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User: CargoCult

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Comments · 66

  1. Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7? on Microsoft Releases Final Windows Phone 7 Dev Tools · · Score: 1

    troll

    http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50957

  2. The Buzzer on UVB-76 Explained · · Score: 1

    You can listen to the Conet Project's recording of the station here : http://irdial.hyperreal.org/the%20conet%20project/disc%204/tcp_d4_32_the_buzzer_irdial.mp3

    Entertaining listen...

  3. Re:Glossy looks cool in the display line in the st on Does Anyone Really Prefer Glossy Screens? · · Score: 1

    Kinda true - the factory defaults are actually designed to hit power targets and are quite dark, but the stores crank up the vividiness to move units...

  4. Permanent Reminder on U.K. Group Wants DRM'd Media Labeled · · Score: 1

    I got stung with a DRM'd copy of Citizen cope's Clarence Greenwoord Recordings - it now has pride of place next to my monitor to remind me to check before I buy in future.

    This makes me think of the (successful) EU mandated labelling of genetically modified food, how about:

    "Warning: This CD may make you sterile" as a fair warning?

  5. Re:Oh yeah on Microsoft to Change OEM Licensing · · Score: 1

    So this should be try for every OS? Or just the monopoly ones (ie the x86 monopoly, the S/370 monoppoly, the PA-Risc monopoly, the m68000 monopoly....)

    So Microsoft define a win32/COM interface that allows 3rd parties to plug into - how many people are going to be dumb enough to:
    1/ Climb on the change train to develop against this
    2/ Buy/Download alternatives when MS Support will say..."it works with IE, so beat it punk and call your http rendering vendor"

  6. Hah! We did all that and had to use Windows! on LinuxTag Opens (Hackers are Homeless) · · Score: 1

    benchpress that......

  7. Re:read the WHOLE story on Embracing Digital Photography · · Score: 1

    Now come on - that doesn't fit with the image of the monopolist that we all love to hate - can't some one mod this off the planet so we don't have to face reality?

  8. Re:Today.... on VA Linux Systems Leaving The Hardware Business · · Score: 1

    School holidays not layoffs........

  9. Re:Scorpion Genes? on Biotech and the Environment · · Score: 1

    Refs re scorpion toxins:
    http://www.biotech-info.net/gene_therapy.html
    http://www.accessexcellence.com/AB/BA/European_A tt itudes.html
    http://www.globalchange.com/designfo.htm

    "Artificial" cross-breeding/selection mimic "natural" processes, they are not a new process (unlike biotech gene guns smashing germ plasms together), agree there is similar potential risk but likelihood of problems/non-self-erasing mutation seems much greater with point gene alteration, especially when introduced into a monoculture.

    Agree re labelling - I just want to be able to choose.

    Roundup (glyphosate) has been linked to cancer already, so anything that increases its use is probably not good
    (http://www.biotech-info.net/glyphosate_cancer.h tm l) (and many many others)

    Invalid comparison re potty training as it is a socially/medically undesirable activity and hence probably genetically selective (cholera anyone?) - we should have a choice here, much as we have a choice in most supermarkets to buy organic food or free range eggs, I want to be able to select out this technology.

    Disagree re tractor analogy as well, tractors don't modify my food.

    Agree re monoculture, believe that organic food selection can reduce this as farmers must rotate/interleave to reduce the risk of widescale infestation.

  10. Scorpion Genes? on Biotech and the Environment · · Score: 1

    I think this is scary stuff - kind of a "Do you feel lucky punk? Do you?" with nature. I read that one bright team had put the venom producing genes from scorpions into a plant....

    What worries me is that there is no accountability to anyone here, no labelling of food (here in the good ole US of A) so you can't choose to avoid eating frankenfood.

    The laboratory for this is typically a field so its going to be pretty hard bottling up a mistake.

    And finally I understand that actually more pesticide is used, rather than less, as the cash crop is "resistant" so they can nuke weeds with a higher dose, more frequently and for longer in the growth cycle.

    This has nothing to do with farming and everything to do with big agribusiness chemical companies.

    Biotech is being forced upon us...at least Microsoft label their damn boxes....

  11. Re:price of freedom on The EU Report on the Echelon System · · Score: 1

    Exactly, lets bomb New Orleans while we still can...

  12. Re:DON'T BUY IT, THEN on Rivals Upset At Windows XP Features · · Score: 1

    >>>As far as taxes go, this may well be the case in the US. In Britain, where I come from, it isn't. If you don't pay your taxes, don't go to court, stick a finger up at a judge and say "Yah boo sucks, you can whistle for your money, fat man!", then assuming the Inland Revenue doesn't just garnish my wages, or whatever, they'll send a bunch of police around to pick me up and escort me to a court, and then presumably to a prison. Those police will not have guns. They wont even have guns if I stand at the door with an axe yelling "Come and get me you bastards!"

    Yeah right, so when you get shot with your axe in your hands don't come crying to us.....

  13. Re:I'm sorry, but most of you guys are wrong. on Rivals Upset At Windows XP Features · · Score: 1

    Yeah right - Microsoft isn't forcing me to buy their product - there are choices - its like a car, it comes bundles with a spare tire, steering wheel, seats etc

    Freedom of choice - if you don't want to pay $200 then don't, buy something else....

  14. Re:Gracenote Patent BOLLOCKS!!!!! on Gracenote Sues Roxio Over Switch to Free Song Database · · Score: 1

    I was joking, but read:

    http://www.delphion.com/details?&pn=US06061680 __

    They really do have a patent here

  15. Gracenote Patent on Gracenote Sues Roxio Over Switch to Free Song Database · · Score: 1

    "The electronic entry and lookup of CD music titles are belong to us"

    US Patently Absurd Office #232392

  16. Re:They should have open sourced the GUI on OS/2 Sucessor eComstation Sees The Light Of Day · · Score: 1

    Errmmm didn't M$ have a hand in OS/2 design & development?

    OS/2 failed because IBM didn't do two things that M$ did (and continue to do):
    1/ Grow a foodchain of partners & ISVs
    2/ Love the developer - M$ has MSDN, IBM has...anyone...Bueller?

  17. Re:I know what you mean! on Tech Support: Sucking Even More · · Score: 1

    Please don't torment this guy, he isn't the Real Bill Gates (sorry, the Microsoft Bill Gates) he is a stunt double hired to take the flak. Bill has people who have people who answer the phone for him....

    The best way to access Bill directly is...aaacckk no no arrgghhhhhh

    NO SIGNAL

  18. Re:Yes.... But...[Corrections] on SAP Releases Full sapdb Source · · Score: 1

    Sap don't onward license RDBMS licenses - in fact they rat on you to the RDBMS supplier, telling them how many SAP user licenses you bought!

    SAPDB == Adabas D (The Unix version of the old mainframe stalwart).

    Software AG (who built Adabas) have their dev headquarters only minutes from SAP's in Germany (Darmstadt & Walldorf respectively)

    And this is good news to have a decent RDBMS, backed by professional s/w developers who will fix bugs if required....

  19. Mmmm...freebies! on MS Wants To Know Whose PC Is Windows-Free · · Score: 5

    I wonder if people who've recently bought naked pc's could:

    a/ Mail me a picture...
    b/ Mail me your address details - 500 mails and I get the BBQ set!!

    Thx....every cloud has a silver lining for someone

  20. Re:Looks like its Windows - at least part time... on Space Station BSOD · · Score: 1

    So the fact that the guy can't boot into Solaris, but can into Windows makes this a Mirkysoft problem? Geez - looks like Sun can save a few support staff then (or give them another week's holiday!

  21. Re:Let's play "Bet Your Life" on Space Station BSOD · · Score: 1

    http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/december14/39 .htm

    http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/november9/6 .h tm

    Don't you just love urban myths "NT toaster cooked my poodle", "Bill Gates ate my hamster" etc....yawn....

  22. Re:Two problems with your example. on Space Station BSOD · · Score: 1

    Hate being an apologist for anyone, but from the same source:

    http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/december14/ 39 .htm

    Quote: (Roger Baker, marketing manager for CAE Electronics Ltd. in Quebec)

    "NT played no role in the Yorktown's LAN crash, Baker said."

    Whilst the guy is a marketdroid and obviously not to be trusted this rings true. The two navy contractors quoted in the previous article struck me as being zealots.

    The article was also critical of the Navy for not testing the app adequately. And btw if your app doesn't handle divide by zero it will (and should) crash on any o/s I've ever worked with.

  23. Re:Damn the fines, full speed ahead on IBM's Dirty Ad Tactics Bother SF Officials · · Score: 1

    $500?? Wonder how many copies of Linux they'll have to sell to make that back? Can't count that high on my fingers, I'll have to page out to my toes as well.....

    :-)

  24. Re:Information collection is not always bad on FBI Turns To Private Sector for Data · · Score: 2

    That kind of implies its a hard problem to find someone in a 250m person database, which of course it isn't. So, zap forward to a Gattaca style future where the World Government decides that anyone with gene-"2323" is no longer entitled to life and the 20m people who fit this profile globally are super-easy to locate & remove.

    I'd hate for a world like this to come into existance because those of us with the technology impact awareness sat quietly back because "we have nothing to hide"

    Remember that pre-WWII Jews thought that they had nothing to hide either, after all, its only a religion; ditto Tutsis; ditto US Japanese in WWII; ditto...(so lets kill all the HIV carriers, whats so wrong with that, one way to wipe out AIDS?)

    If we don't get lines drawn now you'll never push this kind of surveillance back.

    http://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy/hmprivacy.htm l (and for the ROW, you did remember to ensure your government is controlled by a bill of rights....didn't you?)

  25. Re:Great, now we can worry about proliferation. on FBI Turns To Private Sector for Data · · Score: 1

    more likely....Big Company aggregates personal data. Big Company sells data to government. Data is stolen from said government by spies working for an Evil Communist Power. Evil Communist Power uses knowledge of consumer purchase habits to cross-sell their particular brand of insanity to appropriate consumers

    Howsabout some Stalin with your frenchfries? Hmm, you bought Britney Spears CDs, you're just gonna love Cuba!

    [Quaking in my boots.....not]