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User: Colin+Smith

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Comments · 6,373

  1. Nah. Windows sucks as a desktop. on After Ubuntu, Windows Looks Increasingly Bad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    OK. The desktop metaphor; you work with documents, files, folders. That isn't what happens on Windows. On windows, you deal with menus and applications then you have to go search for your documents and folders. I can see why it happens, each application needs to make itself the centre of your attention so that you remember to go buy it again when it's time to upgrade. It's job is to make itself far more important than all of the other applications. So it hides your files and documents away and you have to access them through the file->open menu within the application and it sticks an application icon on your desktop... Doesn't make any sense within the desktop metaphor. That's why Windows sucks as a desktop. You can change it of course, and I have, it makes it more usable but it's a pain.

    Ubuntu gets it more right than Windows. The applications themselves are less important, partly because they're mostly free, they get out of the way. Then you have the folders right there on the desktop so you can access the documents themselves directly. The application becomes just a tool to work on the information, which is what it's supposed to be. Ubuntu is actually easier to use than Windows. The metaphor makes sense.

  2. WOW! on Safemedia's CEO Tells Congress He Can Stop P2P · · Score: 2, Funny

    Actually lying is making a purposefully misleading statement, saying something that is incorrect without knowledge is just being wrong. Wow! You've just explained the perfect rationale behind choosing Dubya as the Republican candidate! I never could figure that one out.

  3. Why would you use match.com? on How Private Are Sites' Membership Lists? · · Score: 1

    Okcupid is free and has some geek cred, it uses a least squares regression to match people.

    And why would you use your regular email address? There is no anonymity on the Internet.

  4. Yeah... Why is assembly so terse on How to Keep Your Code From Destroying You · · Score: 1

    What's wrong with MoveImmediately rather than MVI?

  5. Here's the thing on Misuse of Scientific Data By the White House · · Score: 1

    Do you really want to be led by someone who's completely ignorant?

    It could get you into all sorts of shit, wars and things...

    And if you don't care then what's all the fuss about?

  6. Y'know... on GNU Coughs Up Emacs 22 After Six Year Wait · · Score: 5, Funny

    Some day it's going to achieve sentience... Don't say I didn't warn you.

  7. Depends how you define waste on Turning Heat Into Sound Into Electricity · · Score: 1

    I believe the key point about the device is the lack of moving parts. A steam turbine for instance has a shit load of highly expensive moving parts to make it work.

  8. Ehm... on Encrypt and Sign Gmail messages with FireGPG · · Score: 1

    You know you can use POP and SMTP with Gmail? GPG and S/MIME work just fine as far as I've found.

  9. ooh, this is a favourite on Internet Tax Imminent? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will." - Adam Smith
  10. Why more? on Internet Tax Imminent? · · Score: 1

    Taxes are already everywhere. Why more? That would be because you're not squealing loudly enough yet.

  11. Your traditional generator is designed to be cheap on New Fuel Cell Twice As Efficient As Generators · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This thing costs $175,000. How much does a 5kW Diesel cost? Even with a 45% electrical efficiency it's going to take rather a long time to pay for itself. For cogeneration a Diesel is just as useful and yup, can also hit the 90% efficiency range.

  12. Actually on Pro-ODF Legislation Loses In Six States · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The war on drugs failed because people want them. That simple. Even if you were able to identify and arrest every single drug pusher in the world, from the bottom to the top, the market for drugs would cause new pushers to appear damned near instantaneously.

    It's a poor analogy which doesn't apply to document formats. What's important with document formats produced and required by government is that they are a documented standard which will allow interoperation between platforms and which will still be readable in 10, 20, 50+ years.

    MS's format is a defacto, not a documented standard which cannot reliably be read after 10 years never mind 20, 50 or more. What makes removal of the Word format as a defacto standard difficult is that it engenders a strong network effect. You must have Word to read/write it and once everyone has Word (the situation now), you have to use Word to communicate documents with other people.

    Breaking a network effect like that is extremely difficult.

  13. Collaborative filtering on Online Reputation Is Hard To Do · · Score: 1

    Reputations are relative. They depend on the person making the recommendation. If the person doing so is a numpty, the information the recommendation is based on isn't worth much. Expanding this to everyone would be what, an N^2 problem? Where N is potentially the population of the planet. Thankfully not everyone knows everyone.

    It would require a centralised registry though rather than distributed in order to calculate the effect of the relationship to the person making the recommendation. And it would of course all have to be based on a reliable identity system.

    Good luck with that.

  14. Online reputation? All reputation is hard to do on Online Reputation Is Hard To Do · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's why we have exams, professional organisations, CVs, brands, social networking etc etc etc.

    We use reputation all the time and no-one has come up with a single reliable, coherent way of measuring it. You just try to get a decent builder.

  15. The best way to build a space elevator? on Space Elevator Company LiftPort In Trouble · · Score: 1

    Today...

    Financial. A fund specifically for the purpose. Invest now and in 20-40 years there might be enough cash to pay for construction.

  16. Liberties aren't lost, they're given away on British Civil Liberties Film Released · · Score: 1

    Liberty and responsibility are the same thing, and these days people don't want to be responsible. So they give the responsibility to someone else, and their liberty goes with it.

  17. Re:This'd be a feature of printing money. on Job Cuts For Dell, Motorola, and Circuit City · · Score: 1

    Give us an exact date then. On what day should we expect to see this "printing money" reflected in the data? How much higher will inflation be on that day? Will it be at 3 percent? 8 percent? It's going to increase gradually till September then jump substantially, interest rates will follow. The CPI will probably be around 7% by November, expect a bad Christmas. The date, it'll be whenever the stats are released. The numbers you get are estimates of the real level of inflation... Minus housing etc, so in reality it's higher than the numbers indicate.

    The real stats are available to anyone right now btw, you can look at them and see which numbers are going to fall out of the calculations when.

  18. Re:This'd be a feature of printing money. on Job Cuts For Dell, Motorola, and Circuit City · · Score: 1

    Actually it's:
    printing presses -> inflation -> good times -> bubble burst -> bad times. Or rather

    printing presses -> good times -> inflation -> interest rates -> bubble burst -> bad times

    Interest rates are used to keep inflation in check to prevent boom bust cycles. Yes... Highly successfully too, eh. The boom/bust cycle is caused by the borrowing and interest rate cycles.

  19. Re:This'd be a feature of printing money. on Job Cuts For Dell, Motorola, and Circuit City · · Score: 1

    Inflation is down because some oil figures just after katerina have fallen out of the statistics. It'll go on for another couple of months before the real stats hit.

  20. Re:This'd be a feature of printing money. on Job Cuts For Dell, Motorola, and Circuit City · · Score: 1

    This is btw, the mechanism by which the rich get richer and the poor poorer... The poor don't get raises in line with inflation (and therefore actually take a wage cut), the rich have stock options etc and ride the inflating of the stock market.

  21. Re:This'd be a feature of printing money. on Job Cuts For Dell, Motorola, and Circuit City · · Score: 1

    I agree, what's needed is a currency outwith of banker and politician's control. With supply matched to the expansion/contraction of the economy.

    Pipe dream though.

  22. Vista... The OS you *can't* use legally. on Microsoft Vs. TestDriven.NET · · Score: 1

    That means it's illegal to replace Wordpad with MS Office because you will be working round technical limitations of the operating system. It's illegal to write scripts because you are working round technical limitations etc etc.

  23. Re:Cost efficiency? (market) on 40% Efficiency Solar Cells Developed · · Score: 1

    I was really thinking of investment rather than speculation. The point being, if the technology is so expensive that the cost of the electricity isn't repaid faster than say a FTSE100 tracker then it makes sense to invest the money in the tracker and not in the technology. i.e. it's not a go-er.

  24. Cost efficiency? on 40% Efficiency Solar Cells Developed · · Score: 1

    If I stick $1000 into a stock tracker. Would it beat the $1000 invested in this technology?

  25. Hanging your guts out on Zero Day Hole In Google Desktop · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's the phrase which springs to mind with "web 2.0" applications. You have an exposed API on both sides, the client and the server.