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User: james.m.henderson

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Comments · 19

  1. Re:REGULATORS! on Rudolph the Cadmium-Nosed Reindeer · · Score: 1

    Your use of insults does nothing to add to your credibility.

    Asking for a citation is asking to be educated. Most people are not going to bother going to a meat plant (which may or may not be in their area and may or may not be open to the public). It really is up to the poster of the information to back up claims like that which cannot be verified without further research, and it is not unfair to ask for such evidence.

    I am not the same user as jamesh; it is just a coincidence.

  2. Re:Science Fiction? on Avatar Soars Into $1-Billion Territory · · Score: 1

    Okay, so you don't want to be preached to. Fair enough. Most of us don't. To me all the film preaches is that it does make sense to have faith in a God if you have evidence that he exists. It really doesn't say anything about whether you should be spiritual outside of the context of Pandora.

    If you consider the plot to be cheesy (which it is), that issue is separate from how rational the religion being portrayed is.

    I see the movie and see a thought experiment asking "what if there really was some natural God or planet consciousness?". I don't see anyone trying to preach anything to me.

  3. Re:Science Fiction? on Avatar Soars Into $1-Billion Territory · · Score: 1

    I find it interesting that despite that in the context of the movie it is clear that the blue people are actually (more or less) right about their religion (as evidenced by the communication), you still consider it to be irrational. Now it is unclear how a world like Pandora could have evolved, but belief in spirituality is only irrational if it cannot be proven. In Pandora, the spirituality is real and actually fairly well defined, therefore is no less scientific than anything. Just because this movie goes against the religion of secularism does not mean that it is irrational. Lets be clear here, I am not a spiritualist. I just don't consider the concept to be irrational, I merely believe that it doesn't exist here.

  4. Re:we already copywritten recipes on Malaysia Seeking to Copyright Food? · · Score: 1

    I'm know that the KFC recipe http://www.newsday.com/business/coca-cola-and-kfc-s-secret-formulas-are-safe-for-now-1.886055 and big mac Secret sauce http://www.walletpop.com/specials/closely-guarded-trade-secrets?icid=200100397x1210050216x1200602328# are trade secrets, not copyrights or patents. This technique means that they will never have their patents or copyrights expire on their items (haha, like copyrights really expire anymore...). They would also of course trademark the _name_ of these items. So it is not exactly that the recipes are copyrighted, just that they are secret and you aren't allowed to call something else by the same or similar name.

  5. Re:we already copywritten recipes on Malaysia Seeking to Copyright Food? · · Score: 1
  6. Re:But... on Nissan Gives Electric Cars Blade Runner Audio Effect · · Score: 1

    In Canada I learned to think of right of way as being more like responsibility to yield. So in the crosswalk example, if cars see you at the crosswalk ready to cross, they should stop, however that doesn't mean you should just run into traffic if they aren't stopping. Same for stop signs and order of movement of cars. You may have the right of way, but if the other guy goes out of turn and you just drive into him, you are still going to be held liable, because _there was something you could have done to avoid the accident_.

  7. Re:But, does it run DOS? on ARM Attacks Intel's Netbook Stranglehold · · Score: 1

    Dog-Cow: Despite the fact that you are right, there really is no need for adding insult to the correction. Simply stating that the parent is incorrect and giving a correction is enough for rational discourse. Furthermore, you really don't have enough evidence to assert that the parent isn't bright; you only know that they were talking about something they didn't know about. Maybe they are very knowledgeable in other areas. Maybe they aren't very old and haven't had time to learn a lot of things. Adding insult only hurts someone else and does not add anything of value to the discussion. Perhaps this is a needlessly long post on something most don't care about. However some people love to toss in ad hominem attacks, and they only go to weaken the argument being presented (if one reads it critically) and increase hostility between parties.

  8. Re:UAE - no surprise on Spyware In BlackBerry Updates For Users in the UAE · · Score: 1

    Yes, UAE is very progressive. Anybody who chooses to expatriate and live in such a slave-state really can't complain if things go against them after a time. I would never trust a contract to work in Dubai, not only because it would violate my own moral code, but because anybody who chooses to live there is probably not someone I should trust.

  9. Re:typo in summary on Is IE Usage Share Collapsing? · · Score: 1

    [ ] In Soviet Russia, _____ _____s YOU

    There, fixed that for you

  10. Re:Seriously? on An Argument For Leaving DNS Control In US Hands · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The time to take control away from someone is -before- they abuse the power, not after. If there's a world-wide organization that can impartially handle this, and handle it well, then it should be done by them.

    That's a very interesting suggestion. It sounds like you want thought police. How about 'the time to punish someone is after they've done something wrong, or when in possession of ample evidence that they are in the process of doing something wrong.'

    I see it as important to note that the parent's suggestion that an impartial body should be put in charge before an abuse of power can happen is not similar enough to the concept of "thought police" to bear the reference. The concept of "thought police" refers to an individual being punished for a crime that is entirely intellectual. In this case the parent is referring to the concept of replacing a provider of a service for an ostensibly more reliable provider of the same service. This is not a punishment. It would be like switching to a web hosting company that you think is going to be more reliable than your current one despite not having any troubles with the current one. It is not the same as throwing someone in jail because they don't like the government (1984) or throwing someone in jail because they might commit a crime (punishment preceding crime).

    I am not going to comment as to whether I feel the current provider (US) is a better or worse choice than the UN or some other international, I just wish to point out that there is no 'punishment' and the reference to 1984 is out of place.

  11. Re:That's great... on Vista Post-SP2 Is the Safest OS On the Planet · · Score: 1
    GNU/Linux can also do something similar to superfetch, using a daemon called preload: http://sourceforge.net/projects/preload. From linked website:

    preload is an adaptive readahead daemon. It monitors applications that users run, and by analyzing this data, predicts what applications users might run, and fetches those binaries and their dependencies into memory for faster startup times.

    I have been using this daemon for a while now and have found it a) to speed up the loading of commonly used programs (since idle time is being used to load them into memory) b) not to cause any noticeable slowdown in system responsiveness (since it runs at such a low priority).

  12. Re:I have a feeling.... on Vista Post-SP2 Is the Safest OS On the Planet · · Score: 1

    In the *really* *real* olden days it was missing teeth in the gears.

  13. Re:Maybe whoever did that study on Facebook Users Get Lower Grades In College · · Score: 1

    I have seen both myspace and facebook and would suggest that myspace is significantly worse than facebook in terms of crud. Of course youtube comments trump both of them.

  14. Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day on Beware the Perils of Caffeine Withdrawal · · Score: 1

    Haha..yes well the idea is that when you are down to a quarter cup a day or something you just quit...

  15. Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day on Beware the Perils of Caffeine Withdrawal · · Score: 3, Informative

    I find that the best way to get away from caffeine addiction is to cut back. If you halve your intake every day, then you likely won't experience any withdrawal symptoms, but will have a logarithmic recovery time. Another option is to consume half a cup (or less) of coffee when you start to feel withdrawal. It doesn't take much caffeine to clear up the effects.

  16. Re:LINKS IS BETTER on Online Banking Customers Migrating To Lynx · · Score: 1

    Actually, w3m (with w3m-img extension) is great for some things. For example, if you are looking through technical documentation then w3m is fast and discards most of the crap that you didn't want to read anyhow. I also like how it brings you into vim when you edit a multiline textbox. That said, I usually use firefox, since it supports javascript, flash, plugins and real page rendering.

  17. Two Words on How Do I Make My Netbook More Manly? · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hello Kitty.

  18. Re:Selective Terrorism? on Mythbusters Accidentally Bust Windows In Nearby Town · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't like to be on this side of the argument, but here goes. The critical difference is that there is a reasonable purpose to the mythbusters having and using the substance. I'm sure they went through all the proper channels/licensing required to do the experiment. If a farmer buys a bunch of "enriched" manure, I doubt that would be a problem either. If some guy buys a bunch of stuff that can be used to create explosives and has no discernible purpose for it, then it is reasonable to be suspicious and investigate (not assume guilt, not jail, not ransack their place, just take a look and see why). The way things work is far from perfect and there are huge problems with the patriot act and the general 'they might be terrorists' rationalization, but in general it makes sense to be more suspicious of activity without explanation than activity with a reasonable explanation.

  19. Re:smaller countries will freak out more over ip on New Zealand's Recording Industry CEO Tries to Defend New Draconian Law · · Score: 1

    Actually, Canada's IP laws are currently more relaxed than in the US. There is a Canadian DMCA (Bill C-61) that has been in the tubes (in a few different forms) for a while, however it hasn't really gotten anywhere just yet. It is certainly true that there is an air of cultural protectionism in Canada, but I have never really seen loss of culture being used as a rationalization for -jmh