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  1. Re:So what's it gonna take... on Infringement 'Detrimental To the Public Health, Safety' · · Score: 1

    There is no way, in a republic, politicians will support public education because it is not a popular position among ignorant people.

    I know a lot of people who didn't get a lot of education (formal classroom) that really want it for their kids.

    Just look at neighborhoods with good schools. The house prices are much much higher for those districts.

    There is no way, in Capitalist economy businesses will support public education, because it will decrease their control over consumers.

    In a Capitalist economy, it assumed that there are no new products or scientific breakthroughs.

    I think a lot of companies care a lot about education since they want to hire employees to expand, produce new goods and find new markets etc.

  2. Re:"Obvious ways"? on ISP Sued By Irish RIAA · · Score: 1

    There is no inherent reason in P2P to open 40 connections. You can do P2P will 2 or 5 or 10 connections.

    If the number of opened connections gets you into trouble, it's no problem changing it.

  3. Re:Lets burn our public libraries on ISP Sued By Irish RIAA · · Score: 1

    One book or DVD in a public library can be read by hundreds of people.

    Most people who watch a movie after downloading it will delete the movie or delete the ebook after reading it.

    File sharing is very similar to a public library. For popular items, the file maybe in simultaneous use. When the item is not very popular but under non-zero use, it is very likely that the probability of simultaneous use is close to zero. At this point, the public library and file sharing have almost the same characteristics.

  4. Re:Well, I'm sure impressed... on Storing Data For the Next 1,000 Years · · Score: 1

    Why does it reduce MTTF? Failure of disk or failure of the system as in the first data loss?

    Because of spin-up and spin-downs? Then, maybe it's a bad write defer algorithm or not enough flash memory in there?

  5. Re:Insufficient Research on Storing Data For the Next 1,000 Years · · Score: 2, Funny

    Then, if a super-termite or some sort of paper eating worm ravaged the world and ate all the paper in the world, then we'd be in the same situation.

  6. Give him presents ... on Dealing With an IT Bully · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One thing the IT guy loves is little electronics.

    Give him a fancy USB hub that you can buy for $10 or give him a laser keychain or LED toy or a microsoft branded frizbee or just some funny printed looking DVDRs.

    You'd have to go to some bad-english Taiwan, Hong Kong websites to get this stuff cheap but it's useful to slip him one of these everytime he helps you out with a problem.

  7. Re:Disruptive? on Xiotech Unveils Disruptive Storage Technology · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would call that a great thing. I've never understood why I couldn't just have a bank of a dozen drives with another 10 empty slots, and have it move data around automatically to increase performance and maintain redundancy. When enough data is stored or enough drives break that I'm close to losing redundancy, a light turns on, and I pop in another few drives and it keeps chugging.
    One reason I can think of is because there is a high correlation of drive failures to the power supply and equipment that it's on. I've seen centers that have 1 rack unit where the disks keep failing.
  8. Re:Shouldn't be too hard... on Researchers Create an Automatic Backup Band for Singers · · Score: 1

    Do you think chord progression is all there is to music? Do you think an exotic chord progression makes a good song? What about rhythm and melody and instruments and it's timbres? You can write a thousand songs in that chord progression and all be very very different and interesting.

    I've heard the Linkin Park and Nickelback examples. The songs suck by themselves but you combine them together and it sounds pretty interesting.

  9. Re:obviously they should sell advertising on Should Wikipedia Sell Advertising? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Bullshit.

    They can adopt distributed updates and such and ask universities to help with the bandwidth costs. Instead I guess they want to keep all the chips in hand so that they could one day turn into a billion dollar company.

    Wikipedia is run by submitters and editors. If people feel that updating and maintaining wikipedia gives their habits away to advertisers, then it will also kill wikipedia. There will be startups that will focus on just music or movies or just on mathematics and provide a better experience per the negatives of advertising. Most people end up in Wikipedia through google searches and it won't take long for the wikipedia articles to go stale while the contributors move somewhere else.

    Plus, those bandwidth heavy images, videos and sounds isn't updated frequently and can be asked to be cached in distributed storage across the internet in universities. Since article updates propagation might be hard in distributed file systems, at least the media should be straightforward.

    There is a lot of stuff that can be done.

  10. Re:And now you can get 32GB flash on Tenth Anniversary of First Commercial MP3 Player · · Score: 1

    Just another testimony to the astonishing accuracy of Moore's Law.

    Of course it's accurate when you apply it only the patterns it fits. What about Moore's law on power utilization and batteries, or the power of the chip inside the MP3 player itself? Or even the MP3 algorithm itself?

  11. Re:summary wrong on Record Box Office Indicates MPAA 'Piracy Problem' Hot Air · · Score: 1

    Simple.

    Designing the hardware, software and networks that bring it all to the consumers, 40k/yr
    Designing the hardware, software and networks that not bring it all to the consumers, 40k/yr

    Standing around looking pretty, 10 million (if very lucky and with some talent)
    Standing around looking pretty, 0

    Hitting a ball with a stick, 7 million (if lucky and with some talent)
    Hitting a ball with a stick, 0

    If you have a job, you're not taking any risks. If you're so confident of your ability start your own company. Actors might make millions but software and hardware entrepreneurs make billions.

  12. Re:Sources? Evidence? Rhetoric != cash on Military Grounds Stealth Bomber Fleet · · Score: 1

    Oh please. The American economy has stalled a bit, but we're not even at the point of a classic recession (failure to increase GDP).

    GDP is measured in dollars and there's inflation, and people immigrate into the united states increasing GDP.

    The economic system you are discussing is referred to generally as "neo-Marxism", with its focus on large states ruining the outlying countries for their wealth in an evil capitalistic world. What neo-Marxists never came to realize is that the world is not a zero sum game - and that rhetoric rarely translates into cold hard cash.

    Zero sum game is the new trickle down.

    Now, what the U.S. likely is experiencing is more akin to hegemonic diffusion. The U.S. is, pretty much, an undisputed world Hegemon at this time. However, to maintain this hegemony, it must maintain trade (using its own resources) and trade a great deal with other countries, slowly diffusing its wealth to others. The great examples of this at the moment would be China and perhaps India. China is building a massive military based on income largely from U.S. trade, for example. China improves quickly, and the U.S. finds it increasingly difficult to maintain its relative position. The big question is whether this will switch to a bi-polar world (U.S./China), remain a uni-polar world (U.S., possibly China) or become multi-polar in the end.

    Well, you talk about non-zero sum games and then you talk about diffusion. Then, you talk about polarity from diffusion.

  13. Re:Unfortunately, on China Plans to Surpass the U.S. in Nanotech Development · · Score: 2

    I think it's more akin to pouring water into sand to build a pool.

    China does not have a research base and trying to "leapfrog" without a base makes no sense. (research base in terms of university research structure and the experts)

    NSF gets $6-7 billion a year. What is $400 million spread over 5 years.

  14. Re:Why is it always China? on Space Shuttle Secrets Stolen For China · · Score: 1

    a Chinese national himself, not a U.S. citizen

    Just to nitpick - a US green card holder is not a US citizen but can be a citizen of another country. US citizen is the next step up from green card. It also requires holding a green card for 5 years before you can apply for a citizenship. Green card is same as permanent resident.

    A lot of top scientists and researchers are Chinese. If you didn't let them into the US, do you think they'll just sit back and do nothing in China? They'd create their own MIT and Princeton in China. Most of the Chinese students who study in the US do not go back to China and stay in the US. I'd think that China would probably feel like it's the one being "pillaged" out of their best minds.

  15. Re:Fundamentally broken on The Doctor Will See Your Credit Score Now · · Score: 1

    It's "uniquely american", my bad.

    Broadly speaking, people who punch a clock for 40 hours a week go nowhere fast. It is very American of me, but then there's a reason Americans are rich: we work. A lot.

    I think anyone who punches any clock is going nowhere fast - be it 40 hours or 60 hours or 80 hours. I think 40 is the magic number because it's the least hours you can work and become full time and get the benefits. Anything more is just part time and with small benefits.

    Good luck to you and stay sane and healthy.

  16. Re:Fundamentally broken on The Doctor Will See Your Credit Score Now · · Score: 1

    How very American of you (Sicko GWB reference).

    I'm guessing you're in your first few years of working that many hours. Give it a little time and you'll turn into those miserable people I know that work 80 hours a week on 3 jobs. The decline, both physical and mental is amazingly dramatic.

  17. Re:Weapons on US Satellites Dodging Chinese Missile Debris · · Score: 1

    I'm pretty sure weaponizing space assumes you have something like deflector shields (hull plating) or some sort of cannons that avoid this.

  18. Re:SanctionThem? on US Satellites Dodging Chinese Missile Debris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's backwards. The US has the least to lose, because a debt represents a good that we consumed but have not yet paid for. The first order of business in an economic collapse is to freeze or otherwise abate all foreign debts.

    That would essentially mean that the end of all trading. So, the US would have to revert to a self-sustaining economy. US consumes the most resources in the planet per human being and that is not really feaseable.

    Either that, or we would just fail to make the payments. That would crash the value of all foreign debts, and so the holders would be lucky to get ten cents on the dollar by selling their paper to speculators (who are betting that we'll pull out of it).

    That would lead to imports crashing as well. Then, prices would go up and cause inflation. Then, everything will be worth less and less and foreign buyers will just buy up everything - companies, technology etc. Our stuff will also be sold on ten cents to the dollar out there.

    This is why China dearly wants to avoid harming our economy. When somebody owes you an entire year of their salary, and is so far making payments on time, you don't knock them out of a job!

    That is until the Chinese economy is the largest in the world which might be in 10-15 years.

    Indeed, in the long run, US foreign debts guarantee that other countries align their interests with our own, and look out for our well-being as one would keep an eye on one's best milk cow.

    It's only best milk cow as long as the milk flows.

    I've seen so people many buy shit they can't afford, live in the moment, default on loans and then file bankruptcy which absolves them of all responsibility since somebody somewhere will bear the burden of it all. I think you're suggesting a similar approach to the economy. I am skeptical of this approach.

  19. Re:That's a laugh! on US Satellites Dodging Chinese Missile Debris · · Score: 1

    I think it is mostly on purpose. Why use up your own non-renewable natural resources when you can let another country deplete it's stockpile first? In short, many first world nations use second and third world nations as their garbage cans and sources of non-renewable resources because they want to protect their own environment.

    Same reason as the oil in the middle east. They would use the money to buy off your companies and would essentially own the natural resources.

    Essentially, we would turn into third world countries and them into first world countries at the end of it all.

  20. Re:I have a suggestion too on Thousands of Adult Website Accounts Compromised · · Score: 2

    I have an even better suggestion: Find a woman and impress her. :)

    Or even better find two women, impress them both with your wealth and power at the same time.

  21. Re:If true, this isn't particularly surprising. on Thousands of Adult Website Accounts Compromised · · Score: 5, Informative

    In addition, it's porn. Individual end users cannot protest very much without either A: Admitting they pay for porn online or B: being the subject of askance glances and the occasional, "Methinks he doth protest too much."

    You do realize that prepaid credit cards exist, right? You can set any name to it and use it. Since you don't have to have anything physical delivered and it's all online, then you can create fake names and leave out addresses.

  22. Re:What's the problem? on Should Wikipedia Allow Mathematical Proofs? · · Score: 1

    So - what's the problem? Unless it's political, in which case, well, you know, *yawn*.

    The problem is that a proof is very dependent on the theorems presented before it. Plus, it is highly dependent on the manner and exact working of the proof descriptions. Plus, there is no one description of a theorem - some are described slightly different than others. Plus, there will be a million pages of unnamed lemmas that big theorems are based on.

    I think proof outlines when it's useful is ok but allowing proofs is like allowing entire source code for grep or something on wikipedia. Even if you try to read it, it will just take too long to understand without trying to follow the entire logic of the article contributor which might get lost as more people edit articles.

    The proofs should belong in wikibooks. There is a definite need for a good online and updateable source of proofs on mathematical theorems but there is wikibooks where the author is free to take the path to theorems most reasonable to them.

  23. Re:Just what we need on Gene Found to Explain Repeated Mistakes · · Score: 0, Troll

    When our society already has plenty of excuses to avoid personal responsibility (e.g. over diagnosis of ADD to include kids who are just undiscipled), we give more ammunition to people who just don't want to try to get it right.

    All of this coming from someone who can't even spell properly (or upgrade to Firefox 2).

  24. Re:The Zune-for-Christmas Death Plot on Heavily Discounted Zune Outpacing iPod Sales · · Score: 1

    Another scenario.

    She realizes she has an ipod (general term for an hdd with an mp3 decoder and some management softwrare), reads the manual, puts her songs and is happily listening to music all Christmas while Grandma is also happy she is able to give her granddaughter what she wants.

    As an added bonus, she grows to be like one of the attractive people in the Zune commercials and not a shadow in a bright background.

    Not everyone is a brand name whore.

  25. Re:Vernor Vinge on How Mainstream Can Code Scavenging Go? · · Score: 1

    It is one of the most misunderstood concepts about programming. A programmer fresh out of college knows how to write algorithms really well, but has no idea that there are architectural and design land mines waiting for them just down the development road.

    I think you're wrong here.

    In college, a lot of architectural designs have to be made and made quick. OK, they are for small projects but still those designs have to be made. Plus, you have the luxury of seeing what other people designed and how it worked out.

    The method of assigning homework is to give 3 lines on what a program needs to do. For example, write an FTP client that you can use to download a file. The method of grading is if you can download a file or not. The decision on how to get the HW done with the least amount of time spent is an architectural challenge.

    Too many development shops will get an app "working" and think that is all there is to development, because no one has the depth of experience to look a year down the road and see that they will need to rewrite the entire app from scratch in order to make the simplest of changes.

    Even firefox and Mozilla did a few complete rewrites of the various parts. Rewrites are part of programming unfortunately. The nice thing about rewrites is that the programmers now have experience on how to do things better and are able to better compartmentalize the code. I wouldn't say rewrites are terrible things - though they do annoy management and people above to no end.