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User: Esion+Modnar

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Comments · 1,079

  1. All Your Code... on SGI Code Changes Not Enough, Says SCO · · Score: 1
    are belong to us. And don't try to fix it, cuz all your code will still belong to us. BWAHAHAHAHAH!

    Where's a tactical nuke when you need one?

  2. Power in Orbit on New Solar Cells 20 Times Cheaper · · Score: 1
    So put a few hundred square miles of these solar panels in orbit, beam the energy back to earth as microwaves in a tight beam. You'll probably fry a few seagulls this way, but if they can keep the trend up, of cheaper and cheaper solar panels, it would be a great way of getting independence from foreign oil.

    The only problem is that political power and energy are tightly interwoven. The interested parties would not like a major upheaval of the whole power generation and distribution system. People get murdered, I mean, commit suicide, in traffic over this.

  3. Yes, but can it... on More on E-textiles: Electronic Smart Fabric · · Score: 2, Funny

    detect when you've run out of TP in a public toilet and send txt for help?

  4. Stephen King on Snail Mail As E-Mail · · Score: 2, Funny
    When a paper-shredder escapes, it doesn't chew through everything soft in your entire house...

    No, of course not. It sneaks up on you while you're asleep, looking for warm blood... That sounds like a Stephen King plot. The shredder is loose. Is it in the closet? Is it in the bathroom? Oh no! RUN! RUN!

    Title: Shredder Moon

  5. MIB II on Group Asks Gov't to Crack Down on Product Placement · · Score: 1
    OK, it's a theatrical release, but the product placements in it were pretty blatant and frequent. Movie was so bad, the only entertainment I got from it was trying to count how many corporate logos I could identify.

    What chapped me most, though, was here was this super-secret, blacker-than-black ops center for control of ET's, featuring a food court with Sprint and Burger King outlets. Right....

  6. In terms I can understand, DVD's on Ultra High Definition Video · · Score: 1
    3 Tb = 3072 Gb = 3072/4.7Gb = 654 DVD's.

    And that's just 18 minutes. For a full length movie, say 120 minutes, that's 4360 DVD's, or about 37 DVD's per minute.

    That's some freaky bandwidth, never mind that you'd wear out the tray on the DVD player before the opening credits finished.

  7. Yeah, Just try to download a full-length movie... on Ultra High Definition Video · · Score: 1

    and your broadband ISP will just fucking lose their mind, and send a hitman after you.

  8. Y... on Y: A Successor to the X Window System · · Score: -1, Redundant

    not?

  9. Sales Tax / Use Tax on States Push for Net Sales Taxes · · Score: 1
    As I recall, there is a law or constitutional amendment against states levying interstate "sales" taxes. So what do they do instead? They call it a "use" tax, which just happens to be the same rate as the "sales" tax. Wow what a co-inky-dinky! And there's nothing against "use" taxes...

    Now, most states require you to voluntarily report all the "use" taxes you owe them, come tax time. Everybody here who does, please raise your hand. (Thundering silence, crickets chirping) Yeah, I thought so.

    So, already, whether you bought it online, mail-order, or even while on a road trip, you're supposed to report all that "use" tax anyway. Bah.

  10. So, From here on out... on Author of Paper Critical of Microsoft is Fired · · Score: 1
    any papers issued from this company or by its employees, which pertain to Microsoft in any way, should be greeted with:

    "Yeah, whatever. Tell it to the hand."

    They have proven their bias as a MS mouthpiece, and their eagerness to placate their MS overlords.

  11. Re:Counter-example Typos explained? on Slashback: Card, Fortran, Legibility · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This reminds me of the Jumbles puzzle some newspapers carry. Usually the five-word jumbles are pretty easy, but the six-word jumbles are much harder, even if you have an extended vocabulary. Thing is, msot people have no problem skipping over the shorter jumblings, but the longer ones take considerably more processing since there are more preumttaions that have to be evaulated and rejected. Also, since shorter words tend to be more common, the meaning of a word can be determined from context.

  12. OK, another analogy, but it's Good! on SCO's Plan Examined · · Score: 1
    I got one of those audio recordings of a woman complaining about somebody leaving a turd in her car's back seat. For about 2 minutes she's on the phone with the auto service guy, bitching and moaning about what she's gonna do, such as pee on their counter, "pinch a loaf" in every car on their lot, etc.

    The service guy is being real reasonable, saying bring the car by, we'll look at it, and if there's a turd, remove it.

    But she's not having any of it. She just goes on and on, and on...

    Of course, this was all just a prank phone call, but it seems to sum up the noise from SCO towards the OSS thus far. SCO's the bitchy woman, who enjoys complaining more than getting things fixed. The OSS is the service guy just trying to fix things, if indeed there is a (unlikely) turd (SCO's code).

    Of course, the car is hers (unlike the kernel source code), and presumably the turd is not hers (unlike SCO's code), so the analogy doesn't quite work there. But you get the idea. (OK, I'll shut up now.)

  13. The Really Bad Thing Is... on Paper Capable Of Playing Videos Developed · · Score: 1

    when you see that chick on the cover of Playboy winking at you and doing a come hither look, you're not going be able to tell if it's that new paper technology, or if it's all that acid you did in the sixties.

  14. HP-28C and HP-28S on Recommendations for RPN Calculators? · · Score: 1

    If you can find a good used one of either, get it. I've got both, and they've worked for me for nearly 20 years. I like the clam shell design, and it gives more room for keys. I've got one of the 48's, but I hardly ever use it.

  15. Re:Not for high-end and car CD players on New Anti-Swap CDs Hit Shelves · · Score: 3, Funny
    even 60-year-old executives with business plans from the fifties will learn.

    Nope. Not going to do it. I'm sticking right here with my martini lunches, golf with the boys at the country club, boardroom culture, oh, and yes, the cute young secretary taking DICKtation on my knee. If my company's business plan was good enough for my grandfather, it's good enough for me.

    (Hey, Bob! Have we sued anyone lately? Well, get to it! Why do you think we have that stable of attorneys on the payroll?!?!)

  16. The Woman was Lucky on RIAA Sues the Wrong Person · · Score: 1
    If she had had a Windows system, the RIAA would have presumed her guilty, despite the seemingly unlikely choice of music.

    The tricky thing about IP addresses with either broadband or dialup is that throughout your membership with an ISP, you may use dozens of IP addresses. Unless they are careful to match IP addresses with the person using it at the time, they're going to get mistakes like this, even assuming no fluckups in the subpoena.

    Does anybody know if there are legal requirements for an ISP to maintain records of IP address usage, and for how long? Seems to me this could be a selling point for an ISP: "Sign up with us! We destroy all IP address logs every 30 days!"

  17. So does this include... on Virus Knocks Out U.S. Visa Approval System · · Score: 1

    H1-B visas? If it does, then, well allright! Here's hoping it stays down a longggg time.

  18. Flashpoint on EU Parliament Approves Software Patents · · Score: 3, Interesting
    There's going to come a time when 95% of the people have an epiphany that they truly are no longer being represented in a democratic system.

    Then the shit's hitting the fan. It'll make 9/11 look like a fender-bender.

  19. Boo hoo hoo on European Parliament Clashes Over Software Patents · · Score: 4, Interesting
    MEPs even claiming to feel harassed because they are suddenly also being lobbied by numerous concerned citizens, rather than solely by industry representatives as usual.

    Apparently they're not used to actually representing their constituents, as opposed to just their industry lobbyists.

  20. Reminds me of that Monty Python skit... on ISPs Experiment With Broadband Download Capping · · Score: 4, Interesting
    you know, the one where the Insurance Guy denies his client's claim, on the basis that in his policy, it says that his company does not have to pay-- for anything.

    And furthermore, he blames the client, since if he never made a claim, this would not be a problem.

    Why does this remind me of the skit? Because the broadband providers are saying you can't use all the bandwidth they're selling. If you sell me a pipe to the internet, and call it unlimited, then unlimited means, goddammit, unlimited. Don't blame me if I start using it for all the stuff that broadband is good for. After all, that's why I'm paying you guys $50-60/month.

    Don't sell us broadband expecting us to use it like dial-up. We won't.

  21. Re:Damnit it's not a trilogy on The L0tR Motion Picture Trilogy Exhibition · · Score: 2, Informative
    I seem to recall that the books were published UK first, and that when a publishing company (Ace? Doubleday?) in the US saw how popular they were, starting printing their own editions without paying Tolkien royalties.

    It was only after this situation became publicized (and protested) did they back down and start paying Tolkien his due. And even then it was only because a serious boycott was being organized.

  22. Why is this a Problem? on End Of the Line for SpeakFreely: NATed to Death · · Score: 1
    I can set up port redirects on my firewall/router to send traffic to any given port on the public side to a specific IP address on the private side of the router. I do this now for using bit torrent.

    Of course, I'm sure there are some technical issues here that are currently beyond my understanding...

  23. Without sounding too nerdy... on Tech Rich Get Richer · · Score: 1
    ...the middle-class is like the dielectric medium in a capacitor. If the middle-class starts to disappear, you get a bigger chance of dielectric breakdown-- a spark.

    This is the point at which the have-nots start running in the street, throwing TVs and burning cars.

  24. Two Separate Points of Confusion on Computer Makers Sued Over Hard Drive Size · · Score: 1
    1. Many people don't realize that 1 Gigabyte = 1024 Megabytes, and 1 Megabyte = 1024 Kilobytes, and 1 Kilobyte = 1024 bytes. (And a byte is 8 bits, and don't go saying, yeah but on the Cryovac 16, a byte is 16 bits, I don't care. And a bit? On/off, 1/0...) These are not SI units. And when people ask why, well, it's a comp sci thing, since trying to explain it just drags you down the road of explaining binary mathematics, two's complement, etc.

    2. People don't realize that there is a significant difference between formatted and unformatted harddrive size. Advertising unformatted size is a bit misleading since the buyer can't use the harddrive in this state. However, the formatted size varies with the filesystem being used: FAT-16, FAT-32, NTFS, etc. So advertising the formatted size can be tricky if the configuration is left up to the user as a "build-upon-request" system.

    Both of these are technical issues that, if you try to explain this to a non-technical person, leaves them mostly angry and confused. God knows I have tried, but once you start talking about binary math, FAT-16, filesystems, and so on, their eyes glaze over and you get the distinct feeling they were sorry they ever asked. But when you're a computer company trying to sell a computer, you have to tell people some specs, without burdening them too much with technical jargon.

    And reading off these specs can be simple and straightforward, or they can absolutly technically accurate (and therefore frightening to the average joe user/technophobe), but not both.

  25. Re:Irresponsible on Finally: Broadband for the Commodore 64 · · Score: 1
    a plague of dozens of zombie C64 machines

    CPU's! CPU's! CPU's!

    (Sorry, please forgive me...)