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User: Bassman59

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  1. Re:Know one think, they just follow the crowd on Darwin Evolving Into A Tricky Exhibit · · Score: 1
    "I think this is supported by the consistent potrayal of `anti-evolutionists' as stupid right wing fundamentalist extremeists [sic]."

    That's because anti-evolutionists are, in fact, stupid right-wing fundamentalist extremists. Statements to the contrary are disingenous, at best, and blatant lies at worst.

    "All we are asking for is a simple disclaimer. The Evolutionists won't even grant us that."

    It's a lot more than a simple disclaimer. The truth is that the Creationists are unclear on the concept of a "theory."

    By way of example, Newton's Law of Gravity is a theory. Do you not accept this theory?

  2. Re:Theories and Reality on Darwin Evolving Into A Tricky Exhibit · · Score: 1
    "Conceptually I don't even see any conflict between Intelligent Design and Creationism."

    That's because they're the same thing. ID is creationism in a prettier dress.

    "Why wouldn't an all-powerful force set up natural laws to attain its objectives?"

    Who designs the all-powerful force?

  3. Myths on Darwin Evolving Into A Tricky Exhibit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hope that in a couple thousand years, if we haven't blown up the planet, civilizations will look back at the Christ story and the Biblical creation myths as exactly that, a mythology, one viewed in the same way that we look at the myths of the old Greek and Roman gods.

  4. Re:Could be interesting... on Darwin Evolving Into A Tricky Exhibit · · Score: 1
    "Pat Roberston just told the people of Dover PA (who ousted the ID school board candidates in this month's election) that they shouldn't be surprised when the next natural disaster occurs and God ignores their pleas and lets them perish, all because they tossed out the ID-ers."

    Pat Robertson needs to be arrested, tried, hung, drawn and quartered. Charges? He's a terrorist. Let's see: calling a fatwa on Hugo Chavez, for starters. He's the American Taliban, except without a beard.

  5. Re:Scott Adams take on this... on Darwin Evolving Into A Tricky Exhibit · · Score: 1

    Scott Adams has devolved into a fucktard. Plus, Dilbert hasn't been funny in years.

  6. Re:Custom measurement units on How To Write Unmaintainable Code · · Score: 1
    I've seen something similar, too. I had to fix some embedded (8051) code that ran a simple PID loop for a temperature controller. The hardware was simple -- a refrigerator did the cooling, and a small heating element was controlled in order to keep things at the proper temperature. Here's what the Original Programmer did. He modeled the whole thing in Matlab/Simulink. In his 8051, a timer interrupt was set up, and every time the timer ISR was called. In that ISR, he read an ADC to obtain the current temperature sample. He converted the 12-bit ADC value into the actual temperature, in degrees Celsius, and in floating point, too. His PID loop was then updated, and the loop's output was a floating-point number representing the amount of power (in watts) to the heater, which had to be converted to a 12-bit value to drive a DAC. Again, he did (or tried to, at any rate) all of that in the ISR.

    The first problem was that his program hung in the timer ISR. Yep, kids, the floating-point routines are not re-entrant, so they couldn't be used in the ISR. It took him a while to figure this out. His solution was to rescale everything and do the PID loop calculations in 32-bit fixed-point arithmetic. (On an 8-bit processor still ...) Of course his conversion routines and such were non obvious and commented poorly.

    It still didn't work all that well. A host PC communicated to the temperature controller over an 9600 bps RS232 link. The problem was that the communication didn't work all that well. He blamed "bad cables" and "noise in the system" and such. Turns out that he was spending so much time in the timer ISR that the micro was missing serial-port interrupts and basically dropping the received characters on the floor.

    My fixes should be obvious: I remodelled the loop in units of ADUs (ADC units, or LSBs) and so I never needed to convert from bits to temperature or from watts to bits. Second, all the ISR did was to set a flag indicating that the timer tick had occurred. The serial receive interrupt simply saved the incoming character and set a different flag. The program main() simply looped and tested the two flags; if it saw the timer tick had occurred, it then did the loop calculation and updated the heaters.

    The Original Programmer had a PhD in control systems and apparently knew his stuff, but he was worthless as either a hardware engineer or an embedded programmer.

  7. Sounds familiar on CSI Takes On Grand Theft Auto · · Score: 1

    Maybe the kids in this episode rented a copy of Death Race 2000 and are doing their own Death Race. quick, somebody sue Stallone.

  8. Re:Nothing unusual? on President of RIAA Says Sony-BMG Did Nothing Wrong · · Score: 1
    "many music publishers commonly pirate open-source code into rootkits and place them on their CDs as common practice?"

    Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department.

  9. Block the ads at the firewall on Would You Use Ad-Supported Windows? · · Score: 1
    I suppose it'd be fairly straightforward to use Ethereal or some other packet sniffer to find out where the ads are served from. Then add those IP addresses or server names to your firewall's "none shall pass" list. End of ads.

    Of course, no, I don't want any ads ... I don't want the OS wasting cycles even dealing with ads. I'd rather my simulations run faster, fuck you very much.

  10. Re:Not 24 hours on Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours · · Score: 1

    A minute to learn, a lifetime to master.

  11. Re:So.... on Ignore Vista Until 2008 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    "Well if the differences in Office 12 require Vista to have all the new UI things then YES. The new features in Office 12 will mean a huge increase in productivity."

    Phooey. Most users don't bother with 90% of the features of the current Office.

  12. Re:shareholders on Mac OS X x86 Put To The Test · · Score: 1
    " Seriously, the shareholders are going to demand this. Jobs may be faced with replacement if he doesn't appease them."

    Funny, Apple's stock has doubled in price this year. My guess is that the shareholders like what's happening.

  13. Re:Got some bad news for you Mr. Dell... on Apple - What A Difference Eight Years Can Make · · Score: 1
    "If you are using a PC, your case designs are almost infinate (sic)."

    Who really gives a fuck about the case design's aesthetics? fer chrissakes, give me a USB CD-ROM drive that I can put on top of the desk (for access to it), and hide the case behind the desk or mount it in a rack.

    That's actually what's great about the G5 iMac -- the case is the display, and there's no ugly box taking up floor or desk space.

    People who "mod" their cases with flashing lights and colored memory coolers and crap like that are as stupid as the morons with the coffee-can fart pipes on their Civic's mufflers.

  14. Re:Irony... apple is the "dell" of mp3 players on Apple - What A Difference Eight Years Can Make · · Score: 1
    "Kind of funny this comparison... the reason apple is doing so well isn't because of innovation or design. It's because they've become the "dell" of mp3 players. And if you look where the majority of their money comes in, it's from the mp3 players. They undercut everyone else in the market by buying in such bulk... remind you of anyone else?"

    You're an idiot. First of all, iPod's are by no means the cheapest MP3 players out there. Second, they're doing well because customers are buying their products.

  15. Re:Wolf in sheep's clothing on Is The U.S. Becoming Anti-Science? · · Score: 1
    "which is politically motivated (i.e. global warming, stem cell research, etc.). As a result, there's a general lack of trust of the scientific community to begin with."

    That "lack of trust" is encouraged by the politcally-motivated wingers who have an profit-above-all agenda that is incompatible with the generally liberal outlook of most citizens. In other words, do most reasonable people want to breathe clean air and drink clean water and have safe food and the hope that their children will succeed in this world? Of course. So when science is manipulated for the benefit of big corporations ("asbestos is perfectly safe," "leaded gasoline is perfectly safe" etc. etc.) and then honest scientists try to explain that the manipulated science is wrong, those honest scientists are shouted down because money talks louder than everything.

    "Plus, our `convenience store' mentally of wanting everything now now now means we have little patience to wait 20-30 years for results."

    Yep, there's the consumer mentality pushed by the profit-hungry corporations in a nutshell.

  16. Re:No not anti-science.... on Is The U.S. Becoming Anti-Science? · · Score: 1
    "just anti-education."

    Expand on the notion of anti-education. Consider that they're anti-intellectual (or, in the limit, anti-intelligence). How often do you hear the right-wingers railing against the "intellectual elites?"

    On the one hand, it's providing an ego boost for stupid people (albeit a jingoist boost, if jingoism can be applied not to nations but to classes within society). To wit: "Those [i]intellectuals[/i] shouldn't be telling you what to think!"

    On the other hand, those stupid enough to fall for the anti-intellectual rants really can't be faulted for it, because they don't know any better.

    On the gripping hand, the right wingers who decry intellectuals are actually very smart -- almost, dare I say it, intellectual. (Another word would be "hypocritical," but basically everything the right wingers do and say is hypocritical.) Clearly they know which of their constituents' buttons to push. The wingers tell the stupid people: "Be proud of your ignorance! Be proud that you're not an elite!" Of course the elite wingers don't want the lower castes to ever get a leg up -- the lower castes will always be the have-nots, even as they're propping up those who are keeping them down.

    And that's the dirty little secret.

  17. Re:3 parent on USCO Reviewing DMCA Anti-Circumvention Clause · · Score: 1
    "Haven't seen anyone mention yet that it would be nice if our officials could learn how our voting machines work."

    "It'd also be nice if we could prevent illegal aliens from using them."

    Funny, here in Arizona, the wingnuts pushed through the ridiculous Prop 200. One of the arguments for Prop 200 was that it was necessary to prevent illegal immigrants (read: Mexicans) from voting.

    Of course, there was and has never been any proof that undocumented immigrants have actually been voting, but don't forget that the wingnuts use FUD better than Microsoft defending itself against Linux.

  18. Re:All the doom and gloom on Are Skimpy Raises the New Normal? · · Score: 1
    "Work for smaller (but growing) companies. Work hard. There are rewards out there. "

    harrumph. I worked as a hardware design engineer for a small (about 80 employees) company. I started there in June 2001. In March 2002 we got a bonus, and that was the last time the company gave out bonuses or even raises. After that, it became clear that the two owners wanted to sell, and the company finally swallowed up by a larger competitor in Sept 2004. (In Jan 2005 the New Corporate Overlords decided that they didn't need a production team, or a bunch of engineers, so there were layoffs.)

    So, yep, the two owners clear $50 mil and what do the loyal employees worked hard for three years (remember, no raises, no bonuses, no nothin') who made it all possible get? Bumpkis.

    Fuckers.

    So I guess the reward was being laid off and landing a better job working for people who aren't idiots, since the New Corporate Overlords at the old place don't know fuckall about anything. It'll be interesting to watch their investment turn to shit after the rest of the talented engineers leave.

  19. Re:Scratches on iPod Nano Scratches Result In Suit · · Score: 1
    "Oh my God, I just noticed that my car has DENTS! I better sue them too! I feel "irreprably damaged!". They should make these cars so they don't dent!"

    Saturns don't dent.

  20. Re:.us domain? on Senator Wants to Keep U.N. Away From the Internet · · Score: 1
    "If aliens would like to see webpage of WHOLE earth's goverment, where would they go?"

    "GOP.com, of course."

    Note how it's a .com (as in "profit-making enterprise"), rather than a non-profit .org. Note that http://www.democrats.com/ is a progressive advocacy group whereas http://www.democrats.org/ is the national Democratic Party's website. I do like how the official Democratic Party website's current (as of this posting) home page headline is "Arrest Warrant Issued for GOP Leader."

  21. Re:I don't get it..... on Senator Wants to Keep U.N. Away From the Internet · · Score: 1
    "The answer to the second can be deduced if you look at who are the biggest proponents of the UN take-over: China, Brazil, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia (Source: washingtontimes.com)."

    The Washington Times is not a reliable source, assuming of course you want actual news and not far-right neocon Moonie propaganda.

  22. Re:Why would we give control to the U.N.? on Senator Wants to Keep U.N. Away From the Internet · · Score: 1
    "There needs to be accountability."

    Yes, exactly, and we need accountability from the Bush Administration. Now.

  23. Re:So tell me again why this supports turning over on Senator Wants to Keep U.N. Away From the Internet · · Score: 1

    Grammar Nazi time. Instead of, "I disagree on a number of points you base your argument on," perhaps "I disagree with a number of points on which you base your argument" is less convoluted.

  24. Re:Keep it free government censorship? on Senator Wants to Keep U.N. Away From the Internet · · Score: 1
    "I missed something, I thought conservative christians wanted .xxx ?"

    Well, of course they do ... they just don't want it on the Internet.

  25. Re:Your response is FUD. Thanks for playing. on Senator Wants to Keep U.N. Away From the Internet · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Right after you tell us you're a "moderate conservative," you go off and prove otherwise with your bullshit rantings taken straight from the fat lying ass of Bill O'Reilly and others of his ilk. You're no more a "moderate" any more than Dubya is a "compassionate conservative" or a "reformer with results" or anything other than a lame duck douchebag loser.

    Recall that the internet flourished under the adminstration of a moderate Democrat -- the very Clinton you deride for getting a blowjob (which is something you've never had the pleasure of getting).

    As for your rants about "morality," well, let's see -- tell me again about those weapons of mass destruction?

    I'm lookin' forward to seeing Rove and Cheney frogmarched to jail. DeLay is guilty. Your boys are all goin' down. It'll be fun watchin' them be somebody's bitch.