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  1. Re:Sorry..but..ummm... on 'Mind Doping' Becoming More Common · · Score: 2, Insightful

    By your logic, a well-balanced meal, tea, coffee, or even a good nights sleep would be considered doping.

  2. Fresh faces on Plexiglass-like DVD to Hold 1TB of Data · · Score: 1

    With on-demand streaming sites like Gexo, why would you even begin to archive something which loses its luster after only a few uses?

  3. Rockbox on Thai IT Minister Slams Open Source · · Score: 1

    um.. I've had alternative software on my nano for over a year now.

  4. Re:Again, Rockbox on SanDisk Releases New iPod rival · · Score: 1

    I was idling in the #rockbox irc channel this past week, and I saw that dan_a (the guy working on utilizing the second core on ipods) had gotten playback. I believe he's in the process of optimizing it, and cleaning up the code. So don't fret, it's in the works.

    Also, if I remember correctly, you shouldn't have any trouble with -q10 oggs if you turn up the anti-skip buffer in the playback settings. I have no trouble playing flac files that way, though admitedly, I've never tried anythign higher than a -q7 ogg.

    Good luck!

    .:bleaked

  5. Re:Rockbox for iPod not ready for prime time on SanDisk Releases New iPod rival · · Score: 1

    Admitedly, the UI is very, very strange at first. In fact, I hated it for days and was completely disgusted by it.

    But I'm here to tell you, that if you give it a chance, learn it, especially the little tricks and shortcuts, you'll be AMAZED at how logical it feels. I want to say it feels intuitive, because now it does, but that word implies that anyone could just walk up to it and they will just 'get it', which sadly is not the case.

    If you do decide to give it another chance, definitely change the theme, and learn the UI, and I would be willing to bet you'll never use the apple firware again. You have to also keep in mind it's a new project, and the devs are very willing to take suggestions, constructive criticisms, and design ideas. Fill out a bug report, or check out #rockbox on freenode.

  6. Re:Again, Rockbox on SanDisk Releases New iPod rival · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Indeed, battery life is huge. For me though, I didn't have much of a choice, since 90% of my music is ogg or flac.

    In my personal experience, I got about 10 or 10.5 hours at best with the apple firmware. With Rockbox, I receive about 8-9 hours reliably (sometimes over 10!), playing ogg (eats more juice -- inherent with ogg), with a skin (default is ugly), backlight (4 seconds, faded), and mostly continuous (I play it all day at work, but shut it off during my lunch break). Which for me, is pretty damn good, and quite reasonable.

    When my nano was new, it was about an hour more than the above stated. I also want to point out that the only way I was able to even produce 13 hours of battery life with the apple firmware, was continuous playback, no backlight, mp3, on the lowest volume setting. Apple advertises 14 hours for the nano. Yea, right..

    Another thing you should consider is that the Rockbox project is very new. iPod support is new as of March of this year.. so I think things are coming along quite nicely. I also LOVE not having to use the itunesdb.. drag and drop files, or in my case Amarok, which is so very nice.

    But I'm not here to persuade you..I'm just explaining why I find it so lovely. If it doesn't work for you, then hey, there's no reason to use it!

    .:bleaked

  7. Again, Rockbox on SanDisk Releases New iPod rival · · Score: 5, Interesting
    In case you're still not aware, Rockbox enables my nano to seamlessly play ogg, flac, mp3, and several other formats. Not only that, but the playback is gapless, has beautiful cross-fading, and quite a few additional features.

    I highly recommend it. :D

    .:bleaked

  8. Re:works half as well... on iTunes, One Billion Suckers Served? · · Score: 1
    Keep in mind the needle picks up ambient sounds in the room, which not only makes the music sound 'live', but more genuine.

    One is not fortunate enough to experience that effect that with CDs.

    .:bleaked

  9. Forget coffee, and Green tea on Caffeine Prevents Liver Disease · · Score: 1
    Yerba mate has caffeine just like coffee and green tea, yet boasts even more nutritional benefits than both combined.

    The form of caffeine (though disputed whether it is a form or actually caffeine) yerba mate has generally is very easy on the central nervous system, as opposed to coffee. It also contains various other natural stimulants which will get you going far better than coffee ever could.

    In addition, yerba mate will also provide heightened mental clarity to help you slash through literally any task with extreme ease and confidence, be it work, school, a job interview, or a family gathering.

    Personally, it brings me to my 'center'. I am calm, collected, well stimulated, yet in in complete control. And yes, you get a wonderful "buzz".

    Furthermore, Yerba mate contains basically every nutrient and mineral that the human body needs to sustain life. It will also deliver it in a form far easier and far more effective than any pill or multi-vitamin could ever do. Coffee dehydrates you, mate does the exact opposite.

    Yerba mate also promotes REM sleep, so users will often find themselves feeling completely refreshed and well-rested with minimal sleep. This comes in handy for me, where once a week I work a closing shift, then have to open in the morning. I come home, cannot sleep since I need to unwind and end up getting to be very late. I'll sleep for a few hours, and generally awake an hour _before_ my alarm, feeling genuinely well-rested.

    If that is not enough, Yerba mate neutralizes the bacteria in your mouth which causes bad breath!

    But please, when you try it, use the traditional gourd and bombilla. Buying it in tea bags works about as well as one bag of green tea does. Loose grounds, made into paste within the gourd, then drank with the bombilla (straw with holes acting as a filter) and you will only drink coffee to enjoy it, not for the caffeine.

    I recommend this PDF: Yerba mate whitepaper/FAQ.

  10. Organic Valley on RFID Tags to Track Your Food · · Score: 1
    Hrm..funny, Organic Valley (one of the only true producers of organic foods) has a feature on their website which allows you to view one of their products, enter in it's date, and you can see exactly what farmer it came from.

    http://organicvalley.coop

  11. Choice on Red Hat CEO Szulik on Linux Distro Consolidation · · Score: 1

    Linux is not a product. It is about choice. And another thing, even if the Linux community did in fact have one voice, I doubt it would be telling people to migrate from their current OS to its own.

  12. To Survive? on The Top Three Reasons for Humans in Space · · Score: 1

    If something catastrophic happened to the earth -- I think it would be meant to be. What's with this human desire to always survive? ..Plus, what kind of existence would living in space be? Even sci-fi does not even make it look truly desireable. .:bleaked

  13. Organic ice cream? on Yahoo Turns 10; Free Ice Cream for America · · Score: 1

    Does Baskin Robbins have any organic ice cream? If not, then I'll have to pass..

  14. Software Packages on Firefox 1.0.1 Released · · Score: 1

    Software package management is the job of the operating system, not the specific application.

  15. Re:Betta Fish Royale on Are Betas Taking On Lives of Their Own? · · Score: 1

    you're fucking sick. they don't fight, they rip eachother's fins off until they cant swim..then they will all starve to death at the bottom of the tank -- which usually takes days. grow up.

  16. Have you tried Gentoo? on Some iPod Fans Dump PCs For Macs · · Score: 1

    As the subject stated, have you tried Gentoo Linux? In my opinion it has by far the best community of users offering their support than any other distro I've used. The forums, newsgroups, and IRC support is astounding. In addition, Gentoo offers some of the most organized and detailed documentation all formatted in beautiful, easy to read, xml/css pages. I highly recommend you check it out.

  17. X-posted from a friend's blog on Atlantis Found. Again. · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The Nature of the Universe (a gooey mass of old theories and new ideas)
    Pondering the subjective experience of time flowing way to fucking fast, i've come to yet another latest view on what i think the universe is and how it behaves.

    I recently checked out a lecture on cosmology at the University given by a leading cosmologist in his field who informed me that omega is not equal to 1.

    Quick background: Once upon a time scientists discovered the red shift, which is essentially the Doppler effect applied to light and shows that every galaxy in the universe is moving away from us. From this they decided that the universe must be expanding, and of course, an expanding universe leads to the question of whether or not this universe will continue expanding forever or eventually shrink back to a "big crunch". I was currently under the impression that they'd figured out that the universe would eventually shrink down and that it had simply existed forever and would exist forever going through cycles of blowing up, forming stars and planets etc etc etc and then shrinking down again only to blow up again.

    But now i've got some guy with a Ph.D. telling me that the latest theory is that the universe will actually continue expanding forever, and even crazier than that, it appears to be expanding at an ever increasing rate.

    OK, that trips me the fuck out. If there is any gravity at all, how could it possibly continue expanding faster and faster without any external energy being added to the system??? And they explain this away by not only creating "cold dark matter" but also creating "dark energy" which apparently makes up 75% of the universe's mass and has a repulsive quality stronger than gravity's attractive property. Or something. Idk, i need to read more about this. One day. When i have more time (in the past).

    But i want to take this experimental evidence that the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate and play around with it.

    Because there are other theories out there.

    First of all there is the theory that maybe this whole time speeding up thing isn't a subjective effect but rather that time really is speeding up. And since i can't think of anyone with a Ph.D. from whom i've ripped this theory off and i came to it by my own thinking, i'm calling it my theory, until someone proves me wrong.

    So like i can't even remember why i started thinking that time was speeding up, but look at the implications. If time is speeding up, that means it was once going a lot slower. Let's say that around 5,000 revolutions around the sun ago time was going really really slow. In fact, let's say the graph forms an asymptote and that at a certain point in time it was approaching infinity and essentially not moving at all. Now, let's assume that in the first "day" after this asymptote time was going so slow that it what we consider a second actually took a million of our years, or even....4.6 million if you want to entertain science and religion...

    If this were true, "God" could have easily created the heavens and the earth in one day. Hell the guy had millions or billions of years to do it. We could even stretch this so far as to perfectly match it up with how long science thinks it took from the big bang until we had a solar system and a relatively cooled earth. And the next day would be going a little faster, not quite as much could have been done in that second "day", and so on and so forth throughout the creation story, eventually by the 6th day there were human beings already and eventually that exponential curve hit that special point where the timelessness felt in Eden started moving fast enough to record and these primeval beings felt the effects of aging and pain. I think this can explain quite nicely why life expectancy was so much higher back then too: Methuselah didn't live any longer than any of us, but it sure as hell felt like 900 some odd years to him!

    From this I also thought about extrapolating the graph to try to predict the future. One extra

  18. Re:When will they learn on MUTE: Simple, Private File Sharing · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Lets face it, if I could by an album with at least 5 good cuts on it, I woulnd't be spending my time taking the albums I own and making MP3 version of just he "good songs".

    I'm sorry, but what music are you listening to? Every album I purchase I enjoy every last song on there. If you really like the artist you would at least appreciate their other works of art on the album. As far as I'm concerned the entire album is the artist's work of art. Only liking "parts" (i.e. songs) is like looking at a painting and saying you don't "like that certain red line in the corner", and would prefer it if the painting only had "blue and red lines" and none of the other colored lines. (This is just an analogy.)

    And honestly, this may be out of my place to say this, but if you like artists who have "bad" songs, why are you listening to them? (Only my opinion)

  19. College Campuses on Gloolabs Readies A Java-Based WiFi Audio Device · · Score: 1

    This would be great for college campuses too!!!

    In my experience, most college students do not run an WAP from their dorm room. Typically, they just use the line going into their room.

  20. eXistenZ on Game Feedback Gets More Intense With Electrodes · · Score: 1

    Does this remind anyone of the film "eXistenZ"? I find that film to be a way more intriguing future of gaming than the "electrodes". Granted, the electrode idea is basically a primitive version of the system used in eXistenZ, and also a lot more realistic given our current technology. If this story at all intrigues you, check out eXistenZ. (Think Matrix and Videogames colliding and that's the synopsis of the film)

  21. Marijuana Does Not Cause Reckless Driving on Terahertz Scanners See Inside Sealed Packages · · Score: 5, Informative

    Marijuana Does Not Cause Reckless Driving
    Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 08:04:40 -0700
    Subject: Marijuana Does Not Cause Reckless Driving
    Pubdate: Fri, 26 Sep 2003
    Source: DrugSense Weekly
    Section: Feature Article
    Website: http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm
    Author: Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D.
    Note: Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D., is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Southern California and author of "Understanding Marijuana" (Oxford University Press, 2002).

    MARIJUANA DOES NOT CAUSE RECKLESS DRIVING

    The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and certain Wisconsin legislators have launched a new crusade against "drugged driving," with a heavy emphasis on marijuana. This crusade is largely based on scientific misinformation, and it could lead to the enactment of bad laws.

    ONDCP has several slick television commercials on the subject. One shows dramatic auto accidents and two crash test dummies passing a joint while a serious voice says, "In a recent study, one in three reckless drivers tested positive for marijuana." Note the careful phrasing. The idea is to make viewers think that marijuana caused the reckless driving, without really saying that it did.

    Why would ONDCP be so coy? The answer lies in the actual data regarding marijuana's effects on driving,

    I study the effects of drugs and teach classes in the science of illicit substances, so I know this field. The plain fact is that marijuana does not cause reckless driving. Large studies of accidents show that drivers who test positive for marijuana (and ONLY marijuana -- i.e., people who haven't also been drinking or taking other intoxicating drugs) cause fewer crashes than people who haven't had any drugs at all.

    That's right, people "high" on marijuana cause fewer crashes than those who are completely sober. The findings seemed impossible to explain. It was a puzzle that made no sense.

    A bright and talented researcher in the Netherlands named Robbe recently solved that puzzle. He got experienced marijuana users stoned and had them drive around the streets of Holland. But these guys were no dummies. They drove slower, increased the distance between their cars and the cars in front of them, and never tried to pass other cars. Folks who smoked a placebo (a non-intoxicating substance made to look and smell like marijuana) drove as they usually did. Alcohol, alone or in combination with marijuana, wrecked driving completely.

    Robbe's results helped explain the accident studies. People who used marijuana and only marijuana were compensating for the drug's effects by driving more carefully. Nobody should drive high, but we can all take a lesson from these people who did: slow down, leave space between your car and the next, and don't try to pass. Unlike alcohol, which makes people behave recklessly, marijuana users tend to be aware that they are impaired and compensate with some success.

    But what about the ONDCP's claim that one in three reckless drivers tested positive for marijuana?

    It's not quite a lie, but it's deliberately misleading. The Drug Czar's no dummy. He wants to scare people, and he knows the complete facts won't do it. Instead he throws out scary but incomplete and misleading statistics - -- and hopes people won't question them. Yes, one in three reckless drivers tested positive for marijuana in a urine screen, but we don't know how many of them had alcohol, antihistamines, cocaine, or any number of other drugs in their systems.

    Legislators need to ask for the complete facts behind the scare stories before they start passing new laws based on misinformation.

    There are cheaper, easier ways to get impaired drivers off the road. Roadside sobriety tests are reliable, inexpensive, and valid indicators of impaired driving. Law-enforcement officers can learn to administer these tests quickly and easily. Unlike expensive blood tests, which can only identify a few drugs, roadside sobriety tests can detect any kind of drug im

  22. Gentoo Games on Turn Your New Opteron Into A One-Game Console · · Score: 2, Redundant

    Oh? Kind of how Gentoo Games [ www.gentoogames.com ] has done sucessfully for months now? Yea.

  23. Re:I'm Proud Too on Justice Department Proud of Patriot Act Slippery Slope · · Score: 1

    To: Ken@WearableTech (A.K.A. O'Brien)

    It is people like you who make America such a terrible country. I could go on and on explaining, but you're so obviously blinded by your country that you would never understand/listen.

    You may consider this trolling, but no matter what the /. community thinks of me I strongly stand by my views.

  24. Infrasound in film on Haunted Houses Explained: Infrasound · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is a really well done french film, "Irreversible" by Gaspard Noe that includes infrasound during one of the more unsettling scenes. I commend Noe for using such a genious technique in this film, since it really expresses the gravity of such a significant scene.

    If you are even in the mood for a quality film, I highly recommend this film. ::Bleaked::

  25. Re: on U.S. Funds Anonymizer for Iranians · · Score: 1

    Big Brother is so generous to the Iranians.