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User: mforbes

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  1. Re:What's the appeal? (Bingo!) on NYC Tech Sector Growing Faster Than City Can Keep Up · · Score: 1

    I can't speak to the experience of living in NYC as well as you, having never tried it. I've visited and been fairly impressed, at least with everything other than the century or so of grime on every building.

    That said, there's a lot to be said for those of us living in the hinterlands (also known as "places beyond the Hudson"). I'm here in Upstate South Carolina, which is noticeably different from Upstate New York, which does not begin at Poughkeepsie! The labor rates are certainly cheaper than in NYC or surrounding areas, but then, so is the cost of living. The lovely three-bedroom split-level house on two acres with a backyard pool that I own here would easily have cost well over 10 times what I spent on it, had I bought in or around NYC. Yes, we have our drawbacks: there's nearly no public transportation here, the arts scene while vibrant is still extremely small, and we have to travel long distances to see most great live entertainment (musicals, opera, what-have-you). Still, to wake up in the morning and see a family of deer slowly wending their way across my front lawn, while munching on the shrubbery that I've been too lazy to prune anyway, more than makes up for it.

  2. Re:Commercial exploitation of the Moon on Golden Spike Working On Private Moon Flights · · Score: 1

    "although a solid argument could be made that it may have been more than coincidence that the economy fell part when prohibition was passed and it recovered when it was repealed."

    Well, sure, except that you have your timing wrong. Prohibition was passed in 1920, and repealed in 1933. That period saw the boom period of the Roaring Twenties, mostly as a result of rampant stock speculation, and most of that without any significant research into the actual value of the stocks being traded. The crash of October 1929 launched the US and the rest of the industrialized world into the Great Depression, from which we didn't recover in the US until around 1940. Other parts of the world didn't recover until after WWII ended.

    So yes, your argument would make sense, if only it weren't incorrect.

  3. Re:Pardon my pedanticism... on Grounded Russian Nuclear Sub Photographed With Sonar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I disagree. The image is computer interpreted. To imply that it's computer generated is to imply that there is no physical analog of the object the image represents.

  4. Re:Yahooooooo!? on Talk of an Apple Search Engine To Thwart Google · · Score: 1

    Fleshlight?

  5. Re:This will fail - because Apple only does UI on Talk of an Apple Search Engine To Thwart Google · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    ...its competitors, Microsoft and Google, are quite good at it... <snip> ...they're better than everybody.

    It's time to turn in your /. card, jpmorgan...

    (Yes, I used the power of the deleted word, but I didn't change your meaning-- I just had fun with it! As a matter of fact, I agree with you & if I had mod points & hadn't already commented on this thread, I would've mod'd you +1 insightful. Since I don't & did, I decided to crack a joke instead)

  6. Re:This will fail on Talk of an Apple Search Engine To Thwart Google · · Score: 1

    Exactly, it's never good to have only one company having monopoly.

    You seem to be indicating that two companies can have a monopoly in the same field...

  7. Re:why do geeks think Bing has failed? on Talk of an Apple Search Engine To Thwart Google · · Score: 1

    I've tried Bing a couple of times, when the results I needed weren't within the first few pages of returns on Google. I'd say the results were almost comparable.

    OTOH, any time I need to information on Microsoft's own site, I find myself going to Google, entering my search time, and inserting the "site:microsoft.com" tag at the end. All because I've found that MS can't figure out how to index their own bloody site. Now tell me, if they can't index their own site, why would I want to trust them with search in general?

    As always, YMMV.

  8. Re:Will Smith asking for too much money? on Will Smith In For Independence Day 2 & 3 · · Score: 1

    Arguably, that list is evidence that WorldCon's Hugo Award is a surefire way to pick a movie (or TV episode) that's not worth watching.

    Caveat: Mars Attacks! almost made me chuckle. Twice.

  9. Re:Nuclear-powered Bill Gates? on Bill Gates May Build Small Nuclear Reactor · · Score: 1

    ... and Toshiba partners with GE for their nuclear energy efforts.

    I can't speak to B&W, though, no clue there.

  10. Re:Thermodynamics on Piezo Crystals Harness Sound To Generate Hydrogen · · Score: 1

    Yes, but this also means that the poor (at least in the US) would finally have a leg up on the rest of us. Where else can you most often find people blasting their car stereos at 125db and vibrating every window in a 2km radius, but in the slums? (Trust me on this one. I live in a not-well-to-do neighborhood, and am seriously considering building a device to hit those jerks with EMPs.)

  11. Re:Brilliant timeless dialogue? on Filming For The Hobbit Begins In July · · Score: 1

    Damn but I wish I had some mod points. What you wrote is the most succinct possible description of any generic sword & sorcery story I've ever read!

  12. Re:Timeline on What Is Time? One Researcher Shares His Exploration · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sure, counting the hits and ignoring the misses can work for anyone.

    That's how road-side crystal-ball gazers make their money.

  13. The saddest part... on "Logan's Run" Syndrome In Programming · · Score: 1

    ... is realizing that most people who aren't old enough to be affected by the "Logan's Run" effect probably had to Google to find out exactly what Logan's Run was!

  14. Re:Only live prey? on Breaking the Squid Barrier · · Score: 1

    Yes, if you want truly large living organisms, you need only take a look at this thing.

  15. Re:15 years? on Space Shuttle Spy Gets 15 Years · · Score: 1

    Yeah, the parts will be cheap, but the lead paint will make the Chinese version too heavy to fly!

  16. Re:about time on Schools To Get Their Own DARPA · · Score: 1

    My former father-in-law works for the Dept of Education. I once asked him "What exactly does the Department of Education do, anyway?"

    His response: "Are you sure you're not a Republican?"

    Thank goodness we've always gotten along!

  17. Re:stop the cybernetic killing machine on Using EMP To Punch Holes In Steel · · Score: 2, Funny

    Could be worse. You could have the governor where I live... you know, the one whose staff thought he said "I'll be hiking the Appalachian Trail" when what he actually said was "I'll be getting some Argentinian Tail."

  18. You're kidding, right? on A Peek Into Netflix Queues · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Invasion of privacy or harmless voyeuristic fun?

    What invasion of privacy? They're not showing what any particular person rented, just what the aggregate in a given area liked. If this is invasion of privacy, then so is any demographic statistic saying, for instance, that New Yorkers like hot dogs from a stand on the street or the baseball stadium over that cooked at home.

  19. Re:huh? on Alleged Ponzi Mastermind Hacked In Antigua · · Score: 1

    While I've enjoyed many of your past posts, and I realize this one was supposed to have been funny, I find your signature somewhat ironic today.

  20. Re:Is this new? on Kurzweil Takes On Kindle With "Blio" E-Reader · · Score: 1

    Wow did I read that wrong. At first glance, I thought you'd written "...as opposed to that dreadful Kindle that lasts upwards of 10-15 days battery life (when wife's turned off)."

  21. Re:Why... on NASA WISE Telescope Starts Taking Pics · · Score: 3, Informative

    TFA specifies that the hydrogen will run out about ten months into the mission (including a month for systems check-out).

  22. Re:incompetence on One Expert Pegs Yearly Cost of IT Failure At $6.2 Trillion · · Score: 1

    Microsoft probably pays engineers to sabotage F/OSS projects, using emails that can't be traced to MS! (yes, that's sarcasm...)

  23. Re:haha on Target.com's Aggressive SEO Tactic Spams Google · · Score: 1, Informative

    The word "Company" is derived from the French word compaignie, meaning a body of soldiers. That word is in turn derived from the Latin words "Com" and "Panis", meaning "with bread"-- i.e., the biblical phrase "... and they broke bread together" (this was still common practice for people working closely together up until very modern times; for that matter, coworkers stillroutinely eat together.) Therefor the word "company" refers to the people who comprise it, not the organization as a gestalt. Although I'm American and follow the American usage, I understand the reason for this particular British usage.

  24. Re:obligatory on The 87 Lamest Moments In Tech, 2000-2009 · · Score: 1

    The first decade of the 20th century was referred to as the "Naughty Oughts", actually...

  25. Re:In case anyone was wondering... on Big Dipper "Star" Actually a Sextuplet System · · Score: 2, Funny

    More specifically, the Pleiades cluster is sometimes erroneously referred to as a dipper. Thus, what we Americans usually call the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor) becomes the Big Dipper, and Ursa Major the Bigger Dipper.