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User: SJHillman

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  1. Re:But will we be forced into it? on Opera Releases Its First Chromium-Based Browser · · Score: 1

    Apps for a specific services a little different from operating systems and web browsers, as they tend to be proprietary and the vendor doesn't have to worry about breaking compatibility with third-party products whereas the OS and web browser exist to work almost exclusively with third party content.

  2. Re:But will we be forced into it? on Opera Releases Its First Chromium-Based Browser · · Score: 1

    The current version of Opera asks me if I want to update. Even if the new version changes that, it's unlikely that you won't be able to turn it off.

  3. Re:What is "Opera Next?" on Opera Releases Its First Chromium-Based Browser · · Score: 1

    "Next" just makes me think it's a newfangled cola. "Opera Next, now with real sugar and zero calories!"

  4. Re:What exactly is their business plan? on Opera Releases Its First Chromium-Based Browser · · Score: 4, Informative

    Some people would say the Firefox button is Opera-ish (as the Big O had it first) and Chrome's tabs are Operaish (as the Big O had tabs first). They may have inherited some of the refinements the other browsers made, but it's only fair to point out that those browsers copied the features from Opera to begin with.

  5. Re:But will we be forced into it? on Opera Releases Its First Chromium-Based Browser · · Score: 0

    You can always choose not to upgrade your browser. Saying that you're "forced" into a new version is like saying Windows 7 users are "forced" to get Windows 8. It ain't true, and the current version of Opera likely won't be obsolete for at least a few years as long as you just need a web browser.

  6. Re:So... on Opera Releases Its First Chromium-Based Browser · · Score: 1

    You do realize that most of the UI features are a revamp of what they already had, right? Tabs, speed dial, etc... Opera came up with it first and welcomed Firefox, Chrome, etc years later when they finally caught up.

  7. Re:These are the people that most citizens depend on NYPD Detective Accused of Hiring Email Hackers · · Score: 4, Funny

    Some people claim that there's a woman to blame
    But Jimmy knows it's his own damn fault

  8. Re:Think of the aliens on Violent Galactic Clash May Solve Cosmic Mystery · · Score: 1

    I could see some scenarios in which a species might survive a relatively steep orbital perturbation - IE: an ice planet like some of our system's moons in which they rely more on the heat of a molten core or tidal forces with a neighboring body than their star's radiation. Of course, the above assume the perturbation is *away* from the parent star. Moving towards the parent star would likely just boil away everything needed for life no matter how thick the ice above.

  9. Re:Think of the aliens on Violent Galactic Clash May Solve Cosmic Mystery · · Score: 2

    It wouldn't need to pull us out of orbit by much. It would likely happen veeerrrrry slowly as the star approached. Even then, we're VERY close to the sun, so it would have to come well inside our solar system to have a really significant effect. There's such a huge number of variables involved, I'm not sure you could make a realistic model with modern computers and mathematics.

  10. Re:A camera in every living room on Xbox One: No Always-Online Requirement, But Needs To Phone Home · · Score: 5, Funny

    I imagine this will cause masking tape sales to jump to the levels of hat-grade tin foil.

  11. Re:Exactly Backwards on Australia Makes Asian Language Learning a Priority · · Score: 1

    I live just a couple hundred miles from Quebec and I know only a handful of people that have been there. I only know one person that has ever been to France, and she's originally from Europe. It seems like a waste to make French mandatory. I could see teaching a language that belongs to a significant immigrant population in this area, such as Spanish, Russian or Bosnian (in spite of those countries being much further away than the nearest French speaking places). I think it really boils down to the fact that high schools can hire teachers for foreign languages in low demand much more cheaply... but there's a good reason those languages are in low demand. That's why my poor, rural school only had French and Latin teachers while the larger, wealthier schools in the area had Spanish, Japanese and Chinese.

  12. Re:Bullshit. on House Bill Would Mandate Smart Gun Tech By U.S. Manufacturers · · Score: 1

    I would want it implemented like my laptop's fingerprint reader. Only stored locally or on a machine I control (IE: gun owner's PC) and can be overridden with a password (may require a Bluetooth link to a PC)

  13. Re:My thoughts on the matter on House Bill Would Mandate Smart Gun Tech By U.S. Manufacturers · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It seems to me that police need it more than private citizens, as they spend more time around criminals who are likely to try and grab the gun.

  14. Re:programming is not a prodcution line on Immigration Reform May Spur Software Robotics · · Score: 2

    I had one Verizon Business phone support rep tell me that Verizon doesn't offer VoIP, so there was no way for her to transfer to the VoIP support group (which I had talked to many times before but had lost the number). So I asked her, "Does that mean we can stop paying you $2000/mo for a service you don't offer?". She hung up on me.

  15. Re:Bound to work... on Immigration Reform May Spur Software Robotics · · Score: 2

    That's because Bob in India only needs to understand "Repeat Again". It's the only thing he ever hears.

  16. Re:programming is not a prodcution line on Immigration Reform May Spur Software Robotics · · Score: 4, Funny

    Judging from the summary, they're looking to replace support more than production. I'm pretty sure this isn't a new idea... all you need is a cassette tape playing "Have you tried turning it off and on again" on a loop.

  17. Re:Exactly Backwards on Australia Makes Asian Language Learning a Priority · · Score: 2

    In today's world economy, you could be doing business with a French speaker today, a Spanish speaker tomorrow, a Hindii speaker next week and a Russian speaker the week after. If nothing else, it's pretty impractical to learn every language in the world when English is already fairly standard. Sure, it helps if you're moving into a new market but then you'll probably at least have locals on your team to help smooth things along.

  18. Re:This is rather disconcerting. on Inside the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit · · Score: 1

    You don't actually think Microsoft is going around kicking in doors, do you? They're mostly working as a legal presence or as a team of civilian experts assisting law enforcement and everything goes through a judge.

  19. Re:Exactly Backwards on Australia Makes Asian Language Learning a Priority · · Score: 1

    English is used worldwide when conducting business between two people with otherwise dissimilar language, but Chinese is still mostly limited to conducting business with China. It just seems a lot bigger than it is because China has become an economic powerhouse, but if you have an Arab meeting with a German, and neither speaks the other's native language, then they're still much more likely to use English than Chinese. The British empire spread English to almost every continent and the American-driven world economy kept it there long enough for kids to grow up speaking English as a second (or first) language without having to formally learn it in a classroom.

  20. Re:Exactly Backwards on Australia Makes Asian Language Learning a Priority · · Score: 1

    The same point as why we had French in my high school... there isn't one. Sure, we *might* go to France or Quebec someday, but odds are A) we won't and B) even if we do, we can get by fine without being fluent (assuming a vacation, not a residency). Spanish makes a modicum more sense (in NY... in the southern US, Spanish makes a lot of sense). German works a little because there's a lot of communities with heavy German ties in NY. You can argue that it's to expose kids to other cultures, but then why spend such a disproportionately large amount of time on just the language, and why limit kids to one culture (IE: three years of French rather than a semester each of a different culture)?

  21. Re:The Thagomizer on Narrowing Down When Humans Began Hurling Spears · · Score: 1

    Yes, I've tried it, along with a number of other people - most of who didn't succeed in getting the spear to even stick at any sort of range. Were you throwing an honest to god spear, or just a stick? A spear is large enough and heavy enough you have to take into account the flex of the wood and the weight pulling it down as it travels. It's damned hard to get any sort of accuracy beyond the first ten yards or so and still get it to stick into the target. Throwing rocks is much simpler, almost instinctive in how it works. Spears require a better understanding of ballistics and it's much more important where and how you release.

  22. Re:The Thagomizer on Narrowing Down When Humans Began Hurling Spears · · Score: 1

    Most animals that wouldn't charge *at* you would run the hell away *from* you. Unless you can get it surrounded, which is harder than it looks when you're talking small groups of hunter-gathers taking on animals that could trample them, you need to get in the first few strikes quickly. Even in the modern era of high powered rifles, plenty of deer still escape hunters in spite of being wounded to the point of dying in minutes... it can be hard to track an animal over certain terrain.

  23. Re:The Thagomizer on Narrowing Down When Humans Began Hurling Spears · · Score: 1

    It's all a matter of speed vs weight. Spears are big and heavy, but slow and cumbersome. However, you only need one spear to do a relatively massive amount of damage. Arrows have a lot less mass, but a bow allows you to propel them at great speeds from a greater range. But to be lethal to a large animal, it's going to take a lot more arrows than spears, giving spears a BIG advantage if you have the element of surprise and can get the first strike in before things start moving fast. Flechettes, like you mention from blowguns, are usually poison-tipped to make them effective... without the poison, flechettes from a blowgun are little more than a nuisance to anything bigger than a small dog (unless fired from a shotgun, which is great way to take down someone wearing kevlar).

  24. Re:The Thagomizer on Narrowing Down When Humans Began Hurling Spears · · Score: 2

    Oh, and there's also the fact that once you throw the spear, you're unarmed if you miss and the thing charges.

  25. Re:The Thagomizer on Narrowing Down When Humans Began Hurling Spears · · Score: 3, Informative

    Throwing a spear takes some practice to be at all effective with it, especially at any sort of range when facing something that could either escape and make you starve, or kill you so you'd never have to worry about starving again. It's not like a rock where you can get reasonable aim with a few practice throws, especially a spear large enough to take down big game using a stone or flint tip.