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User: NortWind

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  1. Re:That's revolutionary on Trees vs. Atmospheric Carbon: A Fight That Makes Sense? · · Score: 1

    Trees are only carbon sinks if you wait for them to grow, turn them into charcoal, and bury the charcoal deep in the earth. Otherwise, when the tree dies and rots, it will release all the CO2 it soaked up. It is only breaking even if you just maintain a forest.
    Sea life that grows calcium carboinate shells that sink to the sea floor are a way to actually remove CO2 from the carbon cycle, but it takes a long while to do.
    If we get freen, clean unlimited energy, we could talk about pulling the CO2 apart and making O2 and synthetic coal, and burying the coal. That's probably not happening soon.

  2. Article not titled correctly. on One In Three Jobs Will Be Taken By Software Or Robots By 2025, Says Gartner · · Score: 1

    We used to be a nation of 90% farmers. Now we have less than 10% employed farming, 80% were replaced with robots. The article should have been 1 on 3 of the remaining jobs will be replaced.

  3. Re:god dammit. on Solar Plant Sets Birds On Fire As They Fly Overhead · · Score: 1

    By far the biggest killer of wild birds is cats, feral and domestic let out.
    Here are a bunch of things (including wind power) that kill more birds per year than solar:
    http://tinyurl.com/2v72l2l/

  4. Re:1 or 1 million on Verizon Now Throttling Top 'Unlimited' Subscribers On 4G LTE · · Score: 1

    you really have two choices: 1. punish the heaviest users; 2. punish everyone.

    There is a third choice, 3. expand capability.

    Find the towers that sometimes saturate. Then take some of the profits Verizon creates, and increase those towers' capacity, or just outright add new towers. Adding towers would improve coverage, boost signal strength, and in general cut power requirements both for the tower and the customer's phone.

  5. Re:Wow. on Rocket Scientist Designs "Flare" Pot That Cooks Food 40% Faster · · Score: 1

    The poster was correct, Jet boil aleady has fins to make boiling start faster, with less energy used. Take a look for yourself.
    http://www.backcountry.com/jetboil-1.5-liter-cooking-pot/

  6. Re:Manager on New Microsoft CEO Vows To Shake Up Corporate Culture · · Score: 2

    Microsoft does a good job of supporting backward compatibility because it has to do so to maintain lock-in. If things weren't very compatible from version to version, you might be tempted to try something else. That is how Microsoft rakes in their money for a product that is in many ways worse than a free product: lock-in.

  7. Re:Not a ranking of what is the best language on IEEE Spectrum Ranks the Top Programming Languages · · Score: 1

    Java is often the top rated language, so it is not surprising that HTML is lower rated. I don't know if they are counting HTML 5 as HTML.

  8. Re:Don't forget these on On the Significance of Google's New Cardboard: An Idea Worth Recycling · · Score: 2

    Another vendor: http://tinyurl.com/qc3wdk8 Looks like a faithful reproduction of the original kit.

  9. Re:Fireworks in 3...2...1... on Satanists Propose Monument At Oklahoma State Capitol Next To Ten Commandments · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So a sterile woman should not have the right to be married? I don't get your line of thought here.

  10. Re:It's inevitable on What About the Grey Gamers? · · Score: 1
    Percentage of market makes no difference. It is absolute numbers. People in the early days of computing were happy to make a game to sell a few thousand units. Now that the total gaming market is so much bigger, game companies foolishly turn up their noses at numbers of gamers that would make developing a great game worthwhile and profitable. It is just herd thinking.

    Yes, I am 55 years old, and I play Animal Crossing on the DS, and bought a PS2 so that I could play Katamari I and Katamari II. I will buy any game that I think will be fun. I am not terribly price-sensitive. I do not really enjoy pretending to disembowel other people and then watch the flies buzz around.

  11. Re:This "feels" unconstitutional somehow on U.S. Ecommerce To Be Broadly Taxed? · · Score: 1

    Article 1, Section 9 of a certain piece of paper states:
    "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State."
    Hard to be more clear than that.

  12. Re:Is this news? on Mono Blocked from MS Conference · · Score: 4, Informative

    The news part is "but they actively have misrepresented things." Maybe MS misrepresenting things is not news either, but at least this is a new case of it. Mono didn't get enough votes to get in the conference, because they were not allowed on the supposedly "open" ballot.

  13. Re:Agreed on E-voting to be a 'Train Wreck'? · · Score: 1

    In order to decrypt the vote the voter made with his private key, the vote counter needs to know his public key. If you know the public key, then you know who voted. There are cyrpto ways to do it, but it is a bit more involved, giving you back a true check number and a false check number, and only you know which is which.

    In any case, I agree with the main points, any computer based solution MUST be open source and verifiable, and the exact method used in the system must be open for wide review. That said, a $0.50 marker is a lot cheaper and more reliable than any computer system.

  14. Re:That's how they want it on E-voting to be a 'Train Wreck'? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Please mod parent up. It is a common enough belief that it shouldn't be modded as troll, especially in light of the Diebold memos.

  15. Re:Here it is, exactly what Brown is up to! on Ken Brown Responds to His Critics · · Score: 1
    ...to scare people that know nothing about software, open source, operating systems, etc.
    Hey, you are talking about "U.S. leadership" there. This is the stated target audience. A little respect, please.
  16. Re:A return to appliances? on Sun Says Hardware Will Be Free · · Score: 1

    Just like the key to your house is not the contents of your house, but it gets you access to the house. In the same way, personal info can be used to get access to your real property. (ie bank account) The test for property is that you can't replicate it for free. Not that it would cost very much to replicate my bank account, but it is the principle.

  17. Re:Fission is stupid. Wish we had fusion ready to on Bruce Sterling On Lovelock's Pro-Nuclear Stance · · Score: 1

    Here's an article on the proposed Toshiba plant. Seems like a sound idea, especially for remote places where you have to spend a lot of fuel just to haul the fuel there.

  18. Re:Logo. on Programming For Terrified Adults? · · Score: 1

    I agree. Start with Logo, and when she feels comfy with that, then bring Scheme out. Logo will indtroduce the basic concepts with immediate feedback (by turtle graphics) so you can learn easily. Scheme extends thse ideas into a really powerful system.

    Do not expose her to any form of mind corrupting Basic!

  19. A better idea? on Google IPO Swami · · Score: 1

    Instead of giving away shares to whoever guesses closest to the the actual selling price, you could could have auctioned off your promise to supply a share in Google to the highest bidders. People will guess whatever number they like, but they will only bid up to where they feel the share is worth. If they think they can get it cheaper at the real Ggoogle auction, they wont bid that high. As a side benefit, if they bid too high you make money from your auction! If they bid too low, you are only out the difference between their bid and the actual starting price.

  20. Re:This information isn't even blacked out! on Student Uncovers US Military Secrets · · Score: 1

    For recent info on Pearl Harbor, check into "Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor" by Robert Stinnett. Amazon has a good preview of the book available to browse through.

  21. Re:Unavoidable on Microsoft Blames Anti-trust Legal Fees for Price Increases · · Score: 1

    In my opinion, Microsoft's legal "war chest" was built up by overcharging. This massive amount of overcharging for poor quality software was only made possible by abusing a market monopoly. This is not just my opinion, perhaps you have have read about what the DOJ had to say about this.

  22. Re:Unavoidable on Microsoft Blames Anti-trust Legal Fees for Price Increases · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Exactly, I wonder what the Slashdot crowd thinks should happen?
    Microsoft has withheld $49 Billion from its stockholders for the purpose of paying legal fees. Maybe they could use some of that, rather than raising prices. Just a thought.
  23. MoMA already taken on Via-based Handheld Game Console Runs PC Games · · Score: 1

    Doesn't everybody know that MoMA is the Museum of Modern Art?

  24. Re:Duh on Microsoft Backs Out Of Wi-Fi Equipment Market · · Score: 1
    What makes you think that only Microsoft would do this to customers (if they even do, which I doubt!) ?
    History, maybe? No other company is in a position to be effective at compromising the privacy of most computer users. Read about Longhorn and Palladium, to see the direction MS is heading.
  25. Re:Remember this guy... on FireFox and Longhorn: Meant For Each Other? · · Score: 1

    No, Robert Scoble is (as mentioned in the FA)Microsoft's technology evangelist. Read his writings in order to find out what trial ballon MS is floating today. Checkout his "Userland" Hailstorm directory from 2001.