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User: imtheguru

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Comments · 166

  1. Re:Humm .. on Russia's New Official Holiday — Programmer's Day · · Score: 3, Informative

    Good thing you skipped the 0th day.

    2^0 = 1

  2. Angler Fish on Microsoft Launches Its Own Open Source Foundation · · Score: 1
  3. But will it match up to Nicol Williamson? on Tolkien Trust Okays Hobbit Movie · · Score: 1

    Granted, Nicol Williamson never directed a movie, but his abridged version of The Hobbit on vinyl, far surpasses the original book. He essentially condensed the story down from 10 hours to 2 hours, cutting out a lot of the narration and the 'he saids', which greatly reduce the monotony to the listener. But the man's real skill is in the voices and accents and inflections he employs to bring all the characters to life. And he stays faithful to the subject, which was essential, as the LP was crafted with the blessing of Professor Tolkien himself.

    I have a tip that the movie will follow a script almost entirely based off the reading and accents et more, as created for Nicol Williamson's Hobbit and that this was the bone of contention in the lawsuit. All speculation of course...

    Cheers.

  4. Why wait 10 years for a higher pricepoint? on Apple Announces iTunes 9, "LPs," Video Camera For the iPod Nano · · Score: 1

    At the risk of being modded down for plugging non-Apple products...

    Last year I researched audio players with an FM radio and high battery life. The winner was a rather surprising entry from Korea. I ordered Cowon's iAudio U5 for $64 off Amazon (price moves around a bit). No video though and no camera, but given the form factor of the nano, the video screen gives very little satisfaction.

    Device plays back Mp3, Wma, and a choice of Ogg and Flac or WM10DRM.

    The FM Radio picks up all the local stations. And if your low-power College or Indie station is not detected automatically, open the text file containing the station list and add it in there. The device is detected as external memory by Linux distributions--no fancy software required and it can double up as a small memory stick.

    And this is just one of excellent products NOT sold by Apple.

    Cheers.

  5. Re:To them, stealth is a coat of paint on India's First Stealth Fighter To Fly In 4 Months · · Score: 1

    A fascinating fact is the Sukhoi was only considered the most maneuverable when Indian pilots were at the helm. India has very good pilots.

    You're missing a little detail in that statement... The IAF pilots were flying the Sukhoi MKI. Google it.

    Cheers.

  6. The Oxford English Spellchecker on Apple's Schiller Responds To iPhone Dictionary App Fiasco · · Score: 1

    What?

  7. Toyota is barely in the race... on Toyota Reveals A Humanoid Robot That Can Run · · Score: 1

    There's not much of a moment of suspension, but there is some. There's a little more than with Research ASIMO.

    Perhaps a poor pun, but you forget that ASIMO has been running now for at least 5 years. Back in 2005, my girlfriend and i watched the run demonstration on one of Honda's world trips. The literature at the event pointed out that the robot had been running (both feet off the ground) for at least a year prior to that event.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtiCHtHxc48

    One should also not forget that the ASIMO project is growing in multiple areas of robotics, including but not limited to face recognition and learning to interact with the 3D world. Fragments of this can be seen in the show "James May's Big Ideas" (BBC).

    Good effort from Toyota and i hope their robotics project continues to get funding.
    Cheers.

  8. Re:The last thing we need ... on Windows 7 Clean Install Only In Europe · · Score: 1

    Sounds like a design flaw in the operating system. Attempts to "install" to a protected location by a privileged user should trigger a password window. Or provide API hooks to escalate privileges to achieve software upgrades.

    (Haven't used windows since 2002-03 and am starting to forget if power users can install software).

  9. Sails are no laughing matter! on Navy Spends $33 Million For Hybrid of the High Sea · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sail technology is being re-adapted with complex technology to reduce fuel consumption on very high inertia vessels. Look up 'sky sail'.

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sky+sail&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10

    Cheers.

  10. Re:UAE - no surprise on Spyware In BlackBerry Updates For Users in the UAE · · Score: 1

    we know where all the traffic radars are and so we slow down just in time

    Do not try this in your Pajero: Over 250kmph, the cameras usually don't register a passing vehicle.

    It's just the standard "bell" that comes out from the car when you go above 120km/h . I really don't think it's due to a government regulation, but it's probably dependant on the car itself.

    It is not from the car manufacturer.

  11. Re:meh FUNNY, but serious... on Software Glitch Leads To $23,148,855,308,184,500 Visa Charges · · Score: 2, Insightful

    FRACK! At the very LEAST your programmers should have been told (or, if they asked, been allowed) to put QA bounding-box fields on the statements. If a monthly charge font size to be printed is longer than the width of the statement imaginary box, eject the statement from the enveloping system, then punt it to a manager.

    That isn't even close to how the financial organizations function. There is simply zero drive to pre-empt problems as there is no major authority breathing down their necks and auditing every single iteration of their customer-facing software processes in great detail.

    Moreover, the customers are individuals or small businesses, meaning there is practically nothing to fear in the form of loss of business due to dissatisfied customerbase or defamation. It's not like they have too many other choices.

  12. Re:How? on US Postal Service Moves To GNU/Linux · · Score: 1

    They're not.

    http://gcn.com/Articles/2009/07/13/Update2-USPS-open-source-Product-Tracking-System.aspx?p=1

    The service is moving 1,300 Sun Solaris midrange servers to a Hewlett-Packard Linux environment. USPS is using Novellâ(TM)s SUSE Linux on the mainframe and distributed computing platforms to forge greater interoperability between the two environments, Byrne said.

  13. Suse on US Postal Service Moves To GNU/Linux · · Score: 1

    http://gcn.com/Articles/2009/07/13/Update2-USPS-open-source-Product-Tracking-System.aspx?p=1

    The service is moving 1,300 Sun Solaris midrange servers to a Hewlett-Packard Linux environment. USPS is using Novellâ(TM)s SUSE Linux on the mainframe and distributed computing platforms to forge greater interoperability between the two environments, Byrne said.

  14. Re:So? on Unsung, Unpaid Coders Behind Federal IT Dashboard · · Score: 1

    Where are the "Funnier than a fart in a space suit" mod points when you need them?

    Permission to decompress, Sir!

  15. Re:Agreed - Too Much of a Paradigm Shift on Outlook Inertia the Main Factor Holding Business From Google Apps · · Score: 1

    Google wants me to rethink how I work in order to use their tools. I don't have cute little folders, I have to deal with "labels". I want filters to put mail into folders, not labels, because I don't want to deal with seeing the new mail in my Inbox that I know is irrelevant; I want the Facebook mail in a Facebook folder I can ignore all week long. Searching isn't necessarily as nice as sorting because sometimes my brain might remember someone's initials, but not their full last name. When I want to see all the "K's", I want to see all the K's. All in all, I find it too foreign of a way to work to be truly comfortable.

    Labels can work exactly like folders, and it is trivial to set this up in Gmail. Sorting requires pre-determined rules. Searching uses throw-away rules. Combine the two and you have a very powerful usage paradigm. As Gmail can do both, i see very little merit in this section of your post.

    My previous two employers used GoogleApps. There was some resistance from the masses, but when they were enlightened to the learning curve from Office 2003 to Office 2007 and Outlook versions, they came around very quickly.

  16. Re:Yes to Mono! on Richard Stallman Says No To Mono · · Score: 1

    Ubuntu (I can't speak for debian) has 2 default applications written using mono, fspot photo editor and one other that has been ported (i forget its name but the replacement binary is 4 meg).

    Beagle, 4657k.

  17. Re:Math. on How Do You Greet an Extraterrestrial? · · Score: 1

    Fibonacci numbers or the Golden ratio would make us look a bit more erudite.

    Or maybe we'd get some interesting responses by broadcasting currently unsolved mathematical problems into the ether...

  18. Re:England == UK on GM's Hummer Brand To Be Sold To a Chinese Company · · Score: 1

    John Stripe, in The Memorials of Thomas Cranmer, writes:

      "It is a small error, but being so oft repeated deserveth to be observed into corrected. The name of that archbishop was Thomas Becket; nor can it otherwise have found to be written in any authentic history, record, calendar, or other book."

      "If the vulgar did formerly, as it doth now, call him 'Thomas à Becket' their mistake is not to be followed by learned men."

    Source: [http://www.freewebs.com/qitranscripts/301.htm]

  19. Re:Windows Only on Google Releases Chrome V2.0 · · Score: 1

    Firefox fonts on Ubuntu are excellent in 1650x1080. Using Lucida fonts.

    Your troll is weak.
    Cheers.

  20. That's the easy part on Ubuntu 9.04 Is As Slick As Win7, Mac OS X · · Score: 1

    wine /path/to/World\ of\ Warcraft/Launcher.exe -opengl

    or to get a secondary X

    #!/bin/sh
    X :3 -ac &
    sleep 5
    DISPLAY=:3 wine /path/to/World\ of\ Warcraft/WoW.exe -opengl

    Swap between tty7 and 9.

    Cheers

  21. Re:Terminology on RIAA Hearing Next Week Will Be Televised · · Score: 1

    But, what is a television set? This can be built on two questions, at what point does a device become a television and how much can one remove before the device stops being a television.

    The average television set on the market today can receive analog signals, digital broadcasts from over the air transmitters and from external sources such as cable, DVD players, Bluray players, camcorders and gaming devices.

    With a relatively small amount of added equipment, namely a tuner card and opensource software, my computer screen can do all of the above. To muddle the lines even further, my tele is a Panasonic, and is built off GNU software. Further still, my girlfriend worked out that YouTube videos could be watched on the television set using the Nintendo Wii's wireless connection.

    Etymologically, the word television hasn't evolved in decades to cover any of the above scenarios. It still represents a device with a tuner, though the tuner is quickly becoming the least important part of the modern tele.

    Cheers.

  22. No take-off on Man Attempts To Cross English Channel With Jet Wing · · Score: 1

    Why so high to start with?

    The wing has no take-off capability; it needs to be dropped from a moving airplane.The plane is simply flying above the 1200m threshold for parachute deployment. I guess, he's giving himself some head room in case things go pear-shaped. I'll go rtfa now.

  23. Re:I'm betting on Hubble Finds Unidentified Object In Space · · Score: 1

    Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was 'Oh no, not again.'

  24. Carl Sagan and David Attenborough on Science Documentaries for Youngsters? · · Score: 1

    i remember Cosmos. It was sometimes difficult to understand without adult interaction, but such excellent presentation. And, would always encourage extra reading in the study, digging though encyclopaedias.
    http://www.tv.com/cosmos/show/29633/summary.html

    A few years later i was introduced to David Attenborough's "The Living Planet" (1984). This man has produced enough entertaining, educational content to satiate even the most inquisitive mind. Though it is mostly earthbound, it shouldn't be missed. Start with the older shows and work your way though the Life series. Save "Planet Earth" for a special Blu-ray occassion.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Attenborough#Television_work

    Cheers.

  25. Can't find the stairs? on Self-Healing Robots of Doom From UPenn · · Score: 1


    A Borg, a Terminator and a Dalek walk into a bar
    The Borg says, "Barkeep, let me assimilate a gin and tonic," the Terminator says "I'll be back, I forgot my ID," and the Dalek levels the place because it can't climb the stairs.



    Though this was proven to be false by an Imperial Dalek in Remembrance of the Daleks as it flew up a flight of stairs in pursuit of the 7th Doctor.