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User: Newtonian_p

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Comments · 153

  1. Fill my visual cortex on Eizo Debuts Monitor With 1:1 Aspect Ratio · · Score: 1

    I can't wait until we can just plug the display output directly to our brains and set the resolution so that it fill's our brain's entire video frame buffer.

  2. Re:Hrm... on New Russian Fighter Not Up To Western Standards · · Score: 2

    The Su-27 was a pretty formidable plane, comparable to the F-15.

  3. Linux for Workgroups 3.11 on Linux 3.11 Released · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Linux for Workgroups 3.11

  4. Re:The Onion said it best on Qualcomm Says Eight-Core Processors Are Dumb · · Score: 1

    Enjoy getting a million little cuts.

  5. Re:Dinosaurs closer to Birds on Experiment Will Determine Dinosaur's Skin Color · · Score: 1

    Birds are reptiles now.

    Yes they are. Although in common everyday language usually "reptiles" means those scale covered green or brown land creatures, in taxonomy all living and extinct bird species are part of the reptilia class.

    See:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avialae

  6. Re:**YAWN** on Solar Panel Breaks "Third of a Sun" Efficiency Barrier · · Score: 2

    What is the "life expectancy" of PVs?

  7. Re:How would it affect battery life? on Linus Torvalds Advocates For 2560x1600 Standard Laptop Displays · · Score: 2

    I believe most of the monitor's power drain comes from the back light. For a given screen size, the back light should be the same regardless of the resolution so I expect little impact on battery life.

  8. High UV and radiation on Scientists Estimate 40% of Red Dwarfs Have A Rocky Planet · · Score: 1

    They say the high levels of UV may hinder the development of life but it could have developed underground protected by a thick layer of rock.

  9. Re:Creationism on Scientists Decipher 3-Billion-Year-Old Genomic Fossils · · Score: 2

    This sort of ad-hoc rationalisation can be used to account for absolutely anything imaginable. For instance, arguing that God created the whole Universe 5 minutes ago with everything in it and all our memories in a way to make it undistinguishable from a 13.7 billion year old Universe would be another example of ad-hoc rationalisation that can account for anything which is intellectually equivalent to your suggestion.

    I know you don't necessarily believe in "domino theology", it is just something to use on creationists but in my experience there almost no chance that they'll change anything in their mind about the subject of evolution. For anything related to someone's religiously based beliefs it's hard to have any productive discussion.

  10. Re:Creationism on Scientists Decipher 3-Billion-Year-Old Genomic Fossils · · Score: 1

    Ultragod created God, obviously.

    Who created Ultragod you ask? What a silly question. Ultragod is eternal and thus needs no origin.

  11. Wait a while until Write Amplification kicks in on AOL Spends $1M On Solid State Memory SAN · · Score: 1

    Wait a while until Write Amplification kicks in. Then they'll be screwed.

  12. Re:Wow on Earth-Like Planet That Could Sustain Life Found · · Score: 2, Informative

    "The Great Debate" occured in 1920 and it took a while after that to figure out that Heber Curtis was right. It's crazy that it took so long to develop the telescopes needed to find out there are other galaxies out there.

    And in less than 90 years since then, we now have the technology to take those Deep Field pictures showing tens of thousands of galaxies at a time when the Universe was 300 million years old.

  13. Re:Mod parent up and tell child to shut up! on Science vs. Homeopathy · · Score: 1

    I have experienced patients having complete cures that they did not get through ordinary medical means.

    Anecdotes do not prove whether a mediacal treatment works. There are many ways in which different types of biases makes basing conclusions on anecdotes unreliable.

    Just as a few examples how this can possibly happen:
    - Perception of symptoms may be very subjective. A patient may report an improvement in how he feels even if what he took does nothing.
    - Symptoms often vary in intensity or go away and come back. A patient may enter a phase where the symptoms diminished or went away and attribute it to the treatment and report it as such. He may then fail to report it when they later come back.
    - Crediting the wrong treatment. A patient may be taking a conventional drug while following his alternative treatment and attribute the curing to the alternative method even though it might have been due to the conventional drug.
    - The patient may be a hypochondriac. He may never have had the condition he now reports as cured in the first place.
    - The patient may be lying and falsely report his illness is gone.

    There is also bias that can be introduced by the person dispensing the treatment. Say you are running a homeopathy shop and many people come and try your products. Those who find it does not work do not return while those who are convinced it does work (rightly or wrongly) keep returning. You are therefore only collecting anecdotes mostly from those people who believe it works.

    Also, you may subconsciency remember only the anecdotes that are favorable to what you are doing.

    Therefore, if you believe that those stories from your patients PROVE that homeopathy works, you are irrational. If you do not believe it proves it, and if you have nothing else that proves homeopathy right but still decide to change your world view based on it, then you are believing things to be true without knowing them to be true and are again, you are irrational.

  14. Re:hmm laptops on Fakes, Coming to a Store Near You · · Score: 1

    As someone posted earlier, they might be laptops made by the same factory that produces the real thing but which did not pass QA testing.

  15. Re:THHGTTG! on A Programmer's Bookshelf · · Score: 1

    That never happens to me. What kind of geek are you?

  16. Re:more karma on Silicon Graphics To Be Delisted From NYSE · · Score: 1

    You're right. I didn't know that but looking in to the FAQ, confirms what you said:

    Note that being moderated Funny doesn't help your karma. You have to be smart, not just a smart-ass.

  17. GPL grammer checker is still possible on AbiWord beats OpenOffice to a Grammar Checker · · Score: 1

    Even though GPL'd code can't be committed to OpenOffice.Org's main LGPL'd code base. Anyone can release a GPL only fork of the office suite with a built in GPL grammer checker.

    LGPL code can be inserted into GPL code but not the other way around.

  18. Re:Gaim... on Linux Instant Messengers · · Score: 1

    Yes, the Tiger version adds Jabber functionality, but my clamshell iBook can't run Tiger.

    Why don't you use XPostFacto?

  19. Re:Apple v. Dell? on Speculation on Real Reasons Behind Apple Switch · · Score: 1

    Just out of curiosity, what is it in the hardware architecture that makes you want to use them over other architectures?

  20. Re:A good example on Viewing Files on the Web Considered Possession? · · Score: 1

    People who rape actual kids get less than that.

    I've look this up to see if it's true and you're correct, some get less than 20 years. For instance:
    Michael Torres, found guilty of raping an 11 year old girl, sentence: 13 years.

    Although some get more.

  21. Re:20 years over 4 hours? on Viewing Files on the Web Considered Possession? · · Score: 1

    I fail to see how the time it takes to commit a crime has any relevance in the duration of the sentence.

    What I find absurd is the mere fact that he's going to prison for 20 years for possessing some jpg files and this regardless of how long he's been doing it.

  22. Re:Not sure what you're talking about... on Mandriva Buys Assets from Lycoris · · Score: 1

    I tried version 10.1 community edition on my friend's computer and it caused lots of problems. The ones I remember are the colors in any Xv output would get all screwed up after running the Totem player (but Mplayer didn't cause this problem), Starcraft didn't display properly under WINE (even when using the same version of WINE I have which works fine) and doing a search in kfind would freeze the dialog permanently.

    To be fair this was a community edition and not a commercial release.

    I'm still running 9.1 (with a lot of manual updates from the original sources) right now and it works perfectly.

  23. Re:So...http://apple.slashdot.org/users.pl on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for x86 Leaked? · · Score: 1

    I agree, dmg is a popular format among Mac users because it can be mounted using the Disk Copy tool which comes with Mac OS. It is possible that a user running Tiger/x86 would create an image of his install disk using the built-in software of Tiger/x86.

    However, I'm starting to have doubts that these stories about a leak are true. If they were, the strong desire to have a copy of Tiger/x86 would have ensured that it would be well spread around p2p networks by now. But all I can find so far are a few obvious fakes. (I've checked Bittorrent, E-donkey and Gnutella.)

  24. Re:So...http://apple.slashdot.org/users.pl on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for x86 Leaked? · · Score: 1

    I found a 500 MB file on Gnutella named 'Mac OS X Tiger Intel version.dmg' but I have no idea wether it's real or not.

  25. Re:Still downhill but... on The Final Days of Final Fantasy · · Score: 1

    How can your Karma affect you when you're not logged in?