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User: Chris+Mattern

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Comments · 7,102

  1. Re:Psssh on Vinyl's Revival Is Now a Phenomenon On Both Sides of the Atlantic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A lot of middle-class homes used to have a piano for that purpose, no lie. Once upon a time, music sales didn't mean recordings--it meant sheet music, so people could play the songs at home.

  2. I told him... on Ebola Patient Zero Identified, Probably Infected By Bats · · Score: 1

    ...that we couldn't stop there!

  3. Re:Monopoly Free Parking Jackpot on Designing the Best Board Game · · Score: 2

    The unofficial Free Parking jackpot in Monopoly was the worst thing about any board game ever. It meant a game that already dragged on too long never ended.

  4. Re:The Driverless Car - Any Day of the Week on The One Mistake Google Keeps Making · · Score: 1

    Uber?

    All I have to do is wait at least 10-15 minutes before I can go anywhere.

    Bus? Metro? Train? Ride share?

    Fine, if I'm going where it goes when it goes there. Which can be very limited.

  5. Re: tfa says carry-on, one-way on United and Orbitz Sue 22-Year-Old Programmer For Compiling Public Info · · Score: 0

    Because your actual iternary is different from what you purchased tickets for. That makes you harder to track, which gives the TSA hives.

  6. I'll bet that's not all... on The NSA Uses the Same Chat Protocol As Hackers · · Score: 4, Funny

    They probably use the same email system hackers do!

  7. Re:What... on Gmail Reportedly Has Been Blocked In China · · Score: 1

    This isn't how the internet works.

    Yes it is. They're blocking *everything* from Gmail, including the SMTP traffic. In other words, people with Gmail can no longer send email to or receive email from people in China. People outside China who need to have email to people in China may very well have to switch away from Gmail.

  8. Re:didn't go didn't download, don't care on Crowds (and Pirates) Flock To 'The Interview' · · Score: 1

    I'm not rewarding Sony for being a cunt.

    I really don't see how Sony's been a cunt here. They've been one before, but here they've just been stupid (with their poor security) and a little indecisive (but they made the right decision in the end).

  9. "advised to cease her activities" on NSA Reveals More Than a Decade of Improper Surveillance · · Score: 2

    "Don't do that or we'll make frowny faces at you. And also, what did you find out?"

  10. Re:The Navy sucks at negotiating on US Navy Sells 'Top Gun' Aircraft Carrier For One Penny · · Score: 3, Interesting

    By "pristine condition" they simply mean that they haven't been stripping it of parts to use elsewhere. They don't mean they had been keeping it up or that it was not in need of a great deal of work to be used as a museum, or for any other purpose.

  11. Re:from Bremerton to Texas around South America on US Navy Sells 'Top Gun' Aircraft Carrier For One Penny · · Score: 2

    Sounds like the course they punched in for the distance calculation went through the Panama Canal instead of around the Horn like they said it was.

  12. Re:Age prior to dyine on Scientists Say the Future Looks Bleak For Our Bones · · Score: 2

    The older humans lived 20 - 30 years MAX.

    Bull. The Bible itself tells us the full span of a man's years is "threescore and ten". That's from the Book of Psalms, and was probably written around 700 BC.

  13. Re:3D printers to the rescue on Scientists Say the Future Looks Bleak For Our Bones · · Score: 1

    you only have to do it once.

    Tell that to Miles Vorkosigan. You can't replace a skeleton all at once; you have to do it piecemeal. They'll have to do it *lots* of times, a few bones at a time.

  14. Re:The arc is long on The World Is Not Falling Apart · · Score: 2

    written by Longfellow after he'd lost his entire family (wife included) during the Civil War:

    Someone seems to have embellished the tale a bit. Longfellow did not lose his entire faimly in the Civil War. The poem was written after his eldest son Charles was wounded, not killed, in battle; he wouldn't die until 1893, eleven years after his father. His wife was burned to death in a household accident in 1861. He wrote a different poem about that death, "The Cross of Snow", eighteen years later.

  15. Re:The good outweights the bad on The World Is Not Falling Apart · · Score: 1

    The big thing that is worse, I think, is economic inequality

    In the US, yes. *World* economic inequality is falling.

  16. Re:youmail on The Slow Death of Voice Mail · · Score: 1

    I don't see anything particularly impolite about the truth: "I saw your number on the voicemail and decided it would be faster to call you back right away instead of listening to it. So what's happening?"

    The *real* problem with not listening to the voicemail is if you get stuck playing phone tag. If there was useful information on that voice mail other than "Call me back" you're not going to learn it from the original caller's voice mail prompt.

  17. Re:Waste of Time on "Star Trek 3" To Be Helmed By "Fast & Furious" Franchise Director Justin Lin · · Score: 2

    No, that's just how Gene sold it to the network: "Wagon Train to the Stars", to quote his concept document. But Gene intended that to be a trojan horse--he wanted to take the chance to also touch on larger issues. "A masterwork of American Literature"? No, not really, although they did have master science-fiction writers do some of their scripts (Theodore Sturgeon on "Amok Time" and "Shore Leave", Harlan Ellison on "The City on the Edge of Forever", Robert Bloch on "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "Catspaw", and "Wolf in the Fold", Norman Spinrad on "The Doomsday Machine") But it also used be more than just non-stop action, too. Not anymore.

  18. Re:what a load of crap on Hotel Group Asks FCC For Permission To Block Some Outside Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    "in order to protect their internal Wi-Fi services."
    I'm soooo sure that's the real reason and it has nothing to do with money.

    Of course it's the real reason, and it has everything to do with money. They want to protect their internal Wi-Fi services from external competition.

  19. Re:LP = low power on Samsung Announces Production of 20nm Mobile LPDDR4, Faster Than Desktop DDR4 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think you will find it means "Long Play", young man.

    So LPDDR4 means Dance Dance Revolution 4 played with a 33 1/3 RPM record, right?

  20. Re:swingers on Argentine Court Rules Orangutan Is a "Non-Human Person" · · Score: 2

    Time for another scopes monkey trial!

    Oh, I don't think that's a good idea. Do you have any idea how hard it is to even *get* monkeys to use mouthwash?

  21. Re:Bar joke on How a Massachusetts Man Invented the Global Ice Market · · Score: 1

    I wasn't aware that Obama was accused of being an illegal alien.

    Good lord, how could you miss all the birthers? Some of them just claim Obama's not a native-born citizen, but some are willing to go all the way to illegal alien. None of which is true, but it hasn't stopped people from claiming it.

  22. Re:Bar joke on How a Massachusetts Man Invented the Global Ice Market · · Score: 1

    Aside from the fact that Obama is neither an illegal alien, a Muslim, or a communist, or a pathological liar (which is not to say he's been 100% truthful--hey, he's a politician) it's very funny indeed.

  23. I can't believe... on How a Massachusetts Man Invented the Global Ice Market · · Score: 2

    there haven't been any Adventure Time jokes yet.

  24. Re:Like many inventions ... on The Magic of Pallets · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Time was, surface vessels got their fuel the same way: all the enlisted plus the ensigns passing sacks of coal.

    In the US Navy, they made a contest of it, too, starboard watch against port watch. If you made the ship list enough (because you filled the coal bunkers on your side so much faster), your side got extra leave.

  25. Re:and under the law any uploading the torrent fel on Anonymous Claims They Will Release "The Interview" Themselves · · Score: 1

    Which is why *nobody* ever does such a thing, right?