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User: csnydermvpsoft

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  1. Re:Science vs Religion: Contradictions? on Evangelical Scientists Debate Creation Story · · Score: 2

    Science and religion rarely mess when comparing facts. I guess this is news because it's evangelical scientists? They're still pushing creationism, aren't they?

    Many evangelicals are young-earthers, but not all. Calvin College, which is much of the focus of the NPR story, teaches evolution with little regard to the Genesis account. Any mention of God in science classes is much the same as in any other non-religion course at Calvin: care and awe for his creation, our work on earth as reformers (which can take a number of forms, not just the ones the Christian Right champions), and so on. You won't find any professor in the biology, physics, chemistry - or even religion - departments who would claim that the earth was actually created in six days. Unfortunately, the college president is more conservative than the faculty (though I don't think he's a young-earther), and seems to be on a holy war to champion "correct" interpretations of Genesis in the religion department.

    I am a somewhat recent Calvin alumnus, and my take on creation and evolution as it's taught at Calvin is that they absolutely can mix together in a seamless fashion. All of our scientific discoveries show us a little more of how God created this world. Genesis was never meant to be taken literally - it is similar to many other creation accounts of its era, written in language that the people of the time would understand. It is unfortunate that the current (thankfully outgoing) president of the college feels differently, but his views are far from the most common on campus - especially among the faculty.

  2. Re:Worth a try... on Google+ Already At 10 Million Users · · Score: 1

    Now it worked - thanks again!

  3. Re:Worth a try... on Google+ Already At 10 Million Users · · Score: 1

    Thanks, Luís and Asbjorn! Unfortunately, it's still not letting me in when I follow the links in your emails. I'll keep trying.

  4. Worth a try... on Google+ Already At 10 Million Users · · Score: 1

    If anyone has a spare invite, I'd appreciate it. organsnyder@gmail.com

    (thankful for GMail's excellent spam filtering...)

  5. Re:Copypasta on The Future of Time: UTC and the Leap Second · · Score: 1, Informative

    Because we can't read the actual article unless we're a paid subscriber to the journal/magazine - that's why.

    As others have mentioned, it is available - follow the first link and look for a link to the article PDF in the right sidebar. I agree that the /. summary could've mentioned that.

  6. Re:Copypasta on The Future of Time: UTC and the Leap Second · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do you normally read all American Scientist articles? I don't, so I appreciate this article being brought to my attention (though I'm not planning to pay to read it). The purpose of /. is to point out interesting information so that we can read it further. The summary is supposed to be an accurate summary of the article; since an abstract is already provided, why shouldn't it be used?

  7. Re:Regular cars are not 75K on Tesla Will Discontinue the Roadster · · Score: 1

    Just goes to show you what bad regulation really does. It prevents new entries into a established market due to the costs being so high.

    FTFY

  8. Re:No surprises here on EFF Stops Accepting Bitcoin, Regifts All Donations · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Here is a fun fact.... the same can happen to the Euro and US dollar. All fake currency suffers from this potential.Hell the Federal Reserve is printing money so fast that the US dollar is going to go flat almost as fast...

    GO back to coins made of real copper, nickel, silver and gold. suddenly the currency regains it's value and cant be destroyed..... Unless someone perfects alchemy and turns lead into gold or synthesizes gold.

    For the naysayers complaining about carrying coins... do you realize how much a 1 troy oz gold coin is worth?

    What intrinsic value do precious metals have that makes them so valuable? Many of them can be made into shiny jewelry, which has some value; there's also some value for use in electronics and other products. Apart from that, the only value they have - just like any other piece of property, physical or otherwise - is their desirability to others.

    I don't care for shiny jewelry, and I have no intention of manufacturing products that would use precious metals. Therefore, the only value those metals have to me is their scarcity and the fact that others find them useful. How is this different than the paper money I have in my wallet?

    I have no problem with your decision that precious metals are a safer currency for you than USDs or Euros. I fail to understand, however, how government-issued money is a "fake currency". My USDs are accepted in trade for all the products and services I desire, meeting the only criterion - ability to be freely traded - necessary to fulfill its role as a "real" currency.

    Any form of currency - USD, Bitcoins, precious metals, seashells, etc. - is simply a shortcut to enable trade without the hassles of bartering. I agree that governments aren't always stable, but neither are commodities markets. Perhaps the USD is about to collapse - but the gold bubble could also pop at any minute. If you want to avoid any currency with the possibility of instability, go back to bartering. Alternatively, trade in your preferred currency with the realization that it is not a panacea.

  9. Worst kind of government "agency" on Tech Experts Look To Help Save the Postal Service · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The United States Postal Service, while operated by the United States government, is required to be self-sustaining. Yet, it is not allowed to be autonomous. It seems like every time they try to cut costs - closing redundant retail locations, eliminating Saturday delivery, etc. - they face extreme opposition from Congress (often saving because the waste benefits their districts). In addition, they are prevented by law from raising postage rates above the rate of inflation - no matter what their costs do. I'd hate to try to operate a business under those conditions.

    That being said, there are some areas where efficiency could be improved. I recently started doing mass mailings for my business, and was appalled by some aspects of their processes - the user interface of their employee-facing software was terrible, for instance (and, perhaps more surprisingly, veteran employees seemed unaware of its quirks).

    I think that we (as a country) need to realize that delivering small mailpieces to every household and business in the United States will never be a profitable venture, and be willing to ensure its financial viability through subsidies while also enabling and encouraging efforts to improve efficiency. UPS and Fedex are profitable because they skim off the lucrative parts of the business - large package and express delivery - leaving the rest for the USPS. The USPS serves a very valuable role in this regard, especially for certain less-advantaged populations. We can't expect it to operate like a for-profit business while simultaneously demanding that it fulfill these money-losing - yet necessary - responsibilities.

  10. Re:It is against the law. on Netflix Touts Open Source, Ignores Linux · · Score: 1

    Yes, yes they are. I'm a Netflix customer right now, but before that, they went so far as to send me ads for their service. If that's not asking me to use it, I don't know what is.

    I regularly see ads for feminine products, denture products, STD medications, and plenty of other products I have no use for. Closer to your situation, I also see ads for Xbox 360 games, even though the consoles I own are a Wii and an N64. Why should these advertisers be required to make their products suitable for my use? (in fact, I'm glad that they haven't tried...)

    As a full-time Linux user and Netflix subscriber, I'm also disappointed that they don't offer Linux support. I'm under no illusion, however, that they have any moral obligation to do so.

  11. Re:Really? on Explosive-Laden California Home To Be Destroyed · · Score: 1

    I think it's pretty sad that the owners get nothing. I thought we have a society and community in order to help each other out, not for the government to hoard as much wealth as possible and deny payment whenever possible.

    Property insurance was created for exactly these sorts of circumstances (though usually not this extreme). The owner will probably be reimbursed by their insurers, just as if the house had been destroyed by any other means. It's not the government's fault that the least-unsafe (I can't call it safe) manner of dealing with this situation is to burn the house down.

  12. Re:Oh My Goodness! on The Bus That Rides Above Traffic · · Score: 1

    If it does well (which I would define as being safe, efficient, and cost-effective), why wouldn't you want it to creep around the world?

  13. Re:ZOMIGAWD on BIOS Will Be Dead In Three Years · · Score: 1

    (and no, 64 bit Photoshop is not enough, let's get a 64 bit flash).
    Lord, why? 64 bit is the size of the address space, so if you move it to 64 bit for comparability reasons, you give flash developers the chance to load flash files that are over 4 GB in size into your active memory.
    And lord knows, they will.

    That's definitely a concern. I already hate all of those 3.99GB flash files that are currently found on just about every web site.

  14. KDE 4.0 on What Chernobyl Looks Like In 2010 · · Score: 1

    I find it highly amusing that on Phoronix one of the "related" articles to the Chernobyl article is "KDE 4.0 Release Event".

  15. Re:Looking back on OpenTTD 1.0.0 Released · · Score: 1

    You just described my experience almost exactly - substitute PC World as the magazine that the free sample diskette came with (IIRC). I remember playing TTDLX versus my brothers over a null-modem cable before we had the thinnet network set up in the basement. (to counter the usual /. stereotypes: I was a kid at the time - I moved out of my parents' house after college when I got married, and I never actually lived in the basement)

  16. No more typo redirects! on Comcast Launches First Public US Trial of DNSSEC · · Score: 1

    I noticed this exciting tidbit on their FAQ page:

    What happens to Comcast Domain Helper, which offers DNS redirect services, when you fully implement DNSSEC?

            * We believe that the web error redirection function of Comcast Domain Helper is technically incompatible with DNSSEC.
            * Comcast has always known this and plans to turn off such redirection when DNSSEC is fully implemented.
            * The DNSSEC trial servers we are announcing today do not have Comcast Domain Helper's DNS redirect functionality enabled.
            * We plan to update our IETF Internet Draft on this subject, available at http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-livingood-dns-redirect, to reflect this in the coming months.

  17. Re:Too bad we don't have rules to deal with this on Midwest Seeing Red Over 'Green' Traffic Lights · · Score: 1

    Not sure what the law specifically say in this situation, but I would treat the obscured light as a stop sign, not a "4 way stop".

    AFAIK, the law says that unknown signals should be treated as 4-way stops. However, there are enough idiots out there that it is a good idea to expect cross-traffic to treat the light as a green (especially at night when reasonable people unfamiliar with the area might not see the light).

  18. Re:I can guess why IBM was pushing for IEEE 754r on ECMAScript Version 5 Approved · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why do processors need decimal number support? 10 is just an arbitrary number humans picked because they happen to have 10 fingers. There's no connection between that and computers.

    I don't know about you, but I'd prefer that computers adapt to the way I think rather than vice-versa.

  19. Re:extremes on Cell Phones Don't Increase Chances of Brain Cancer · · Score: 1

    Here buy my EarthQuake Repellent Spray by Acme Chemicals.

    I've been using that stuff for years - works like a charm - has failed less than 0.05% of the days that I've used it!! Highly recommended! A+++++++ seller!

    That's nothing - the EarthQuake Repellent Deluxe that I use hasn't failed yet here in Michigan. I've been trying to get a refund on their StateEconomyGoingToHellInAHandbasket Repellent, however.

  20. Re:Dial-up is all there is some places... on FCC Preparing Transition To VoIP Telephone Network · · Score: 1

    >>>Except that in many places, you really are already on a VOIP network, you just have POTS on the last mile.

    False. If that were true then dialup modems would be unusable. Dialup modems rely on having a "clean" analog wire to the central office, and VOIP would interfere with that.

    If you meant to say the analog sound is digitized after it reaches the CO, then that would be correct, but it's definitely not VOIP

    You're mistaken. Data calls work very well over VOIP if using ulaw/alaw as your codec and you have a low-latency network with zero packet loss. While the second requirement pretty much kills your average home VOIP's chances of being able to handle data calls reliably, there's no reason that telcos can't use VOIP on their private networks, which can be dedicated to voice and controlled 100% by them.

  21. Re:I'm not seeing it. on AT&T Sues Verizon Over "Map For That" Ads · · Score: 1

    With ipv6 we can finally have everyones phone with a real ip address and use dns to call as we use it for urls today.

    IPv6 doesn't really help here - phones would still need static IP's (or dynamic-DNS clients) and not be behind any firewalls for direct address calling to work. The current SIP scheme works quite well - just as well with IPv4, in fact (except for problems getting around NAT): the phone registers with a SIP server, which routes calls. Since the phone originates the connection to the server, only very restrictive firewalls would give trouble. DNS SRV records identify SIP servers for a particular domain, so user@sipdomain.com is automatically routed to sipdomain.com's SIP server, which knows how to route the call to the user's phone.

  22. Re:Fishing, phishing, vishing, what's next? on Asterisk Vishing Attacks "Endemic" · · Score: 1

    But... it goes to 6.

  23. Re:Why I chose Apple for my dev laptop on Best Developer's Laptop? · · Score: 1

    Eclipse and Subversion work as great as they do on my Linux box.

    i.e., like shit?

    (not trolling - I just had to struggle with the Eclipse update manager a couple of times recently - I really like Eclipse when it works)

  24. Not a fan of the Phasers on Choosing a Personal Printer For the Long Haul · · Score: 1

    We had a Xerox Phaser 6250DN up until a couple of years ago. The paper handling was terrible - frequent jams, even on plain paper. Don't even get me started about trying to print on cardstock (which it theoretically supported). The model we had was a refurb, and a firmware update they released a couple of years after we bought it did help with the paper handling somewhat, but I'd hesitate to recommend that line to anyone.

    We did also have a Xerox/Tektronix Phaser 850DN (solid ink) that was a bona fide workhorse, though it took forever to warm up and wasted a lot of ink. Trying to use off-brand ink was the death of it.

    We have a Ricoh AfÃcio SP C811DN now - definitely not a SOHO printer (it supports up to 12x18, or even 12x49 banners), but it's much more reliable. We have some print quality issues with it, but the paper handling and speed are very good.

  25. Re:Current deadline, in case anyone's interested on IPv6 Challenges and Opportunities · · Score: 1

    The Wikipedia page on IP address exhaustion discusses this at some length. The Cliff-notes version:

    1. There are blocks of under/non-utilized addresses that could be reclaimed, as well as reserved addresses that could be re-purposed.
    2. Accomplishing the above would require a lot of investigation (into current usage) and/or reprogramming routers (which were designed with the current addressing system in place).
    3. At best, the exhaustion date would simply be postponed.

    It seems to me like more trouble than it's worth - especially since it just postpones the problem. If we're reprogramming routers anyways, why not deploy IPv6?