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User: LordLucless

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  1. Re:What does decimate mean? on Ellison: Linux Will Soon Decimate MS Windows · · Score: 1

    Exactly - there are two definitions of decimate, and both are equally valid. Which definition is meant depends on context. You look at the context, and decide which definition is meant. This is a simple process; it is usually done intuitively.

  2. Re:You know on Ellison: Linux Will Soon Decimate MS Windows · · Score: 0

    Oh yeah, right: "I'm comparing Linus to Saddam, but no, I'm not trolling".

    Unless you classify the Linux kernel as a weapon of mass destruction.

  3. Re:What does decimate mean? on Ellison: Linux Will Soon Decimate MS Windows · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You should study language a little more. Definitions change, and the real meanings of words are defined by their usage. Meaning is defined by language, not the other way around.

    Just as an example, the word car is no longer used to describe a two-wheeled Celtic chariot. That doesn't mean you go around sneering up your nose at all those people who oh-so-incorrectly use car instead of automobile.

  4. Re:University of Kansas & William Gibson on High School Sci-Fi Literature Lesson Plans? · · Score: 1

    Well, if you're talking about "Ender's Shadow", there's actually 3 more - "Ender's Shadow", "Shadow of the Hegemon" and "Shadow Puppets".

    ** ENDER'S GAME SPOILER WARNING **





    But these are really a different series - they all center around Bean, and tell the story of how Peter rose to become Hegemon. They are parallel to Ender's Game, but they don't follow the same path as the next three novels.

  5. Re:old news on From Turkey Guts to Fuel Oil · · Score: 1

    And as this technology grows and matures, we each migh be able to have a little oil processor in our own house. The pipeline you suggest from the slaughterhouse to refinery could be expanded into a public utility - the Offal Board, or Guts Grid maybe.

    Man, can you imagine putting a new flowerbed in your garden and accidentally hitting that line?

  6. Re:University of Kansas & William Gibson on High School Sci-Fi Literature Lesson Plans? · · Score: 1

    They say on their reading list that "Xenocide" completed Orson Scott Card's "Ender" series. IIRC (And the books on my bookshelf aren't lying to me), the series contains four books, the last being "Children of the Mind".

    Makes me a little dubious about their course when they can't get the cover details about their texts right.

  7. Re:Good for Germany. on Germany Places Command & Conquer on Restricted List · · Score: 1

    Sorry friend, but after WWII Japan is, by constitution, a "pacifist state". The Japanese constitution forbids them to have any type of "offensive" military.

    This stance is pretty hard to keep in the modern world, and it has been dodged around a lot, but the Japanese are most definately not "ITCHING to get in on the action in Iraq" nor held in check by the indescribable might of the US. They learnt about the horrors of war when two of they're cities were excised from the face of the earth.

  8. Re:Own Stem Cells on Stem Cells Used to Heal a Broken Heart · · Score: 1

    You didn't read what I said.

    Scientists want to use your own stem cells to regrow organs. Embryonic stem cells are not used for treatment, but only for research. The whole advantage of stem cells is that you can replace/patch up, say, your heart, with 0% chance of rejection because it can be grown from your own cells.

    Using someone elses stem cells totally negates this - you might as well have a transplant.

  9. Own Stem Cells on Stem Cells Used to Heal a Broken Heart · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is really not interesting at all - nobody ever considered using other peoples stem cells to heal people - it'd be just the same as trying to transplant an organ, they'd get rejected.

    The reason scientists want to use embryonic stem cells is that they are easier to study, not to use. There is no ethical/moral consideration about using stem cells - it's using embryonic stem cells that everyone kicks up a fuss about - and they are being used for study, they are not practical to be used for actual treatment.

  10. Re:so make a bong from on IsoNews Ostensibly Shut Down By The DOJ · · Score: 1

    Don't stop at alchohol and tobacco.

    Sugar and fat are responsible for many of the diseases that claim the lives of people in the western world. High blood pressure, diabetes, hardening of the arteries, heart failure. Surely the government should restrict the use of these substances, in the same way as it restricts the use of cocaine and heroin, as people who abuse them are endangering their lives.

    Motor cars too. Far more people die in car accidents than drug overdoses every year. Obviously car licences are far too permissive, and should only be granted in exceptional circumstances - to protect citizens lives.

    Basically, what it boils down to is that everything can be abused. The government can't control everything, its just not possible. At some point, they have to let their citizens decide what to do with their own lives. If they wish to chance death through drug use, or gluttony, thats their own decision, not the governments.

    What the government is doing when "protecting" its citizens this way, is essentially taking control of peoples' life away from them. If people are not in control of their lives, they are not responsible for their actions. I don't know about the US, but here in Australia there have been a whole lot of law suits lately about things like this.

    Two kids jigged school, went to a construction site and chucked rocks at each other. One of them got hit and sued the school - successfully - for not stopping them from jigging.

    Another guy was stoned off his head, dived into a stream, smashed his head on the low bottom, and sued the government for not having warning signs about water depth up.

    The current policy of "protection" that seems to be pervading society at the moment totally justifies these otherwise stupid cases. If the government is taking responsibility for our lives upon themeselves, then they must protect us. If our lives are our own, then responsiblity for our actions lies squarely on our own shoulders.

  11. Re:This is too bad. on Is AIM Really a Bandwidth Hog? · · Score: 1

    I know you do, but the role Universities play in Australia is much more Analogous to American Colleges than American Universities.

  12. Re:This is too bad. on Is AIM Really a Bandwidth Hog? · · Score: 4, Informative

    Um, if your looking for a protocol to transfer large files back and forth, theres one been around for quite a while. It's called "FTP".

    It ain't hard to setup an FTP server at home, and most Universities (Colleges for the yanks) allow FTP access to their students.

    Why not just use that?

  13. Re:Big Brother on Is AIM Really a Bandwidth Hog? · · Score: 1

    If your using Big Brothers' computer and Big Brothers network and Big Brothers bandwidth, and are impacting on Big Brothers' reputation, of course he damn well will.

  14. Re:How could you guys possibly know of linux on Linux Conference Australia Write-Up · · Score: 1

    Sign up with a decent ISP
    Internode has nationwide access and a flatrate plan with a dynamic QoS system that works rather sweetly. I clocked 45GB down in my first month on that. If RedHat tops that out on their next release, I'll eat my modem.

  15. Re:Note to the Snyders... on NARAS vs. the RIAA · · Score: 1

    I don't know about you, but it sounds to me as if Prince is just trying to sound net savvy.
    The whole point of the obnoxious form of written language known as "netspeak" is brevity. But Prince uses extended forms of proper contractions or acronyms ("percent" instead of "%", "peer-to-peer" instead of "P2P") and instead drops the "e" off expression and writes "4m" instead of form, saving a whole three keystrokes.
    Somebody deliberately trying to sound like a chatter just to make themselves seem more trendy just nauseates me.

  16. Re:NARAS Coup? on NARAS vs. the RIAA · · Score: 1

    In the article itself Snyder says that in the past NARAS has supported the RIAA blindly. This isn't a statement of position by NARAS, its a submission by a member of NARAS to ask them to reconsider their position. The "audience" whose perceptions the author wants to change isn't the people reading it on Salon (Preaching to the converted, I'd say), but to the other board members at NARAS.

  17. Re:Just like any other engineering on Define -- "Software Engineering" · · Score: 1

    The problem with this is that most programs operate on many different hardware and software configurations, and these sort of issues are still not totally abstracted away.

    When an engineer builds a bridge, he looks at the specifics of the situation. What sort of traffic is this bridge going to get? What sort of stresses will it be under? Is this area subject to high winds? Seismic disturbance? Is this area particularly dry, or wet? The resulting bridge should work perfectly within those conditions.

    In contrast, software is expected to work with all sorts of configurations. An end user expects a program to work under Windows 95/98/XP. He expects it to work with all his hardware that the programmer has never seen. He expects it to play nice with his video card, his sound card, his game controller. And so does his next door neighbour who has a totally different video card, sound card, game controller.

    The point is, software has a large number of complex dependencies, which all may have undocumented quirks and idiosynchrosies. Until this sort of thing is fully abstracted away behind a reliable, predictable (and popular) OS, Software Engineering is going to be a pain in the arse.

  18. Re:The SPEED of Destruction makes people uncomfort on Improvements in Teleportation · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's not just a question of time, it's also a question of degree. What this argument really hinges around, I think, is the idea of a soul. Does a person have qualities that are not described by the physical elements of their bodies? If no, teleportation is fine and dandy, reconstructing the atomic particles of a particular person at a distance will create the same person. But if a person does have a soul, this changes the equation. The general view of a soul is that its sort of "hooked" to the body during life, and upon death it is released to be destroyed, reborn, taken up to heaven, whatever. When you have organ transplants, only one thing is being "destroyed" at a time. Take out the heart, replace it, take out the lungs, replace them. But with teleportation, the whole body is destroyed, and then a bodily physically identical is reconstructed. When the body a soul inhabits is totally broken down, does it do what it does when the body dies, or does it hang around for a bit to see if the body's gonna be reconstructed somewhere else?

  19. Re:From a Canberran... on Bushfires Destroy Historic Mt. Stromlo Observatory · · Score: 1

    Don't bother hanging out your washing. I was around the edges of the New South Wales fires last year, and any clothes dried in that smoke reeked enough to be unwearable for weeks.

  20. Re:The first thing this makes me think is... on Disney Wins, Eldred (and everyone else) Loses · · Score: 1

    Agreed, but with some reservations. Firstly, if your book is selling well, it will be reordered far before it gets down to one copy that could be pinched. If it isn't selling well it is unlikely to be nicked, and unlikely to be reordered if it is. Ordering books cost money, sellers only order in if they expect to sell the book, they don't often just order in a book to keep it in inventory. Secondly, shoplifting is an accepted part of running a store. Although in theory it's fine to depend on an electronic inventory, in practice, most sellers eyeball their stock more frequently than their financial year inventory.

  21. Re:The first thing this makes me think is... on Disney Wins, Eldred (and everyone else) Loses · · Score: 1

    Authors don't lose money from shoplifting. I'm not sure about in the music industry, but in the book industry, at least, bookstores buy the books from the publishers. That is where the authors get their royalties from. Once the book is in the bookstore, it's all in the bookstores hands - the bookstore gets all the money made by sales, the authors already got their bit when the bookstores bought it. I can't imagine its's too different for the media industry.

  22. Re:Why are they bothering? on Hollywood Muscles Aussie ISPs Over Movie Downloading · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not true.

    Telstra (Australia's telco monopolist) sells plans like this, but Telstra are required by law to allow other ISPs to access their infrastructure. These other ISPs have some much better plans, ranging from a 16GB + Shaping afterwards to a Unlimited download with QoS prioritising when pipe is under heavy load. Both these ISPs offer unmetered upload.

    So large file sharing is very much alive and well in Australia. (The iiNet plan also allows unlimited P2P traffic within your own state, I believe)

  23. Re:No More Ink on European Parliament: No More Ink-Cartridge Chips · · Score: 1

    It's not an artificial government regulation, its the government breaking an artificial restriction. The printer/ink manufacturers create an artificial monopoly for their consumables. It's just like Microsoft forcing an non-uninstallable Internet Explorer on its customers. Except that on Windows, you can still install another browser. Whereas you buy a printer, your locked into that company's monopoly on ink until you buy another printer - when in all probability, you get locked into a different monopoly. The EU is breaking open the market again. Hope the Australian government follows suit...

  24. Re:Hmph on Nintendo's Playstation Settlement Bombshell (or not...updated) · · Score: 1

    Damn, for a moment there I thought that was "Girlfriend Emulator". Imagine that, a platform dedicated entirely to... *Looks at his PC* Never mind.

  25. Re:I'd have to agree... on Decentralization · · Score: 1

    Hah! Now there's a way to save on bandwidth bills. Take your site "down for a redo" before you post it on Slashdot.