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User: dAzED1

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  1. Re:Wow on Apple iPhone Dissected · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hell, I can't even buy a $2500 COMPUTER that can keep pace with technology that long.

    I know you wrote that as bait for the kind of response that I'm going to give, but...I'm going to give it anyway.

    I'm in the top 5% of incomes in the US (meaning, it wasn't because I couldn't afford a replacement), yet my main computer from 1999-2006 was a $900 laptop. The only reason I dumped it was because the internal power board (the one with the jack for the power supply, and the one that handled charging the battery) smoked one day while I was using it, and well...wasn't going to be able to find a replacement part for it. Esp since my battery (probably related, natch) hadn't been charging for about 6 months anyway, which meant I needed a new battery too. Was finally time to retire it.

    So, I spent another $1100, and my new laptop will likely last me not quite as long, but certainly at least double the lifespan of the iPhone battery.

    You may want to rethink what it is you are trying to keep up with.

  2. off the hook? what? on Lake Disappears into Andes · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm fairly certain that it is considered scientifically proven beyond doubt that recent shifting in the upper layers of the Earth's crust are in fact due to the drying period we're now entering due to global warming. I can't believe you'd question such things; do you not understand causality versus correlation?

  3. Re:I wish Dell the best on Getting the Best Deal From Dell — Or Not · · Score: 1

    and my burger isn't made until I order it. (well, if I ordered burgers...)

    There is no misconception on my part.

  4. Re:I wish Dell the best on Getting the Best Deal From Dell — Or Not · · Score: 2, Interesting

    you're talking about a business model that has been around for thousands of years. Go to any restaurant, what happens? They ask you what you want. They give you a menu of options, and you select the one closest to what you like, do a little fine-tuning (from fast-food places where you tell them "mustard, hold the pickles," to elegant places where you can pretty much just describe what you want or tell the chef to make anything that doesn't have mushrooms).

    That business model is ancient. And the phone/catalog thing? Ever hear of Sears & Roebuck? Yeah, phone/catalog is so innovative...

  5. Re:I wish Dell the best on Getting the Best Deal From Dell — Or Not · · Score: 1

    Dell, an innovator? Just what is so innovative about assembling parts from the cheapest bidders (most of those bidders being in China, btw). Dell has never had more than a token R&D department; it is one of their methods for keeping costs down (that, and the whole lowest-bidder thing for parts...).

  6. and in other news, 999,990 of those... on Safari for Windows Downloaded Over 1 Million Times · · Score: 1

    and in other news, 999,990 of those were mac users installing Safari on the Windows PCs they're forced to use as desktops as work. The other 10 people were simply bored, and slightly curious.

  7. Re:looking for that hole... on NC Man Fined For Using Vegetable Oil As Fuel · · Score: 1

    does the Prius driver pay as much as the guy with the custom motorcycle that weighs the same, but gets 1/4 the mileage, and thus buys more gas?

    What about the electric cars that are, indeed, still out there? Last place I worked even had a place in the parking lot specifically for the electric cars to recharge.

    How about folks that mod their cars to run off other things?

    It isn't that he's on the roads without paying a tax...it can't be, as there are others that aren't getting the same treatment.

  8. looking for that hole... on NC Man Fined For Using Vegetable Oil As Fuel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ok, media today, we all know, is sensational. They leave out details that would make everything less bad-looking, and stretch details that make things look worse.

    Looking at this, I have to assume such is occuring. Perhaps he's supposed to...no, that doesn't make sense. Maybe he...no, not that either.

    Ok, I give. What am I missing? How in the heck does this actually make sense? I'm generally the one laughing at the conspiracy nuts, and explaining what the news left off that shows that BigBrother isn't actually hell-bent on making your life, specifically, a living hell. You're not so important that it's worth it to go out of the way to monitor every move you make, every call, every email, every purchase, to the nth degree.

    All that withstanding, what the heck? Where's the hole I'm missing?

  9. Re:Obvious? on Location-Based Search Was Patented In 1999 · · Score: 1

    I love you. That is all.

  10. Re:I have to join in: Ubuntu 7 *is* great on After Ubuntu, Windows Looks Increasingly Bad · · Score: 1

    And this all means we need constant articles about how "great" Ubuntu is - why?

    I haven't tried Ubuntu before, but in my book Ubuntu 7 is a milestone in Linux distro evolution.

    Probably, but how many dang articles do we need to see about it? And a hundred posts in every single thread, no matter how unrelated the thread is? Holy cow, it was like instant grassroots stardom or something. It's just getting a little old.

    I personally don't like Ubuntu, but it might be the first distro that gets my wife off windows. Her laptop is her domain, and shouldn't rely upon me, which is why she's stayed with Windows. I thank Ubuntu for the possibility of her switching. But Christ on a crutch, can the constant proselytizing stop? Please?

  11. that didn't take long on After Ubuntu, Windows Looks Increasingly Bad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    has it already been 12 hours since the last "Ubuntu is great!" article?

    Just um, how often do we need to see these, anyway?

  12. Re:Ummm, err...what? Your slant analysis is slante on Misuse of Scientific Data By the White House · · Score: 1

    and the fact that the cattle industry produces more pollution than the entire transportation industry combined (planes, cars, trains, trucks, boats, etc) makes me a bit less worried about cracking down on SUVs and more concerned with converting people to being vegan, too. That's not the point, the point is that the 1990 date was the cherry-picked date. The reasons have a lot to do with the collapse of the USSR, and the eastern-European countries that are now part of the EU. There were other reasons 1990 worked well for the EU. 1997 though, in the end, was the date the agreement was met - so it is the date that should have been used. Comparing data from before the agreement was made is silly.

  13. Re:Ummm, err...what? Your slant analysis is slante on Misuse of Scientific Data By the White House · · Score: 1

    uh, what else would they have been talking about? Did you read what I wrote? Of course they were talking about the date selected.

  14. Re:Ummm, err...what? Your slant analysis is slante on Misuse of Scientific Data By the White House · · Score: 1

    picking 1990 was cherry-picking. The administration thinks the year the actual agreement was made, 1997, should be used. Makes sense, because before then no one had agreed to anything. Sorry if that's confusing for you.

    "Cherry picking" hardly describes using the date the agreement was reached. It's the most logical date to have used anyway. There's reasons 1990 favors the EU over the US, and none of them have to do with environmental policy.

  15. Ummm, err...what? Your slant analysis is slanted on Misuse of Scientific Data By the White House · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Cherry Picking the Time Period
    In addition to selectively choosing the indicator to evaluate, Horner and the White House both
    selectively chose a time period to make U.S. policy look good. Horner, who ironically has been a
    staunch and regular opponent of U.S. participation in the Kyoto Protocol, chooses 1997 ("Pick
    any year since the Kyoto Protocol was agreed to in 1997"), and 2000 ("In truth, Europe's CO2
    emissions are rising twice as fast as those of the U.S. since Kyoto, three times as fast since
    2000"). The White House settled on 2000 as their base period.
    First of all, Horner gets his math wrong, even when selectively choosing 1997 as a base year.
    From 1997 to 2004 (the last year for which official data are available for both regions), European
    carbon dioxide emissions rose just under 8%; US emissions rose just under 7%. Thus, Horner's
    claim that "Europe's CO2 emissions are rising twice as fast as those of the U.S. since Kyoto" is
    false. Indeed, in absolute terms, US carbon dioxide emissions rose by a larger amount over this
    period than Europe's.
    Second, when the proper date is chosen as the base year, Europe does better than the United
    States.10 The proper base year for comparison is 1990.

    First, the Bush wasn't in the White House in 1990. This may come as a surprise to the person who wrote the article, but Bush became president in 2001. He can pretty much distance himself to stuff prior to being in office all he wants, without it being "cherry picking."

    Second, the very point the administration tries to make on this particular facet is that the agreement was in 1997, not 1990, thus 1997 is what should be used. 1990 favors other countries, because industries do this cyclical thing; starting at the date the agreement was reached seems the most logical regardless, to pick any date other than then is what is "cherry picking."

    Finally: "European carbon dioxide emissions rose just under 8%; US emissions rose just under 7%." So when it's all said and done, and you provide your own slant to it, you still admit it rose less in the US than it did in Europe? Yeahkthnxbuhbye, enjoy the moments in fame, 20 years from now people will laugh about arguments like yours.

  16. Re:Par for the course on DRAM Makers Suffer Due to Lackluster Vista Adoption · · Score: 1

    It's been well acknowledged here that Vista sales are roughly only equal to XP over the same time measured...

    XP came out in 2001, correct? And this is 2007? I think people buy more computers nowadays than we did then. That, and homes in Seattle cost more, too - sales need to be far more, not the same.

    How many PC users were there in Asia in 2001, versus today, for example? Could a normal person still get by without a computer 6 years ago? Can they today?

    Ya need to rethink your defense there.

  17. Re:to heck with "waste" heat... on Turning Heat Into Sound Into Electricity · · Score: 1

    Since the electricity would be used to power devices that would ultimately just produce heat, there would be no net cooling.

    There's going to be a set amount of electricity usage. I'll still turn on the lights in my house, for example.

    Now, if that electricity can come at the cost of cooling down a volcano, then hey! But currently, it comes from burning coal. If you don't understand the net difference there, then I'm sorry the education system has failed you so badly.

  18. Re:I don't, and I'll tell you why on Microsoft Gives Xandros Users Patent Protection · · Score: 1

    they can only change the license if they own the product, which is almost entirely not the case for anything useful. Think they can just randomly change the license on GCC, without RMS giving it a thumbs-up?

  19. to heck with "waste" heat... on Turning Heat Into Sound Into Electricity · · Score: 1

    if they can actually do this, then set up massive arrays of it on top of active volcanoes and other natural heat sources. As the claim is they end up with electricity, that means there is less heat, and we have this maybe/maybe not global warming thing going on. Seems we can reduce a lot of the natural warming of the earth's atmosphere with something that can do this, if it really can...

  20. Re:I don't, and I'll tell you why on Microsoft Gives Xandros Users Patent Protection · · Score: 1

    I had a hard time deciding between modding you up, or commenting to clarify something you touched on.

    Anything that is the results of any forks, has to remain at leastGPL2, unless they get all the contributors of that product to change. Then, any gpl2 work that SuSE et al. do that is actually useful, can be put right back into the gpl3 main of that product.

    This is bad how? Very few distros are going to fall for this crap. This nonsense will be over within 18 months, and RedHat, Ubuntu, etc have much longer-term plans than that.

  21. Re:Or... neither on 'Pirates' Outsells 'Matrix' in High-Def Showdown · · Score: 2, Interesting

    how about the fact that consumers don't really care about the format war? The war, really, is fought on the front of "who can get the better releases." If blueray is successful in getting better releases, and the reason they have more sales is because their releases are better, then that is still a win for them.

    Feature-to-feature, the two formats are so close that 95% of the population won't even know that there is a difference. The other 5% really shouldn't care either, but they've got reputations to maintain, so they have to care about inane things.

    That Pirates is also in theatres and in advertisements right now doesn't make this any less of a win for the format...it makes it more of one.

  22. Re:dvd sales on New AACS Fix Hacked in a Day · · Score: 1

    again, the market segment for those with PCs running Linux that they use as media centers is HUGE. Dwarfs the market segment of folks just wanting to watch a movie on a regular player they bought at walmart. The difference in #'s is so huge in fact, it's almost not worth mentioning those normal families buying walmart/bestbuy/etc players.

    Shall I ask the question again? Has CSS being broken really hurt DVD sales? Then why keep messing around with AACS?

  23. Re:Maybe I'm in the minority, but... on New AACS Fix Hacked in a Day · · Score: 1

    so I get to use the same word someone tried to use earlier - "effectively."

    When the scheme can be cracked in a day, AACS is effectively broken. So why not just go with it as is, since it won't really impact sales?

  24. Re:dvd sales on New AACS Fix Hacked in a Day · · Score: 1

    I guess I'm one of the minority of people that watch DVDs on a TV instead of my computer, then. You are clearly the market force that drives the cost effectiveness of something. /sarcasm

    Did you really answer my point? As a reminder: "have dvd sales really been hurt that bad by the encryption for dvd being broken years ago? Those that will rip, will find a way to rip."

    The driving force of the market is not the guy who wants to watch a movie on his linux box, but the family that wants to watch a movie on their TV in the livingroom. Have dvd sales really been hurt by the breaking of CSS? Then what the fark are they diddling with AACS so much for?

  25. Re:Maybe I'm in the minority, but... on New AACS Fix Hacked in a Day · · Score: 1

    sure CSS is broken...just as AACS is. GP is claiming that he won't buy blueray/hd unless it doesn't have DRM. DVD has DRM. CSS is broken. AACS is broken.

    Thus my point - GP is inconsistent. DRM is clearly not stopping him from buying anything, as he buys (likely) DVDs.