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User: samjam

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  1. bash? or dash? on Linux Mint Will Adopt Gnome 3 · · Score: 2

    better to "bash" linux that to "dash" linux or "sh" linux, or worse: "ash" linux

  2. Special offer on Soon, No More Film Movie Cameras · · Score: 0

    1 buggy whip free with ever film camera sold

  3. Re:And no patents on Dennis Ritchie, Creator of C Programming Language, Passed Away · · Score: 1

    nicely put.

    And that's partly why we celebrate him even if someone else could/would have done it.

    He did it and he did it well (capra style).
    And we have enough gratitude to thank whoever it was that did it.

  4. Re:Astrolabe, Inc. v. Olson et al on Civil Suit Filed, Involving the Time Zone Database · · Score: 1

    If you can make such a black box then the CIA would be very interested...

  5. At last on Dan Shechtman Wins Chemistry Nobel For Quasicrystals · · Score: 1

    At last - crystals worthy of stargate! http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Control_crystal

  6. Re:oven on Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Destroy Hard Drives? · · Score: 1

    While the probability is low, the penalty is proportionately higher; the consequential risk may be identical.

    How will you explain the presence of your disk in the coffin of a murder victim? And how will you feel about the subsequent scrutiny of everything on the disk, and the various and widespread interrogation of everyone referenced on the disk.

  7. Re:Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 1

    No-one wants your dollars, it's just paper money, they want what dollars will buy - things in america.

    People change money because someone else wants the dollars to buy things from america.

    Wealthy people creating jobs IS a myth,

    Dollars do get re-circulated, what's the point of being rich otherwise? The rich spend and lend their money, during which time it is being recirculated.

  8. Re:escape velocity on Neil Armstrong To NASA: You're Embarrassing · · Score: 1

    I think you accidentally responded to me then, and I wasn't advocating any new tech

  9. Re:Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 1

    Nope, I was only answering the other guys comment.
    Living in a democratic republic, maybe you can get your state government to give a decent breakdown of what they want your taxes for... but basically they've effectively just said "less on education but more tax overall" so you can probably work that bit out.

  10. Re:Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 1

    Good job you live in a democratic republic then... I realise what I'm saying but it looks like this is what we get when we have so much government intervention. We have the same problem where I live

  11. Re:Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 2

    Not really... the money spent abroad instead of locally only has ultimate value if it is spent back into the US. A Dollar has no other use in any other context.

    Dollars spent abroad come back to pay for US exports and is thus good the the US economy and re-enters the local economy at that point.

    One of the biggest recipients of dollars is China, who buy US bonds with them. Be glad they are not buying up all the US land with it!

    You think they Chinese want to sit on piles of paper dollars? They spend them! In the only place they can!

  12. Re:Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 1

    When my sister was in college she SAVED enough to also go to Japan while the other students mostly ended up in debt.

    The biggest problem is waste of resource, and those who waste them could always do with some more resources to waste.

  13. Re:Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 1

    The whining is that somebody else should change to make it better.

    We get the same whining in the UK about government cuts; the folk whining don't seem to realise that no-one has any money to pay for the spending which is why the cuts are coming.

    This is just more of the same.

    It is a symptom of misunderstanding the problem and those who participate in it: "afford to compete with offshore labour" is only relevant to those who are trying to help folks to compete with offshore labour - i.e. the folks themselves. Why they think anyone else should be working to make their life easier is beyond me... well no it's not, but why they think they are entitled to have someone else work to make their life easier is beyond me.

    if I start a company to make money for me to go to the golf club then that's the purpose of the company. These guy's are complaining that so few people start a company to make the workers rich, and yet are not doing it themselves either. That's what's so dumb. "It's so hard... wont someone ELSE save me so I don't have to".

    The sympathy I have comes from the fact that despite all the land in the USA, one can't just go and get a few acres to work and feed themselves, but instead fall into idleness.

    And yes I've been out of work, just over a year ago my employer went into administration, blah blah, I give loads of my time to help community groups and the school and all that stuff, and the biggest problem is people who whine but then go back to watching TV.

  14. Re:Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 1

    And yet there are private schools and colleges...

  15. Re:Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 1

    I meant the "rich" person wouldn't fund you cos then they wouldn't be rich.
    They get rich with their own work, ideas and effort in relation to use of their capital, and the ones who still have the riches learn to be careful how they use it or they lose it.

  16. Re:Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 1

    and the same middle classes slit their own throats supporting the same corporations that badly serve them, being unable to link choice with consequence or being unable to suffer today for a better tomorrow.

    "help, the world doesn't suit me... it's... HARD"

    It's always been hard... it's always been easier to whine about what someone else should do... but if you constrain what the other person does, he may find it to be no longer worth his while and stop doing it too...

    You can start business without capital, but it is hard to start a for-profit business without capital.

    Start a co-operative college without capital. Teach in the homes to start with, pay with food or work. But no-one does that cos it makes them poor to start with, and they would rather take a pay cheque now, and whine.

    But in my country the Polish are (were) famous for having done it that way, for having stuck together, supported eachother and having become the best and the most skilled in one generation, through polish clubs, polish schools, and the next wave are doing it again where I live.

    It's nothing but work work work and no money. That's the cost.

    And the "rich person" won't fund you easily because then they wouldn't be right.

    it's not capital that makes riches, but someone's work work work.

  17. Re:Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 1

    yeah.. not quite what is says, is it... and the reason is not to benefit the students individually, but the nation as a whole.

    What better way to encourage education that make it profitable so that more educational establishments spring up?

    That means wider education AND wide employment of educators AND import spending from foreign students.

  18. Re:Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 1

    Start their own business if they think they can do better;

    but what's the bets that if they did they would turn out like all the other people who did better and realise they don't need to pay "workers" any more than the "workers" are willing to work for...

  19. Capitalism - make your own on Your State University Doesn't Want You · · Score: 0

    What, do you think you have the right to education wherever you choose?

    This is capitalism and the land of free enterprise - just start your own university if you think you can do any better.

  20. Re:escape velocity on Neil Armstrong To NASA: You're Embarrassing · · Score: 1

    I'm hoping that you didn't miss the point, which is that as long as you have enough fuel to do it, you can ascend as slowly as you like.

    It's only when you run out of fuel before you reach the desired height that escape velocity applies in order to convert remaining velocity into height.

    The catapult also cannot fire a stone into space because the elastic is needs to be vulcanised with unobtanium too...

    Finally, tacking against the wind does not violate the laws of physics, and I don't see why tacking against the ether-wind should be against the laws of physics - you just have to stick part of your machine in something that is shielded from the ether wind (let's call it the ether sea) suddenly loads of what we call zero-point-energy.

    I make that last point merely to show that zero-point-energy is so poorly defined it isn't possible to comment on what it may or may not violate; dogma is no substitute for thought - the ZPE you were thinking of isn't the same thing I was thinking of. You were thinking of something impossible.

    Actually I wasn't even thinking of ZPE I was just trying to illustrate the scope of escape velocity.

  21. escape velocity on Neil Armstrong To NASA: You're Embarrassing · · Score: 1

    (in general) escape velocity exists as a concept when you will run out of fuel before you reach your location and so are coasting along against gravity.

    The kinetic energy of the escape velocity must equal or exceed the change in potential energy (due to gravity) required to raise you to the required height.

    escape velocity applies absolutely to a catapult, not at all to a flying saucer with limitless zero-point fuel (which could ascend as slowly as the pilot liked), and somewhere in between for a rocket that has enough fuel for a couple of minutes lift away from the earth, to a point of lower gravity and therefore with lower escape velocity.

  22. Re:If you can't be bothered to RTF... on Microsoft Responds To Linux Concerns Over Windows 8 and UEFI Secure Boot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    yes. Well put.

    And I want secure TPM booting for my linux/GNU machines too.

    I want a way to install my key, enabled by a physical key & mechanic switch to electrically enable to update operation to write my signing key.

  23. Re:Idea: "No-goverment" by the people, for the peo on UK's NHS Will Drop Delayed E-Records Project · · Score: 1

    The loyalty of the consultants and IT professionals is to their employer; and naturally, to gain as much revenue for as little cost as possible.

    Ever since pharoah, those in authority have been too inclined to believe the court magicians who promise a technological solution to whatever problem ails them.

  24. Re:Slashdot on Demystifying UEFI, the Overdue BIOS Replacement · · Score: 2

    I used a BIOS setup WITH mouse pointer support around before year 2000

  25. Idea: "No-goverment" by the people, for the people on UK's NHS Will Drop Delayed E-Records Project · · Score: 0

    Governments waste so much scarce money getting no-where. Would it be better if they didn't? Or if they got somewhere with it?

    Sometimes I wish they'd just do nothing, take their money and shut up. it would be cheaper and better value for money.

    it becomes hard to tell if they are the obstacle or the solution.