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User: b0bby

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  1. Re:Drug Parallel on Defeating China's National Firewall · · Score: 1

    What, then, would you consider a "forced" tax, since you have apparently chosen to define all taxes and regulations as "voluntary"?
    Off the top of my head, there was the poll tax, a per head tax levied by the Thatcher government in the UK. Property taxes, which are ongoing after the tax on the actual purchase, would also presumably fit.

  2. Re:No, no it wasn't on Interstate Highway System: 50th Anniversary · · Score: 1

    What's appropriate is to use a rail system for commuting from suburbia to the city centre twice daily, or to carry a million tonnes of coal from Texas to New York City (or whereever). And you use the car when you want to go camping.

    While I agree that in theory commuter rail is the way to go, there are a couple of problems here: first, much commuting in the US these days is not to the city center but from suburb to suburb, much harder to link efficiently. Second, and I think very important, if you have the car to be able "to go camping", there's a powerful incentive to use it. Your purchase, insurance & maintenance costs are sunk, so your marginal costs (basically fuel) are what public transport have to compete against. As soon as people have a car, it's usually cheaper to use it than an alternative, as well as convenient, comfortable, etc. Moving coal etc already happens by rail here, it's passenger rail that is hard to make work.

  3. Re:No different than Dell/McAfee on AOL Tries New Tactic to Keep Customers · · Score: 1

    I second this, NOD32 is what I run at work, it's not annoying to the admin and has a good success rate. Doesn't bog things down, just sits quietly & does its thing.

  4. Re:I fail to see how that was the robot's fault on The Question of Robot Safety · · Score: 1

    A friend of mine met a guy in a motorcycle shop with the tops of a couple of fingers missing. Turned out that he had been trying to see the marks on a flywheel to set the timing (older BMW twin) and had stuck a finger in through the little inspection hole to try to clean the moving flywheel. The other finger? He had later done it AGAIN!

  5. Re:One word solution on Microsoft Stops Supporting Win98 Early · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that's the way to go. I have a W95 box that I keep around for all the Netware utilities that I have on it & rarely use. I copied it over to VMWare on my main workstation & now it boots faster than it did before, is easily backed up, and the box it was on can be reused or given away. It's really the way forward.

  6. Re:OK, a serious question on A Look at FreeNAS Server · · Score: 1

    And while we're wishing, why hasn't anyone made a little hylafax box? I would think that a little fax server that emails you a pdf would be a great device, and if you incorporated a print server you could have it print the faxes as well. Yet no one seems to have such a beast.

  7. Re:OS X vs. Linux (green grass vs. freedom) on New Enterprise-Level Ubuntu Due This Week · · Score: 1

    Depending on what you're doing with your images, you might also check out Imagemagick. It's command-line, and I use it in a script to generate html pages with resized images. It can extract exif data, and I've considered using it but haven't quite got around to it. Anyway, it's a cool program & makes batch resizing etc. of directories full of photos a piece of cake. Pretty much any image manipulation you'd want to do, it can do.

  8. Re:Freedom where art thou? on First Photos of MIT $100 Laptop · · Score: 1

    I know you're really trolling, but http://charitynavigator.org/ is what I use for picking the best "bang for your buck" organizations. You can easily compare groups & see who has the lowest overhead costs etc.

  9. Re:Why free? A good AV doesn't cost that much on Best of the Free Anti-virus Choices? · · Score: 1

    I really don't see why anyone with a clue needs to have an antivirus program running all the time. I haven't used one for 5+ years at least, if you're behind a firewall & aren't opening crazy attachments in email or browsing warez sites in IE you should be fine. Once a year or so I'll go "hmmm, wonder if I should do a virus check", run one of the online checkers, and then I'm happy for another year. My main home machine runs W2K & is on all the time, never has any spyware or viruses.

  10. Re:funny on Apache Now the Leader in SSL Servers? · · Score: 1

    I have found W2K server to be just as reliable as my Linux boxes. I do apply security patches & reboot on the weekend every month or so, but that doesn't affect our business and really I don't need to apply them all. Our current file server has been great for 4 years now running W2K server. My intranet server has been great for 4 years running Linux. I like them both.

  11. Re:Would need a lot of work on New MythTV Based PVR Available · · Score: 1

    For $5/month, I can't see changing my DirectTivo. I don't watch much TV, so even though I have a pc hooked up in the living room, buying a tv card & installing Myth seems like too much effort. I just slapped a larger drive in the DirectTivo & it does everything I want. It's funny, my kids aren't going to remember a time where tv couldn't be paused!

  12. Re:BMW C-1 on Low Emission Cars Continue to Gain Popularity · · Score: 1

    The most dangerous time for riding bikes is your first year. If you make it through that first year, and keep riding, you'll generally have learned that you're invisible. I don't even get upset, really, when someone pulls out on me - I assume it will happen, and I'm pleasantly surprised when it doesn't. I watch the drivers around me; if one of their heads twitch, I brake, then they pull into my lane a decent percent of the time. I've been riding 20+ years, so most of these types of reactions have long since been internalised. It won't save you from the person who rear ends you at a light, but if you ride defensively you can be reasonably safe. The trick is getting to the point where you're a safe rider without getting creamed...

  13. Re:Bust Buy creates business for others on Best Buy 'Geek Squad' Accused of Pirating Software · · Score: 1

    I agree - at this point when I'm helping someone clean all the spyware off their machine, if Spybot & Adaware don't fix it I'll back up their data & reinstall. I don't have time to go digging through the registry for every piece of crap that could be hidden there. Really I do all I can to discourage them from bringing me their machine in the first place, but I'm just too nice ;o)

  14. Re:You "child porn"-arguing people miss the point on New "Dark" Freenet Available for Testing · · Score: 1

    Certain people are going to do unsavory things to children regardless of whether or not they have an audience.
    It's my understanding that while this is true, there are also people who "swap" abusive pictures/videos; that is to say, people who, in return for abusive images, will abuse their own children and provide the images to others. It is this sort of transaction which the internet has made much easier, and it really does have an effect on real children. I'm not saying that freenet (or the internet) should be shut down because of this, but you should be aware that it is a real effect which leads to more abuse than would otherwise occur.

  15. Re:feh on More Music File-Sharing Lawsuits in Europe · · Score: 2, Informative

    Also FTBlurb:
    The New York Times is reporting that 20,000 cases in 10 countries were brought against file-sharers in Europe

    FTA:
    About 2,000 cases were launched in 10 countries

    WTF? This summary is particularly out to lunch.

  16. Re:1 Gb is good enough for me... on Why Sony Should've Put Its Weight Behind Hi-MD · · Score: 1

    I had a Rio & some cheap no name player; they both were pretty crappy and died on me in less than a year. I now have a Nano, and it's really a lot nicer than either of the others were. It's small, looks cool, and is easy to use. I don't care about the iTunes store etc, & I'd be perfectly happy copying my songs manually to the drive, but the device itself is really nice & as long as it lasts for a decent amount of time I'm a happy camper.

  17. Re:what about those of us who are hard-of-hearing? on iPod Update to Address Volume-Level Concerns · · Score: 1

    I think I'm a pretty decent parent, involved and into letting my kids make their own mistakes. One of my kids has a mild sensory disorder, which has the effect of making her crave an excess of some forms of sensory stimulation (and, paradoxically, makes her very sensitive to others). She has a tendency to want the volume too loud on any device she has access to, and I would certainly make use of a volume cap on an ipod if she ever gets one. The fact that she needs more external stimulation than other kids in order for her brain to react to the stimulation doesn't mean that her hearing would not be affected by the excessive volume, and as a parent I will do what I can to prevent this. YMMV.

  18. Re:Sad on OpenBSD Project in Financial Danger · · Score: 1

    I don't have authority to make donations for my company, but I can and do buy the CD sets to support projects like this. Companies may not want to contribute, but individuals within companies may find ways to...

  19. Re:Logs? on PA Seizes Newspaper's Computers · · Score: 1

    For that I'd think a NAS would be overkill, you could just fit it all on an encrypted USB flash drive.

  20. As a MD voter... on Maryland Votes To Ban Diebold Voting Machines · · Score: 2

    As a MD voter I have to say, great. I've used the Diebold machines and they are easy to use and helpful for complicated ballots and those who need other languages; I just don't trust that their results can't be manipulated in an undetectable fashion. I really wanted to see a paper trail and now it looks like Diebold will be forced to provide one. You really need to be able to trust your voting system, and having actual paper ballots outside the black box restores that level of trust. If that costs an extra $16 million, so be it.

  21. Re:Well on Apple Announces Wonderful Toys · · Score: 1

    So, can frontrow not be configured to play divx/xvid movies? I'd like to replace my TY PC with a mini, but only if it can easily play all I want it to.

  22. Re:How about... on Linux vs. Windows for Schools? · · Score: 1

    I've been playing a little with Edubuntu, and while it's a great project most of the educational apps that I've looked at need a fair amount of work. I'm trying to go through them and help where I can, but I don't think it's ready for me to put it into my kids' room yet, let alone a school. My kids are quite young, so I haven't looked at the more advanced apps yet. Of course, all the basics stuff like Open Office is there, and that may be all that's needed.

  23. They are quick... on A Look Inside Newegg · · Score: 1

    The last hard drive I got from them had a date of manufacture only a week and a half before I got it! I was pretty impressed. From China, to their warehouse, to me (East Coast) in 10 days is pretty darn good.

  24. Re:Not news to us, unfortunately... on The Secret Cause of Flame Wars · · Score: 2

    I worked in a store where one of the girls would end her phone conversations by saying "fuck you very much for calling" - she never got called on it and did it for years.

  25. Re:The worst science journalism ever. on Children Help Their Mothers for Decades · · Score: 1

    I think that's just a quick blurb by the journalist who made the radio story, it's not supposed to be the article itself. You'd have to listen to the story to hear his actual reporting.