User: rossdee

Fastest computer on Earth?

On: Japan's 8-petaflop K Computer Is Fastest On Earth

So there are faster computers on some other planet somewhere?

I might think about ordering one of those instead, except shipping cost (and time ) would be a problem, and my credit card would expire before they got the order (the speed of light is a bitch)

But

On: Military Drone Attacks Are Not 'Hostile'

You all cheered when Seal Team 6 took out Bin Laden - How is using an armed predator different?

Commodore PET, TRS80 and others

On: IBM Did Not Invent the Personal Computer

"The Apple II was plastic, toylike and very expensive for what you got. (You might as well have bought a TRS-80 and saved yourself a good chunk of change.)"

The original TRS80 was only black and white - the Apple ][ had color

Actually I had an Apple ][+ as my 3rd computer - The first was a TRS80
and the second was a Compucolor II it had 8 colors, 128x 128 pixel graphics, 32 KB ram and a 117 key keyboard. Unfortunately it had hardly any software.

But the Apple ][ was the first expandable computer, with card slots and a top that was easily detached. The 3rd party manufacturers that started with Apple products went on to the IBM PC and helped enable the PC industry. BTW the BASIC in the Apple ][+ was written by Microsoft.

And Visicalc was the first spreadsheet

I didn't buy a PC compatable machine until 1994 - 15 years after I bought my first computer.

But I thought

On: No, We're Not Headed For a New Ice Age

That global warming (increased CO2 in the atmosphere greenhouse effect) could cause a new ice age. The melting of greenland and other arctic ice could upset the salinity of the north atlantic current and if that current stopped northern europe would freeze.

Re:Something lost in translation there

On: Japan Criminalizes Virus Creation

Maybe they mean its the people, not the number that is picked at random.

They want to ban "Creation" of hacking tools

On: EU Ministers Seek To Ban Creation of Hacking Tools

So would evolution be ok then?

(Since most coding of such programs is more of an evolutionary thing than created in 6 days and then stays the same for over 6015 years

This?

On: Is This the Golden Age of Hacking?

"Is This the Golden Age of Hacking?"

This what?

This century?
This decade?

How long is an 'Age'

A 13yr old kid

On: Mexican Cartels Build Mad Max Narco Tanks

could take it out with an RPG

TOW or Javelin would be overkill,And Predator with Hellfire would be expensive.

I doubt that

On: Australian-Built Hoverbike Prepares For Takeoff

Progressive would insure that ride...

The first problem in making a Lightsabre

On: The Science of Lightsabers

Is getting enough energy in a handheld device.to power it for more than a microsecond.

(Dr Kaku's explantion for that was "nano-batteries" )

Is this a poll

On: Google Asks 'Who Cares Where Your Data Is?'

/me raises hand

But it is nice that Who cares, even if I thought David Tennant was a better Doctor.

Balance the (energy) budget

On: Could the US Phase Out Nuclear Power?

The energy has to come from somewhere, unless we cut down the demand, we can't reduce production.

So we could easily phase out nuclear power plants if we also phase out air conditioning.. we would just sweat a lot more.

I don't buy ebooks from Amazon

On: Stallman: eBooks Are Attacking Our Freedoms

I buy ebooks from www.webscription.net no DRM, and a number of different formats. including HTML

Re:Text of the Doomsday book is still copyrighted

On: Supreme Court Takes Up Scholars' Rights

Its the Domesday book, (the spelling was different back then I guess)

Name sux

On: Mozilla Labs Introduces the Webian Shell

Webian? Is that pronounced Web ee Ann or Weeb ee Ann ?

(Mind you I never did find out how to pronounce Debian I just thought it had a long e since there was only one cosonant between the vowels)

And in other news

On: Cheap GPUs Rendering Strong Passwords Useless

3m are going to introduce a larger post-it-note

Re:Unless

On: France Bans Facebook and Twitter From Radio and TV

"If it weren't for France there wouldn't be an America."

Don't you mean Spain? IIRC it was the Spanish that 'Discovered' America and gave it that name.
(Of course the Vikings were here nearly 500 years before, and the Indians were here for 10,000 years before anybody else.

Re:Scandinavia!?

On: Rare Midnight Solar Eclipse Caught In the Arctic

Scandinavia is an area in the northwest part of Europe. The countries therein include Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Iceland is also considered part of Scandinavia as the people living there came from Scandinavia. Theres quite a few here (west Central MN) too.

Meanwhile

On: Harnessing the Energy of Galloping Gertie

Wind turbines can extract energy from the wind at a wide range of speeds, not just when it blows at a particular speed and direction.

Thank you for the reminder

On: The Future of OpenOffice.org

To install the latest version of LibreOffice (3.40 final)

International Rescue

On: Beta For Thunderbird 5.0 Released

Whatever happened to Thunderbird 4 ? I always wanted an email client that worked underwater...

Hmmmm

On: Largest DNA-Based Computational Circuit Created

What is a blue whale?

Quantum Errors

On: Simulations Show Quantum Error Not As Bad As Believed

I had a Quantum hard drive fail about 2 months after the warranty expired. Fortunately you could still READ the data on it, you just couldn't write to it.
This was in the days of SCSI hard drives and Amiga computers.

WHO also says

On: World Health Organization Says Mobile Phones May Cause Cancer

That Daleks and Sonic Screwdrivers may cause cancer

on a world with no moon

On: No Moon Needed For Extraterrestrial Life

Intelligent life may evolve differently, for example the dominant lifeform might be 3 legged with 2 heads and its brain in its belly.