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User: mbstone

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  1. Re:Oh, please... on Ask Slashdot: Can Digital Music Replace Most Instrumental Musicians? · · Score: 2

    No recording of an orchestra is going to sound like sitting in the same room with an orchestra playing. Period. End of discussion.

    Depends on the quality of the recording and of the playback equipment. You can get pretty close.

  2. Question is so 1980s on Ask Slashdot: Can Digital Music Replace Most Instrumental Musicians? · · Score: 1

    The cost savings realized by eliminating live musicians is generally due to using one recording of said live musicians and playing it back multiple times (for example in many stage plays). There's not much extra savings to be realized by using, say, MIDI controlled synths for the original recording.

  3. Bridge Over Damaged Cortex on Neural Prosthetic Acts Like "Bridge" Over Damaged Brain Areas · · Score: 5, Funny

    When you're dimwitted
    Feeling dumb
    When circuits in your brain
    Make your mind go numb

    I'm in your head
    When dendrites are dead
    And neurons can't be found
    Here's a bridge over damaged cortex
    Now your mind is sound
    Here's a bridge over damaged cortex
    Now your mind is sound

    When your motor nerves
    Trip you on your feet
    When your amygdala fails
    And can't comfort you

    I'll cure your rats
    Who can't get fat
    When pellets are all around
    Here's a bridge over damaged cortex
    Now your mind is sound
    Here's a bridge over damaged cortex
    Now your mind is sound

  4. Re:costs less than a professional DSLR camera? on Create Your Own Bullet Time Camera Rig With Raspberry Pi · · Score: 3, Funny

    No, no, no. Not $5280. He said "half a kilometre" which is $1640.

  5. Re:robocop was somewhat like that on Scientists Boost the "Will To Persevere" With Current To the Brain · · Score: 1

    Even if you live in the backwaters of India (redundant) you are expected to read and memorize TV Tropes before posting to Slashdot.

  6. C:\$App on Google Is Building a Way To Launch Chrome Apps Without Installation · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The truest words ever spoken on the subject were penned by Nicholas Petreley, the IT industry columnist, who opined that:

    1) There should not be a "registry" or an :"install" program.

    2) Everything needed to run $App should reside in C:\$App.

    This of course would enable $App to be copied freely from machine to machine, which is probably why there is a Windows Registry.

  7. Manned! on Scientists Propose Satellite Early Warning System For Forest Fires · · Score: 4, Funny

    Instead of an automatic system there should be a space capsule with a human park ranger spotter inside.

    In the off-season it should be left vacant so anybody can come and live there for free.

  8. Re:I'd spent my money somewhere tastier on Nathan Myhrvold's $500 Cookbook Now an $80 iPhone App · · Score: 1

    Also check out the cable TV informercial for Nu Wave Portable Induction Cooker.

  9. Re:I'd spent my money somewhere tastier on Nathan Myhrvold's $500 Cookbook Now an $80 iPhone App · · Score: 1

    I was looking for a cheap knockoff version of Myhrvold's $800 cookbook and found On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, $25 hardcover. All the cooking-theory topics you mentioned are covered. Tell your SO you want it for the holidays.

  10. I was able to test kopi luwak a long time ago. on Researchers Discover Way To Spot Crappy Coffee · · Score: 1

    All I did was recalibrate my bullshit detector.

  11. Re:Obvious lesson. on Partner of Guardian's Snowden Reporter Detained Under Terrorism Act · · Score: 1

    If you're an uppity reporter, or a family member or friend of an uppity reporter, carry lots of hard drives and DVDs full of random 1s and 0s, so NSA, GCHQ etc. can expend resources attempting to decrypt them.

  12. Re:Tip of the iceberg on Verizon Ordered To Provide All Customer Data To NSA · · Score: 1

    > Be grey, keep your head down, express no strong views. Do nothing of note have friends who do nothing of note.

    Another solution: Have nothing to lose.

  13. Strength of materials analysis on Building New Materials With Light · · Score: 4, Funny

    Structures made of light are less sturdy than those made of straw, or bricks, nevertheless they are immune to being blown down with mere huffing and puffing.

  14. Cute IKEA-Building Robots on Teachable Robot Helps Assemble IKEA Furniture · · Score: 1

    The IKEA robots have been combined with the cute robots who persuade people to tell them their innermost secrets.

    You'll be able to watch yourself on TV blabbing your innermost secrets while sitting on cheap furniture.

  15. Re:One small problem on Radioactive Bacteria Attack Cancer · · Score: 1

    But you have a choice. You can be implanted with the radioactive bacteria, or you can opt for the fecal transplant behind door #2 which Carol is pointing to down on the display floor.

  16. Not one post about what's actually in the bill on CISPA Passes US House, Despite Privacy Shortcomings and Promised Veto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I looked in vain for something to mod up.

    Nearly all discussion here is about the much-hyped topic of corporations possibly turning over private data on consumers to the gubmint in the name of cyber security.

    While this may or may not be of concern, most of CISPA is an update to FISMA, the law that mandates how federal government information systems are acquired and what security measures are to be implemented.

    So far zero on-topic discussion here.

  17. Re:Possibly the original smartwatch? on Microsoft Working With Suppliers on Designs for Watch-Like Device · · Score: 2

    I had a watch circa 1995 that required an annual subscription to a broadcast data service that would send, for example, sports scores.

    Like every other similar service ever offered on "smart" watches, the OEM decided to 86 the data feed after a couple of years, and I ended up throwing the thing away.

    I don't remember the name of the OEM, can anybody refresh my memory?

    Every New Years' Day the motherfucker would wake me up at 7 AM to remind me that it was New Years' Day.

  18. Patents??!? on Microsoft Working With Suppliers on Designs for Watch-Like Device · · Score: 1

    On the Two-Way Wrist TV??!?

  19. This troll is stupid on New Revenue Model For Low Budget Films: Lawsuits · · Score: 1

    They are sending settlement demands for $7500? Odds are, you could hire one of the thousands of hungry lawyers out there to defend the entire case on a fixed fee for $7500 (or maybe $7499).

    The whole point of copyright trolling is to set the demand at just under what you think it will cost the defendant to hire a lawyer, say $3000, that way it is more cost-effective for them to just pay you.

  20. Re:Cover-ups biggest threat... on Leak Found In Fukushima Tank Holding Radioactive Water · · Score: 1

    Here's the PowerPoint version so's you don't have to sit through 30 minutes of video.

  21. Re:know your audience on Spinning Black Hole's Edge Rotates At Nearly the Speed of Light · · Score: 1

    Now I know that steam ions are what actually remove wrinkles from shirts.

  22. Re:Good idea on Google Chrome Getting Audio Indicators To Show You Noisy Tabs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How about identifying noisy websites in Google search results?

  23. Speed it up on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Feel About Recording Your Entire Life? · · Score: 1

    I'd like to record my life at 33 and play it back at 45, so everyone would sound like a chipmunk. Simon! Theodore! Alvin!!

  24. Re:Just try... on NASA's Basement Nuclear Reactor · · Score: 1

    I used to live in NYC.

    "Quit banging on the pipes up there. I told you, it needs a new uranium condensator and it's on backorder. Should be here by spring."

  25. Just try... on NASA's Basement Nuclear Reactor · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...getting the landlord to fix the nuclear reactor.

    It's hard enough to get him to fix the water heater.