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User: jcr

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Comments · 13,517

  1. Re:wtf? on Hummer Greener Than Prius? · · Score: 1

    No one will ride a bus unless it goes where they want.

    Not to mention when they want. I tried using public transportation for a short while when I moved to San Jose, and if you're not a spot-on nine-to-five commuter, it's hopeless.

    -jcr

  2. Re:You forgot one on The Air Car Nears Completion · · Score: 1

    They successfully killed the minidisc before it could hit the market.

    The minidisk is on the market, and Sony spent a pile of money promoting it. You can still get them, but very few people would choose them over an iPod.

    -jcr

  3. Re:You forgot one on The Air Car Nears Completion · · Score: 1

    Nah, they'd just get the hippies astroturfed to demand a ban on dihydrogen monoxide.

    -jcr

  4. Re:Shooting too low, again. on Ian Murdock Joins Sun · · Score: 1

    I know a genetic engineer who spends her life on Solaris, I didn't see her complaining about usability at all.

    Your friend needs to get out more. I know biologists who switched to Mac because of the price/performance advantage, and were just blown away by the ease of use. They had no idea what they were missing.

    -jcr

  5. Re:Shooting too low, again. on Ian Murdock Joins Sun · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think Sun should buy Apple and rename themselves as Apple.

    You're a couple of years late with that idea. Sun's worth $22.4 billion Apple's worth 78.54 billion.

    It would be a clear win for both companies.

    Nope. Sun's not what it used to be. If they have anything left that Apple wants, Apple can buy it for a lot less than 22 billion dollars.

    -jcr

  6. Re:You forgot one on The Air Car Nears Completion · · Score: 1

    Two problems: 1) you have to feed the cat. 2) cats are toxic.

    Nice try, though!

    -jcr

  7. Shooting too low, again. on Ian Murdock Joins Sun · · Score: 0, Troll

    He wants to make Solaris as useable as Linux? Um, what about shooting for the best usability in the industry, champ?

    -jcr

  8. Re:But.... on The Air Car Nears Completion · · Score: 1

    Secondly, the automotive manufacturers don't really want to change

    They want to make money. If they can do so by adopting a new technology, then they will.

    The main reason we mostly use gasoline to get around is that it's still very cheap.

    -jcr

  9. Re:You forgot one on The Air Car Nears Completion · · Score: 1

    Patents are a matter of public record. Head on over to USPTO.gov, and show me the invention that solves the energy crisis. We've all heard the myth of the miracle carburetor for decades that's supposed to increase mileage by 200%, but it simply doesn't exist.

    The other thing that this "supressed technology" conspiracy fantasies ignore is the fact that there is no monopoly on cars. If GM (whose market share is down to about 23% in the USA these days) had a way to offer a vastly better product than their current product line, you'd better believe they'd do it as fast as they could, because that's the way to make money. You can't grow by being on the defensive against new technology.

    -jcr

  10. Scrubbed. on SpaceX to Attempt Launch of Falcon 1 Today · · Score: 1

    About a minute after I tuned in. Bummer.

    -jcr

  11. Re:You forgot one on The Air Car Nears Completion · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The idea of evil capitalists supressing technology is a hollywood fantasy. If I invented a car that runs on water today, there's not a single thing that Exxon or GM could do to keep me from selling it.

    -jcr

  12. Re:Skeptics are useful. on Global Warming Endangered by Hot Air? · · Score: 1

    What jumps out at me from that article on the composition of the atmosphere, far more than the concentation of CO2 at .036%, is the fact that water vapor makes up 1 to 4 % of the atmosphere. H2O is the number one greenhouse gas, by a factor of well over a hundredfold.

    Stop Evaporation Now!

    -jcr

  13. Re:Slasdotters Say Ballmer Is 'Insane' on Ballmer Says Google's Growth Is 'Insane' · · Score: 1

    but certainly, he has been adequate for a very long time in the past.

    I disagree, and the ten-year chart of the share price would seem to be on my side. Add to that the Longhorn debacle, the stagnation of the company's extremely expensive attempts to take over the on-line services world, and the money-losing foray into gaming consoles, and the damage that the Zune disaster has done to the company's reputation. If he wasn't BG's best buddy from college, he would have been sent to the showers years ago.

    -jcr

  14. Re:Slasdotters Say Ballmer Is 'Insane' on Ballmer Says Google's Growth Is 'Insane' · · Score: 1

    I presume he's not an idiot. If he were, he wouldn't have gotten where he is.

    Your assumptions don't seem to account for two major factors: 1) he was at MSFT almost from the very beginning, and 2) he was a close personal friend of the company's largest shareholder.

    Hey may or may not be a complete idiot, but he's very clearly inadequate to the job he holds. The last couple of years of the stock's performance should suffice to show you that.

    -jcr

  15. Re:Meh... on Ballmer Says Google's Growth Is 'Insane' · · Score: 1

    - Meatloaf

    Jim Steinman, actually.

    -jcr

  16. Re:Insane on Ballmer Says Google's Growth Is 'Insane' · · Score: 1

    Ballmer needs to mind his own business.

    More like, the owners (shareholders) of that business need to fire his incompetent ass.

    -jcr

  17. Well, let's do the math. on Ballmer Says Google's Growth Is 'Insane' · · Score: 1

    GOOG's profits, according to google finance, were $3.077 billion in 2006. Google has 10.6K employees. Microsoft's profits were $12.59 billion with 71K employees.

    So, I get GOOG making $288,311 in profit per employee, and MSFT making $177,450 per employee. Or in other words, GOOG is making about 1.6 times the profit per employee that MSFT is.

    Looks to me like Dr. Schmidt has nothing to learn from Ballmer. Of course, he's far too classy to tell monkey-boy to STFU, but I still wish he would. ;-)

    -jcr

  18. I give it a month, tops. on DSL Gateways to Fight Piracy by Marking Video · · Score: 1

    That is assuming of course, that enough of these devices get sold for anyone to care about stripping the watermarking.

    -jcr

  19. Re:Such exclusion should be restricted on AT&T Says Spying Is Too Secret For Courts · · Score: 1

    You spout propaganda that was debunked over 25 years ago and you're going to be called on it.

    Gee, somehow it takes a bit more that your proclaimation to convince me that the econic growth that's followed tax cuts in the united states and elsewhere is imaginary.

    Socialism failed. Get over it.

    -jcr

  20. Re:Such exclusion should be restricted on AT&T Says Spying Is Too Secret For Courts · · Score: 1

    That's Republican

    Do your knees get sore from jerking like that?

    I'm not a republican, sunshine.

    -jcr

  21. Re: Shuttleworth who on Shuttleworth Tells Linux Users to Stop Being So Fussy For OEMs · · Score: 1

    Um considering Dell is actually moving towards putting Linux on desk tops,

    Dell is grasping at straws to try to make up for their sales dropoff. What I think you really want, is for Linux to be available from vendors who aren't just doing it as a publicity stunt, and whether that ever happens willl depend very much on whether Dell makes enough in new sales of linux systems to make it worth their trouble. If they can only do that by offering 500 flavors, then it's not worth it, and that's the point that Shuttleworth was making.

    Really, Linux on the desktop isn't about satisfying today's Linux users. It's about making Linux good enough that you don't have to be an expert to choose it and use it.

    -jcr

  22. Re:Fatal flaw on Shuttleworth Tells Linux Users to Stop Being So Fussy For OEMs · · Score: 1, Redundant

    The average user just doesn't care that much about the OS they're running; vanilla Windows or OS X is good enough for the masses.

    That being the case, what does the vendor have to gain by selling Linux pre-installed? Remember, if you're not talking about a million units a year in incremental sales improvements, Linux is barely a rounding error on a financial statement.

    -jcr

  23. Re:What new technology? on A New Lease On Internal Combustion · · Score: 1

    It is only a word if you consider recognized non-words to be words.

    Or if you consider a word with a prefix or a suffix to be a word. The word in question is "regard", and although it's improper to negate it with the "ir" prefix instead of "dis", the result is still a word, albeit one whose use tends to make its user look like an idiot.

    -jcr

  24. Bah! on World's First Lego Autopilot · · Score: 1

    In my day, we crashed our R/C airplanes! And we were grateful!

    -jcr

  25. Re:What new technology? on A New Lease On Internal Combustion · · Score: 1

    Actually, it is a word, but it's also a double-negative, and people who use it hardly ever realize that.

    -jcr