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User: allenthelee

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  1. Re:WOAH WOAH WOAH on Torvalds Becomes an American Citizen · · Score: 0

    A nuanced conservative viewpoint on anchor babies is that they provide a perverse economic incentive for illegal immigrants to have babies here as US citizenship provides a social raft of benefits (pretty crappy compared to most other developed countries but generally better than their country of origin).

    There's no anchor baby issue at all with Linus, as he is a legal immigrant here, with a valid visa. The anchor babies debate should be framed on whether or not babies born to illegal immigrants should be automatically granted citizenship status.

  2. Re:What did you expect? on Dell Ships Infected Motherboards · · Score: 0

    Interesting, you just invalidated your own argument. You first state a belief that the global free market is a multiplayer prisoner's dilemma game, in which "rational choice" or "homo economicus" should be used in a game theoretic context to model decision making, and then you go on to say that economics is a giant stinking crock of bullshit. Are you aware that rational choice / homo economicus is one of the basic assumptions economists use to build their models and theories because it makes it mathematically tractable?

    It's quite apparent from field studies and experiments that people can be quite cooperative in their economic decision making and do not act like homo economicus. Of course, exceptions and examples abound of defection in collective action situations (global warming, collapse of fisheries, corporate resource extraction).

  3. Re:A time and place for everything on Enthusiasts Convene To Say No To SQL, Hash Out New DB Breed · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's true, but you should mention that this data representation comes at a tradeoff for update efficiency - insertion of new nodes force you to update the entire subtree's left and right hand values.

    I wouldn't call SQL the natural way to model a tree data structure. It's possible but it comes with a price.

  4. eat a little bit many times a day on Staying In Shape vs. a Busy IT Job Schedule? · · Score: 0

    Try eating small amounts more frequently. Make sure you stick to a schedule and restrict your intake every time you eat. See http://www.askmen.com/sports/foodcourt_60/69_eating_well.html for some more details or google "eat small meals throughout the day" yourself. And, try to be active during your breaks from work, step away from your desk. Always take the stairs. Bike to work if you're able.

  5. Re:Auto-increment numbers and macros on (Useful) Stupid Vim Tricks? · · Score: 0

    You can actually record a macro on other keys as well, i.e.,

    qq 1 starts recording a macro that can then be run via @1

  6. Re:Bike to work on How Do Geeks Exercise? · · Score: 0

    I just bring a fresh shirt and deodorant and bike to work in Phoenix. Some people are definitely more fragrant than others though so YMMV.

  7. Re:Editors-of-Evil on Al-Qaeda's Growing Online Offensive · · Score: 0

    You should watch The Power of Nightmares.

  8. Re:I don't understand a thing :( on A New Theory of Everything? · · Score: 0

    Great explanation, thank you. I took a group theory course from Douglas Hofstadter a few years back where he really stressed the idea of making math understandable by eschewing arcane notation, jargon, and unnecessary formalism and embracing intuitive analogies. Not an easy task at all.

  9. Re:Frank on Top Inventions of 2007 · · Score: 0

    In fact he had no regard at all for the desires of the owners of the houses.

    There are some well-documented cases of people living within his designs being unhappy with his blend of usability and aesthetics (e.g., curators at the Guggenheim), but to say he never considered usability is provably false. For instance, he was one of the first (if not the first) to develop recessed floor lighting that is now ubiquitous in movie theaters. In any case, you should take a tour of Taliesin West if you ever get the chance - it is where Frank Lloyd Wright spent his winters towards the end of his career/life, and is a great example of the constant adaptation and tweaking necessary to live with nature and its associated uncertainties.
  10. Re:XML Misunderstandings on SQL, XML, and the Relational Database Model · · Score: 0

    Hear, hear. A great quote from an early version of Philip Wadler & Jerome Simeon's _The Essence of XML_ paper goes something like "The essence of XML is this: the problem it tries to solve is not hard, and it doesn't solve the problem well". Which, of course, isn't to say that it's completely useless.

  11. Re:Keep this out. on MySQL Gets Functions in Java · · Score: 0

    And this idiot couldn't be running code in any language embedded in mysql to load things down?

  12. Re:its a bad comparison on Phillip Greenspun: Java == SUV · · Score: 0

    Obligatory dilbert dump:
    http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilb ert-20030827.html

    Never underestimate one's ability to make a total ass of themselves in the heat of the moment, even despite multiple important looking pieces of paper at prestigious learning institutions.

  13. Re:Programming lesson 101 on Phillip Greenspun: Java == SUV · · Score: 0

    Sensitive data could be stored in encrypted server-side files and decrypted by the server process.

  14. Re:And we care because... on First Warcraft 3 Reviews Trickle In · · Score: 0

    That's not balance and thoughtful unit design, that's a bunch of lame excuses for not doing those things.
    Merely curious, but what are those things? Specifics, please.
    You must be some sort of game design genius. Please enlighten the rest of us with your thoughts.

  15. here's some prattle on Blizzard/Vivendi Files Suit Against Bnetd Project · · Score: 0

    Yaknow, I was thinking, which does not occur very often, that perhaps Blizzard is doing this as an extremely veiled attempt to actually de-legitimize the sort of copyright intellectuamal property DMCA crapola. What is needed in the fight against the stupid ass lawsuits regarding this crap are high profile cases that receive rulings in favor of the defendants -- this would act as precedent for future proceedings.

    Or not.

  16. Re:who cares about your opinion CHINK on Airport Security vs. Cyborg Steve Mann · · Score: 0

    I'm going to sew your asshole shut and forcefeed you like the chickendick that you are.

    SCORE.

  17. Re:Freenet... Why? on IEEE Computing Covers Freenet · · Score: 0

    Your comments on moving it to packet radio are pretty much wildly inaccurate. Perhaps you should do a google search on 'packet radio encryption'. Ever hear of GPRS?

    What's going to make it succeed? Obviously not you. You don't seem to be getting the point, given your previous posts. The whole idea is that content that may be considered inflammatory and censored by the government, a police state third world country, the US, whoever, *will* be available. You make a valid point that police states can just arrest those who are found to be just using Freenet, but even if they are arrested, once the information is out on the network, in principle, that information, be it documentation of police brutality, human rights violations, chasey lain's latest video, will already be disseminated throughout the Internet, preventing a centralized choke.

    basically, hippy shit.

  18. Re:Where's that ipconfig program now? on Mac Thief Caught Thanks To Applescript & Timbuktu · · Score: 0

    Oops. after /Batch you should add the file name you want to log to, e.g.,

    winipcfg /Batch ip_freely.sys

    Cursed Plain Old Text.

  19. Re:Where's that ipconfig program now? on Mac Thief Caught Thanks To Applescript & Timbuktu · · Score: 0

    winipcfg is the guy you want on Windows 95/98. You can do something like this from the command prompt:

    winipcfg /Batch

  20. Re:I plead ignorance on Babbage, A Look Back · · Score: -1, Troll

    What a bunch of self-righteous tripe. Pretentious cock.

    Go proselytize to McDonald's workers about why they should know about who invented grease traps and the milkshake machine while you're at it. Don't tell a person that they're dumb because they don't know who Mel is or some such crap like that. It just holds no relevance to their current lives. If they were truly interested, they would know.