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User: EvanED

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  1. Re:The B52 is just wierd on Build Your Own Model B-52 · · Score: 1

    X-Plane is a great rival to MSFS, and a better training tool for pilots and for people who are truely nutty about the realism. However, I'd stick to MSFS for the better scenery as its flight model is still pretty darn good and I wouldn't notice the difference. Also, I haven't really used any flight sim for a couple years, and when I was playing with them a lot X-Plane wasn't really a rival. But like I said, if I were looking for a real training solution, it'd be X-Plane.

  2. Re:Do you have cellular coverage in your area? on Suggestions for a Home VOIP Provider? · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    "You throw any type of emergency into the equation cell towers are almost useless since everyone is on their phone"

    Also, do they have the location-finding features for 911 cell calls implemented yet?

  3. Re:The B52 is just wierd on Build Your Own Model B-52 · · Score: 1

    I think he was saying the approach is much steeper than normal. IIRC from my MS Flight Sim days (one thing you can't knock MS for is having just about the best civilian simulator available to consumers), most approaches come in on a glideslope of 12-14 degrees, which really isn't all that steep. (But maybe those numbers are takeoff... in any case, most planes have a very shallow approach angle.)

  4. Re:Still looks like MSoffice: :( QWZX on EIOffice 2004 vs. MS Office 2003 · · Score: 1

    Hmm, I thought it was that. I knew I should have checked...

    Anyway, I was in a summer program in 2001 during which I had a short course in Human-Computer Interaction, and one of the things we briefly looked at was Word. The professor gave us three tasks to do, and one of them, I *thought* it was adding a footer but apparently not, was buried much deeper and in a different place than you'd expect.

  5. Re:Both Platforms? WOW! on EIOffice 2004 vs. MS Office 2003 · · Score: 1

    "The trick is to write them in pure Java...no native libraries..."

    Well, you have your tradeoff then... you can either have native calls that allow the program to run nicely, or you can stick to the Java abstractions and end up with an unusably slow UI.

    "Now, the difference between Java and GLIB/GDK/GTK is that you only need ONE binary. That's one less thing to worry about supporting...one less thing to have to TEST everywhere."

    You still have to test on different platforms. Oh, and if you'll notice, *they still have two binaries*.

  6. Re:Icon on EIOffice 2004 vs. MS Office 2003 · · Score: 1

    Because icons are one of the perfect parts of a UI to standardize. Almost every program out there uses a folder for open; if you go and release a program that uses a big 'O' on the toolbar for open, people won't understand right away. It's the same reason that each program doesn't go around redesigning the window bar at the top to change the close, maximize, and minimize buttons; they are too standard.

  7. Re:Still looks like MSoffice: :( QWZX on EIOffice 2004 vs. MS Office 2003 · · Score: 1

    "No regular expressions. This makes find/replace useless."

    I'd argue this is a feature problem, not a UI/Look and Feel problem.

    "No notion of "Styles." OpenOffice's Stylist menu is omnipresent and useful. MS W$rd's style pane is useless; it merely changes my styles whether I want it to or not."

    I don't get what you mean by this... I haven't used OO's features enough (I'm booted about half the time in Windows and half in BSD, but whenever I write a paper I always seem to be booted to Windows and using Word) to judge, but they seem about the same.

    Word's UI is improving quite a bit. For instance, fire up Word 97 and try to insert a header or footer; I forget exactly where it is, but it's not easy to find, buried I think in a second-level menu that doesn't even make that much sense. In Word XP, it's right in the view menu, much easier to find. (Though OO's placement in the insert menu makes even more sense.)

  8. Re:Awesome on Spamhaus Opening New Branch in China · · Score: 1

    However, the damage to each person who you send a spam to is 3 seconds and maybe a penny of bandwidth. The damage to each person from detonating a nuclear device: their life, home, all possessions, ...

  9. Re:Would it be worth it???? on Rendering Shrek@Home? · · Score: 1

    But when your dataset changes from a couple hundred K or whatever it is of data to at least several hundred megs and probably often above a gig of textures and models you could see that 72 TFlops drop real fast.

  10. Re:MPAA on Rendering Shrek@Home? · · Score: 1

    Plus there's the whole "editing" issue. Does this scene come first, or does that scene...

  11. Re:Not only that. on Camera Vans To Photograph 50 Million Buildings · · Score: 1

    Nah, 45MPH would be quite doable. Some quick math:

    54 mi/h = 237,600 ft/h = 66 ft/sec

    Taking shots every 15 feet would mean 4.4 shots/sec, which means a max shutter time of 0.227 seconds. My cheap film SLR will do a 0.0001 sec shutter time, and I doubt a (standard use) camera exists that won't go as fast as 0.008 (1/125) sec. Thus, at the very least, this isn't the limiting factor.

    The problem might be however that the pictures would come out blurry, but this would occur no matter how often you were taking pictures. Back to the 66 ft/sec. Let's say you're using a shutter time of 1/1000 sec. This is quite reasonable even though it is at the upper limit of even most SLRs as the cameras they use would probably be special purpose anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if they would go with an even shorter shutter.

    Now, at 66 ft/sec in that 1/1000 sec the car will travel 0.066 ft. This is equal to 0.792 inch. Thus even the motion blur would probably be undetectable.

    (Remember, the military has aircraft that can take reasonably clear pictures from low altitudes (well under 1,000 feet) while traveling at a couple hundred MPH that are spaced close enough that they can be spliced into a single continuous panarama.)

  12. Re:No if a private citizen did this on Camera Vans To Photograph 50 Million Buildings · · Score: 1

    "However, from another purely legal standpoint, the Executive Branch can imprison anyone for an arbitrary length of time... provided that they classify the prisoner as an "enemy combatant"."

    No, they really can't. Any law that says they *can* is in clear violation of the right to a speedy trial and prohibition to being held without charge. Both these rights are explicitly stated in the US Constitution, which trumps any federal statute, administrative decision, or international treaty that would otherwise apply.

  13. Re:Konqueror on Future for Web Standards Pondered · · Score: 1

    Oh, oops... I read the statement as saying it's easier to install Firefox than IE, not easier to install Flash on Firefox than on IE, considering neither of the prepositions were 'on' ;-)

  14. Re:Konqueror on Future for Web Standards Pondered · · Score: 1

    "Actually it's a lot easier to install a firefox then an IE."

    No it isn't:

    IE: Do nothing. It's already installed.

    Firefox: Know that it exists and is better, go to website, click a few times, run installer. (Firefox does have an installer now, right? I just use normal Mozilla while in Windows...)

  15. Re:No minor annoyance. on Things You Can Do With A Giant Fresnel Lens · · Score: 1

    See The Onion's Our Dumb Century, p. 139 (Friday, Feb 3, 1984), "Congress Approves Orbiting Homeless Incinerator"

  16. Re:Oh that's easy. on Worst Explanation From Tech Support? · · Score: 1

    There *is* an sbin in the path: "/usr/sbin/halt". At least on my BSD system, I'm almost positive /sbin is a symbolic link to /usr/sbin, though I'm in WinXP at the moment so can't verify.

  17. Re:Rinkworks.com brings you... on Worst Explanation From Tech Support? · · Score: 1

    I think the question was more the other way around; not the tech support people getting idiot callers, but the tech support people making up stuff to appease the callers.

  18. Re:Absentee Ballots, heard of em? on Feds to Open BlackBoxVoting User Logs? · · Score: 1

    What's the penalty for election fraud anyway? I've always thought that people who commit it should be tried for treason, but that may be just a bit extreme. ;-)

  19. Re:Absentee Ballots, heard of em? on Feds to Open BlackBoxVoting User Logs? · · Score: 1

    I have a couple ideas off the top of my head.

    First, you'd also have to mail it in their presence, or there'd be no proof that you did. Further, they'd have to be there continuously from when you did it to when you mailed it, or you could invalidate it.

    Second, is there a way you can invalidate previously mailed absentee ballots? I don't know if they track who sent them in, so this may or may not be possible.

    Third, you could probably contact the FBI or other police force and get them to loan you a wire so you could at least get evidence against the employee. With luck it'd even be a video one.

  20. Re:Bring back paper ballots, pencils on Feds to Open BlackBoxVoting User Logs? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's why it's illegal to give receipts at the polls. Actually not so much for the "we'll buy your vote for $345.67" reason as the "you vote for Ronald R. Ronaldson and bring me the receipt or I'll fire you" reason.

  21. Re:Gotta love the unions on SBC CWA Strike Imminent · · Score: 1

    I never got why extortion was ever illegal in the first place. Let's look at a simpler case:

    "If you don't give me a raise, I will not be at work tomorrow and you won't have a worker."

    (That's more along the lines of what a strike is anyway; the union may say it, but the union is the workers, so really it's the workers who are saying we won't be in on work. The only difference between the above statement and a strike is scale.)

    Anyway.

    Is saying "Give me a raise" illegal? Of course not. Mgmt will accept or reject your request.

    Is saying "I wont' be at work tomorrow" illegal? Of course not. Mgmt will just likely fire you if it happens too often.

    So why should saying "Give me a raise or I won't be at work tomorrow" illegal? Neither the action that you're threatening nor the action that you're demanding is illegal, so why should the combo be?

  22. Re:"Awright, let's GIT 'em..." on L.L. Bean Suing Competitors For Spyware-Linked Ads · · Score: 1

    I have an LL Bean bag that has served me well. Got one with a waist strap. Helped enormously.

  23. Re:Not necissarily on How To Play Your iTunes Music On Other Systems · · Score: 1

    While you're *almost* completely on track here, but you're forgetting the DMCA. The transcoding of your iTunes track would be illegal because it would involve circumventing a copyright protection algorithm.

    (I'm just saying what the law says here, not what would be held in the courts.)

  24. Re:Not necissarily on How To Play Your iTunes Music On Other Systems · · Score: 1

    "In my copying example I was only referring to the actually copying act, not the copyright law. Furthermore, I did state the fundamental point that:

    copyright does not come into play on this as contract law (ie the agreement between you and Apple governing your purchase of songs) supersedes copyright law in this case."

    I don't disagree that your statement is true. However, I'm saying that you're still misunderstanding the parent who was saying that copyright law doesn't apply *at all* because there's no distribution. (However, the DRM breaking would cause it to apply in this case.)

  25. Re:Not necissarily on How To Play Your iTunes Music On Other Systems · · Score: 1

    What your parent is saying is that copyright law is a misnomer: it should be called distribution law. Sure, copying a file from one place to another, including with this program, is copying. However, it isn't distributing it, and thus title 17 has nothing to say about the actual copying (though the DRM removal would be a sticky issue).

    Whether this is true or not, who knows.