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User: lpontiac

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  1. Re:Perhaps It Belongs in the OS on Microsoft Plans To Sell Anti-Virus Software · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The problem with this is that people are too used to clicking yes when asked and will do so here as well.

    And I think this is a result of programs just asking too many stupid questions, the result of an application design process that goes something like this:

    Developer 1: What should we do here?

    Developer 2: I don't know.

    ...

    Developer 1: Hey, let's just let the user decide!

    Developer 2: Yeah, fuckit, if it's wrong, at least this way it's the user's fault, not ours.

    When you installed the first version of iTunes for Windows, it would ask you whether you wanted iTunes to rearrange all of your music files on disk. So many people blindly clicked 'Yes' and then screamed murder when iTunes went ahead and destroyed their finely tuned music directory structure, replacing it with iTunes' own.

    Perhaps if your average Windows user wasn't continually confronted with poorly worded and needless questions, there'd be some change of them actually reading each one and responding intelligently.

  2. Re:you set yourself up on Cassini-Huygens Reaches Phoebe · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's about as hard to understand as "CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW" :)

  3. Re:It has nothing to do with the circles. Anymore. on Mandatory Banknote Detection Code? · · Score: 1, Insightful
    I do not think that image manipulation software is the right place to put this code, specifically because it's too easy to write an image editor from scratch (what are you going to do, ban compilers?)

    +5, Insightful.

  4. Re:Why *don't* they have it? on Iraq Wants .iq TLD · · Score: 1

    I suppose they just never asked for it before now?

  5. Re:It's government time! on ICANN Opens .net Redelegation Consultation · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Er.

    ICANN derives its authority from the US government. The Department of Commerce, IIRC.

    What did you have in mind, anyway? Say you convinced the legislature that they needed to handpick a replacement for Verisign today.. they'd probably farm it out to fucking Halliburton.

  6. Re:Enough is Enough on 60GB iPod Coming? · · Score: 3, Informative
    I'm in the process of "reripping" my entire CD collection at the moment. I've got the extra space, so why should I be listening to 128kbps MP3 files ripped in 1999?

    On a portable, smaller files means you read less off the hard drive, and you fit more minutes of music in your cache. So larger files should hurt your battery life.

  7. Re:A good example for EU on McAfee Granted Far-Reaching Spam-Control Patent · · Score: 1

    Didn't one house of the EU government effectively listen last time and amend the proposed laws as desired?

  8. Re:Completely blindsided me on Sony Exits US Handheld Market · · Score: 1
    I mean, do you need a "simulator" for every PC that you are going to run Windows or Linux on? No.

    But if you want to develop for Windows CE / Pocket PC / Windows Mobile / whatever, yes, you do need a simulator. It's Windows CE compiled as an application that runs on Windows, just like the PalmOS simulator or, if you want to stretch, User Mode Linux.

    And if you're developing Java apps for Symbian, they run inside a Java environment, which really is a "virtual machine," not a native environment.

  9. Re:Handhelds are dead! on Sony Exits US Handheld Market · · Score: 1
    your cell phone has the ability to store all your addresses and such.

    If your phone has PIM apps like a handheld, a little finger keyboard like a handheld, a small but high density screen like a handheld, and fits in your hand, how is it not a handheld, and how can you point at it and say "handhelds are dead"?

  10. Re:Boasting? on Itagaki Talks Ninja Gaiden Difficulty, Sequel, DOA · · Score: 2, Funny
    Imagine the quote from a film company: We played the movie to test audiences and they said they really hated one character, so we put some of that character's deleted scenes back in.

    Yousa all wenta see the movie ANYhow!

  11. Re:Why not XML? on SPF To Be Integrated With MS 'Caller ID' System · · Score: 4, Informative

    XML is not a format. It's a metaformat.

  12. Re:IBM's LINUX Commitment on Kill Bill, IBM vs Microsoft · · Score: 4, Funny
    PowePC based desktops that are fast, quiet, consume less energy, have open hardware specifications and sleep effortlessly (none of that ACPI baggage).

    I found a small company that makes machines just like this! They have a web page here.

  13. Re:So many oss/fsf RDBMS... on CA Advantage Ingres To Be Released As Open Source · · Score: 1
    but it's becoming a pain to support the perculiarities of each of these products in, for example, a PHP script intended for general use, which you want to make work with as many different database systems as possible.

    So don't.

    The database exists to support the application, not the other way around.

  14. Re: A new dose of life! on Shatner May Return to Star Trek (Briefly?) · · Score: 1

    Lava sharks!

  15. Er on Beagle 2 Failure Analyzed · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I remember reading a few years ago about the "new" approach to space exploration. Instead of sending less probes, they (the space agencies) would be sending more, cheaper probes. The idea being that yes, there would be a higher proportion of failures, but when offset against the increased number of missions overall, we'd end up with a higher (number of successful missions) / (total expenditure across all missions).

    A similar idea crops up in the manned versus unmanned debate - "unmanned exploration is cheaper because amongst other things, you don't have to be as sure the spacecraft won't fail because there's no human life at stake."

    We've now got our numerous, cheaper (Beagle cost 50 million pounds), unmanned missions. But when half of them fail (der!), people get into a kink!

  16. Re:EEK! on KernelTrap Interviews Andrea Arcangeli · · Score: 1, Insightful
    If you understand this sentence you know you're a geek.

    If you live in the US. If you live in Italy, it could just mean that you graduated from high school.

  17. Re:How is social engineering different from a con? on Social Engineering in the Workplace · · Score: 1

    It's got "engineering" in the name, which is essential these days.

    Hell, you can spend all day cleaning shit off the floor and you're a "sanitation engineer."

  18. Re:Why charge them? on Flash Mob Gang Warfare · · Score: 1

    I'm actually trying to figure out how this is different to boxing.

    Consenting people smacking the crap out of each other, either way.

  19. Re:Very Sexy on A Raft Of New Products From Sony Japan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Except if you're ripping from your own CDs you don't get DRM'ed AAC, you get plain AAC (which is actually a Dolby format) in a Quicktime container. AAC inside a Quicktime container is actually MPEG-4.

  20. Re:Err... Was it ever that bad? on California County Sues State Over E-Vote Ban · · Score: 1
    But the main reason Riverside is suing is because they *got rid* of their regular voting gear 4 years ago and upgraded to complete electronic voting. It will be quite expensive for them to go back, and with less than 6 months notice as well.

    Pens and paper work fine for the rest of the world, and aren't expensive at all.

  21. Re:Shows free GUI software's problem on TheOpenCD 1.4 Released · · Score: 1
    One uses native W32 widgets,

    Very few programs use entirely "Win32 native" widgets. There isn't even a way to put icons in a Win32 menu without drawing it yourself.

    Pretty much every piece of software out there will use widgets from one or more of the following, in addition to "native" widgets:

    • Comctl32.dll widgets (bundled with Windows, so okay, this is stretching it)
    • MFC widgets
    • Windows Forms controls (ie .NET widgets)
    • Visual Basic controls (VBXes or OCXes or ActiveX controls or whatever they are this year
    • Custom widgets created just for one application

    And these are just the ones that have persisted - there have been many others, for instance the OK/Cancel with the green tick/red cross that you'd find in apps created with Borland tools.

  22. Re:education on Sun Mulling GPL for Solaris · · Score: 4, Informative
    If solaris were available for free

    For personal/evaluation/educational/etc uses, it already is.

  23. Re:Get a Mac on A Silent PC Solution? · · Score: 1

    iBooks do have fans in them - they're just not spun up most of the time. I can tell if something's started chewing up all the CPU it can get its hands on, because after a few minutes of this the fans kick in.

  24. Re:What? on Hardware Manufacturers Making PC Gaming Too Elite? · · Score: 3, Funny

    Pfft, didn't you hear? Computer games were invented in 1999.

  25. Re:Sound quality on iPod Mini Hits The 'Sweet Spot'? · · Score: 1

    Higher bitrate = more data has to be read from the drive per play second, and your disk buffer memory is used up quicker. As a result you hit the drive a lot more and battery life suffers.