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User: XanC

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Comments · 1,855

  1. Economic Perspective on More Massive Layoffs at AOL · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Those people will now be employed doing something useful, instead of perpetuating the existance of AOL. Everybody wins!

  2. Fascinating... on Spanish Region Goes Entirely Open Source · · Score: 1

    So are the San Diego Padres supposed to represent Catholic priests, parents in general, or fathers? Which of these makes the best (well, least bad) mascot?

  3. Re:Good double-PLUS good... on Spanish Region Goes Entirely Open Source · · Score: 1

    Doesn't that work in Linux? I know from my own experince running KDE that when X crashes (I'm running the binary nvidia driver, sorry, but it only happens once every few weeks), when I log back in to KDE there's everything just the way I left it. Surely bringing down the system entirely wouldn't be more disruptive than that.

  4. No joke on Sam & Max, Back From the Dead · · Score: 1

    At the end of Space Quest V, how the frig are we supposed to know where to go in the Jeffries tubes without a map??

  5. Injected their brains?? on Cancer Therapy with Radioactive Scorpion Venom · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sign me up for that!<servo>

  6. Re:Fine on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 1

    None of those were basic research; they were military projects to accomplish specific tasks, in order to keep us ahead of the Germans / Russians. In other words, within the mandate of the federal government.

  7. Re:Fine on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 1

    I appreciate the well-wishes towards my family, but I didn't say one thing about banning anything.

  8. Re:Fine on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 1

    I'm not saying there haven't been accomplishments after the federal takeover. But there would have been more, and they would have been better otherwise.

    You would trust corporations to do this work over governments?

    I think this sums up our differences completely. Yes, unhesitatingly. Governments have nobody to answer to but themselves, and they have a monopoly on the use of force to achieve their ends. They should be involved in as little as possible.

  9. Re:Fine on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 1

    I think you've disproven your own premise. Do you really think all those companies just "got lazy" one day and decided to sacrifice their companies' long-term performance?

    The government moved in, and like in other areas, anything similar that people were doing privately withered away. Everybody pays for the government to do it, so why should they continue?

    From then on things have the appearance of requiring (ever greater) federal funding, but the fact is things were better before.

    Your point about projects being beyond the reach of states is taken, but as I pointed out earlier, states would have more freedom with less federal presence. But with companies like Bell and Xerox doing the heavy lifting, there's no need for state funding either...

  10. We are. on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 1

    It just so happens people in other countries are taxed to even more ridiculous extremes.

  11. Re:Fine on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 1

    ...okay, but which Powers would those be? It says Congress can make laws to execute "the foregoing powers". I guarantee one of them isn't stem cell research.

    I don't see how stem cell research supports the military.

    Funding stem cell research is not a regulation on interstate commerce!

  12. Jurisdiction on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 1

    He doesn't have the authority to declare ECS research to be murder. Murder's not a federal crime anyway, in almost all circumstances.

    What he can do is direct federal funding. IMHO, there shouldn't be any federal funding for science, in which case he would be powerless in this situation.

  13. Re:Fine on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Perhaps if people were not taxed to ridiculous extremes by the federal government, the states would be able to take on larger projects.

    And perhaps, just maybe, people acting in their own interests, unhindered by these ridiculous taxes, will improve society on their own.

  14. Re:Fine on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Preamble isn't law; it's an introduction. It gives some reasons for what's set out later in the document.

    By your logic, the rest of the Constitution after that is redundant, because anything can be part of "general welfare". Obviously this isn't the case.

  15. Fine on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 0, Troll

    I don't see how or why it's a federal issue to fund science. It's just another way for the feds to bully everybody. Let the states choose to fund or not fund it.

  16. Re:Iraq war side effects on Big Dig - One of Engineering's Greatest Mistakes? · · Score: 1

    Most of the funding for the Big Dig was in that enormous federal transportation bill, almost entirely pork, that Reagan vetoed. Congress overrode it.

  17. Re:Tag as intentionaldupe on Inverting Images for Uninvited Users · · Score: 1

    I agree with the other poster. I think the backslashes are valuable.

  18. Re:Applicable? on GPLv3 Second Discussion Draft Released · · Score: 1

    Interesting. I can see how that makes sense, which is a lot better off than I was a minute ago. Thanks!

    But don't we generally think that application of copyright law is bad / stupid / evil? Is the FSF now going to assert that I can't make FLACs of my CDs, or that I can't edit curse words out of my movies?

  19. Re:Applicable? on GPLv3 Second Discussion Draft Released · · Score: 1
    and when redistributing includes making the web service available to others

    But it doesn't include that; you're not redistributing any code. The earlier sibling post (to yours) describes what they must be thinking with this clause.

  20. Applicable? on GPLv3 Second Discussion Draft Released · · Score: 1

    I don't understand how the user of the software (in this case, the webmaster) is bound by that requirement. The GPL is not an EULA, as I understand it. I don't have to agree to the GPL to use GPL'd software, only to distribute it.

  21. 3.1 is the new 4.0 on Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 Set for December · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There were major changes for Sarge, aka 3.1. Somebody pointed out that it should be 4.0, and everyone agreed, but it was too late in the release cycle to change it. They figured as long as it was higher than 3.0 it didn't really matter.

  22. Re:Architectures. on Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 Set for December · · Score: 1

    You must be thinking of some other distro.

    http://www.debian.org/CD/torrent-cd/
  23. Hey Editors! on Peter Cullen Chosen to Voice Optimus Prime (Again) · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    You don't need both double-quotes and the blockquote tag in the summaries!

    In cases where the summary begins or ends with two double-quotes (this isn't one of them, but it's happened) it's particularly distracting.

  24. "Keep circulating the tapes" on Legal DVD Burnable Downloads Launched · · Score: 1

    That only appears on the ending credits through season 4. It doesn't cover the movie, half a season of Joel, or any of Mike.

  25. The Cage? on Welcome to The Age of the Web Hermit · · Score: 1

    Sounds a lot like the pilot of Star Trek (TOS of course).