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User: maxume

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Comments · 15,806

  1. Re:If a used bookstore can sell used books... on Publishers Want a Slice of Used Game Market · · Score: 1

    It also uses less paper. I can't say I care much, there are too many unread books to worry much about rereading a book multiple times.

  2. Re:Still not available on Hulu May Begin Charging For Video Content · · Score: 1

    I guess I should have said: "You really think the shopping channels increase your cable bill? Really?"

  3. Re:Most records are worthless anyway on Hospital Turns Away Ambulances When Computers Go Down · · Score: 1

    How do you think that level will be doing?

    As fast as stuff a lot of stuff gets obsolete, I'm not terribly disappointed that it isn't built to last. For stuff that won't go obsolete, I am often frustrated by the quality that is available. I don't think things are too far away from where we start building 'artifacts'; Casio makes some solar powered watches that are very durable. I'm sure they aren't to the point where they will last 100 years, but they are the sort of product that only improves over time.

  4. Re:Still not available on Hulu May Begin Charging For Video Content · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You really think you are paying for the shopping channels? Really?

    Really?!

  5. Re:Apple cannot block and it's not illegal on Palm Pre "iTunes Hack" Detailed By DVD Jon · · Score: 3, Funny

    I take it you thought the virus in Independence Day was awesome?

  6. Re:Ummm... on $10M For Unmanned Aircraft That Can Perch Like a Bird · · Score: 1

    That don't mean I gotta learn me any.

  7. Re:Well now that they know... on $10M For Unmanned Aircraft That Can Perch Like a Bird · · Score: 1

    If your opponent has any organization and communication, any at all, keeping it under wraps only matters until they notice the first one.

  8. Re:I wonder... on Arrington's Web Tablet Nearly Ready For Launch? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If they keep their goal (promise?) to open up the hardware and Android makes more sense, it will happen pretty quickly.

  9. Re:War robots 2 on $10M For Unmanned Aircraft That Can Perch Like a Bird · · Score: 1

    Once I have my military robot, obtaining nuclear grade material will be quite a bit easier.

  10. Re:Ummm... on $10M For Unmanned Aircraft That Can Perch Like a Bird · · Score: 1

    The best glib answer is when they changed the "Department of War" to the "Department of Defense".

  11. Re:Credit card companies need to wise up on Cybercriminals Refine ATM Data-Sniffing Software · · Score: 1

    Nearly the entire Western world is mostly built on trust. Blindly assuming people are honest leads to more trust than constant paranoia.

    I guess with the speed of electronic transactions it is a little crazy, but most people have never had an issue with it, so things don't change.

  12. Re:Welcome to the paperless office on Hospital Turns Away Ambulances When Computers Go Down · · Score: 1

    I've had 3 or 4 dental cleanings in the last 3 years. That's the sum of my medical care. All of it.

    McCain isn't a healthy person. He might be a relatively healthy old man, but not person in general.

  13. Re:Most records are worthless anyway on Hospital Turns Away Ambulances When Computers Go Down · · Score: 2, Informative

    There would be a Hoover dam (or Three Gorges dam), or a Chernobyl, or something, out there.

    If you think geologists, biologists and anthropologists have got it completely wrong I guess there is some chance that it all washed away. Absent that, 200,000 years isn't all that long a period of time.

  14. Re:How it works on Google Labs Offers Table-Based Search Results · · Score: 1

    Isn't that semantic analysis? I mean, if your point is that it isn't very sophisticated, then sure, no one is likely to argue with that, but it seems to me that just using a dictionary and 'associating' a word with the words used to define it would still be semantic analysis.

  15. Re:How much... on Device Reads Messages From Surface of the Brain · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nah, there will always be some group of rubes that values authentic experiences over the manufactured.

    Of course, by rubes, I don't really mean rubes.

  16. Re:Killer App on Device Reads Messages From Surface of the Brain · · Score: 2

    I'm pretty sure people are working on cursors that follow your eyes, but the crazy bastards I heard about were just using cameras pointed at the eyes.

  17. Re:Maybe keep the landline? on You've Dropped Your Landline — Now What? · · Score: 1

    If the cellular network is swamped by an emergency, so is 911, so you damn well better have the most emergent emergency in town for it to matter.

  18. Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl on You've Dropped Your Landline — Now What? · · Score: 5, Informative

    In my state in the U.S., there is a box on the outside wall of the house. The copper on the house side of that box belongs to the customer. I don't know what the laws are in other states, but I think they are similar.

  19. Re:Like Facebook in Iran During Elections on Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, Others Blocked In China · · Score: 1

    What? I wasn't trying to attack China, sorry you took it that way.

    Anyway, 25% having access certainly doesn't do much to establish that most Chinese people have access to a computer (unless you use a highly entertaining definition of 'most'). I imagine that the numbers have increased markedly since my links were published, but I still don't find it unreasonable to assume that more than 50% of Chinese people have limited access to a computer and that an even greater percentage have not bothered to use one, even if they do have (potential) access.

  20. Re:Adaptation - Evolution on City Slicker Birds Shun Their Country Cousins · · Score: 1

    Yeah, because up until now, we hadn't done a damn thing.

  21. Re:Computers can't model macroeconomics on Hydraulic Analog Computer From 1949 · · Score: 1

    "The U.S. government pays its debts" is a model. I wonder if it will stay accurate.

  22. Re:TFA Is slashdotted on Dinosaur Posture Still Wrong, Says Study · · Score: 1

    Forgive me for responding based on reality, rather than nonsense.

    Anyway, even in the nonsense-verse, the pressure required to pump blood up 15 feet is quite likely to exceed the difference in atmospheric pressure over those 15 feet (the important part here is that only the delta can help push the blood up, the air at the top is pushing down...); animals don't maintain a vacuum in their brains and diffuse oxygen up a column of liquid, so a barometer is pretty much a useless analogy.

    In our present day atmosphere, 15 feet of altitude provides a pressure difference of less than 1 mmHG (and that is starting at sea level, start higher and you will get less of a drop), about 1% of the pressure required to circulate blood through our puny human bodies. I used this widget to make that calculation:

    http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Kinetic/barfor.html

    That's using 760 mmHg as ground pressure, 30 degC as a temperature (using a lower temperature doesn't change it much), and 15 feet as an altitude.

    I'm pretty sure the formula is an approximation, so just plugging in huge numbers won't be real accurate, but plugging in a pressure of 282,000 mmHg (that's 370 atmospheres) does give 150mmHg of difference, enough to have a real impact, even for a huge creature. A 15 foot neck means that the blood pressure needs to be able to push, roughly, a 15 foot column of water, which is equivalent to about 350 mmHg. So an ultra-thick (probably to the point of absurdity) atmosphere could certainly help, but that is all it is going to do, the creatures are still going to face an interesting problem.

  23. Re:Related, in a way on Open Government Brainstorm Defies Wisdom of Crowds · · Score: 1

    I might try to prove it, but first, you have to define exactly what constitutes sufficient proof. Also, you have to make some sort of convincing argument that there is a victim.

  24. Re:Related, in a way on Open Government Brainstorm Defies Wisdom of Crowds · · Score: 1

    Of course I can't prove it. I can do things like point to countries like Portugal where legalization has worked out well, but there are all sorts of differences between Portugal and the United States, so it is easy to quibble with that argument (and any argument of that style).

    Your examples aren't really second order laws, there is no victim when someone possesses and uses a small amount of marijuana in their own home, but there are direct victims of discrimination and statutory rape (and thus the law protects victims of a crime rather than punishing someone because they fit into a class that is deemed more likely to commit a crime).

    Driving under the influence of marijuana is more difficult to address because of the difficulty in assessing the actual level of impairment, but I don't think it would be comparable in scope to the current situation with alcohol, so it doesn't trouble me much (I would be comfortable treating it, in a legal sense, similarly to alcohol related driving laws).

    I honestly don't care if anyone gets to use marijuana or not, I'm just opposed to devoting a significant societal apparatus to (rather unsuccessfully) preventing it.

  25. Re:Hey, wait a minute... on Open Government Brainstorm Defies Wisdom of Crowds · · Score: 1

    What does "the investment class" mean?