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User: Chris+Mattern

Chris+Mattern's activity in the archive.

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Comments · 7,102

  1. Re:Damn on Android Tricorder Killed By CBS · · Score: 1

    Yes, but the Klingons have photon torpedoes.

    No they don't; they have disruptors.

  2. Re:Google+ is Facebook, but smaller and featureles on What Google+ Games Needs To Beat Facebook · · Score: 2

    The core innovation is how they are implementing circles.

    Yeah, from now on pi will be equal to three in Google.

  3. The Penny Arcade way... on How Do You Explain Software Development To 2nd Graders? · · Score: 2
  4. One notes... on Steve Jobs, Before the iPad, On Why Tablets Suck · · Score: 1

    and more specifically, why Jobs felt that stylus computing and handwriting recognition were inherent failures.

    One notes that the iPad uses neither a stylus nor handwriting recognition...

  5. Re:Low prices or pollution in China. on Apple's Chinese Suppliers Accused of Causing Significant Environmental Damage · · Score: 1

    Both!

  6. Re:FTP on Verizon Kills Free FTP Access · · Score: 1

    And completely without anything resembling real security. It even subverts *other* security by being difficult to route through a firewall.

  7. Re:different design points on Developing Nuclear Power Plant Tech For the Moon and Mars · · Score: 1

    Considering that cold is merely the absence of heat

    Wrong! Heat is not a substance that is present or absent (although some thermodynamic analyses find it useful to think of it that way). Temperature is the intrinsic random motion of the substance under consideration. If they are moving quickly, it's hot. If they are moving slowly, it's cold. If there's no substance there at all, which is (almost) the case in outer space, it is meaningless to talk about it being hot *or* cold.

  8. Re:different design points on Developing Nuclear Power Plant Tech For the Moon and Mars · · Score: 1

    Space is cold. So very cold.

    Uh, no. No, it's not. In fact, since space is an almost-perfect vacuum, it's difficult to characterize it meaningfully as having any temperature at all. And since vacuum is an excellent insulator (how do you think your thermos works?) it's really hard to dump heat.

  9. Re:Ford DID make airplanes on Ex-Board Member Says HP Is Committing 'Corporate Suicide' · · Score: 1

    Not only that but they were GOOD at it.

    Not really. The only model they produced in any numbers commercially was the Trimotor, and they only produced a couple of hundred of those. They were pressed into service again to make B-24s as part of the war effort, though.

  10. Obligatory xkcd on Like a Redstone Cowboy · · Score: 1
  11. Re:You can do that right now on SignalGuru Helps Drivers Avoid Red Lights · · Score: 2

    99.9999% of Americans have automatic gearboxes*. They can't downshift whenever they feel like it.

    Of course we can. The gearshift has lower gear positions that limit the automatic transmission to the lower gears specifically for this purpose.

  12. Re:those things have been coming for 30 years on SignalGuru Helps Drivers Avoid Red Lights · · Score: 1

    in reality, the cheap models of cars will not have any of that stuff, in order to keep the price low.

    Right up to the point where they're required by law to have them, like seat belts, air bags and antilock braking systems (required in the EU and will likely be required here in a few years).

  13. Re:What an Unreadable and Horrible Summary on A Custom Objectionable Word List Ate My Homework · · Score: 1

    Even better is when they decide to automatically revise your bad words. That is truly one of the clbuttic blunders.

  14. Re:"So why aren't we doing it?" on Ask Slashdot: Could We Deal With the End of Time Zones? · · Score: 1

    I saw a picture in the paper a few months back for 80 or so years ago where the agents had piled all the scales they had confiscated for failing to meet the accepted definition of weight in use in the US at the time.

    "They just didn't see the *beautiful logic* of having pounds that were 20% lighter!"

  15. Re:A fork for old machines on Linux Support Fades For 3Dfx Voodoo, Rage 128, VIA · · Score: 1

    Ubuntu was a poor choice of distribution; it wants to install a default desktop and to simplify installation by making assumptions (including assuming you have a relatively modern machine). Debian would've been a better choice. You could've started with a very stripped down package selection (including passing on having an X server) without much difficulty.

  16. Re:Hamza? on Evidence Points To Huge Underground River Beneath Amazon · · Score: 3, Informative

    They named it for the Brazilian scientist who led the discovery team, Valiya Hamza. What more indigenous do you want?

  17. Re:Wait... on CERN Studies Connection Between Cosmic Rays and Climate Change · · Score: 3, Funny

    I thought Climate Change was anthropomorphic

    That's *Mister* Climate Change to you, pal!

  18. Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets (CLOUD) on CERN Studies Connection Between Cosmic Rays and Climate Change · · Score: 4, Funny

    Face it, your desperate attempt to get a cute acronym has just left you looking like a CLOD.

  19. Re:This happens in Sweden too, and they don't lie. on Mobile Carriers Impose Handicaps On Smartphones · · Score: 1

    The town of 13.000 people is too small to add another 1 Mill SEK (Swedish currency) cellphone antenna relay carrier...so we won't do that.
    BUMMER.

    For those of us in the US, this works out to slightly over $12 a person.

  20. Re:Why.... on Do You Want Best Buy Opening Your New Laptop? · · Score: 1

    Wow. That's actually illegal, you know.

  21. Re:Social Engineering on Was This the Phishing E-mail That Took Down RSA? · · Score: 1

    There is no such thing as "secure" software because anyone who speaks of "security" as an absolute is a fool (this applies in things other than softare, by the way). There is, however, software that is more secure and software that is less secure.

  22. Re:The book "Dune" kills this patent? on Theoretical Shoe Inserts Could Power Your Gadgets · · Score: 1

    Fremen stillsuit boots generated power from walking.

    No, Fremen stillsuit boots pumped water from walking. They didn't generate or store electricity.

  23. Re:Why.... on Do You Want Best Buy Opening Your New Laptop? · · Score: 4, Funny

    The preceding post was brought to you courtesy of Best Buy.

  24. Re:Greatest algorithms of all time on When Algorithms Control the World · · Score: 1

    Not in the early buggy version of the program you don't.

  25. Re:Boston on 5.8 Earthquake Hits East Coast of the US · · Score: 1

    [citation required]