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User: jandrese

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  1. Re:Performance? I'd rather worry about comfort on High Performance Gaming Mice Don't Perform · · Score: 1

    FWIW, I use simple (cheap) Logitech wheel mice and I've never gummed up a wheel, even after years of use.

  2. Again? on US Contemplating 'Vehicle Miles Traveled' Tax · · Score: 1

    How many months has it been since we last heard this? 4? 5? For some reason, despite the fact that it would be enormously expensive and a logistical nightmare, this idea keeps coming back from the dead. You see it floated from time to time as idle banter, but once someone starts to work out the details the whole idea falls apart.

    Anything that requires you to buy and install hundreds of millions of GPS units is going to die when someone prices out the cost of GPS units. It's slightly more realistic if your annual safety inspection included a look at the odometer and a tax on how many miles you drove that year, but then it gets into the whole state/federal mess and the fact that some states don't do inspections and some do them at different intervals, etc...

    Of course the easiest solution is to just raise the gas tax, but obviously that's politically difficult to do when you get campaign funds from the oil industry.

  3. Re:Huh? on Apple Remove Samba From OS X 10.7 Because of GPLv3 · · Score: 1

    The downside is that they can't contribute back to the community now, removing some of the benefit of using GPL code in the first place.

  4. Re:Religion on Gadgets For the Ghosthunter · · Score: 1

    He may be referring to the concept of the Holy Ghost.

  5. Re:IR on Ask Slashdot: Setting Up Wireless Voting For Students? · · Score: 1

    Trying to make IR work with 399-599 competing signals sounds like a nightmare, and the range is likely to be too short for a room large enough for that many students.

  6. Re:Detection on AT&T Cracking Down On Unofficial iPhone Tethering · · Score: 1

    Tethering sets up NAT on the phone, so that probably wouldn't work.

  7. Re:Utah: More of the same on Utah Governor 'Honored' With Blackhole Award · · Score: 1

    Holy crap, 1% of Utah residents are polygamists! That's out of a national average of around 0%, so it's pretty impressive.

    In related news, some residents of Wisconsin don't own foam cheese hats.

  8. Re:American pride aside on NASA Buys 12 Seats On Soyuz · · Score: 1

    The problem is the budget. Every country would be trying to get the other guys to pay more and trying to control as much of the agency as possible. Countries would get mad and pull out randomly as political ties ebb and flow. It would be a nightmare of epic proportions to administer.

  9. Re:Why? on NASA Worker Falls To His Death On Launch Pad · · Score: 1

    Probably he's a candidate for one of those safety videos where someone takes a shortcut and ends up dead/horribly mutilated.

  10. Re:Finally! on Researchers Develop Biofuel Alternative To Ethanol · · Score: 1

    My wife had a gas burning 2004 Jetta, and the electrics were the scourge of that vehicle (besides the plastics falling apart of course). She burnt out several expensive computers before discovering that a tiny bit of broken plastic on the light in the trunk had let it short out against the body of the car which caused the computer to fry itself. The speakers were also prone to failing randomly, and it sometimes killed batteries for no apparent reason. We ended up getting rid of it after hearing a loud clunk and then the unmistakable whine of a broken transmission one day while driving down the road. It was also the day the glove compartment fell out.

  11. Re:Lake Superior on Town Expands To Boost Cooling For NSA Data Center · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is Lake Superior in your congressional district? No? Then STFU.

  12. Re:Consoles as Target Platforms on How the PC Is Making Consoles Look Out of Date · · Score: 1

    I've not found that to be the case. For most multiplatform titles, the PC version will have whichever console version had the nicer textures, but will otherwise be a port, frequently a really shoddy port at that (Press R2 to not die!). Graphics won't look much better on the PC than they did on the console because it's basically the same textures, same display code, etc... PC gamers have the option to apply tweaks outside of a game (turning on 16xCSAA for instance), but they tend to be marginal differences at best. Textures will still look like crap close up (because on the TV you're sitting further away and don't notice) and you'll be stuck in loading screens a lot.

  13. Re:I blame Bush on A Bittersweet Finale For Discovery Space Shuttle · · Score: 2

    To be fair, the Shuttles had proven to be somewhat accident prone (about 1 flight in 100 ends in disaster) so shutting down the project isn't that crazy. What is crazy is that they're being shut down before any sort of replacement is even close to ready. Then just go "well, I guess the private sector can do it, right?"

  14. Re:Democracy is... on Utah To Teach USA is a Republic, Not a Democracy · · Score: 1

    The inherent problem with dictatorships is a lack of checks on power. Without it, the old adage about absolute power corrupting absolutely holds true. That said, there's nothing in Democracy itself that sets up a check on power, but at least it's possible in the system. Even if you do find a saint to run a dictatorship and keep out the corruption, he's eventually going to die and have to be replaced, and you chances of finding two saints in a row are slim indeed. Once the corruption sets in, it's pretty much impossible to root out as well, you have to have revolution of some kind to depose the dictator and his cronies and start again.

  15. Re:USA Only? on Facebook May Bust Up the SMS Profit Cartel · · Score: 1

    The thing about "crazy SMS prices" is that they're for the people who don't buy an SMS plan and instead get charged per message. If you're sending hundreds or thousands of messages a month, you get the $25/month flat fee SMS plan and be done with it. Carriers like it because they get fixed income (for 2 years at least) and that's a big reason they set the alacarte SMS fees up at punishing levels.

  16. Re:Voice Data on Facebook May Bust Up the SMS Profit Cartel · · Score: 1

    Even satellite phones aren't anywhere near that expensive. $20/minute is expensive on satellite phones these days.

  17. Re:Anyone know... on iPad 2 Forces Samsung To Reevaluate Galaxy Tab · · Score: 1

    Apple's competitors have been up-speccing their machines quite a lot compared to the iPad. The original iPad has a paltry 256MB of memory compared to the GB most of the Android tablets are packing. They also include faster processors, fancier screens, tons of ports, etc...

    But mostly they've been trying to keep profit margins healthy.

  18. Until it's cheaper, yes on Does Syfy Really Love Sci-Fi? · · Score: 5, Informative

    From what I can tell, SyFy doesn't hate Sci-Fi so much as it hates shows that require money to produce. That's why it's chock full of Ghost Retards type shows and horrible Canadian subsidized horror movies.

    That said, the costuming reality show (Face Off) has been fairly interesting, even if the producers are hitting the "reality show drama" notes quite a bit too hard. There is some skill and technique on display, and I would be ecstatic if they added little segments about the different techniques they're using "this material takes a couple of hours to set and require different kinds of paint, but allow for more realistic mobility..." instead of the "But Person X is hitting on Person Y, and that's making Person Z jealous" manufactured bullshit.

  19. Re:Mind your B's on Apple To Unveil Light Peak, New MacBook Pros This Week? · · Score: 1

    Since it is a communication tech, almost certainly 10Gb/s. 10GB/s would be right at the edge of what a full power modern PC can keep up with (assuming you're not doing anything with the data). Dedicated bit blasters like video cards can run faster but even super high resolution 3D displays though (WQXGA at 120hz with 32bit color would be pushing 15Gb/s. The point is, nothing on the consumer level is even close to 80Gb/s (10GB/s), so it would be gross overkill and very expensive on modern machines.

  20. Re:Why would you remake Heavy Metal? on How Watchmen Killed 'R'-rated Fantasy Movies · · Score: 1

    The nudity was an important factor of Doc Manhattan. One can see him drifting away from humanity at various parts of the film, and one of the most striking ways he does this is by discarding his old human habits like wearing clothes.

    I do think some people's nudity hangup did hurt the Watchmen at the box office, but to claim that it was a cop out is disingenuous.

  21. Re:I was really looking forward to "Lost Girls". on How Watchmen Killed 'R'-rated Fantasy Movies · · Score: 1

    You know the worst part? The studio would find a way to cut it down to PG-13.

  22. Re:Games Instead on How Watchmen Killed 'R'-rated Fantasy Movies · · Score: 1

    The downside of this is that you have to slog through several hours of repetitive cover based shooting in order to get the story.

    I had a roommate in college who played Final Fantasy games for the storyline, always skipping battles where he could and never grinding. He was about the only person I ever knew who needed several tries to deal with the final boss, and sometimes didn't finish the games at all because he would get to a miniboss or a boss that just wasn't possible without more grinding.

  23. Re:Really? on How Do Seeders Profit From BitTorrent? · · Score: 1

    Who would actually do this? A handful of suckers? That's no way to get rich. If I got a file that had a readme that said "this file is encrypted, and we didn't tell you that before you downloaded it. To get the password, sign up for all of these credit cards and whatnot first." I would delete the file without a second thought. A legit uploader will fill the hole pretty quickly. Said torrent would get a lot of "Don't download! Bogus!" comments too.

  24. Re:why on earth... on Keys Leaking Through the Air At RSA · · Score: 3, Informative

    Because eTrade would throw a hissyfit if the stock exchanges were completely disconnected from the net. Not to mention all of the traders that no longer work directly on the floor, but instead issue trades via the network, often times using bots.

  25. Re:almost tempted to buy some shares on Nokia Shareholders Fight Back · · Score: 1

    WinMo had an absolutely atrocious interface that was as likely to stab you in the face as let you make a phone call. Granted, most all smartphones back then were as bad or worse (Symbian, shudder) but that's not exactly helping the case. That's why the iPhone made such a big splash, it was like the first time a company decided to actually test their devices with humans before sending them out into the real world. It didn't require five menu traversals to check your email, it came with a browser that could render most webpages at least somewhat legibly, the address book had a search feature that didn't require more information than filling out a 1040, it wasn't slow as balls with absolutely everything. Smartphones have come a long way in these past few years, and it doesn't help us to look back too fondly on the terrible devices of the past.