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User: Dunbal

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Comments · 12,109

  1. Re:Since when rewarding pirates is "good"? on Microsoft Confirms It Won't Offer Free Windows 10 Upgrades To Pirates · · Score: 1

    Pirates will "reward" themselves. Yarr.

  2. Re:Bummer! on Microsoft Confirms It Won't Offer Free Windows 10 Upgrades To Pirates · · Score: 2

    Technically (Sir) Henry Morgan was a buccaneer and a privateer, not a pirate. The difference is subtle but exists nonetheless. Pirates didn't receive knighthoods or governerships but rather the short end of a noose. I say this as I look out the window of my Panama apartment across the water to the ruins of "old Panama" which he plundered and burned to the ground...

  3. Re:Treaty of Tordesillas was effective on House Science Committee Approves Changes To Space Law · · Score: 1

    Nah, it just happens that Spain and Portugal were very catholic countries and also happened to be the first colonizing powers. There were (and still are!) plenty of English, French and Dutch colonies strewn about the Americas. Not to mention those "small" colonies Canada and the United States... Explain why the national language of Belize is English or why (French) Guiana and (Dutch) Suriname exist, if this treaty was enforced?

  4. Re:Votes mean nothing on Canadian Prime Minister To Music Lobby: Here's Your Copyright Term Extension · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Democracy is just a sham anyway. It only really works to your advantage if you happen to be one of the dumbest people in the country. Then you can trust that the "majority" are smarter than you and will make a better choice than you. If you are of average or higher intelligence then enjoy the fact that your leaders will always be picked by people stupider than you, since you will be in the "minority".

  5. I can imagine the premiums will be going up again on Russian Rocket Crashes In Siberia · · Score: 2

    All of these payloads are insured. The reinsurance companies can't be too happy though...oh well, money goes in, money goes out.

  6. Re:Treaty Violations on House Science Committee Approves Changes To Space Law · · Score: 2

    Enforcement is always the tricky part. Remember the Treaty of Tordesillas (where the Pope split the New World between Spain and Portugal and then everyone else ignored them and did what they wanted anyway)? This would be just about as effective.

  7. Most people didn't watch Transformers 4 at all.

  8. Everyone wants to be the loser on Here Comes the Keurig of Everything · · Score: 0

    Yeah, everyone wants to be the next Keurig. Everyone who wants to pretend to know stuff without actually knowing anything at all. You know. Marketroids and the like.

  9. Re:Illeagal Teaching? on Douglas Williams Pleads Guilty To Training Customers To Beat Polygraph · · Score: 1

    Tell that to the guy who wants to control what you get to learn ("good") and what you don't get to learn ("evil"). You were born someone else's bitch. If you don't follow the rules the whole system is designed to take care of you.

  10. Re:Quick mailbox hierarchy... on Does Using an AOL Email Address Suggest You're a Tech Dinosaur? · · Score: 1

    71541.3346@compuserve.com :P

  11. Surely you mean a snuke?

  12. (because of jews again)

    That's your argument? Come back when you want to be sensible, son.

  13. No, it doesn't "deserve" royalties. It does deserve protection in the fact that not just every punk can start banging out his song without permission and try to make money from it. Recognition that Sir Elton wrote it and gets to decide if he lets others play it or not. But in order to make money from it, Sir Elton is the one who has to put the work in, not receive welfare cheques from it. And he does put the work in. Oh boy does he ever.

  14. Gee I've brought dead people back to life, you think I haven't put a lot of hours in to my studies and my work? Anyone who is reasonably competent at what they do has invested a lot of themselves into it. Heck but I don't expect to treat one patient and then retire, living off that income for the rest of my life.

  15. Yes you're right. I've heard all of Elton John's music 30 years or more ago. I haven't bought one of his albums since I was a kid. Hell I don't even think I have bought an album of his, rather I "inherited" them from my dad. We're talking vinyl here. That's how old his stuff is. But you know what - I like the music and when there was an opportunity to attend a concert near my home, I took it. It's the concert experience that was meaningful for me - that I was willing to PAY for.

  16. Re:That'll Show 'Em on Verizon, Sprint Agree To Pay Combined $158 Million Over Cramming Charges · · Score: 1

    You never know. It could become a favorite way for a board of directors to get rid of a CEO they don't like...

  17. Re:But... on The Music Industry's Latest Shortsighted Plan: Killing Freemium Services · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of course they deserve to be able to live off their work.

    A few years ago I went to an Elton John concert. In Costa Rica, where I was living at the time. Now Sir Elton is no young puppy. Neither am I. Still I was impressed that this rather elderly entertainer was banging out these tunes, visibly sweating and working his ass off. The tickets weren't that expensive either, so he can't have been raking in a lot of money from that concert. But he worked and worked. And of course we applauded and cheered as he played exactly what we wanted to hear. Later on, I logged on and I found out that this little central america tour was just a break from his real job which was playing Vegas every weekend that year. So here is Elton John at 60 plus years old working his fucking ass off weekdays AND weekends. Yeah, Sir Elton has his own jet, and no doubt several sets of equipment and all the people he could need to keep his show on the road in many places at once. But he is working, working, working, and I don't care how many millions he makes he has earned every single penny.

    Now the stupid arsehole who thinks the world owes him a zillion dollars for that one crappy song he wrote though, no, I think THAT guy doesn't "deserve" to be able to live off his "work" at all. Writing a tune is not WORK. You wrote a song. Congrats! You think you're special? I wrote a song. My daughter painted a painting. My wife wrote a poem. Big fucking deal. Now get to fucking WORK if you actually want to live off your song! Then maybe the regular people, those of us who actually DO work every day, will respect this "artist". Copyright should never be entitlement.

  18. Re:Labels do harm to the Artists ? on The Music Industry's Latest Shortsighted Plan: Killing Freemium Services · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Personally I find it amazing that we still need "labels" and "publishers" for anything nowadays. There's a huge global distribution network out there available for almost no money, there are facebook and twitter addicts that will gladly do massive "word of mouth" advertising for you for free. I think some artists need to realize at some point that in a world where pictures of a blue/black or white/gold dress can take the whole world by storm almost overnight, maybe the reason no one wants their music is actually because it sucks.

  19. Re:An Old Story on Criticizing the Rust Language, and Why C/C++ Will Never Die · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And I still prefer to code in Assembler.

    There are all sorts of tools, many of them specialized and great for certain applications. But sometimes you just can't beat a sledgehammer. ASM, C, and to some extent C++ have a bad rep because of their lack of training wheels. But in the right hands they are the best and fastest solution to a problem. Plenty of people code, and plenty more people think they can code. Someone who knows what they are doing will not get into trouble in ASM, much less in C or C++. But there are lots of people who claim they know what they are doing when actually they know squat. They get "unintended results" when actually the language is doing exactly what they asked it to do - the problem exists in their understanding of how computers work. Yeah, maybe THOSE people should avoid these languages.

  20. Re:Get SpaceX crew-rated soon. on ISS Crew Stuck In Orbit While Russia Assesses Rocket · · Score: 2

    Considering the first Russian cosmonauts actually bailed out of their capsules and floated down to earth with regular parachutes, it's pretty low tech. Lots of industrial processes use some form of ablative heat protection and the aerodynamics for keeping a re-entry vessel oriented in the "right" direction all by itself aren't too complex for today. Putting something that can survive re-entry together can't be too hard. The landing part - which can be trickier - can be circumvented in the above manner, by using simple skydiving gear :)

  21. Re:OT: Dogs on Will Robot Cars Need Windows? · · Score: 1

    We know how you feel about the well-being of dogs!

    Yep, I hate dogs. That's why I spent all morning at the vet today with my littlest one having an ultrasound done. To make her suffer. LOL. (she's fine - just throws up once in a while - vet said it's nothing serious I just need to feed her more often instead of once a day like her "sister")

  22. Re: OT: Dogs on Will Robot Cars Need Windows? · · Score: 1

    So we agree autonomous cars are a good thing then? :)

  23. Re:Get SpaceX crew-rated soon. on ISS Crew Stuck In Orbit While Russia Assesses Rocket · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While I am not an astronaut, the Kerbals have taught me that the tricky part of manned spaceflight is mostly the getting there. Coming back is pretty routine - in fact with just the tiniest amount of delta-v, it's unavoidable! I was under the impression that there is an "emergency" Soyuz capsule permanently docked at the ISS anyway for just this sort of contingency. But surely a "crew rating" would not be necessary to get an empty capsule using tried and tested tech (mercury, gemini, Apollo) up to them to ride back in. Oh, and GO KERBALS!

  24. Re:They can just drink sewage like in California on ISS Crew Stuck In Orbit While Russia Assesses Rocket · · Score: 1, Funny

    Yep and when they get really hungry they can draw lots and eat each other's legs.

  25. Re:OT: Dogs on Will Robot Cars Need Windows? · · Score: 1

    Yep, life has risk. People die. So do dogs. Do you live your entire life in fear of what could happen?