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User: tjstork

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  1. What if it all works out to be ok? on A Law Show Set 25 Years from Now · · Score: 2, Interesting


    What if USA PATRIOT, Software Patents, Closed Source, all of our hot button issues, all of it work out ok, and that humanity does get better and life does go on, and that, the chicken littles of today really turn out to be chicken littles?

  2. Not to mention all of the Win32 SDK stuff still... on C Alive and Well Thanks to Portable.NET · · Score: 1


    Even Windows is still programmed best in C / C++ for shareware applications.

  3. We'd want jobs to go overseas then! on Titan Missile Complex Up for Sale · · Score: 1


    If we make it legal for corporations to have nuclear weapons, we would easily want jobs to go overseas than!

  4. In favor on FBI Adds to Wiretap Wish List · · Score: 1


    I was against this sort of thing until I thought it through.

    1. The gov't has the right. Broadband exists because of dispensation granted by the government to providers. They use public land, make use of public roads, and make use of public courts to enfource their contracts.

    2. The gov't has the necessity. You can't have a communications system where a populace can be act in complete secrecy. This isn't just about terrorism, collusion is the enemy of free enterprise. You could have groups acting in secret to manipulate the price of any commodity in the US, from stocks to power prices, causing severe damage to the economy by sending out incorrect pricing signals. You could have groups attempting to gather power in secret. Worst of all, under #2, you could have governmental agencies conspiring in secret.

    You worry about conspiracies enough, a completely closed communications infrastructure would reduce America to the same sort of torn apart state that Italy was in the 1500s. It would just be absurd.

    I don't like the idea of police listening in on my house or reading my email, but the obverse is also true. Maybe instead of being so afraid of all your secrets, maybe we should instead always tell the truth, so that we could take the simple step of getting rid of all privacy.

  5. Drafted to program? Please do! on U.S. Plans Targeted Draft for Computer Personnel · · Score: 1


    Really, if the Indians take all of the programmer work from the USA, I could see getting drafted to do some programming for Uncle Sam.

  6. MS To Offer Cigarettes with Windows on Windows Could Lose Media Player in Europe? · · Score: 5, Funny


    (AP) Microsoft Corp, responding to the unbundling of Media Player from Windows, announced today a broad partnership with RJ Reynolds where a carton of some of RJ Reynold's famed brands, such as Camels, will be offered with Windows Longhorn for Home edition.

    "We're excited about adding the Camel camel as one our of automated helpers.", said Microsoft President Steve Balmer. "For example, during a longer search, our Camel character will light up and ask a user to join in."

    The Microsoft Longhorn RJ Reynolds edition is expected to be released world wide.

  7. How about a rifle with a motion sensor? on Banryu, Robot Or Dragon? · · Score: 1


    It seems a lot cheaper to have a rifle on some sort of a swinger arm that blasts away at intruders. Seems a lot cheaper!

  8. Dude, people are not urban creatures on The Psychology Behind Headphones · · Score: 5, Insightful


    The whole reason humanity left africa and then spread out across the entire planet, is because most people would prefer to be left alone. We all want, for the most part, our own 100 acre plots of land.

  9. Water saver heads suck on Manufacturing 1 PC Takes 1.8 Tons Of Raw Material · · Score: 1


    Ok, um, first off, 1.5 tons of water is about 1500lbs, or around 700kgs (give or take a few).

    Another way to look at it, 8.3 lbs per gallon x 6 gpm x 10 minutes = about 250 lbs. So its a weeks worth of showers for one person. Or, watering the back yard for one night. It's just not that much water.

    "BTW, the water saver shower heads provide a very satisfying output." You must be out of your mind. My house has these water saver shower heads and I'm looking to see what I can do to get even more water per minute, not more velocity, not more area, but, flat out, more water per minute. Every other efficiency contrivance is a lie that I know is designed to make me think I'm getting more of something than I really am. But I know more water when I feel it, and I'm not going to be tricked any more. All I have to do is get a cistern set up in my back yard to make sure that the rain that lands in my land won't go into someone else's shower head, all for me. I just have to have more land. I need to own around 10,000 acres or so, and just boot all of the commoners into some kind of a slum that exists on one or two acres in the corner, probably where I have my trash. :-)

  10. 1.5 tons of water is not that much on Manufacturing 1 PC Takes 1.8 Tons Of Raw Material · · Score: 1, Interesting


    I'm sure plenty of stoned envirotypes will start flailing around their faded tye dies and cracked beads. Sitting on their wicker chairs, they lean forward, with their elbows on their knees and hands leaning out, as if the way to act intelligent was through body language and not speech. They repeat "1.5 tons of water" in a zombie like hysteria.

    Now I know that these are interesting animals, after all, the little red ones in the fish tank are interesting too, but, I will close the curtain on their madness for your own good.

    Water is extraoridinarly heavy. Water weights

    A cubic foot of water weighs about 62 pounds.

    1.5 tons of water is about the same amount of water that you use taking a shower or a bath. I'll do my part for more efficient computing, and would skip showering one day per year to make up for my prolifigate use of water. But most environmentalists never shower, so I'll just assume they did it for me!

  11. Re:No such thing as a free lunch on Linux & Microsoft as a Cold War? · · Score: 1

    >Just like all the car companies have closed >down because of safety standards, right ? Bah...

    Uh,what NEW car company has started in the US?

  12. Maybe they should sue programmers... on 'They Can Sue, But They Can't Hide' · · Score: 2, Interesting


    For programs that do not work.

    I think I should be able to sue the provider of any software package for any economic harm caused by it.

    Geez, I could sue every Linux Developer, every Windows developer, and I could probably get a few hundred bucks out of each.

    Oh, suddenly this seems unfair?

    Maybe Doctors are just looking for some balance in litigation?

  13. Where's the asteroid where you need it? on SCO Postpones Lawsuit, Now Threatening Two · · Score: 1


    Really, isn't there some kind of button we could push to make SCO go away?

  14. I always liked WordPro myself on WordPerfect Back From the Wilderness · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And that's still out there too.

    The one thing that is silly is that we have this notion that we all have to be on the same word processor, when, we really don't.

  15. Re:And manufacturing states are better off? on The Full Outsourcing Discussion · · Score: 1

    If you don't believe that American military involvement in the middle east has nothing to do with oil, you have got to be smoking crack.

    Check this out: Roosevelt and Churchill agreed during Yalta that Iraq belonged to Britian and Saudi Arabia to the United States.

    What do you think the world system is today?

  16. Exports never balance imports on The Full Outsourcing Discussion · · Score: 1


    The problem with free trade is that the nations of the world are not building up their own domestic markets. The whole point of free trade is that the world will eventually elevate its standard of living to a parity with the US, funded initially by US consumer demand enough to jump start a third world consumer class.

    But, it hasn't happened yet in 50 years, and I don't know that it ever will. We -still- run a trade deficit with Japan, and we -will- run a trade deficit with China and India for as far as the eye can see. The bottom line is that the supposed raising of everyone around the world is not taking place, and, after 50 years, I would like to see some EVIDENCE that there will be a levelling out in trade with our partners.

  17. Re:And manufacturing states are better off? on The Full Outsourcing Discussion · · Score: 1

    #1. Have a national health insurance system so that small business owners don't have to deal with it. It makes no sense whatsover to penalize a small business owner with the too small risk pool for insurance. If you have national health care, businesses large and small only have to worry about wages. Also should think about bailing out Ford and GM from their ridiculous pension obligations.

    #2. Europe at least has a balance of payments that is somewhat positive, and, the Europeans have no problem beating us in Aerospace and the Automotive sectors. BMW is kicking ass, as is Aerobus. So much for the lack of European competitiveness. I should also mention that little European software company - SAP.

    #3. Is a lot cheaper than keeping military forces sitting in the Persian Gulf. For the cost of the Iraq war, we might have built 200 nuclear power plants and had total energy security and met the Kyoto targets for CO2.

  18. And manufacturing states are better off? on The Full Outsourcing Discussion · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We keep talking about how a crisis came in the 1970s and 1980s as manufacturing jobs were destroyed in the United States, as if it were in the past tense.

    But, last time I checked, all the previous centers of manufacturing that were once booming cities are still teetering impoverished ghost towns.

    A small list of the casualties of the last big free trade expansion:

    Akron
    Boston
    Buffalo
    Chicago
    Cleveland
    Detr oit
    Erie
    New York City
    Philadelphia

    Shall we add to the list these IT cities?

    Austin
    San Diego
    Phoenix
    Redmond

    Maybe we should just trash all of our cities?

  19. Life on Mars, no Evolution Dividend on Mounting Evidence for Water on Mars · · Score: 1

    You can't win a religious argument by using logic. If there is life on Mars, the committed creationist will say that God must have put it there. It won't even be an issue.

  20. High flow shower heads on DIY HVAC · · Score: 1

    Most of the low flow in shower heads is done through a washer that is easily removed. However if you have a newer house, the pipes themselves are low flow. I'm thinking of running a second line...

  21. Mars Global Surveyer first on Mounting Evidence for Water on Mars · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Mars Global Surveyer found traces of hydrogen first, and also returned the first images which seemed like water carving the martian surface.

    And, to top it all off, there is a small but steady band of real scientists that believe that Viking did in fact find life on Mars.

  22. We should tax difference in wages on China Plans Domestic Software Quotas · · Score: 1


    If Indians or Chinese want to work for rotten wages, that's fine, but I think western nations ought to tax the difference. That way, if companies do move there, consumer capital from importing nations would still benefit the importing nation's economy.

  23. Re:Ah, but what about supply on US Army Scraps Comanche Helicopter · · Score: 1

    Crusader's design characteristics suck so bad that it makes me question the whole concept of artillery. It's too heavy, even with the hacked in weight reduction. It's not nearly as accurate as a GPS guided rocket. And, it's as nearly as expensive as a jet fighter in its own right and is certainly more expensive than scores of guided missiles.

    Yeah, I would much rather have Virginia or even an Assault Ship firing hundreds of missiles at an enemy, than a transport eating inaccurate crusader system, any day.

    Artillery needs to be cheap and massed, but Crusader simply isn't. And, they are going back for -another- software redesign? That should tell you right away that this is not going to be an accurate weapon.

  24. Re:Ah, but what about supply on US Army Scraps Comanche Helicopter · · Score: 1

    Ok, some arguments against Crusader.

    a) It's too expensive. You say that a cruise missile carried on a plane is too expensive, but each Crusader system was more than 20 million dollars, or nearly the cost of an aircraft and about as much as 20 tomahawk cruise missiles and countless JDAM rounds.

    b) It's too heavy. There's no plane that can carry both a crusader and its associated refill unit in a single flight.

    c) There will never be enough. Prior to cancellation, the Army was going to buy 480 Crusader systems. You would set these as counterbattery fire against 10,000 guns? Mind you, those 10,000 guns are a heck of a lot cheaper than our Crusader would be, but, if they were all pre-sited on Seoul, they wouldn't have to be -that- accurate.

    d) They aren't accurate enough to justify the price premium. A GPS missile has a CPE within 10 meters, the Crusader CEP is more like 100.

    e) Mechanical problems. If the autoloader on the crusader fails, the piece is mission killed.

    Bottom line is, to get the right weight, standoff capability, and volume, you need to use guided missiles, and have lots of them. I believe that we need a lot more transport capability, and that the Army needs a lot more UAVs and more transport capability, and simply more launchers. But I do agree with you that there is a shortage of high power tactical fire within the Army, of the kind that was filled by previous artillery support. I just don't think its artillery.

    Still, if we really want a good artillery system, perhaps we should buy the German one or even upgrade the Paladin somewhat?

  25. maybe the spokes were a gravity thing? on Saturn Rings But No Spokes · · Score: 3, Funny


    Maybe a decent sized object passed through the rings, disturbed them and left.

    Either that or some stoned punk aliens were waving their hands in front of the Voyager cameras just to screw with us.