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User: toddestan

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  1. Re:Wont increase taxes on middle class on Battle Lines Being Drawn As Obama Plans To Curb Tax Avoidance · · Score: 1

    Probably for the same reason that we have income tax and sales tax?

    In actuality, I would guess that it is to encourage companies to invest in R&D, jobs, capital expenses, or otherwise expanding operations rather than making the owners a pile of money, as those kind of actions can be deducted and are not taxed.

  2. Re:Wont increase taxes on middle class on Battle Lines Being Drawn As Obama Plans To Curb Tax Avoidance · · Score: 1

    You have to take into account what goods and services the company offers. If they offer inelastic goods, then the supply curve shifts but the demand does not. So the corporation can just add the tax to the price of the goods and the customers just have to pay it. However, if it's an elastic good, if they tried that, they would find that demand has also changed in response to the higher price, and that they'd actually be making less money than if the new price was less than the old price + the tax. However, since their other costs presumably haven't changed, they're going to be making less money than before. So, you can tax corporations without them simply passing the tax to the customer, and instead tax the owners (which may or may not be shareholders since not all companies are public) if you do it right.

  3. Re:Server on Options For a Laptop With a Broken Screen? · · Score: 1

    I would think that most laptops would have thermal protection of some sort, though granted, as hot as some of them get it could very well not kick in until the case has started to buckle from the heat.

    I did this for a while on an P4-M laptop. Since the screen was toast, I just removed it entirely to help keep it cool, thus earning it the nickname of "the halftop". It ran for several years like that, and was very stable. Every few months I would blow the dust out of the fans when I noticed that they were running a bit more than they usually did. Though if you go this route, don't completely disable the power save options like I did, as it ran the battery completely flat one day when the power went out when I was not around and the battery never would charge again. After a while, it started to get a bit flaky and since I didn't feel like dealing with it and was getting tired of hearing the cooling fan constantly kick in I just retired it.

  4. Re:Insurance a good value? on Options For a Laptop With a Broken Screen? · · Score: 1

    That's true for "big" insurance items like auto, health, life, homeowners, and stuff like that (ignoring overhead costs, of course). "Little" things like vacation insurance, extended warranties, protection plans, and crap like that are hugely profitable though as they are practically free money for the companies that sell them.

  5. Re:me too on Lithium In Water "Curbs Suicide" · · Score: 1

    To a lot of the medical types, the term "heavy metal" refers to any metal that is toxic to the human body, regardless of where it is on the periodic table. Obviously, this doesn't make sense to chemists, but since there has never been a clear definition in chemistry as to what exactly a "heavy metal" is (and isn't) either, it's not suprising that the term has been misused as such.

  6. Re:dude.. on Portables Without Cameras? · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't be convinced myself, as you would still have an imaging device with all the associated circuitry to make it work, except it has a messed up lens. It wouldn't be that hard to make a camera out of it again. Your best bet, assuming that trying bring in something like an old SLR lens would be suspicious, would probably be a small magnifier/magnifier glass of some sort. But you could also use a marble - either a round one or one of the squished ones you could probably swipe out of a vase somewher in the office, a light bulb filled with water, a peice of bubble wrap filled with water, or even a patch of tinfoil with a small hole cut into it with a thumbtack. Sure, the quality may be bad, but if your goal is to copy documents good enough that they are readable, it could be good enough.

  7. Re:How long before SP1? on Windows 7 Launch Date Leaked — 23 Oct. 2009 · · Score: 1

    Considering that Microsoft has already redefined "Release Canidate", I don't see why Microsoft shouldn't just launch at Service Pack 1 myself.

  8. Re:Does this mean i can use a lcd in my mame cabin on Atari Emulation of CRT Effects On LCDs · · Score: 1

    Don't forget that you also need a somewhat sturdy desk. Those cheap compressed sawdust computer desks you can pick up for $100 or so will start to buckle under the weight after a while. And yes, I still got a couple of those 21" beasts.

  9. Re:what's so critical about a web browser? on IE8 Released As Critical Update For XP · · Score: 1

    They'll probably still be selling it for a long time. It's just that they won't license it as OEM for sale on new PCs, and likely you'll really be buying some version of Vista/Windows 7/??? with downgrade rights. Heck, it was only recently that Microsoft stopped selling Windows 3.1:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7707016.stm

  10. Re:what's so critical about a web browser? on IE8 Released As Critical Update For XP · · Score: 1

    Is Microsoft really abandoning IE6? Windows 2000 is still in extended support until sometime next year, and since Microsoft has never released a version of IE newer than IE6 SP1 for Windows 2000 I'm assuming that IE6 will still get security patches for at least a little while longer.

  11. Re:It's still under a TeraFLOPS, marginally on A $99 Graphics Card Might Be All You Need · · Score: 1

    I doubt that many modern chipsets have the AGP bus anymore, so it's not just a matter of adding the physical connector, as the rest of the computer still would not know how to talk to the card. I think VIA makes a chipset that supports Core 2 chips and AGP, but I think that's about it and I don't expect AGP to be carried on any further.

  12. Re:Resolution != size. on A $99 Graphics Card Might Be All You Need · · Score: 1

    I can easily see the pixels on a 1600x1200 resolution 20" monitor, and that's about the highest DPI you can get on a desktop LCD screen. My laptop, which is 1400x1050 at 14" is a bit more like it - the subpixel rendering looks good on it because it doesn't look like a smeary mess because I can't see the individual pixels easily. I'd love something like 2048x1536 at 18" or something like that, but it appears that no one makes anything like that.

  13. Re:It's still under a TeraFLOPS, marginally on A $99 Graphics Card Might Be All You Need · · Score: 1

    Actually, you can plug your PCI graphics card into just about any modern motherboard and it will work. AGP, not so much.

  14. Re:Impossible!!! on Why Digital Medical Records Are No Panacea · · Score: 1

    Companies can interoperate when they have to.

    Take (just by pure example) computer networking.

    That's only because TCP/IP came to dominate. 15+ years ago you had NetBUI, IPX, Apple Talk, and others I'm forgetting all competing with each other.

  15. Re:I wouldn't particularly worry on US Declares Public Health Emergency Over Swine Flu · · Score: 1

    Buy a bread machine.

    Yeah, but what good is the bread machine going to do for you once the solar flares knock out the power grid?

  16. Re:Is my off-line data safe? on What We Can Do About Massive Solar Flares · · Score: 1

    The threat is from large currents being induced into large lengths and loops of wire from the solar flares. If your data is on a live system at the time, or even on a system that's off but still connected to the grid, it could be at risk if a surge happens to go through the computer. However, what will most likely happen is that the electric company's transformers and substations will absorb the brunt of it and your computer simply lose power. A computer that is not plugged in* or an external drive that is not hooked up should be relatively safe, as they are small enough that any currents induced in them should be small and won't harm them. To be extra safe, you might consider storing them in a metal box. Flash drives and memory cards, provided they aren't plugged into a computer at the time, should be even safer than the external harddrives because they are physically smaller. Optical media should not be affected at all, though I guess in theory if the flares are extremely powerful it could wreck them the same way a microwave does.

    *By not plugged in, that means it should be disconnected not only from power, but also from any phone line or wired internet connection.

  17. Re:There's only one solution on What We Can Do About Massive Solar Flares · · Score: 1

    And then, the sun will get angry. You wouldn't like it when it's angry.

    Don't worry though, as you can usually take it out with a well-placed green shell.

  18. Re:This is a desperation measure aimed at IT guys on Windows 7 To Include "Windows XP Mode" · · Score: 1

    Nearly every single Intel CPU made in the last several years includes their VT technology built in. All new i7 chips include it. I have no idea why someone would think the embedded VM is restricted to "power users". By the time Win7 is released, almost every computer running it will have the capability to run XP Mode.

    Not true. The Celerons and the Pentium Dual-Cores do not support it. Not even all of the Core 2 processors support it, though I do believe all the current Core 2's do. This could turn out to be rather interesting, as most offices nowadays are ordering computers with low-end processors in them now, as they still have plenty of power for what they are used for.

    AMD is a bit better, since they support virtualization on all AM2 and later processors, except for the Semprons.

  19. Re:Seen This Before..... on Nintendo and the Decline of Hardcore Gaming · · Score: 1

    People played it, and games were written for it. So it counts. Probably one of the reasons why it is a classic is because it was so crappy, since the fact it was one of the cheapest consoles also made it one of the most widespread.

  20. Re:Why does NASA suck so much? on NASA Moon Launch May Be Delayed After 2020 · · Score: 1

    Heck, there will probably be a sizable number of the planes flying today still flying in 40 years. The average age of a bomber in the US Air Force is at least that old, many general aviation aircraft are that old, and while most airliners in passenger fleets in the US are newer than that, the planes from the 60's and early 70's they retired are still living second lives as cargo planes or passenger planes in other parts of the world.

  21. Re:Honestly though on AMD Overclocks New Phenom II X4 To 7 GHz · · Score: 1

    I don't think the intent ever was to do anything practical. It's more of a "let's do this because we can" thing.

  22. Re:De-facto benchmark on 12 Small Windmills Put To the Test In Holland · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't a dehumidifier help? It too would use some energy, robbing away some efficiency, but you could dump the waste heat it generates back into the house so that would offset some of the cost.

  23. Re:Really? on Why Is Connectivity So Cheap In Stockholm? · · Score: 1

    The transistor was invented in the US, though that falls slightly outside the 59-year window, but the integrated circuit would count. The LCD display was invented in US in the 1960's. Lots of modern military technology was developed in the US thanks to our enormous defense budget, including things like the GPS system. The internet was also initially a military project. Unix was created in the US. There are lots of things invented in the US the past 6 decades if you open your eyes and look around.

  24. Re:Model? on Record-Breaking Model Rocket Launch Set For April 25 · · Score: 1

    Well, that and the fact it's a 1:10 scale model of the Saturn V.

  25. Re:I've got your denial right here. on Zombie Macs Launch DoS Attack · · Score: 1

    The User Agent string can be easily spoofed... not that I would expect the average Mac user to know that :)