackers · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you haven't seen this, have a look; it reads like an overblown parody of 1984, but it's real.

    Korean Central News Agency of Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea

    Any government that can publish this with a straight face needs to be overthrown... :(

  9. Re:S. Korea working toward Atomic Bomb?? on S. Korea Claims N. Korea Has Trained 600 Crackers · · Score: 1

    Did you notice in the Presidential debate, W's comment on the 5-party talks was that

    "We think China is now convinced that a non-nuclear North Kor - Korean penninsula, is in their best interest."

    The message to the Chinese being, obviously, that if NK gets nukes SK will too; then China won't be the only nuclear power in Asia, so how about leaning a bit on Kim Il.

  10. Re:Wars are rarely started by acts of bloodshed... on S. Korea Claims N. Korea Has Trained 600 Crackers · · Score: 1

    Not that I agree with everything you're saying, but you are making W's point:

    There won't be any real solution the the N Korea problem unless the Chinese are on-board with it.

  11. Re:Ding! on Air Force Researching Antimatter Weapons · · Score: 1

    Radiation is not the same as radioactivity. I wouldn't necessarily want to be near the thing on takeoff, but there wouldn't likely be much residual radiation.

    Maintenance is hard partly because it's just barely possible to build a space rocket with chemical fuels. With much higher ISP, you can build a much more robust and maintainable rocket.

  12. Re:Probably useless on Air Force Researching Antimatter Weapons · · Score: 1

    The application where you'ld want high energy density, and damn the cost, is simple:

    ROCKET FUEL.

    Right now a good rocket can carry maybe 1% of its launch weight to orbit. With antimatter fuel, it's easy to design one that carries more than it weighs.

  13. Ding! on Air Force Researching Antimatter Weapons · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think you've got it. Consider that space shuttle.

    It's something like 95% fuel by weight on takeoff. Now, if your engines are burning antimatter, you can replace all that weight with payload and still reach orbit!

    If the antimatter could be manufactured for a reasonable multiple of the energy cost, it would cause the cost of getting stuff into space to drop dramatically.

  14. Re:Without the ICC, this won't work on Bruce Sterling says: Marry the UN and the Net · · Score: 1

    Swell.

    Well, that's a fine piece of paper. On paper, the USSR respected human rights, too. What's going to force it to respect those rights?

    Let's see it actually work for a couple lifetimes and then we'll talk.

  15. Re:Weapons of mass destruction? on Navy ELF to Be Scrapped · · Score: 1

    The US was never *in* the Kyoto agreement, which isn't yet in force even for those nations which have approved it.

  16. Re:Quote from Burt Rutan on Virgin Atlantic Licensing SpaceShipOne · · Score: 1

    3000 people * $150k =

    $450 million dollars.

    So it's not inconceivable that he could clear a couple hundred million! Not chump change, even for a billionaire...

  17. Re:HEAR HERE on Affordable Modern Graphics Cards · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'd like to know more (thus the question), but as best I can tell the answer is:

    The fastest OS 3D out there, probably by a significant margin, is the Radeon R2XX chip series (8500/FireGL8800/9100/9200). See the DRI page on sourceforge for specifics on the differences.

    Intel Extreme 2 is OS and shipping in huge volumes; performance is adequate for mainstream games but only that.

    Matrox G450/550/650 series cards have OS drivers, multiport, and good 2D. 3D performance is nothing special, and they're pricey.

  18. Open source drivers? on Affordable Modern Graphics Cards · · Score: 1

    If you want to stick with open source drivers (under Linux), is there anything reasonable available?

    The last mainstream gaming card with open drivers, AFIAKT, was the Radeon 9100. Is that or Intel Extreme Graphics 2 a reasonable option? Is the 3D on the Matrox GXXX series even worth mentioning?

  19. Re:We don't need this on Camera that Sees through Smoke and Fog Underway · · Score: 1

    Not to mention junk like RADAR preventing a Nazi invasion of Britian. That sucked!

  20. Re:Wade'da'minute... on Randall Davis: IBM Has No SCO Code · · Score: 1

    What's hilarious here, is that Prof. Davis was the special technical consultant to the court case that set the precedent (in this Circuit - there still isn't a national consensus on this) on how to decide exactly that!

    I believe the method in question is AFC, Abstraction-Filtration-Comparision.

    Abstraction: normalize irrelevent junk like whitespace, variable names, equivalent loop constructs, etc.

    Filtration: Toss anything that has public-domain sources or is so blatently obvious that it doesn't qualify as a copyrightable creative work.

    Comparision: Compare the two codebases.

    So, between favorable declarations from Davis and one Prof. B. Kernighan, I think IBM is in good shape, unless SCO will be bringing depositions from their experts down from a mountaintop on stone tablets.

  21. Re:single party state even better? on Ask Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik · · Score: 1

    In the US, AFAIKT, every electoral office of consequence goes to the guy who gets 51% of a vote for that office (Yes, there are some sort-of exceptions, but I don't think any are of consequence to this argument).

    Voting for a candidate of a party with a base of support less than maybe 40% is therefore pointless. Three such parties cannot exist; third parties end up finding homes as wings of the two major parties, or in rare cases replacing them.

  22. Re:This really bears repeating... on Bush vs. Kerry on Science · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And I posit that in a perfect economic system, all my needs would be taken care of by magical singing rainbow ponies.

    Who is going to decide who qualifies as 'outgoing, well-versed, and apolitical scholars, with advanced degrees'? You? Big Brother? The Council of Guardians?

    Democracy is a bad system, but it is the best.

  23. Re:Damn It. on Flaw in Microsoft JPEG Parsing · · Score: 1

    So, one day long ago, Knuth is teaching a CS class, and give an assignment. He provides a library the class can use for this coding assignment, but warned them (this is from memory so may not be verbatim, sorry): "By the way, be careful with this library. I have only proven it correct, not tested it."

  24. Re:single party state even better? on Ask Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik · · Score: 1

    I wasn't making a value judgement, I was point out that in a majority-voting system two parties are the dynamically stable condition.

  25. purpose? on Ask Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The structure of the US voting system is such that two major parties appear to be the only stable political alignment (though on a couple of occasions, one of the major parties has imploded and been replaced).

    Given this, why is a 3rd (4th/5th) party a good use of political resources, rather than explicitly trying to shift one or both of the major parties toward your viewpoint?