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User: Chris+Burke

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Comments · 12,567

  1. Re:Learning from prior mistakes on British Royal Navy Submarines Now Run Windows · · Score: 1

    They weren't. The application crashed, not the OS. It is trivial to demonstrate that Windows NT can handle a userspace application dividing-by-zero, you just use Calculator.

    No, the OS crashed too, because it failed to handle the exception properly.

    Calculator doesn't generate a divide-by-zero exception when you do 3/0, it detects the condition itself and prints an error message rather than performing the divide. The OS exception handler has nothing to do with it.

    There is no excuse the application not checking its inputs (on something as important as navy control software especially), but neither is their an excuse for a "modern" OS to fail to handle a divide-by-zero exception properly. Both MS and the application developer failed. One cannot excuse the other.

  2. Re:How deep? on British Royal Navy Submarines Now Run Windows · · Score: 2, Funny

    the British hundredweight is 112 pounds ...

    I don't know what to say, other than that justifies the Revolution right there.

  3. Re:Ah sorry guys on Scientists Find Hole In Earth's Magnetic Field · · Score: 1

    I left my ACME Megalaser of Doom plugged in overnight, on the 'degaussing' setting. Honestly, I thought it was just on 'charge'.

    Well damn, that explains why Carl Gauss missed poker night. Also explains why Edgar Degas has been hanging around. Bastard can't spell worth a damn, and just likes the attention anyway.

  4. Re:NOT the first use of that phrase! on Scientists Find Hole In Earth's Magnetic Field · · Score: 1

    Uh, it is traditional to mod a post based upon its content, even if it wasn't original... and "WTF" would be an appropriate mod imo.

    Your reaction makes almost as little sense as that crazy word-salad story...

  5. Re:Say it with me... on Study Says Cosmic Rays Do Not Explain Global Warming · · Score: 1

    Correlation measures the degree of linear relationship.

    Pardon my sloppiness, but I'm using "correlation" not in the strict statistical sense of measuring the correlation coefficient, but in the sense of being able to fit any function to the data to show non-independence. The correlation coefficient is basically a measure of the error when fitting a line to the data. You can fit other curves to the data, and measure their error, and thus measure correlation (colloquial sense, but still mathematically valid) between them.

  6. Oh sure, that figures... on Recession Pushes IT To Find New Value In Old Gear · · Score: 1

    When the economy is in the shitter, it's called a "bright spin on a gloomy subject". When the economy is roaring, my booming cottage industry is called "felony destruction of property".

    Maybe the difference has something to do with getting the cottage owner's permission before making them go boom... I dunno, wasn't really paying attention to the judge.

  7. Re:What about a big ball of fire in the sky? on Study Says Cosmic Rays Do Not Explain Global Warming · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're a fucking genius. In the entire history of climatology, no scientist has ever considered the possibility that the sun impacts climate. I wonder why that is, but no matter, clearly you are their intellectual superior.

    Oh, wait, they've considered that, and solar variation explains at most 30% of the observed temperature change. Guess you aren't a genius after all. Sorry about that!

  8. Re:Say it with me... on Study Says Cosmic Rays Do Not Explain Global Warming · · Score: 1

    I don't like the word "prerequisite" in that post, so let me rephrase it like this:

    Causation implies correlation.

    Therefore, no correlation implies no causation.

  9. Re:Say it with me... on Study Says Cosmic Rays Do Not Explain Global Warming · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I guess the converse is possibly true, that lack of correlation does not indicate lack of causation per se.

    Well, yes, actually, absence of correlation implies the absence of causation. At least via the method you are examining for correlation. Correlation is not causation, but it is a prerequisite of causation. If you did a study where people smoked a cigarette and then were screened for lung cancer, you would find no correlation and thus correctly conclude that smoking a cigarette does not cause lung cancer. But there's still a relationship between them, as you could perform a study and find a strong correlation between a long term history of cigarette smoking and lung cancer, which when combined with further biological evidence would cause one to conclude that long-term smoking habits cause cancer.

    Similarly, this absence-of-correlation would strongly imply that cosmic rays do not directly impact cloud formation. There might be some other round-about way in which it impacts them, I dunno sea bass absorb the rays which gives them gas which drifts up into the atmosphere and seeds clouds. But you'd have to find a correlation between that mechanism and clouds formation.

  10. Re:Now I am going to be worried on Personalized Spam Rising Sharply, Study Finds · · Score: 1

    --LIAGRA: This drug helps men lie more successfully when asked about their sexual affairs. Will be available in Regular, Grand Jury and Political Strength versions.

    Forget all those other drugs. I'll take three cases of this and MOAR V14GRA!!!

  11. Re:you would only be dissapointed on Start Saving To Buy Your Space Shuttle Now · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm sure all the engineers that see the stuff are both amazed by the audacity of most of these designs and by the fact that they ever even approached the reliability they have with such complexity.

    Exactly. I look at the space shuttle and I don't just see kludge of unfortunate design trade offs. I see the huge, hairy balls of the engineers who not only thought they could make it work, but actually did it.

    Of course, this means I have no interest in buying a Shuttle even if I could afford one, cus who wants that imagery in their head all the time?

  12. Re:Still not clear... on 100 Years Ago, No Free Broadband Pneumatic Tubes · · Score: 1

    As a retail customer, you do indeed get the same physical product (methane molecules or electrons) delivered to your house no matter who your supplier is. The system relies on the concept of "the grid" as the common and cooperative distribution system, and the fact that the product is completely standardized.

    Thanks, I understand now. It was actually the comparison with ISPs that was messing me up, because there you -do- actually receive a unique signal that can be physically different than your neighbors, because one ISP can have a better modem bank/ADSL signaling equipment than another. Whereas with gas (electric, water) it's the very fact that you don't really care what gas is coming in that makes it easy for there to be competition, while I was for some reason expecting it to be the same as with DSL.

  13. Re:Still not clear... on 100 Years Ago, No Free Broadband Pneumatic Tubes · · Score: 1

    So you put down that you buy ConEd gas and the meter shows you took out X cubic meters of gas, then ConEd is responsible for putting that same amount of gas into the delivery network. The molecules of that particular gas may never make it to you, but then the electrons that your power company moves never reach you either. It doesn't matter though, as long as all the producers put in how much "their" consumers use. I'm sure they fudge the numbers a bit day to day, but catch up on the accounting a few times per year.

    Yeah, okay, I think I get it now. It was the fact that it is fungible that was messing me up, when that's really why the scheme works at all. Kind of a 'duh' moment for me there. :)

    As for DSL, physically it is exactly the same. In most areas, there is only one owner of the local phone cables and your neighbor shares exactly the same pipes from your DSLAM out to the peering point and probably has exactly the same kind of wire from the DSLAM to his house as you do. And, unless your provider has built their own backbone, you get the same physical pipes for some distance outwards as well. I pay Covad, you pay Cleareasy, but Ma Bell owns the pipes that run into your house.

    That's really not true, it isn't physically the same, because there are actually many wires running from the home station to homes in the neighborhood, and each of those can carry completely different signals. At no point does your Covad signal touch my house (even if I'm also using Covad). In addition, providers often lease space at the home office itself and set up physically different equipment, not just obvious things like routers and switches, but even the ADSL signaling equipment itself. That's how Covad was able to provide ADSL at twice the speeds of Ameritech and other DSL providers in Ann Arbor, even though Ameritech was the one who owned the lines, because they had invested in better equipment.

    Digital signals are not fungible, and I think it was actually the comparison between gas and DSL that was messing me up because they are not the same -- with DSL, you can get truly differentiated service (as in what you're receiving on your wires is physically different from your neighbor's) and for some reason expected it to be the same with gas or electric power.

    Which sadly, combined with the fact that the one who owned the wires was also in competition for service, is why Covad eventually had to bow out of the market there (for a while, they may have come back after the class action suit I don't know). Their competitive advantage was faster and more reliable (noise tolerant a thus less likely to downgrade) DSL, but if there was a piece of equipment between them and you that wasn't capable of carrying the signal, you didn't get that benefit unless Ameritech upgraded it and they weren't about to do that unless forced.

    If this was gas, there'd be no way for Ameritech to prevent Covad's gas from reaching my house without also stopping their own.

  14. Re:Bad move on New York State Budget Relies On Entertainment Tax · · Score: 1

    There is already an illicit marijuana distribution system in place that would still exist, if just to avoid taxes.

    If you think marijuana laws are bad, I'll bet being popped for tax evasion is a far worse crime than getting caught with a joint or two is now.

    Yes, which is why the price of illicit marijuana would have to be even higher than it is today, which is why it wouldn't make any sense to go outside the system except for the schwaggiest of schwag to avoid a $100/oz tax.

  15. Re:Errr, it won't cut laser toner use... on New Font Uses Holes To Cut Ink Use · · Score: 1

    Oh, heh. That's funny.

  16. Re:Errr, it won't cut laser toner use... on New Font Uses Holes To Cut Ink Use · · Score: 1

    Probably why the summary and article say "ink" and not "toner".

  17. Re:Still not clear... on 100 Years Ago, No Free Broadband Pneumatic Tubes · · Score: 1

    Of course, once electricity is put into the grid there's no way to distinguish it from other sources. But electricity is electricity. There's no point-of-original labeling with electrons because they are indistinguishable. Compare that to meat for example, where the origin can have an impact on the quality.

    Yeah, that's why I was confused, but I think I get it now.

  18. Re:Odd misreading... on Drilling Hits an Active Magma Chamber In Hawaii · · Score: 1

    Duh, that's why she's wearing a sailor suit, not a school uniform. That way she can beat up the monster, but not kill it of course because that's wrong, which means it'll be back again next issue.

  19. Re:EVery last one of those mountains are still act on Drilling Hits an Active Magma Chamber In Hawaii · · Score: 1

    Every place on earth is geologically active if you dig deep enough...

  20. Re:Perfectly safe? on Drilling Hits an Active Magma Chamber In Hawaii · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm sure they're leaving out their initial observations which probably went something like: "OH FUCK!! RUN! ok.. i think it stopped.. let's change our underwear then we'll send the new guy over to check it out"

    "Oh yes, of course it's perfectly safe, Ensign Burke. Nothing to worry about. Now go on over there and examine the bore hole. Oh but first put on this official red shirt signifying your position on our team."

  21. Re:wow on If Programming Languages Were Religions · · Score: 1

    For those who doubt that LISP is Zen, I ask the following: What is the sound of one ) closing?

    The great Zen monk M-X eval-expression responds:

    Invalid read syntax: ")"

    So there you have it.

  22. Re:What will the media call them? on Spaceport America Gets FAA License · · Score: 1

    Why, those bastards. I'm going to demand a wheelchair next time I fly, just to show em.

  23. Re:It's a gusher!! on Drilling Hits an Active Magma Chamber In Hawaii · · Score: 2, Funny

    Actually, in my mind, the workmen look a lot like Homer Simpson ...

    In my mind, they look a lot more like Freddy Krueger.

  24. Re:blunder on Galaxy Clusters' Stunted Growth Confirms Dark Energy · · Score: 1

    Democritus' atomism was an ancestor of atomic theory in the same sense that "a broken clock is right twice a day".

    Which is something I've never been comfortable with -- something that is broken should never give the false impression that it is working by being correct.

    That's why, twice a day, one minute before they'd be correct, I turn all my broken clocks ahead 11 hours and 58 minutes, and they never tell the correct time as God intended.

    Also, this is why digital clocks are better than mechanical ones. Cus when those fuckers break, they don't tell shit.

  25. Re:Let's make it interesting on Barack Obama Is One Step Closer To Being President · · Score: 1

    The dispute ultimately had to be settled... by Queen Elizabeth II.

    Oh, I see... LOL. :)