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User: skelly

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Comments · 117

  1. Re:Ohh.... on More on the Samsung Linux Handheld · · Score: 1

    Um. It does have all the capabilities thatyou were asking for. You should have lloked closely at picture #355 out of the series of 20 that were there.

  2. At least some people had sense on Library Filtering Update · · Score: 1

    Wonderful that people in Holland Michigan came to their senses. I would hope that this shows how ludicrous censorship really is.

  3. Re:not lost ; stored on Bearded Drinkers Lose Guinness · · Score: 1

    Why do you think that beards are called "flavour savers"? I would think that the alcohol would add to the sexual prowess of those who are orally gifted. Being able to retain some wonderful nectar of the gods(Ahh, Guinness!)for her to enjoy would be an added plus.

  4. Re:U of T baby! on Moldable Magnets · · Score: 2

    Well, that's because U of T is the centre of the universe. We do own the Ontario provincial parliament building's land. you're just jealous. Getting back to the moldable magnets- it would be nice to be able to a computer whose components can be designed for decrative purposes and not just the computer case.

  5. Best of the era on The Chrysalids (aka Re-birth) · · Score: 2

    I always enjoyed the 1950's era science fiction for its simplicity of style and brevity of technical mumbo jumbo. The Chrysalids and other post apocalytic novels like it were always better written than some of the drivel that comes out today. At least these novels leave many of the notions of fantasy to the imagination

  6. Re:Thank You (NOT)YUP on Rewriting 'Blame Canada' · · Score: 1

    You must seriously be demented not to have noticed my sarcasm. I mean, why would Iwrite about as ABOOT and point out the fact that I have a flapping head and beady little eyes. Please! I think the song is great and that you should read all of my message before jumping to conclusions.

  7. Re:It's quite reasonable, thank you. on Sunlight + Algae = Hydrogen fuel · · Score: 2

    Think about this: Solar energy is the most efficient source of energy on the planet. However large portions of the planet do not allow 365 days a year solar stations due to cliamte considerations(Seattle). This method of extracting hydrogen would be good for those portions of the world with poor sunlight coverage. Storing the gas has become safer than it was in 1936.

  8. How I get my news. on Would You Ever Read A Newspaper Again? · · Score: 1

    I only read the newpaper in Cincinnati, OH for the funnies. I lost all respect for journalistic integrity with the newspapers when my friend was dragged across the coals and his anonymity exposed in a 12 step group. That plus a fiansco involving Chiquita Banana Co. was enough to make me give up on this medium. I get my news off the web from various sources like CNN, ABC, BBC, Slashdot, and CNET. For a more editorialized synopsis, I read Time. It is inevitable that the newspapers should adopt an online subscription strategy.

  9. Thank You on Rewriting 'Blame Canada' · · Score: 1

    You can keep Anne Murray. As a Canadian, I am glad that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are going to rewrite the lyrics to a song so blantently offensive to my fellow countrymen. It gross when you think that the Canadian minority in this country have to shudder and hide their faces whenever this song is played. It broke my heart to think that all Americans feel this way about my homeland. It makes me want to bomb the Arquettes and the Baldwins. My beady litle eyes and my flapping head are gald that the creators of South Park are putting an elightened and sensitive message on the issue of the plight of my people. I really don't know what the fuss was all ABOOT! HA HA.

  10. Re:am I alone? on LonelyNet (Part Two) · · Score: 2

    Moi aussi. I am also on the Internet for 5-7 hours per day. I send in my homework by email, chat with my family by email, read slashdot, and have significant discussions on the the various chat media. I only use my TV to watch movies on the VCR (NO DVDs!-ban CSS!). Am I more isolated? Hell no! I have always been introverted, shy, socially awkward and I am 28 years old. I do my thesis research on the net as well as in the library. I go out to clubs and dance and mingle with people. I go on the net to talk to people who are just like me. Did the Internet keep me from becoming a blonde, buff business major who joins a fraternity and boffs cheerleaders. No! I'd rather shag a sheep than someone who giigles all the time. I have always been shy, but I do get out. I have gone through various stages in my life of social practice. I have been on the net for 11 years, all my problems date from before then. The Internet is just an informationa nd communication tool. It does not use us, we use it.

  11. Re:They HAVE released the source on Linus, Transmeta, Proprietary Code and Metcalfe · · Score: 1

    Sorry about this folks, but a friend of mine was spoofing me when this was posted. Matters have been taken into hand and been corrected. "Thankyou sir, may I have another!"

  12. Re:he contradicts the DeCSS suit in his statements on Salon Interview With Head Of MPAA · · Score: 1

    You just nailed the lid on the coffin. Jack Valenti is as clueless as they come. This whole article was merely a propoganda stateemnt. Hell, it even started off with how patriotic the condescending bastard and made it look like he is fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American way. All that he is fighting for is the almighty dollar. He even had the gall to lie and say that the MPAA had nothing to do with the arrest of the Norwegian teenager. Right! It was quoted in a Norwegian paper the the MPAA European rep for Norway had the complaint filed with the cops. Lies, Lies, Lies...It's all lies.

  13. Re:They HAVE released the source on Linus, Transmeta, Proprietary Code and Metcalfe · · Score: 1

    Thankyou for letting the flamebaiters know about where the source is. It amazes me that just because Linus works for a company that wants to make a profit, he automatically is seen as a hypocrate because his employers have created a chip that can run any OS including Windows. Get off your high horses people and face reality. Not everyone is ever going to use open source OS or software. It is nice how ever to have a commercially or productively viable software top compete.

  14. Re:This sickens me. on Maryland, Virginia Consider UCITA · · Score: 1

    I will not buy anymore Microshaft products even to appease my computer illiterate users in my Domain. I will simply make them use Free Software. Long live the fighters!

  15. Re:I buy legitimate import DVDs. Right to modify? on CSS: About Piracy, or About Content Regulation? · · Score: 2

    This is only about large corporations trying to determine what we see and hear. Why the hell would I worry about bandwidth to copy a movie, when I can just modify a Tivo with a 100 GB harddrive (2*50GB)? Besides, I want the right to be able to mail order a DVD or VHS from Japan or Canada and not have some hardware restriction or software restriction limiting my right to information or entertainment. I am boycotting DVD and I am going to campaign Blockbuster and Media Play to getr them to agree.

  16. Re:Actually at fault? on Jon Johansen's Answers to Your DeCSS Questions · · Score: 2

    I could spend all day giving you actual case histories of people who have their rights trampled by Americans or the Amenrican government. Here are a few: American Indians, Black-listen screenwriters accused of being communists, homosexuals in the military, the Vietnamese, Panama, Grenada, Cuba... Gosh, the list goes on and on. I am honored. You called me talented and wise. You however failed to do a little quick research into my URL or even email address to see where I lived. Also, how did I spell incrrectly? I am sorry if I don't spell in "Uhmericain" or that my typing is really bad. It was difficult to type on the diminutive IMAC keyboard. Anyway, I was not knocking Americans I was merely piinting out the hypocisy of one goverment which is exhibited in all governments- greed. Europeans, Asians, and Africans are just as bad as the good old US of A.

  17. Actually at fault? on Jon Johansen's Answers to Your DeCSS Questions · · Score: 3

    This was rather interesting. A lot of people were making this youg man out to be some kind of hero/martyr, when he is only someone who got trampled under foot of the MPAA. He only helped to develope and post the code, he is not the great hacker that the MPAA wanted to demonize. What amazes me is that the MPAA had enough economic clout in Norway to have false charges filed and have the police arrest him. An American organiozation having a Norwegian citizen arrest!. Does anyone fear that kind of reach? Especially since Americains are notorious for trampling over other people's rights in the pursuit of their own agendas? That is the scariest issue of all in this scandal. Corpporations have always exagerrated the "losses or damages" wrought by computer crackers like Kevin Mitnick. The police in every major city has always looked like the Keystone cops when it comes to computer crimes. I have seen police carry off toasters, rotary phones, and even Music CD's in an effort to gather evidence. We all know how prompt the cops have been about returning these items too. The only way to keep the pressure up is to inform the average consumer that their rights are being trampled. Remember DIVX and how it was a proprietary format that would only allow a person to play a DIVX-DVD on one player at a time. It was tremendously diffucult to take your copy of Blade Runner over to your friends house and watch it if that person had a DIVX player. That person would have to pay for the movie as well. Heaven forbid that your friend only had a DVD player, then the formats were incompatible. That format died, but now thesame idea zoning DVD players has been taken on an international scale. A DVD bought in Australia won't play in the US because it has been zoned with an encryption for Australia. This is not like VHS where different tape speeds and hardware were developed in Europe and the US. All DVD players are the same. The MPAA only wants to restrict consumer choice in the name of profit since American movies release here are relased on DVD(and VHS) at the same time they debut in theatres overseas. Like most people are going to rush to order DVD movies from the US and pay expensive shipping charges? A few might, but most consumers won't. What surprises me is that the major retailers and small shops who rent and sell movies haven't said anything? They stand to lose if they wereunable to import movies on DVD like Ma Vie en Rose from france because they had to wait for the MPAA to license its release here form France. That is not freedom of choice. We consumers will only get hurt. I plan to petition my representatives, senators, govenor and local media distributors about this issue. The WTO treat made this kind of harrasment by the MPAA illegal and recognized reverse enginering as legal. This is not a piracy issue. Who wants to download 6.2 GB of info for a movie anyway? I would rahter buy the disk. The encryption does not prevent copying anyway. Look at it this way: If I had a jigsaw puzzle of the Mona Lisa scatter as pieces and placed into a box, I could still copy each individual piece of puzzle and make multiple copies even if I did not have the key (i.e. the picture on the box) as a guide to its contents. A little patients and plug&chug would eventually get me the right results. It's the same with encryption on DVD's. I can copy the encryted info onto other blank DVD's without having to bother to try to read it. It would be like copying a Sanskrit text my hand. Painstaking but easy. Our consumer rights are being trampled in the name of big business. I for one plan not to buy DVD's until they can be played on any player, in any country, and on any OS. The young Norwegian lad is just someone who was lucky enough to be caught in the spotlight. Even he says thta he is not the one who cracked the DVD zoning Encryption.

  18. Re:Lots of $$$ for Bill on Ford Giving Free PCs to All Employees · · Score: 2

    Folks, you have to realize that not everyone is a techie. Some of these people might not even own a computer. Like eric has written above, these folks have different capabilities. Most of us would dream of being able to strip our cars and rebuild them. Just because the average computer user looks for convenience (which Free OS's lack), user friendliness, and simplicity does not make them Lusers. Even if Microsoft does have its software shipped with these HP computers, that does not mean that some people wont opt for another OS or software. Here is an opportunity for those who want to branch Linux out into the mainstream market. make Linux easy to use, set up and maintain and the world will beat a path to your door or even 350,000 users and Ford might say thank you.

  19. Re:2600 calls for action on MPAA Head Valenti on DVD "Hackers" · · Score: 1

    Its all easy for us to boycott, but prehaps a more persuasive way can be found. The vast majority of us are not geeks ( I am an engineering/physics geek). This fight means very little to the vast majority who have no idea about what is at stake hear. Consumers can and should vote with their pocketbooks. We should spread the word, notify the WTO, tell an congressman, write our representatives, inform the media, tell the store owners where they should stand on this. Store owners should be on our side since this limits their markets over the Web. I mean who would not want to be able to sell Phantom menace in 30 languages to places like Kenya, South Africa, India and China and do it from the US! Profits for them versus freedom of choice for us. I say that I should be allowed ot buy a film directly from Berlin, Tokyo. or Calcutta and be able to play it. Open Source and open standards benefit us all. Vote with you pocketbooks but also inform those who you would first boycott. Media Play and Blockbuster are not the enemy. The MPAA is.

  20. Re:If you really care on On to Mars · · Score: 2

    I should know. I missed the last mission by 5 days. I was born after the Space Race era. We have the know how to go to the Moon and Mars. Lets do it.

  21. Re:I wonder... on Encryption Debate at Mitnick Trial · · Score: 2

    Well oviously he did not get it from over here. There are other countries that use stronger codes than the RSA keys. But after 5 years, come on! Either Mitnick is a genius or he haas very good friends who can hack.

  22. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? on Putting Your Brain into A Computer · · Score: 2

    This topic keeps coming up every few years when some break through or another is annouced that "will change our futures". At the rate of progress that we have been maintaining, communications and information seem to the only resonably reliable factors in prediction. Travel certainly will not be enhanced very much since we are still bound by the current laws of physics. However all this talk of thinking machines and virtual copies of our selves makes me ask one question: Why do we even need it? I can understand the need for nanobots to help facilitate repairs to the human body or to give the sensory diabled an equal chance, but not to connect me to the Net remotely. I prefere to interface with a machine that is outside of my own physical body. I like the concept of Congnito Ergo Sum. I do not want my realities blurred. There are good drugs for that. It is a fairly safe bet that most of what has been described will either not come to pass, or will come in ways we could not anticipate. Did many people anticipate the personal computer only 40 years ago? I am still waiting for colonies in space, jet cars, fusion power, and honeymoons on Mars. Best leave the prognostication to the astrologists. When they are wrong, no one has to apologize for them.

  23. Re:Communism vs monopolism on Warner Music and EMI Set to Merge · · Score: 2

    I was merely explaining a difference to or esteemed colleague who started this thread. I am not an advocate of any "isms". Getting back to the dumbing down of society, I have just one thing to say: Have you ever been in line at a fast food joint or other service oriented place and watched cashiers try to figure out exact change? I rest my case. Those occassions are almost aas funny as the guyy named Brian who was a cashier at Burger King and had his nametag spelling his name as Brain. At least Socialist countries know how to educate.

  24. Communism vs monopolism on Warner Music and EMI Set to Merge · · Score: 2

    In communism, the state has a monopoly on power and wealth. In monopolistic capitalism, private shareholders or public share holder represented by a board hold monoplies on power and wealth. Marx warned about such things aaas the inevitability of rapant growth of capitalism. He also warned that the average consumer would get dumber. Ever gone to MacDonalds and seen the cash registers? They have pictures or words for the menu items on them. YOU DON"T EVEN NEED A THINKING HUMAN! I hope the governemnts involved force them to divest parts of the company to foster competition especiall since the new conglamerate will own at least 6 major record lables.

  25. Re:Americans vs Information on Americans and the 21st Century · · Score: 2

    I was not pushing for complacency. I was only trying to warn people about picking their fights. Again, most ills around us begin from a moral or character defect rahter than some sort of conspiracy. That coporations and goverments are extensions of groups of people, only makes things worse. I am advocating individual responsibilty. Go run for office, vote, petition the goverment, boycott a company, save an alcoholic, raise your children in a loving enviroment to be decent people. DO SOMETHING! The worst thing that can be done is nothing, even worse is violence towards innocents. The way to fight evolution in schools or encryption laws is not to fire bomb building or crack the FBI database. The way is to change peoples hearts as well as their minds. We have no heart left that is what is wrong. Oh yes, in case you ask me what I do to help others. I visit the sick, the old, the alcoholic, and the jailed. I work with others even if it is just a couple of hours a week. You I am/was one of them.