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User: Moofie

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Comments · 10,750

  1. Re:No DVD? on Nintendo GameCube Preview · · Score: 1

    Huh? This makes zero sense. They're going to the extra expense and bother of developing yet another optical disc format, and we're supposed to thank them for giving us a "choice"? Where's the logic here?

  2. Re:Reality on What Do You Think Of The Delux DVD? · · Score: 2

    I don't anticipate being able to afford an HDTV in the next five years, so buying a $150 DVD player now and then another $150 DVD player (which supports HDTV) when HDTV actually happens makes more sense than buying a $400 DVD player with sexy features I can't use.

    Not saying you're wrong, just another perspective...

  3. Growing incredulously... on Phone Numbers Instead of URLs? · · Score: 1

    "We expect that figure to grow incredulously over the next few months," Nacomms general manager Siobhan Dooley told ZDNet.

    Silly Aussie. It's really too bad somebody with a great name like "Siobhan" said something so bizarre and stupid.

    Incredulous:
    Skeptical; disbelieving: incredulous of stories about flying saucers.
    Expressive of disbelief: an incredulous stare.

    So the figure is going to grow in such a manner that it can't believe itself. Wow. English is fun.

  4. Re:Numbers? on Phone Numbers Instead of URLs? · · Score: 2

    But phone numbers ARE a bad system. Here in Dallas, TX, we've got a stack of area codes. These area codes have changed at least twice in the last 20 years. Looking at a telephone number with the 817 area code (mostly Ft. Worth and the mid-cities, including Arlington where I go to school) it's impossible to tell ahead of time whether or not I'm supposed to dial a 1 at the beginning. (Note that if I dial a 1, it costs more to complete the call across town than to California, but that's a different rant...)

    Yes, this is do-able, but it's not elegant, and it's not simple. I, for one, HATE that horrible tri-tone thing that you get when you misdial a number, particularly because I'm usually using a headset on my phones.

    If phone numbers were such a great system, why do we need a phone book? A computer provides a much richer user interface that a 12-key telephone. Why not use it? And people who are uncomfortable with computers aren't suddenly going to warm up to them because they can type in a telephone number.

    URLs aren't perfect, but they're a damn sight better than phone numbers. Any user who can't operate Yahoo or Google is unlikely to want to use the computer for much of anything anyhow.

  5. Re:Helping.org = AOL on Geek Charities? · · Score: 1

    AOL owns everything. Didn't you get the memo?

    And, if they're doing good (which they do, occasionally) they should be supported in doing those good things. It's called positive behavior modification. Not that it WORKS or anything, but it's good in principle. Think about it. If you've got a huge vicious dog and you beat it whenever it does ANYTHING, bad OR good, you're certainly not going to make it less vicious. It might tear your arm off, though, and that'd wreck your whole afternoon.

  6. Re:Hardware vs. clever algorithms vs. refined hack on Honda Creates Walking Robot · · Score: 1

    Put your money where your mouth is. What is it you know?

    Or don't...and know that all you're doing is wanking on Slashdot...

  7. Re:Military Bipedals on Sony Releases Walking Humanoid Robot · · Score: 1

    What constitutes a robot weapon? Arguably, most missiles nowadays are robot weapons.

    If I were designing a killer robot, I wouldn't jack around with something human shaped. I'd do something a lot smaller, faster, and cheaper...like something the size of an RC car equipped with small grenades or a small caliber firearm.

    Incidentally, it does not "beg the question". Begging the question is a debate snafu in which you invoke a circular argument to prove your point.

  8. Re:wow on Sony Releases Walking Humanoid Robot · · Score: 1

    Bet all the Sony execs are going to cry themselves to sleep now.

  9. Re:Remember, IE was once optional too. on Whistler MAY Refuse To Run All Unsigned Code UPDATED · · Score: 1

    Yeah...so optional you have to buy a program to get rid of it...

    (Yes, I know there's a free (beer) version, but still...)

  10. Re:Hardware vs. clever algorithms vs. refined hack on Honda Creates Walking Robot · · Score: 1

    I defy you to find any other bipedal robot that can navigate stairs. You imply that Honda is making a big secret of the fact that the gait is programmed specifically for one set of stair dimensions...guess you didn't see this web page

    http://www.honda-p3.com/english/html/frameset2.h tml and click on Capabilities

    that points out that specific fact, in eengrish even.

    The Honda bipedal robots are the most sophisticated on the planet. You might not look so foolish dogging on them when you come up with something better.

  11. Re:We need a mirror! on Smart Flying Robots · · Score: 1

    That's a funny notion. Why is RF so inferior to wires for moving information around? To me, robots are autonomous devices designed to perform certain tasks. Defining whether something is or is not a robot by where it keeps its brain seems to me to be about as logical as making technology workers drive to an "office" to do their "jobs".

    (that's to say, it's silly.)

  12. Re:Notice to Americans on Slashback: Aircraft, Dreams, Returns · · Score: 1

    : ) Truth is you limeys make some good brew. A pint of Guinness would be ambrosia right now, so long as it's not lukewarm...

  13. Re:Notice to Americans on Slashback: Aircraft, Dreams, Returns · · Score: 2

    9. Lucas electrical systems. While we're on the subject, the only reason you tossers in England like warm beer is because Lucas makes all your refrigerators.

  14. Re:Spring PCS on What's The Best Cell Phone Calling Plan? · · Score: 1

    Umm....America is bigger than all of Europe, and we started doing mobile a very long time ago. Do YOU want to pay to replace all those towers?

  15. Re:Error in article on IBM Ships First 22" 200dpi Displays · · Score: 1

    a) Well, that's because the article was written by marketing people whose job it is to make things sound good to the drones.

    b) but there aren't, so it is.

  16. Re:Ha ha ha.... on Cantametrix Plans To Track All MP3s On The Web · · Score: 1

    It amuses me that DNA no longer stands for "deoxyribunucleic acid", and simply means "unique identifier".

    Stupid humans.

  17. Re:Ha ha ha.... on Cantametrix Plans To Track All MP3s On The Web · · Score: 1

    Anti-circumnavigation? Wow. Guess the US Navy is in deep kimchee now.

  18. Re:Well... on At Long Last, Election Day · · Score: 1

    As far as the oil issue goes, I guarantee Europe would be a lot more over the barrel (pun intended) than the US would. The US has enormous oil fields in Texas and Alaska, to name but two. Currently, it's more efficient to harvest from the middle east, with well-established drilling technology to get the easy pickin's under the desert. The Alaskan fields are particularly tricky. Don't think for a second that they wouldn't be exploited if the Middle East became unfriendly.

    Like it or not, America is the biggest kid on the block. America has been much more, well, neighborly than a lot of countries that have had that distinction in the past.

    Wise Americans do care about what goes on in the world...but not enough to let the world vote in our elections. We'll fuck that up all by ourselves, thank you.

  19. Re:Not nice finance... on Is The PS2 Your Next DVD Player? · · Score: 1

    Let me try out a little syllogism on you.

    DVD players play DVD's.
    Playstation 2's play DVD's.

    Playstation 2 is a DVD player. Decent DVD player+excellent console=$300 well spent.

    The remote control problem will sort itself out presently.

    Also note that Sony didn't write the article. Sony says that the PS2 plays DVD's (which it does) and that this is a useful feature (which it is). It's not like they're promising that it will "Give you good feeling" like Chinpoko-mon. (If you haven't seen that episode of South Park, you're really missing out).

    Of course if I have to wait till the end of the 21st century for augmented reality and neural interfaces like the PS9, I'm going to be bent.

  20. Re:Getting creative with stock cases... on Do It Yourself Cool Cases · · Score: 1

    I've always wanted to paint my PowerMac 6100 case like a box of Crayola crayons. 16.7 million different brilliant colors, baby!

  21. Re:Uhhhhh, Beavis? on Sub-Orbital Skydiving · · Score: 1

    OK, hold on tight, I'm going to explain the joke to you.

    The poster was imagining that she would be travelling supersonically through the soil on impact. You know, kinda like Neo in the jump sequence in The Matrix, or like Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff. The poster wasn't saying that this would actually happen, just that it's a funny image to contemplate.

    See?

  22. Re:Do it right! on Sub-Orbital Skydiving · · Score: 1

    No, doing something spectacularly inadvisable and fatal is funny. Just dying has no humor value at all.

    Reminds me of my favourite redneck joke.

    What's the last thing a redneck says before he dies?

    "Hey y'all! Watch this!"

    Human misery always has been, and always will be, the stuff humor is made of.

  23. Re:Do it right! on Sub-Orbital Skydiving · · Score: 1

    Problem is that speed of sound in solid objects is REALLY high.

    OK OK, I know it was a joke....

  24. Re:Mach 1.5? on Sub-Orbital Skydiving · · Score: 1

    The tricky bit is if you have parts of your airplane sticking out through the shock wave. That's why most supersonic aircraft have distinctive wedge-shaped planforms. If you stay out of the way of the shockwave (which forms in a cone around the nose of your aircraft) you're all good.

    As an aside, the reason the space shuttle's (and most ICBM's) nosecone is blunt is to detach the shock wave from the front of the airframe. This vastly increases the pressure drag on the airframe, and also drastically decreases the thermal heating of the aircraft. That's why the shuttle doesn't burn up, but the X-15 had significant heat damage after its very high speed (Mach 7-8 if I remember correctly) test flights.

  25. Re:Pressure suit? Reentry heat tiles? on Sub-Orbital Skydiving · · Score: 1

    Geostationary is about five earth radii out, if I remember correctly. You would in fact need just about all the fuel it took to get you into orbit to stop in space.