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User: coleridge78

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Comments · 175

  1. Re:Home School on US Students Struggle With Understanding of the 'Equal' Sign · · Score: 0, Troll

    I'm going to guess you're home-schooled, both because of your defensiveness and because of your lack of analytical skills (as opposed to memorization).

    There are a lot of problems with your screed but the most obvious, of course, is that for all you know everything you cite is worse among those who were home-schooled compared to those who weren't. Nobody said sending your kid to school results in a perfectly polite human... because that would be idiotic. They made a comparison between two subject groups, which you did not address.

  2. Re:Seems to be up now. on A Screenshot Review of KDE 4 · · Score: 1

    Except that you skipped the part where he gave an example of another app that hit that niche before Konfabulator, if that's the way you want to break it down.

    In a larger sense, however, that's just silly. These are all the same, differing in their implementation details. None of those implementation details are innovative, all of them, especially Konfab/Dashboard/etc, were drop-dead obvious (which is why they were done by so many people and teams in a similar time frame). They're simply a refactoring of the "applet" with the tools that current programmers use, as always happens.

    Obviously, Apple did not "invent" dashboard. To say that Konfabulator was something new is both literally wrong (as you ignored in that article, others did the XML/scripting thing first), and conceptually silly.

  3. Re:Seems to be up now. on A Screenshot Review of KDE 4 · · Score: 1

    Heh. I've spent money on exactly three Apple products in my life (a G3 tower ten years ago, an iPod mini, and a nano to replace it so it'd fit in the pocket better). Fanboy, not so much. Just pointing out the facts.

    More to the point, saying "I didn't say ripoff, I said predated" is hilariously inept bullshitting. If you didn't mean it was a ripoff, why did you bring it up? What was your point?

    Even more to the point, I'll just refer you to this:

    http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/dashboard_vs_konfabulator

    Try to look at it impartially, without knee-jerking about the author. Honestly, can you dispute anything he says? The only thing that you could even begin to claim Konfabulator introduced to the table was art direction, which itself (rounded corners, drop shadows, etc) was only "new" in this particular micro-niche of software; it's been increasingly commonplace for a decade now.

    Again: Konfabulator not only brought nothing new to the table, but wasn't even a new combination of things except the art.

    If you can dispute this with facts, I'd be interested, sincerely.

  4. Re:Seems to be up now. on A Screenshot Review of KDE 4 · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Look, this is simple.

    Konfabulator isn't that similar to Dashboard. Dashboard, in fact, is leaps past it. If you're going to claim that Dashboard is a ripoff of Konfabulator, then it's utterly disingenuous to claim that K-ator is not a "ripoff" of Desk Accessories in exactly the same sense. To anyone with a functioning brain, K-ator is much more similar to Desk Accessories than to Dashboard. If you disagree, I invite you to explain why rather than trotting out troll talking points.

    And Spotlight a ripoff of Beagle? A laughable, intentional lie. Again, if those two are similar enough to call Spotlight a "ripoff", then Beagle is a ripoff of every indexed search project since 1935.

    Get real. Put up some facts, or take a hike.

  5. Re:Pardon me saying so... on IT Workers Split For McCain, Obama · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I understand all that. That's more or less the point... I'm paying a lot more than 15% in the end right now. I'd keep a few grand a year, *but*, a lot of people would keep hundreds of thousands or millions (and corporations would not pay any tax under the libertarian proposals I've seen), and so the reduction in services necessitated by the steep decline in the "pot" would require me to spend more than I end up saving.

    Now, some people would say that this is fair and just. I disagree, but I'm just pointing out that this would be the case for the vast majority of the country unless there were other sweeping changes (like slashing down health costs by revoking the corporate status and legal favor of HMOs and insurance companies, thereby allowing true competition in those areas again).

    I was assuming a flat 15% tax accompanied by repeal of all other taxes and fees, which seems to be the gist of most Libertarian plans (all of them that I've seen call for getting rid of property tax, fwiw). Some formulate it differently; no income tax, with a flat tax on sales, for example. But the element they have in common is one flat tax on foo, with other stuff gone. So in this case, there would no longer be, for example, gas taxes or property taxes. It'd have to come out of whatever one tax is present.

    And I work for a state University, so my health insurance (minus my contribution and deductibles) is indeed paid for by state income tax revenue. :)

  6. Re:Pardon me saying so... on IT Workers Split For McCain, Obama · · Score: 1

    I'm with you on current approaches, no doubt.

    But I'm not quite sure how the libertarian approaches solve any of those issues; in fact, they seem to exacerbate them. For example: under a flat, say, 15% on income (assuming you don't want to get rid of the income tax entirely, which.... well, look at which countries in the modern world have no income tax--it's not a pretty list), I wouldn't be left with enough money in my pocket to make up for having to buy my own health insurance, pay for the roads in my neighborhood, etc, all of which would now be necessary because receipts would decrease by orders of magnitude.

    Additionally, I *certainly* wouldn't get enough money back in my pocket to, after all that, continue to be a driver of the American consumer economy (heh).

    The one part of libertarianism I can get behind (that most libertarians seem to forget) is getting the government out of the business of any kind of sponsorship of business, including granting corporate charters. Freedom is for people, not amorophous entities which never die and have the money to corrupt the system in their favor and against all of us individuals.

    Campaign finance reform, tort reform, blah blah blah... get rid of the current corporate system where they have the protection and stockpiles of wealth to use as a cudgel, and a large portion of all those problems disappear overnight.

  7. Re:Pardon me saying so... on IT Workers Split For McCain, Obama · · Score: 1

    Macro systems in the real world, particularly those involving people, are seldom if ever solvable clearly and precisely. Which has nothing to do with appeal to emotions, so I'm not sure why you mentioned that...

    If you disagree, it'd be interesting to hear an example of a real-world problem involving large groups of humans that has been solved clearly and precisely.

  8. Re:I think McCain would be the choice today on IT Workers Split For McCain, Obama · · Score: 1

    It was irresponsible to say, given that he has no evidence. It's a bare assertion and one that I find extremely implausible. To say the least.

    But labeling him a "nutjob" for it, or saying it is "anti-American", is a bridge too far. This is a man that came home from serving in Vietnam to discover that the United States government was intentionally spreading untreated syphilis in the black community in a 40-year experiment worth of Mengela.

    So, the government spreading a largely sexually-transmitted virus around the black community with no regard for the consequences? Historic fact, not nutjobbery. Don't blame until you know the facts and have been in another person's shoes.

  9. Re:Pardon me saying so... on IT Workers Split For McCain, Obama · · Score: 1

    IT people are more libertarian than the average person, because IT attracts people that think in terms of (often over-) simplified descriptive rulesets. Libertarianism is nothing if not an over-simplified ruleset. It is, in general, like the physics problems you do in your first semester. It is based on true and valuable outlines, but neglects so much of the subtleties of the real world that if you tried to apply it you'd quickly end up under the wheels of a roller coaster car that flew off a curve. It's an instance of people who are arrogant about their problem-solving skills and "reason" applying such to a domain (politics and especially economics) where they do not have enough facts to make use of said reason, well, reasonably.

  10. Re:It's a religion on The Wrath of the Apple Tribe · · Score: 1

    Out of curiosity, what "consumer lock-down" are you referring to? I have an iPod nano (and a Touch, mostly for use as a web terminal when traveling without a laptop), and haven't experienced anything I'd refer to with those words.

  11. Re:Nice image piece on eBay vs. Romania's Online Scammers · · Score: 1

    another large percentage will fall into the "I bought this item that was clearly labeled with 'As-Is' and it's broken and they won't refund my money",

    I hate this bullshit. As-is is fine, but it's dishonest unless the seller accurately describes what the "as", "is". I refurbish old cameras. I've bought ones sold as-is but described as "good cosmetic condition" and "only problem is film won't advance!" only receive something with pitted metal and *parts missing*.

    Then the seller hides behind "as is". As if. You better describe it accurately and leave out no reasonably visible defect if you're going to pull that.

    And yes, I got my money back after contacting his local police.

  12. Re:Memory Leaks? on First Look At Firefox 3.0 Beta 2 · · Score: 1

    Hey look, a Firefox programmer!

    Nobody I know who uses Firefox *hasn't* seen this problem. Everyone I know who uses a Mac has given up on it, and the PC users only keep using it because "at least it's not IE".

    Keep your head in the sand and watch all your meager gains evaporate. You've already stagnated for quite a while now.

  13. Re:students already do it on their own on Colleges Outsourcing Email To MS Live, Google · · Score: 1

    Amusing that you couldn't back up any of your statements. Shocking.

  14. Re:students already do it on their own on Colleges Outsourcing Email To MS Live, Google · · Score: 1

    You have no idea what you're talking about. Deleting TEN years' worth of email is a two-click operation in any desktop client, if it's all in the same folder. Not "many steps".

    Why are you commenting on something you don't know anything about, troll?

    And yes, it can be restored if the institution is doing regular backups. We do this routinely at the University where I work (one of the largest in the world). If you think Google ever would, you're smoking crack.

    Of course, the fact that you're talking about .mail folders already told me that.

  15. Re:Correction on Fake Codec is Mac OS X Trojan · · Score: 1

    Hmm. I'm nearly positive my 16-word sentence didn't say anything about Safari.

    Though, now that you mention it, while it has its own infuriating bugs it's the only one I can trust to (mostly) reliably render html and css according to spec, so I do use it for development reference.

    Anyone who thinks Firefox is the answer to all the world's problems is a silly twit. It manages to have almost as many bugs in Mozilla in a codebase the fraction of the size. Hilarious! Again: The only good thing about it, is that it's *not IE*.

  16. Re:Correction on Fake Codec is Mac OS X Trojan · · Score: 1

    Except that, by last count, 98.5% or so of Windows users stick with IE. So your "point" is meaningless.

    Get out of your bubble. It'd be nice if people ran Firefox, maybe (it's a piece too, just in different ways), but in the large scheme of things almost nobody does.

  17. Re:Critical thinking on Gen Y Tech Savvy, But Not Interested in a Career · · Score: 1

    If anything, he would have "implied" it. Inferring is something the reader does. Please try to learn vocabulary.

    (Also, you're wrong anyway. I dare you to point to where he implied that.)

  18. Re:Your missing the point . on Woz Still Misses Homebrew Computer Club and Apple · · Score: 1

    What astinking liar. A decent GUI will not run on that OS on that hardwarewithout making you want to die or light it on fire.

    I'll never understand what kind of crazy idiot lies to an audience that *knows* you're lying.

  19. Re:Critical thinking on Gen Y Tech Savvy, But Not Interested in a Career · · Score: 1

    No, your inference is specious. Nobody said anything about having 20,000 students in one school.

  20. Re:Critical thinking on Gen Y Tech Savvy, But Not Interested in a Career · · Score: 1

    You might read that one again. He's making a different point than the one you're addressing. Specifically, about how to *improve* schools. What he's suggesting would likely be better for your kids as well... the "wonderful" suburban schools are mostly churning out kids that can pass the standardized tests and get good grades because everyone is afraid of offending their parents. Having worked at a University for the past ten years, dealing directly with students (including teaching some classes), I can tell you that in real world terms they're just as dumb, skill-free, and devoid of critical thinking skills as the inner-city school kids... and for the most part, much lazier, and as such more hopeless.

  21. Re:Hardly... on Apple's Missed Opportunity With Leopard Delay · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Care to back that up with some facts?

    Unless you hit one of Dell's schizo once in a blue moon sales, you're simply lying. Comparable laptops between Apple and Dell are almost invariably cheaper on the Apple side, and generally by a large margin.

  22. Re:ActiveSync... on Steve Jobs Announces iPhone SDK · · Score: 1

    Or maybe, uh, you could use the amazing standard "sync" capability on the iPhone which is called... checking your mail.

    Seriously, what are you trying to say? It's not making any sense...

  23. Re:bug report on Steve Jobs Announces iPhone SDK · · Score: 1

    You're an idiot. I don't care what every other IDE has done... if you're in a text editing mode and you press a character (say, for the sake of argument, TAB) and the app responds by doing anything OTHER than typing that character it is wrong, inconsistent, dangerous, and stupid. That's what meta-keys or multimodal are for.

    Sounds to me like you're just not that bright, and think everything should work the same as it did in drop-dead bogus hacked-up DOS dev environments that are legacy cruft machines from 1983.

  24. Re:One slight problem with this article... on What's Really Broken with Windows Update - Trust · · Score: 2, Informative

    "America" properly refers to the entirety of two continents. Our country is not called "America", it is called the "UNITED STATES of America". "Of America" = "located on the American continent".

    "American" only became the common word to use for a US citizen in some languages out of convenience. It's easier than "United Statsian" or whatever. Even this is far from universal, though... we are "norteamericano", for example, in Spanish. This is still a bit of a misnomer but much closer.

  25. Re:BZZZT thankyourforplaying... on "Tubes" Senator Being Investigated For Corruption · · Score: 1

    It seems that every one of your statements seem to be based in fact, but are wrong. Perhaps you should not throw such accusations when your response is no more fact-filled than his was.

    Pure dissembling. Let's examine:

    "Alaska is a net taker in Federal taxation, not a contributor."

    That is incorrect. Alaska does recieve more in federal funds than its residents pay in income tax, but that isn't the same as what you said.

    Oh, really? Let's hear what the difference is. I doubt you can provide one.

    "It collects funds solely via it's non-renewable resource grants."

    Well, then the fees I pay to park at state parks must not be there, nor the fee for business licenses, autos, and such. It may be primary, but "solely" is simply false.

    Anyone who has a brain and isn't just picking a fight to rep for a dishonest bit of politics obviously understood this, but let me make it clear. By "solely" I was addressing that (vast majority portion) of any state gov's income which comes from income tax, leaving aside the other fees which all states charge in more-or-less consistent fashion. I could have been a bit clearer and said "tax, as opposed to use fees" instead of "funds", but again, for you to claim this as some big point just says that you're trying to distract from the truth.

    "As much as possible?" What does that mean? The fund that the dividends are pulled from grows every year. "As much as possible" implies that it pays all funds available. Again, that is simply false. There is a formula that has been created and used for 20+ years resulting in the growth of the permanent fund. Some of the growth of the permanent fund is paid back to the residents, but not all.

    You addressed exactly what "as much as possible" means in your retort. More dishonest political dissembling. "As much as possible" means, as you noted, that not all is paid back to the residents, but it is as high as can be maintained while relying on sucking from the Federal teat to keep the state government from collapsing.

    It seems that every one of your statements seem to be based in fact, but are wrong. Perhaps you should not throw such accusations when your response is no more fact-filled than his was.

    The primary fact here is that, in fact, you didn't seriously rebut a single bit of what I said. Is Alaska, or is it not, a net taker from the Federal government (by a very large margin, in fact). And if you dispute this you'd better have very good backup because every single reputable study will be disagreeing with you.

    And laughing at you. Let me guess, you're related to Ted Stevens?

    I just got back from AK. I love it there. That doesn't change the fact that it is an experiment in existence, massively subsidized by the Feds only because of its natural resources.