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User: FunkyRat

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Comments · 148

  1. Re:egghead on Table-top Particle Accelerator Created · · Score: 1

    That's not true. The term dates back to the first decade of the 20th C. as slang for "bald". Chicago newspapermen picked up on the word and started using it to mean someone with intellectual pretensions and the term gained widespread popularization in 1952 when New York Herald Tribune columnist Stewart Alsop used it to refer to the presidential campaign of Adlai Stevenson.

  2. Eisenhower just a goddamn pinko on How do You Protect Your Online Privacy? · · Score: 1

    That's what Robert Welch (founder of the John Birch Society) argued: "Welch's famous book, The Politician, caused a stir even among many loyal Birch members who were shocked by Welch's assertion that President Dwight D. Eisenhower was "a dedicated conscious agent of the communist conspiracy.""

    Got to love those conspiracists.
  3. High pitched New Jersey voices? on Fleischmann to Work on Commercial Fusion Heater · · Score: 1

    So what you're saying is that in the future we will all sound like Fran Dresher?

  4. I really enjoyed it on PBS Features Einstein's Famous Equation · · Score: 2, Informative

    I had no idea about Faraday's background in poverty or that Lavoisier was the Paris tax collector and subsequently beheaded in the French Revolution.

    Oh, and as a bonus, it's narrated by Christopher Eccleston. Half expected to hear a metal scream ring out at any moment. "Exterminate!"

  5. I've seen this already I think on PBS Features Einstein's Famous Equation · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If this is the same program as this Channel4 production, then I highly recommend it. Although undoubtedly it has nothing to offer the Slashdot crowd from a science standpoint, the human face it puts on scientists we all too often only know from their work is excellent.

  6. Good description but on Mysterious 20-Year-Old Analog Media? · · Score: 2, Funny

    a link to a photograph would be handy.

  7. Why? on Who Wants a 3D Scanner, Anyway? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Custom tailored clothes ordered online.

    Combined with some NCR cutting equipment the cost could be brought down quite low.

  8. Non-UK BBC subscriptions on BBC to Cull the Cult TV Repository · · Score: 1

    I would gladly pay the equivalent price of a U.S. cable TV subscription ($35-$45 per month) for the ability to download and view BBC TV programs. If they threw in streaming of BBC Radio as well, that would seal the deal.

    Too bad that I see so little chance of that happening.

  9. Re:unnecessary... on Pure JavaScript Unix-Like Web Based OS · · Score: 1
    Clippy is immortal.

    Immortal...? or just UNDEAD!

  10. No Star Wars review thread would be complete... on Review: Star Wars Episode III · · Score: 2, Informative
  11. Re:Why yes, on 25 Years After DOS - Lessons for Linux? · · Score: 1

    Would you look at that. Pity moderation. I tell ya, I get no respect.

  12. Re:Why yes, on 25 Years After DOS - Lessons for Linux? · · Score: 1

    Sucks to be you. :-) I'm extra special. My phone number is prime too!

  13. Why yes, on 25 Years After DOS - Lessons for Linux? · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yes my UID is prime, thank you. I'm very proud of it.

  14. The next thing they need to do on Longhorn: Fewer BSODs, More RSODs · · Score: 5, Funny

    is add a Green Screen of Death. Then they'll be able to add together death colors to get much needed functionality for TrueColor Screens of Death.

  15. Re:EMAIL ME IF YOU WANT THE FILE on Larry Page's Vision of the Future · · Score: 1

    Hey thanks! Please send it to funkyrat NOSPAM at gmail.com

  16. URIs and URLs on Open Source is Not a Career Path · · Score: 3, Informative

    A URL (Uniform Resource Location) is a specific type of URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). Two other types of URIs are URNs (Uniform Resource Names), and URCs (Uniform Resource Citations). More information at this URI.

  17. SYS 64738 on Student Logs Teachers Keystrokes · · Score: 1

    Cool signature line. "Warm" reboot on a C64 wasn't it?

  18. Re: C.M. Kornbluth on U.S. Kids Don't Understand First Amendment · · Score: 1

    I agree wholeheartedly. When I read Little Black Bag in the late 1980s and if I thought it insightful then, today I'd have to say it was absolutely prescient. Another story that has stayed with me for over 20 years now is C.M. Kornbluth and Fred Pohl's The Space Merchants about a society where corporate influence over government has become so great that products are allowed to contain unadvertised addictive compounds. These days I keep thinking back to Heinlein's If This Goes On. George Bush is just one step removed from Nehemiah Scudder.

  19. Re:Slashdot on Firefox In Print · · Score: 1

    It happens for me in Firefox 1.0 on Linux but hasn't happened for me since Firefox 0.9 on Windows. The Linux and Windows versions of Firefox do not appear to be using the same codebase. Another (minor) Firefox difference: Tools->Options in Windows is Edit->Preferences in Linux. Not that I'm complaining. Firefox rocks, it's just that in the past couple of releases it's become so good that the minor issues really stand out now.

  20. Re:Take a look at the PetaBox on Ideas for a Home Grown Network Attached Storage? · · Score: 1

    Interesting comments regarding RAID. They seem to defy common sense, but common sense is not always correct.

    Just out of curiosity, why did you end up going with your third choice for OS (Debian) rather than your first or second choices?

  21. Re:Risk assessment? on X7-class Solar Event Detected · · Score: 1

    Well, I figured I'd turn my tin-foil hat inside-out and that way it would focus the effects of the cosmic rays AND control the the minds of the black helicopter people.

  22. Re:Bittorrent like? on Peercasting Ready for Primetime? · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Oh well, fuckit. Peercasting is DOA, there's no worthwhile content.

    You know... You don't have to rely on the large media conglomerates for content. Almost anybody can learn to play music. Almost anybody can learn how to use a video camera and software to make TV shows or movies. You can too.

    Wait... What's that I hear? You don't want to listen to the kids down the street who can barely play their instruments and their crappy garage band? You don't want to watch the fat guy across the way with the digicam and delusions of being an auteur? OK. Fine with me. You're free to enjoy Britney Spear's latest opus. Just don't declare everyone else's content as being not worthwhile just because you don't like it.

    Oh, and if you want to hear some amateurs doing really terriffic radio then check out Transom. It is possible for non-mainstream media to produce "worthwhile" content.

  23. Re:The Obvious Question on Exeem "Successor" to Suprnova Announced · · Score: 1
    Personally, I think a TV show/movie based version of something like iTunes would work; monthly subscription, per file billing or both doesn't matter.
    That's exactly what I would like to see. I can not justify paying my cable company $70+ a month just so I can see SG1 and Atlantis along with a handful of other shows but I can certainly justify upto $30 a month for having immediate, legal, access to the shows I like. Movies I would gladly pay extra on top of a monthly fee.
  24. Charlie Brown Christmas and advertisers on Automatic Christmas Music · · Score: 1

    I remember watching A Charlie Brown Christmas as a little kid (late 1960s, early 1970s) and I think the whole show was sponsored by Dolly Madison Snack Cakes. Actually, I think for the longest time all the Peanuts holiday specials were sponsored by Dolly Madison.

  25. The Washington Times is not a reliable source on Former CIA Head Calls for Limiting Access to the Internet · · Score: 1

    The only references I can find to this story are either The Washington Times or United Press International. All others reporting on this are just repeating their claims. Both sources should be considered unreliable (at best). The Washington Times and UPI are both owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon (of Moonie cult fame) and function as a press version of Fox News.