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User: Moderation+abuser

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  1. Re:pedestrians obey Laws? on NYC Crosswalk Buttons are Inoperative · · Score: 1
    "most of us just dodge between cars."

    This is BTW, why so many lemmings get hit by motorbikes in London. "Hmm, yes the cars are stopped so all the traffic must be stopped". You can almost see the realisation of just how wrong they are dawning as quarter of a tonne of pointy steel barrels towards them up on it's front wheel.

  2. Did you know it's an offence in the UK? on NYC Crosswalk Buttons are Inoperative · · Score: 3, Funny

    To press the pedestrian buttons as you walk past...







    ... I can't help it!




  3. Blinding flash of light! on Toward a New Kind of Linux Distribution · · Score: 3, Funny

    God! Yes! That's it! Why didn't I think of it before? That's what Linux and Linux users need... Another distribution.

  4. You're right about the size on Fuelless Flight with Air Submarine? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Airships are the size of cruise liners, but the reason for that is that the lifting capacity of an airship increases with volume, i.e. x^3. You can get round about 1kg of lifting capacity from 1m^3 of helium.

    It's also a rigid ship, the gas bags are inside a rigid frame. The frame used to be aluminium but they'd use carbon fibre these days. Buoyancy bladders are not a particularly big hurdle.

    It's all technically possible but I'm not convinced it'd be what you could call quick.

  5. Re:Economics on Space Elevators Going Up · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Space elevator doesn't need fuel? How do you think things get lifted? Magic? Then you have the interest on the billions in loans, maintenance and repairs to hundreds of km of nanotube ribbon and can you imagine the insurance bill?

    The huge cost of the space shuttle has nothing to do with fuel, it's just NASA. Other countries can lift large payloads for far less. Rockets can be mass produced, space elevators can't.

  6. Only $5 billion? $500 billion maybe. on Space Elevators Going Up · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The channel tunnel cost $21 billion and that's just a couple of big holes in the ground. The cost is going to have to be amortized across generations of users. I do agree with your point though.

    More people fly from the UK to the continent these days because it's much cheaper, faster and more flexible.

  7. Cost on Space Elevators Going Up · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I predict that a space elevator will make the cost of the lunar landings look like peanuts. I very much doubt it'll happen in our lifetimes.

    NASA is the reason space is expensive. Companies like Starchaser and Scaled Composites are the ones who will make space cheaper and will "own space".

  8. So many channels so little time. on BBC Discusses PVR Software, Creative Archive Plans · · Score: 2, Offtopic

    Any one else noticed that the quality of productions on the BBC has fallen off drastically the last couple of years? Coincided with the explosion in the numbers of channels.

  9. But American Budweiser is piss any way on BudNet Tracks Your Suds · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's almost completely tasteless. All that fresh beer tastes better *bollocks*. Why on earth would you choose that in favour of a decent beer, like the original Czech Budweiser.

    http://www.budvar.cz/

  10. Actually, no, the majority don't choose on Viet Dinh Defends The Patriot Act · · Score: 1

    "Yes, the "people" (the majority) choose who obtains power"

    Unfortunately not. Sizable minorities choose who obtains power. In the UK for instance it was around 43% of voters, which is a minority for a start and around 25% of the total population decided who would be governing the country.

    e.g.
    http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/e01/par tycand.h tm

    In the US in 2000 famously, the electoral college elected George Bush over Al Gore even though Gore recieved more popular votes. Both candidates with minorities of the popular vote BTW and both with around 25% of the population voting for them. So, again no, the majority don't choose.

  11. First past the post voting system. on Viet Dinh Defends The Patriot Act · · Score: 1

    Part of the problem is that the first past the post voting system tends to deliver governments which over-represent large minorities.

    For example, the Labour party in the UK got around 43% of the total vote. That's a minority. The first past the post voting system gave them 412 seats out of a possible 658 or 62% of the seats in the House of Commons, that's a big majority which pretty much allows them to do what they want with legislation. A large minority now governs country.

    The thing is, the first past the post system is a throwback to when representatives were individuals and didn't owe their loyalties to a party machine. These days it takes a party rebellion to derail the plans of the government and it causes swings of power back and forth between extremes.

    The US electoral college system has a similar effect on representation.

  12. To sue, they'd have had to innovate on Microsoft Seeks Patent On Virtual Desktop Pager · · Score: 1

    By innovate I mean they would have had to have actually produced something original at some point in the last couple of decades. Well, at least until the Patent Office took Microsoft's definition of innovation on board that is.

  13. But Joe Sixpack can just go to his local market on Buzzword du Jour: DRM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And pick up copies there for a couple of quid. Made by someone who is "quite a bit into computers wo knows how to copy one of those 'wanna-be' audio cds".

  14. Having recently been outsourced on Orwellian Tech Support · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the IT dept of a very large phone manufacturer to an even larger outsourcing company, I can reveal that my job is now no longer to fix problems and design solutions to help my colleagues, it is instead, to make money at the expense of my former colleagues.

    Unlike the article, we do currently actually fix the problems, but guess what. Now 60% of fixes have to be within 24 hours, so what do you do with troublesome customers? Ticket goes on "waiting for customer" immediately, call them back at lunchtime, three calls and it gets closed. The metrics look good.

    That Apache upgrade? Not part of baseline break/fix. Now costs you money and 3 days of my time (how much per hour?) as we update the OS, apache rev, modules. Oh, it broke your application? But you approved the change managment and we don't support homegrown applications.

    Grid computing. Yum. $100/month/machine for supporting workstations becomes $1,000/month/machine as the desktops are migrated to *clustered* servers in the machine room. And you thought it was such a good idea before the outsourcing, at least they aren't on your budget, I wonder is it corporate who're taking the financial hit as the numbers of supported servers rockets?

    Out of hours support? I'm off at 5 mate. Hourly rates double in the evening and double again at the weekend. And they start in 3 digits. What? You want a production system upgraded at the weekend? Oh you need a DBA and Financials administrator as well? And that 100Gb restore which is taking 10 hours? You get billed for every second which is out of baseline hours.

  15. Society and business are good? on Virus Writers - The Enemy Within · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You're assuming they see society and businesses as good things. Americans, five percent of the world's population consume a third of the world's resources. I mean, you define yourselves as consumers, plagues of locusts do little but consume and replicate. Maybe these guys are the good guys and you're the bad guy for supporting a parasitic society.

  16. Happens at a little pub in harrogate on Keyless Entries Fail In Las Vegas On Friday · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You stop there for lunch on your bike and will the alarm/immobliser disarm afterwards? Will it buggery. Apparently there's a US Airforce "listening station" nearby.

  17. Anyone got a plot of the occurences? on Keyless Entries Fail In Las Vegas On Friday · · Score: 2, Informative

    Location + date/time might I suspect be very enlightening.

  18. Yes, they can. on Keyless Entries Fail In Las Vegas On Friday · · Score: 2, Funny

    With hysterical results.

  19. Re:Overexaggerated on The World's Safest Operating System · · Score: 1

    Expect doesn't work on GUIs.

    HTH.

  20. Re:Overexaggerated on The World's Safest Operating System · · Score: 1

    Man, I'd love to see you admin 100 Linux boxes.

  21. Blame the distributions. on The World's Safest Operating System · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Basically, they are deliberately sacrificing security for ease of use. Same as Microsoft.

    There's no reason Linux can't be highly secure, except that it'll be a pain in the arse to add services like FTP, web etc. But after a default install, look, Apache is already running, FTP, telnet, rsh, etc etc is enabled, sendmail routes mail from anyone. All so that some numpty can drop a CD into a drive and it all just magically installs and works.

    So instead of it taking effort to make Linux work, it takes effort to make Linux secure.

  22. Re:mobile videophones on Videophones Revisited · · Score: 1

    It depends on your location, city centers it's fine. The problem is coverage and cost. They're still more expensive than normal mobiles and coverage is just becoming useful. Same situation the original brick analog mobiles were in 20 years ago.

    Around 90% of human communication is non verbal, you can get quite a bit from non verbal vocal tones, but about half of all communication is body language, facial expression etc. Video phones really do make a difference when you are trying to make yourself understood.

    BTW, if someone is telling you one thing and their body language is telling you something else, believe what you see, not what they say. The classic is when a female says "No, there's nothing the matter", you know you've fucked up somehow. Or for the rest of you nerds "Size doesn't matter".

  23. What's the big deal? on Videophones Revisited · · Score: 3, Informative

    I carry a videophone around with me. Europe's had mobile videophone's for what, 2 years now?

    http://www.three.co.uk

    It would of course be nice if the landline telcos could get their arses into gear and start implementing the same standards. Who wants to put money on the landline videophones (http://www.bt.com/videophone/) being imcompatible with the mobile ones?

  24. But it will only ever be used for defence on U.S. Air Force Plans for War In Space · · Score: 1

    You know, against countries like Iraq and maybe Iran when they try to invade the US of A.

  25. Light up those lightsabres on Electric Shavers Rot Your Brain · · Score: 1

    Electric field rather than magnetic IIRC

    http://www.gorge.org/pylons/pix/tube.jpg

    Despite the ability to light up fluorescent tubes and therefore demonstrate the significant movement of electrons there doesn't seem to be any good evidence that it causes problems. It keeps coming up every so often though:

    http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/resul ts .pl?q=pylons+cancer