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User: Guppy06

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  1. Re:On the bright side... on PS3 Details Slowly Emerging · · Score: 1

    I don't know what you're talkin gabout, I get lots of use out of the 32 MB memory stick! It's the UMD slot that has no porpose! :)

  2. Re:Even easier solution on Cosmic Rays Could Kill Astronauts Visiting Mars · · Score: 1

    So would you volunteer to find out if you're one of those lucky 10%? If so, I have this neat game you might enjoy involving a revolver and a single round...

  3. Re:Devil's Advocate on Spammers Lose Court Battle Against Univ. of Texas · · Score: 1
    "but told the military that they were not welcome on campus."
    No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
    It's their constitutional right. I don't see the phrase "unless there's federal money involved" anywhere in the federal constitution.
  4. Top XXX Lists? on IGN's Top 100 Games · · Score: 1

    When did IGN become the VH1 of video games?

  5. That's nice on Maniac Mansion Creator Supports Indie Ports · · Score: 1

    The important question: what does the content owner think about these ports?

    Remember, with IP law, what the creator thinks doesn't mean jack.

  6. Gonna hurt them at launch... on PS3 Details Slowly Emerging · · Score: 1

    Aside from the issues of having to find some sort of dongle to transfer saves, this is goin to hurt them at launch when their comptetitors are a little more backwards compatible. If the PS3 launch is anything like the PSP launch, there will be maybe 3 games total available at launch (and maybe 1 of them will be worth playing), so without the ability to also play the older library with older saves, there is no game-related reason to actually shell out money for the box at launch.

  7. Is there a choice... on Yahoo to Launch Blog Ad Network · · Score: 1

    ... for an ad-server that isn't obnoxious, moderately topical and doesn't support Chinese censorship?

  8. FIX THE TYPO! on NRLB Redefines 'Your Own Time' · · Score: 1

    NRLB? National Right to Life Bureau?

  9. Re:Paper, we don't need no stinking on WI Bill Would Require E-Voting Paper Trail, Source · · Score: 1

    Gee, thanks. 400+ results, not one of which apparently saying anything like where or when the Man of Steel supposedly uttered this. I don't subscribe to the "repetition is truth" idea.

  10. Re:End Socalism on Senator Carper Calls for Tax on Online Porn · · Score: 1

    Great idea, I love it, but it has a bit of a flaw:

    "The internet comes into my home,"

    What if, in my yard, I clip the wire that brings you the internet?

  11. Re:Mod parent troll on Senator Carper Calls for Tax on Online Porn · · Score: 1

    "If sex is just the good clean fun some people say it is, then why do people's partners get so angry when they cheat? Answer: its more than fun, it is a sharing of yourself with another person on a very intimate level."

    Then why don't these same individuals also get angry when their partner goes to confession or a mental health professional?

  12. Re:Nevada ranches WANT to be taxed... on Senator Carper Calls for Tax on Online Porn · · Score: 1

    Most states and the federal government also tax marijuana and other illegal narcotics (little known fact, probably an attempt to bust consumers and dealers for tax evasion on top of everything else). However, I don't see them changing their legal status any time soon...

  13. Re:Atheism is not a religion on Senator Carper Calls for Tax on Online Porn · · Score: 1

    "Saying that atheism is a religion is precisely like saying a lack of belief in the healing power of pyramids is a religion."

    We have biology, medicine, psychology, chemistry, physics, and any number of other fields of science that can demonstrably disprove the effect of "healing pyramids" beyond that of a placebo (and even then the effects of a placebo are not currently understood and are hotly debated as a result).

    Where's your science disproving the existence of any sort of divine entity or divine order in the universe?

  14. Re:Aeris on Square Enix Event Revelations · · Score: 1

    "Even if that's what in the description, they really seem to work more like salts."

    These "salts" can bring you back after being sliced, stabbed, shot, crushed, exploded, set on fire, chewed up and spit out, and having some sort of planet-destroying beam (if certain animations in the final fight are to believed) smack into you. Are these people then only "mostly dead?"

    They were careful enough in FF6 to spell it "fenix down" to pretend that it couldn't be used to revive a certain NPC who was injured pre-game, but really, the poster is right: the phoenix downs had been used on Aeris numerous times for far more grievous injuries than simply being run through. At least Phantasy Star II tried to explain why you couldn't/shouldn't revive Nei (and you were allowed to try!).

    "After all, if you don't revive a downed character, they're still alive"

    That is far from a constant in the Final Fantasy games. Most of the games had you dragging around bodies until you revived them. Heck, in the first game the party couldn't even revive those with 0 HP without going back to a town.

  15. Re:Not very smart on Xbox 360 to have HD-DVD, Eventually · · Score: 1

    This is more evolutionary than something new. Already you need to know what model number PS2 you have before you buy a four-player adapter or DVD remote for it.

  16. Re:My opinion? on Nintendo Launches Wi-Fi Campaign for DS · · Score: 1

    "Alone in the Dark opens with a long text crawl explaining the movie"

    A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

  17. Re:Sue SCO? on They Make Stuff? SCO's OpenServer 6 Reviewed · · Score: 1

    Yuming Yiminy! A moose once bit my sister...

  18. Re:Jefferson would be more shocked on Why Bill Gates Wants 3,000 New Patents · · Score: 1

    " At least he has a county here in Washington named after him."

    Do you realize how many states there are in the Union that have a county named after Washinton? :)

    "On the other hand, at least Jefferson got his face on the two dollar bill, while Washington is only on the one dollar bill."

    Ah, but in the case of paper currency, a Thomas is considered to be worth a lot more than two Georges in the opinions of most people.

  19. Re:Paper, we don't need no stinking on WI Bill Would Require E-Voting Paper Trail, Source · · Score: 1

    ""It's not who votes that counts. It's who counts the votes." -- Joseph Stalin"

    Now, I don't know any Russian, but I have my doubts that there is a single Russian word that means both "to enumerate" and "is of importance" in the way that "counts" does. Do you have a source for this convenient quote?

  20. Question on Square Enix Event Revelations · · Score: 1

    "Square Enix has their yearly media event"

    Final this, Fantasy that... Where's the Enix?

  21. Re:Jefferson would be more shocked on Why Bill Gates Wants 3,000 New Patents · · Score: 1

    "Oh, and he'd be upset that he's in another place named Washington while there's no state name Jefferson."

    They tried! However, their plan to "secede every Thursday until further notice" didn't work out.

  22. There's a name, people! on Why Bill Gates Wants 3,000 New Patents · · Score: 1

    "seeing software patents stacked like pyramids of cannonballs?"

    "Brass monkey."

  23. Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no on U.S. Moves to Kill Leap Seconds · · Score: 1

    "Companies would stay open the same time, relative to the sun, that they're open now,"

    Why? If atomic time and solar time no longer try to agree with one another, why would a company base its hours off of atomic time instead of solar time? If they're going to operate "relative to the sun," and atomic time is no longer relative to the sun, why would they continue to use it?

    "Also, there'd be local reference agencies - like everyone keeping the same hours as the local government."

    We already have the situation in two states where, during Daylight Saving Time, the clocks in the post offices are an hour off from clocks everywhere else in the county (including county courthouses). And if government timekeepers aren't a compelling reason to abide by a standard that tries to follow the sun, why would the local populace abide by a standard that has nothing to do with the sun? What compelling reason would there be not to use a sundial?

    ""Call me at 37:68" or whatever and I'd know EXACTLY what that meant, because it'd be the same time here."

    Already more than possible using UTC. Any plan for a compulsory global time zone would have to take into account the fact that nobody is doing it voluntarily.

    "My syncronization concerns are over the minute you say when to call."

    What if there is no pre-arranged synchronization? What if you want to suprise me on my birthday and call me during lunch?

    "That's only a problem if you mandate that farmers worldwide must work at 6am UTC or something."

    But trying to compel a single worldwide timezone is already an attempt to get everybody else to comply with UTC, if only on the defintion of hours. Without an agreed-upon standard of how to adjust lives with respect to UTC, lining up your hours with UTC only makes sense in communities lying on longitude lines that are multiples of 15. Noon in New Orleans tends to line up conveniently with x:00 UTC, but noon in Houston does not. And if modern things like elctricity demand depend more on solar noon than when an even 3.6 ks goes by in UTC, what compelling reason is there to use UTC to begin with?

    Today, that compelling reason is time zones, an agreed-upon standard that tries to adjust UTC to agree with solar time without complicated mathematics. New Orleans, Houston and Chicago can agree to synchronize their mechanical clocks becaues they are not also trying to synchronize their clocks with New York or Honolulu, and I can publish a table that says "air conditioning needs tend to peak around 12:00" and have it be true for the entire country, because the sun will be overhead at 12:00, give or take 8 degrees.

    Without the flexibility of time zones to follow the sun in an agreeable, easy-to-implement way, that same table will start to talk about "solar noon" and your local power plant will suddenly be much more interested in sundials than in atomic timekeepers. The tendancy would be to let the computers worry about the difference between local solar time and UTC (just as we already let the computers worry about the difference between, say, EDT and UTC) and the general populace would live their lives in solar time, making life in Houston off-kilter with life in New Orleans by about 20 minutes.

    Why would life after time zones be different from life before time zones?

  24. Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no on U.S. Moves to Kill Leap Seconds · · Score: 1

    "How long after? Who knows! The posting didn't specify."

    Your employer will. What benefit is there for the general population to live their lives based on TAI instead of based on a sundial?

    "but merely that I typically wake up after it is no longer dark outside."

    TAI, at best, tells you when it is light outisde on the Prime Meridian. If you are going to live your life based on where the sun is in the sky anyway, why would you bother with atomic time to begin with, especially if you no longer try to adjust atomic time to agree with solar time?

  25. Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no on U.S. Moves to Kill Leap Seconds · · Score: 1

    "It isn't like one business is going to open at 1842 and another at 1857. They'd both open at 1900 most likely, or 1800 perhaps."

    Why? What compelling reason is there to do so?

    Ultimately, in our lives there are two standards of time, one atomic, one solar, and solar always has preference. Atomic clocks do not govern how much heat and light you get from the sky, how much longer farm workers can harvest in the field, how much longer construction workers can erect a skyscraper, how much load is put on the electric grid by air conditioners, driving conditions or any number of other factors. Atomic time, by itself, is a wholly arbitrary number, and knowing what time it is in TAI or even UTC has about as much meaning to most of the population as knowing what Julian Day it is.

    We have time zones so that we can use atomic time in a way that is acceptably close to solar time. Generally speaking, time zones keep the arbitrary, otherwise meaningless numbers presented by a clock reasonably close to what a sundial would say. This deviation is relatively small, and looking at a clock becomes an acceptable substitute to looking out a window.

    Without time zones, without some sort of agreement between atomic time and solar time, you now have a situation where, instead of atomic time is trying to complement solar time, it is trying to compete with solar time, and history has shown that it will lose every time.

    You mention that businesses could choose to open at an integer number of hours offset from TAI. But which direction? What about communities that are 7.5 degrees west longitude, should they round up or round down an integer hour? Worse yet, what compelling reason is there for all businesses on that meridian to all round in the same direction? Some will round up, some will round down, and it will generate disagreement along that meridian.

    On the other hand, one thing that everybody on that meridian can agree upon is where the sun is in the sky. Modern sundials can compensate for the equation of time, modern sundials can work on cloudy days, and modern sundials can even have a digital display. A sundial can tell you how many SI hours you are from local noon, or mean noon, or any number of measurements that depend on where the sun is in the sky. If you want your clock or your watch to be an adequate substitute to looking out the window, instead of setting it to TAI you will set it to a sundial.

    This is what happened in the Eighteenth Century. The concept of a global time, GMT, had been around for about a century beforehand. A new town's location on the map was determined by GMT, so a town's builders were well aware of how much time they were behind GMT. However, when it became time to decide on a community's standard of time, there was no compelling reason to try to use GMT. A chronometer told you nothing about the amount of heat and light you get from the sky, when you could work outside, or when to start lighting the gas lamps. There was also no compelling reason to try to offset their lives by an integer number of hours from GMT, because such a decision was wholly arbitrary and would be ad hoc across the country (even if everybody decided to offset from GMT, there'd be no agreement on which direction to round).

    So, almost without exception, the decision was made instead to set clocks and watches based on a sundial. And without time zones, you are removing one of the main reasons (if not the only reason) to use atomic time as the standard in your life instead of solar time.

    If you are a business owner, with anything even resembling local interests (often in the form of "getting employees to show up"), and you have to choose between operating based on some arbitrary numbers that represent only themselves, or based on a particular shadow, why should you choose the former? Not everybody in a community (let alone a state) would be able to agree on exactly what window in TAI to live their waking lives, but the sun in the sky provides an undeniable tim