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User: fatphil

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  1. Re:Obvious? on The Next Frontier of Consumer Exploitation By Corporations · · Score: 1

    > Advertising is meant to inform you that Coke is available here.

    That has got to be the most ludicrous thing I've ever seen positively moderated.

    So the coke advert in my sunday newspaper is to tell me there's coke available in my own flat? The coke advert at the bus stop is to tell me that there's coke available at the bus stop? The advert tells me that coke is available somewhere in the country, nothing more.

    But it gets worse:

    > You were thirsty anyway or you wouldn't have noticed it.

    How can I not notice the whole fucking page of the sunday magazine? If you read newspapers without noticing entire fucking pages, then you're doing it wrong. And how can I not notice the entire width of the bus stop? Given that at least half of the time I'm at a bus stop I've just come out of a bar, no, I am not thirsty. Needing a piss, more like.

  2. Re:qualcomm is right on Qualcomm Says Eight-Core Processors Are Dumb · · Score: 1

    What complete bollocks. ``make -j 8'' tada - 8 cores in full use.

  3. Re:Clever code on Dr. Dobb's Calls BS On Obsession With Simple Code · · Score: 1

    Knuth? (Or at least just 2 days ago I saw it attributed to Knuth, but didn't check it.)

  4. Re:Hello World! on Dr. Dobb's Calls BS On Obsession With Simple Code · · Score: 2

    A separate class - are you mad? Just template them on , sheesh!

  5. Re:How to take a short position in Bitcoin? on Bitcoin Currency Surpasses 20 National Currencies In Total Value · · Score: 1

    This lender would have to either (a) expect the value to continue to rise, or (b) be charging you a lot of interest. If the former, you're sure he falls into the category of "the bigger fool", which of course we know is the magic ingredient for keeping this kind of scheme going. If the latter, then he's probably smart, and that probably makes you "the bigger fool".

    I just look forward to the movie /Rogue Bitcoin Trader/

  6. Re:one single missile on Geeks On a Plane Proposed To Solve Global Tech Skills Crisis · · Score: 1

    So crude an approach.

    Time to dust off all the laser pointers...

  7. Re:Don't forget the free and open source people to on Geeks On a Plane Proposed To Solve Global Tech Skills Crisis · · Score: 1

    The problem is they clearly don't have the best of the best boffins - such as these guys:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUbjpwyesk0

  8. > Order implies time, time is part of the supposed creation.

    False. There is no mention of creation of time in any Hebrew creation myth. Creation of day and night is no more creation of time than me setting a pendulum swinging is. Without time, a pendulum couldn't swing, or move - the concept of time has to pre-exist in order for the setting of a chronometer to even make sense.

    > This is philosophy 101 IMHO. Wake up, creation is not a problem for science, evolution is not a problem for religion.

    False. In order to do physics, you have to agree on the metaphysics, and what you admit into the universe of discourse. Incorporating judeo-christian self-contradictory gobbledegook into your metaphysics will give you physics incompatible with that of those who reject such absurd notions. Anyone who thinks otherwise is an apologist.

  9. Don't read too much into the English word "day" and any light-related connotation. The same word is used in the original Hebrew for both the 7 individual "day"s of creation, and for the total 7-"day" period (there's a 1-line summary at the end of the saga).

  10. > Mastropaolo has said he will create a list of potential superior court judges to decide the case.

    I.e. it's a fix.

    Only a weak-minded atheist will accept the nominations that he's likely to propose, so will be doubly-likely to fail.

    Let's propose a more definitive trial - one where physics is put in direct competition with religion, and the sophistry of human argumentation is not part of the equation. For physics, as an expert witness, I nominate momentum. Specifically the momemtum of a small lead slug, or of a baseball bat. He may use prayer as his defence. Both being scientists, were he to demand that the experiment be repeated (presumably he'll have back-up subjects just in case prayer didn't work for him) in order for the accuracy of the result to be better, then that would be just fine with me.

  11. I think the blame should be put on the botanists for repeatedly adopting terms with common meanings, and then applying those terms to much more narrow concepts such that many of the orignal items can no longer be "correctly" described using the original term. Most berries aren't berries; most nuts aren't nuts; etc..

    I.e., they've got form. So basically, either the botanists are idiots, or arseholes. Either way, they and their nomenclature should be treated with contempt.

    And unusually I'm only about 1% tongue in cheek on this matter.

  12. > In the absence of an expert in ancient Hebrew, I'd say that there's not enough information to comment definitively on the tenses

    So, what would you say to chastise the idiot who earlier said:
    >> No, it wasn't. Chapter 2 verse 18 uses the past tense "the Lord God *had* formed".
    emphasis his.

    Ooops, that was *you* being so definitive earlier.

    Oh my - hypocrisy found in a god-botherer - tell me it can't be so!

  13. Chapter 2 verse 18, before the animals are mentioned, and after man is created, does not use the relative past tense. It contains a moment of pondering, stopping the sequence of events and separating what has been done from what will follow, and only after that are the animals created:
    "It is not good that the man should be alone; I *will* make ..."
    http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0102.htm

    Where in your pulled-out-of-your-arse flow of time does god's pondering fit in? If it's after the animals are created, why did he forget about them during his ponder - is he a bit stupid, or something? (Clearly yes, because the believers are created in Gods image, and we know the believers are more than a bit stupid.)

  14. > See the heading at verse 4, Chapter 2?

    Nope: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0102.htm

    It's your NIV (and every other English language translation) that is "derivative".

  15. > Yahweh is, for various historical reasons, rendered as LORD in the Biblical text, and is what we refer to when we use "God" as a proper noun in English.

    Except in the references you just cited. "Elohim" is rendered as "God" all over chapter 2.

    You'd better get praying that your god heals that rather nasty looking hole in your foot.

  16. Re:But... on Animation Sophistication: The Croods Required 80 Million Compute Hours · · Score: 1

    Somehow /Brave/ completely passed me by - it looks like it was the inspiration for the new hair model that Croods' female lead sports. (Apparently it has a physical and rebellious young female lead too...)

    I'm not sure comparison is fair, as I'm not necessarily the intended market at all, but it does appear that I've not liked any Dreamworks CGI-fests since Shrek, and that Pixar has really impressed me several times even quite recently.

  17. Re:hmmmm on Ask Slashdot: Enterprise Bitcoin Mining For Go-Green Initiatives? · · Score: 1

    The fact that governments legislate the fact that their currency has value.

  18. Re:Green schmene on Ask Slashdot: Enterprise Bitcoin Mining For Go-Green Initiatives? · · Score: 1

    How do you compare it to SETI?

    Not trolling; personally I'm anti-both to the same extent, and I am genuinely disappointed when I hear that people are burning through our finite fossil fuel resources looking for ET.

  19. Re:I'm a screenwriter. on Animation Sophistication: The Croods Required 80 Million Compute Hours · · Score: 0

    You are clearly not a screenwriter. You have demonstrated no actual insight into screenwriting at all. All you write is what any outsider knew already.

  20. Re:The flatlining of the Hollywood movie scene on Animation Sophistication: The Croods Required 80 Million Compute Hours · · Score: 1

    unbias yourself: http://archive.org/details/Cat_Women_of_the_Moon

  21. Re:But... on Animation Sophistication: The Croods Required 80 Million Compute Hours · · Score: 2

    The trailers contain what they think is (at least teasers towards) the best bits of the movie. The movie will, on average, be even worse.

    It looks like they've got a new hair model that they wanted to show off, and possibly a new particle simulation model. Woo, freaking woo. Apparently, they have no interest of having the characters mouths say anything apart from "ah-ooooh-oooh-awwww-eeeeeee-ah" when the dialogue actually does something like "why do you always say that?". Fuck the particle model, fuck the hair model, fuck the polygon count, fuck the number of CPU hours or terabytes - can a deaf person lip-read the dialogue? If not, they're still not achieving one of the most basic and fundamental things. In that respect, they're inferior to the black-and-white silents from 80-100 years ago.

    And even if they achieved that, I'd still say it was shit - as even if they get the facial movement and dialogue matching each other perfectly, they've put the wrong voices behind the characers. Fortunately I'm to old and curmudgeonly to recognise any of the celebrity voices, but they were rubbish characterisations. Compare Shrek - the voices fitted the characters almost perfectly.

    The MPAA can rest assured that I will not pirate this movie.

    But I'm sure it will be massive, as they seem to be able to sell any old crap.

  22. Re:Depends on the source on Can You Really Hear the Difference Between Lossless, Lossy Audio? · · Score: 1

    No harm done. I'm glad I didn't post more aggressively ;-)

  23. Re:They don't get it on Bitcoin To Be Regulated Under US Money Laundering Laws · · Score: 1

    Given how three of those four are in the top 50 of the fortune 500-list, I think I had those covered already.

  24. Re:Depends on the source on Can You Really Hear the Difference Between Lossless, Lossy Audio? · · Score: 1

    Most DACs, and sound-cards generally, were shitty in the 90s. I trust that the DAC I currently have in my PC is better than the first ISA Soundblaster Pro I got in the 90s, as I'm currently using high end Apple hardware, and the build-quality does seem very good. I've not noticed any noise or crosstalk between any components. I get more noise from my monitor refresh than is detectible on line-out (and it plugs into a pretty nifty hi-fi, so there's no discernable distortion once it's bridged that gap).

  25. Re:Really? on SendGrid Fires Employee After Firestorm Over Inappropriate Jokes · · Score: 1

    You bring up the right to solitude in the context of a something that happened at a conference, and I directly address the subject of solitude in the context of conferences, and you call that a non-sequitur?

    You truly are a gibbering loon.