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User: bleak+sky

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Comments · 64

  1. Re:Faster than cash? on Radio Credit Cards Move Closer · · Score: 1

    Chunking! My favorite arithmetic trick!

    Thank you for bringing a smile to my face--I was afraid I was the only one who actually did this...

  2. Re:I'm not sure this is so funny on McBride Speaks, In Person And In Print · · Score: 1

    It's in degrees Fahrenheit. 100 degrees Celcius is 212 degrees Fahrenheit; 190 F is about 88 C. Still way too hot to drink...

  3. Re:Unique Emergency vehicle flashing pattern on Traffic Light Switcher Makes Critics See Red · · Score: 1

    They are generally required to stop for the light and make sure nobody is stuck in the intersection before they continue. They can then proceed to go through the light.

    It might seem silly because it adds a possibly significant amount of time to the trip, but it does help prevent another accident.

  4. Re:Any disadvantages to a clean install? on Panther Released into the Wild · · Score: 1

    It should only matter when you're manipulating "Classic" applications and data files (which do have resource forks) on the command-line. All the OS X native files should be standard-unix-tool-safe...

    In any case, .dmg's wouldn't have resource forks anyway; they are sent over the Internet without any special encoding or encapsulation that you would need for a "forked" file.

  5. Re:Quick Conversions on Broadcast Flag All But Approved · · Score: 1
    Which is the most incredible because everyone had to buy a new car to be able to drive on the other side of the road.

    Well, it probably took more than a day to convert, but in any case, nothing prevents you from using a right-hand-driven vehicle to drive on the right side of the road. For example, postal vehicles are built that way in the United States (probably elsewhere, too) so that the driver can easily put mail in mail boxes (naturally on the right side of the road) without having to get out and walk around the vehicle.

  6. Re:Stolen Phone/Credit on Do You Accept Cellphone Payments? · · Score: 1

    And for GSM phones, you would have to steal the actual SIM card, not just an ID number...

    I think a similar concept applies to next-generation CDMA phones, but I'm not sure.

  7. Mechanical Pencil + Click Eraser = Better on When Word Processors Are Out: What's The Best Pen? · · Score: 1

    Agreed! :)

    And my favorite addition: the Pentel Click Eraser. I seldom use a mechanical pencil without one. It makes the cleanest erasure I think I've ever seen. It doesn't work so well on traditional pencil markings, though...

  8. Re:It is NOT OK on Half Life 2 Source Code Leaked · · Score: 2
    it is then up to you to PROVE that you did not use the illegal code as a base for any software written by you in the future.

    No, it's not. It's up to the copyright holder to prove that you stole their code. This may involve your having to show your source to a panel of judges, but a company you've seen source code from can't just say, "You've seen our code so you must have stolen some. Prove otherwise." They must make their case against you, so you may defend yourself.

  9. Re:What the message actually is... on Major Problems with Cingular Network · · Score: 1

    You, sir, are a genius. :)

  10. Re:Bad idea but... on States Push for Net Sales Taxes · · Score: 1
    The Permanent Fund dividend is closer to $1000/year, actually. :) The money, naturally, comes from investing the proceeds from the oil in stocks and other funds.

    There are no state taxes; however, you will often find sales taxes in various counties and cities. Anchorage is sales-tax-free, for example, but Kodiak, Homer, Sodotna, and Kenai (Kodiak and Kenai Penninsula boroughs) have around a 4.5% sales tax, or at least that's what it was when I lived there.

  11. Re:Verisign would look nice in gasoline and flame on Resolving Everything: VeriSign Adds Wildcards · · Score: 1

    The point is, if a spammer tries a nonexistant-domain as a mail relay server, mistakes it as an open relay, and starts trying to use it to send lots of messages to legitimate addresses (the server drops connection at the DATA command, so nothing actually gets sent), now Verisign could have a potentially huge list of email addresses. And they didn't even have to harvest them with spambots.

  12. Re:Thus defeating the object? on PGP Universal - Usable Email Security? · · Score: 1
    however, if you have ever tried to get joe-average-desktop-user to set up gpg or pgp then you know that something has to be made easier! even the point-n-click solutions like winpt or mac-gpg (my fave!) make my dad's head ring.

    Really, now... I've gotten several of my friends, friends who use Windows, and mostly for games, email, and word processing, to use GnuPG. Naturally, they can't (and don't care to learn how to) use it well on the command-line or really use it to its full potential, but they can use it for email.

    It's a matter of downloading the Win32 build from gnupg.org (anybody who uses the Internet can click to download something) and extracting it to c:\gnupg, which nowadays Windows can do without a helper, then installing Mozilla Thunderbird (or the Mozilla suite) and Enigmail. All basically point-and-click. Enigmail even helps you create a keypair.

    It's hardly difficult to do, and even understanding the basics ("If I sign this but don't encrypt it, anybody can read it, but they'll know I wrote it... If I encrypt it, then only the person[s] I encrypt it to will be able to read it, but there's no guarantee I sent it... etc.) are not difficult, I think, for the average user. It's just that not enough people know such a thing exists, and is so easy to use.

    I point to a short informational page at the bottom of all my email (it's all signed). It's not much yet, mostly links, but it may help spread the awareness of PGP, at least to people with whom I exchange email.

  13. Re:IE Is Too Tough To Beat on Mozilla Thunderbird 0.1 Released · · Score: 1, Informative

    Thunderbird is the Mozilla mail component. Firebird is the browser component.

  14. Re:Poster Correction on Cheap PPC Linux Machines From IBM · · Score: 1
    The base configuration of a 4-way server is probably 1 CPU.

    Four-way means 4 processors. That's 4 CPU's. :)

  15. Re:Death by XBOX on A Shocking Controller For The Xbox · · Score: 1

    I can't spell and beer doesn't help

    And apparently, crack doesn't help you to use punctuation...

  16. Gaim + Encryption on New AIM Offering "end to end" Encryption · · Score: 2, Informative
    There's a plugin called Gaim-Encryption for Gaim that uses OpenSSL (and yet another, gaim-e that uses GnuPG) for encryption.

    I believe Gaim-Encryption comes stock with the 0.6x prereleases.

  17. Blackbox/Openbox on EvilWM - Minimalist Window Manager · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hell, I use it on my 1.3 GHz Athlon... Actually I've been using Openbox for a while now; I like its window placement and sticking a bit better than Blackbox, but since it's based on the same code, it's still nice and fast and still pretty.

  18. Re:gawd, where to begin... on A Hotter Sun May Be Contributing To Global Warming · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the information--I didn't take the boosters into account (oops...duh, heh). As for hydrogen and oxygen emissions, the other bad things are oxides of nitrogen (NOx), in case you hadn't remembered yet. :)

  19. Re:gawd, where to begin... on A Hotter Sun May Be Contributing To Global Warming · · Score: 1
    Guess what agency pumps carbon dioxide equivalent to driving a SUV two million miles into the atmosphere every time a shuttle launches? NASA.

    Just curious where you found that information. I can't seem to find any reference to NASA shuttle launches emitting any CO2. Considering their rocket fuel is liquid hydrogen an oxygen, water vapor is about all the engines ought to leave behind.

    As for the results being skewed because they're funded by NASA, that's completely ridiculous. They fund research as to how human-related CO2 emissions affect global climate. And they're working on cutting CO2 emission in other aircraft to zero.

    I'm also skeptical that 150,000 wind turbines could provide power for the entire United States, considering most modern wind turbines generate less than 1 MW of power. In any case, your comment almost reeks of as much disinformation as the previous poster's--only coming from the opposite side of the argument. Debunking a disinformation with...more disinformation doesn't seem very effective to me.

    Just my $0.02...
  20. Re:Uhh. on Library of Congress to Hold DMCA Hearings · · Score: 1

    No, the capital is the city (Washington, D.C.); the capitol is the building in which Congress holds its meetings. (It also serves as a museum of United States history and art.) Capital always refers to the city in which the capitol resides. :)

  21. Re:Cancellation? Sorta... Comb filtering on More on DVD-Audio and SACD · · Score: 1

    Thanks for clarifying! Now I'm Googling around looking at comb filtering stuff. ;-P

    John

  22. Re:You *can* hear the *influence* of 20kH signals on More on DVD-Audio and SACD · · Score: 1

    If the signal was out of phase (as the original poster suggested), of course it would mix with the other signal!

  23. Phase cancellation? on More on DVD-Audio and SACD · · Score: 1
    This arrangement is the worst possible, since you will have 100% phase cancellation (in theory).


    Sorry, you're very misinformed. Phase cancellation happens when identical audio is played from two sources, one with its phase shifted 180 degrees. Since the signals are added, the phase-shifted signals add up to zero, meaning you theoretically hear nothing. Of course, once the sound is no longer an electrical signal, and it bounces around the room, you're bound to hear something other than nothing, but the point is that two speakers facing each other will not cause phase cancellation.

    John

  24. Gaim! on Financial Companies Ask IM Companies To Work Together · · Score: 2, Informative
    Why, when you can use gaim natively? And without all the ads and other clutter... It supports AOL and (with plugins that come with it) MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, even ICQ and IRC...

    John

  25. Re:Show me how this is not perpetual motion. on Perpetual Motion Delorean? · · Score: 1

    If you want a better example of "perpetual" circular motion, I suggest you consider a satellite in orbit.

    A satellite in orbit is essentially the same thing as this "boat" in a circular vacuum chamber - constantly accelerating towards the center, the earth (or whatever it happens to be orbiting around).