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User: JahToasted

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  1. Stupid on Sensor Networks for NBC Threats · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Its just a PR gimmick so the politicians can say "Look we are doing something". A terrorist will never attack in a way that is unexpected.

    You want to know what the next terrorist will be like? Read up about the DC sniper case a few months back. Now imagine 20 snipers armed with rifles, and RPGs fanning out accross the nation. Yeah, eventually they'll be found and shot (martyred), but the terror it would cause both before and after (how do you know there aren't more?) would be immeasurable. How can you prevent it from happening? Well you can't, but that won't stop your leaders from turning the US into a police state because of it.

  2. Kilos on USS Ronald Reagan Commissioning Tomorrow · · Score: 1

    ohhh I remember them bastards from Red Storm Rising. On more than one occasion I've been sunk by them without me knowing they were there. I think only the typhoons were harder to find than they were.

  3. Re:Sorry on Linux v2.6 Begins Testing · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thanks... I'll be installing it tonight. Right after I backup all my files, of course. I know what greased turkey tastes like already.

  4. Re:One question. on USS Ronald Reagan Commissioning Tomorrow · · Score: 1

    ummm, no. Its actually plagiarism. I've seen this on usenet before.

  5. Re:They have...in training on USS Ronald Reagan Commissioning Tomorrow · · Score: 1
    Ummm... you know what active sonar is, right? The Carrier (or one of its escorts) sends out a loud ping noise, and that noise reflects off the hull of the sub. *ping* ... *pong* The sub could have its engines turned off completely and it would still be detected.

    Now if the sub was actually resting on the sea floor, then active sonar would have a hard time finding it. Of course this would be a risky maneuver for the sub.

    The disadvantage of active sonar is that it gives away your position to everyone at least twice the range of the active sonar. But if the active sonar was from a buouy dropped by a helicopter, it wouldn't really matter much, since there isn't very much a sub can do to a helo.

    Of course all my knowledg of submarine warfare comes the the 80's videogame "Red Storm Rising" by microprose, so I could be wrong.

  6. Re:this is great news on SETI Gains Respect, NASA Funding · · Score: 2, Interesting
    One last point...the money that NASA spends (like most other govt. agencies) is hughly inefficient compared to that of private industry.

    Do you have any proof of this? People keep saying it over and over again, but I've never seen anyone actually show some numbers to prove. This indicates to me that its a myth. In fact I would guess the opposite is true.

    Governmemnt can borrow money cheaper than a private company can. Private companies pay a lot out to their CEO's and other executives. Coporations have as many stupid people in management as the public sector.

    NASA *is* inefficient, but is it because of government bureacracy or is it because of corporations ripping them off? It seems like NASA is required to do business with just about every aerospace company in every state so that congress will give them money, because the aerospace bribe (contribute, bribe, same thing, right?) congress to do so. Is this NASA's fault, congress's fault, or the aerospace industries' fault?

    And look at all the research that NASA gives away that benefits everyone. Heart monitoring equipment for example. If NASA was a private company that would be patented meaning that we'd pay for the research and then the hospitals (which we pay for) would have to pay the licensing fees to use the technology. How efficient is that?

    Really technology is a public good. And the production of public goods is the reason we have government. The private sector can produce public goods with government help, but this causes a lot of needless inefficiency. Oh well, all in the name of capitalism I guess.

  7. Re:This is the perfect example... on Adobe Still Ignores Elcomsoft-Discovered Holes · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well it just goes to show that you can lead a gift horse to water, but you cannot make him bite the hand that feeds him.

  8. Re:does it matter? on Warriors Of Freedom Prompted Rampage Attempt? · · Score: 1
    I remember reading about some of the gunmen in the Jamaican gangs of the 70's and 80's. They said that shooting people was easy since they watched so many cowboy movies.

    So I guess if you're gonna ban video games you gotta ban john wayne movies too. I think it would be much easier to just ban the idiots that can't distinguish movies from reality.

  9. Re:Flight Sims... on Videogames, Learning, And Literacy · · Score: 1
    Not true. The computer in X-wing gave innaccurate info when you were making the trench run. So you just have to trust your instincts.

    I remember my brother playing that level over and over and getting frustrated. "I know I hit it right on, the computer was lined up perfectly."

  10. Re:If my experience is any indication... on Trustworthy Software For The NSA? · · Score: 1
    Otherwise I would guess that all you can get is dirt-throwing material. Possibly of the grade that some high ranking officials will have to resign or go to jail, but what is the bug deal? It suits them right to get punished for their crimes.

    Ummm... that dirt-throwing material that you dismiss is a spy's wet dream. Ever hear of blackmail?

  11. Re:EQ with SW Races on Star Wars Galaxies Reviewed · · Score: 1
    And how much will that cost?

    I would like to play this game, but there is no way I'm going to pay $15 per month for it. I'm the guy that had characters deleted from Diablo II on 2 separate occassions because I didn't log on in 3 months. They really need to make a pay as you play type of system for the casual gamers like myself.

  12. Re:Pilot control on Protecting Cities from Hijacked Planes · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Yeah, hasn't there been some crashes been caused by electronic systems erroneously detecting imminent collision and taking control from the pilot? What happens if the navigation systems get screwed up, and it thinks its in a restricted area when its not?

    We've seen probes miss planets because of software bugs. We've seen rockets explode because of software bugs. I don't want a peice of software overiding the pilot. I'll take my chances with the terrorists.

  13. Re:Seriously, as there is only one human race... on China Accelerates Mars Program · · Score: 1

    because there are too many dumbasses screwing things up.

  14. Re:Pardon my French, but on China Accelerates Mars Program · · Score: 1
    Great. I love it when people are experts in what shouldn't be done, but give no hints on what SHOULD be done. So what would you do to fix China?

    Education would be the best bet. Now once you have some engineers educated, what do you do with them? Let them leave the country so they can work in the US? Or make sure that they have jobs within China?

  15. Re:No Race, Just Media Hype on China Accelerates Mars Program · · Score: 1, Troll

    Why not? The Saturn V is 30-40 years old and it got to the moon, right? And your super-duper-high-tech Space shuttle never got out of LEO.

  16. Re:A better way... on Anti-Spam Webforms Leave Out The Blind · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Good idea, but the spammer could just randomly select one of the words from the sentence and send it back. There is a 1 in 8 chance that it would guess "small" from the example you used. Spammers are used to getting 1/100000 chance of replies to the shit they send out, so 1/8 is good odds to them.

  17. Re:Bullet-proof nano-fabric? on Nanotube Applications Grow And Grow · · Score: 5, Funny
    First of all, Tolkien is dead, so its hard to explain it to him, Secondly please refer to the Simpsons:

    Frink: Yes, over here, m-hay, m-haven... in episode BF12, you were battling Barbarians while riding a winged apalousa, yet in the very next scene my dear, you're clearly atop a winged arabian! Please do explain it!

    Lucy Lawless: Uh, yeah, well whenever you notice something like that.. a wizard did it!

    Frink: Yes, alright, yes, in episode AG04..

    Lucy Lawless: Wizard!

    Frink: Oh for glaven out loud..

  18. Re:Stock Prices? on MandrakeSoft's Status Update · · Score: 1

    Ummm... the tap?

  19. Re:Glad to see they're still at it. on Dreamworks, Sinbad & Linux · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Hmmm...

    Armeggedon/Deep Impact Dante's Peak/Volcano etc. etc. etc.

    Could it be that hollywood is just unoriginal... Nooo... that can't be it.

  20. Re:Blizzard isn't the sacred cow of gaming anymore on Blizzard North Co-Founders Leave Company · · Score: 1
    Yup, and I was one of those people playing starcraft and not Warcraft 3. Why? Because Diablo II being copy protected pissed me off so I refuse to buy another game from them. If they are gonna assume I'm a theif then they aren't getting my money.

    I wrote in to them and complained about the copy protection and I got no answer. My question was if the disc gets scratched will they replace it at their own cost?

    It isn't a small thing to me. I like to burn a copy of the game, keep the original in a safe place and use the copy. This way I don't have to have cases for my game, I just stack them by the computer. Flip through them, pick one shove it in. If one happens to get scratched, just burn another copy.

    But they don't allow me to do that because they think that I, a paying customer, might steal.

  21. Re:Bottom Line on Darl McBride Interview · · Score: 1
    What I read into that is that it gives a cover for Microsoft giving them more money in the future.

    If they said "Microsoft is 100% compliant with unix licenses" then no more money from Microsoft. Done deal.

    But they said "Microsoft isn't completely in compliance", well in a few months Microsoft can say "Oops, sorry about that SCO, here is the money for your err, 'License', (wink wink, nudge nudge)" The next day SCO sues another of MS's competitors for using linux.

  22. Re:Incomplete DVD Set on Indiana Jones To Arrive Again in 2005 · · Score: 2, Funny
    Quit whinning dude. Here's what I plan to do: let all my family members know that the trilogy will be released in november. Christmas day it will somehow appear under the tree. When the fourth one comes out I will go see it in the theatre. If its good I will buy it on DVD later. If not I won't.

    I will then have the original trilogy and possibly the fourth one separately. I won't lose sleep over it because I'm not an anal-retentive idiot that has to have everything fit in one box.

    So you, yes YOU have the choice: Buy the 4th movie separately, or be an idiot and pay for the original 3 movies twice so you can own a fucking box.

    But please stop complaining. Also I am premptively demanding that you not complain about Star Wars boxed sets, LOTR boxed sets, or any other items that are sold in boxes. Thank you.

  23. Re:Number 1... on The Best Of Planetary Explorers · · Score: 1

    if I had points I'd mod you up just for taking the trouble to create an account.

  24. Re:Yes, but... on Linus Moves To OSDL, Will Work On Kernel Full-Time · · Score: 1
    You could be right... Windows just seems to hate me. I remember people saying how stable XP was. Then I was at someone's office and need to copy a file to a floppy (can't remember why). first time using XP crash within one minute. Reboot. crashed 5 minutes later.

    I do admit that USB is at least a little better, but in my experience, most devices, if installed as per the manufacturers instructions require a reboot. Maybe the scanner has extra software it installs that it needs. Maybe the control pad wants to put a little applet in the tray. These things require reboot. Yeah maybe the driver loads fine, but at the end of the install I still have to reboot. So it doesn't "just work".

    And even with USB I still have some problems where devices stop working and unplugging and plugging back in doesn't fix it. So reboot again.

    Note this is on a fully patched Windows 2000. With the patch-reboots, new-device-reboots, and the good ole BSOD-reboot, I guess I should be used to it, huh?

    Or maybe I should just drop some cash on wineX.

  25. Re:Hmm. on More Incompatible DVDs and CDs Coming Your Way · · Score: 1

    If I bought the Mission Impossible DVD I would hope it WOULD self destruct.