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User: oregonnerd

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  1. Anonymous Cowards unite (something to argue about) on Wikipedia Infiltrated by Intelligence Agents? · · Score: 1

    Okay. You need something to argue about. http://discuss.pcmag.com/forums/thread/1004382426. aspx Macs are better than PCs!! PCs are better than Macs!! And anyone who disagrees is [fill in the f'in blank] --Glenn

  2. Re:Where? on Why Web Pirates Can't Be Touched · · Score: 1

    Dude, that's Hong Kong. Just don't go in the Forbidden City (for real). --Glenn

  3. Re:Where? on Why Web Pirates Can't Be Touched · · Score: 1

    When I was there (okay, so it was during the Vietnam war, a couple of years ago), dam' few blondes in Korea...though the other side of the DMZ I suppose it might have been different.
    --Glenn

  4. Re:Get stuffed on Large-Scale Paper-To-Digital Conversion? · · Score: 1

    Kill all professors in question--secretively, of course, so that you won't be blamed. Join in the search (first) for the professors. Secondly, when they're found in the cold room for the cooks, exclaim how badly mutilated the carcasses are. Thirdly, discover a note, "This is what happens to professors that want to scan impossible things and have them posted on their asinine sites". Fourthly, pick some student you really hate, blame it on him/her, and call the FBI. Fifthly (this is just for insurance) check into the local padded-room center and scribble JCLs on the walls.

  5. Re:That's great on Cell Phone Jammers: Coming To An Event Near You? · · Score: 1

    ...Yeah. It's just that it's underkill, really. They should jam all the phones, not just the cellular ones! That would really help emergency response, I would think. ...I think I got the idea from George.

  6. Re:Rand?? As in the Rand Corporation?? on Rand Report Says Geospatial Data Not Big Threat · · Score: 1

    Seems pretty strang to me... [typo in original story] G

  7. Re:MicroBroadcasters on Microbroadcasting Summer Camp · · Score: 1

    The key assumption here is that the usage of low power stations is intrinsically damaging. The key question in the article might as well be, 'Is free speech damaging to the U.S.?'--and the current administration and infrastructure would obviously answer--'Yes.'

  8. Re:Argh... on US Losing its Scientific Dominance · · Score: 1

    The biggest 'cause' if any is probably the American inability to stay within a budget...and the fact that high schools are being pressed to graduate students no matter their ability to pass any kind of test or for that matter read. It made news (here, in the Rogue Valley, with the enviable distinction of being the most depressed area in the U.S.--has been, for a number of years) when a local school had to graduate illiterate students. Since then, it's become commonplace (here)...and I believe that we might even have been late in following the trend. Add to that teachers who are instructed to follow the curriculum, and are overloaded with students...and the recipe results in a cake with little or no leavening and less flavor.

  9. speaking to computers on a p2p basis on People Feel Loyalty To Computers · · Score: 1

    Yah, I've related to computers socially for years. Let me see...oh, yeah, I remember when it started. It was the first day of the evacuation of Vietnam, when the f(riendly) computer went down...and stayed down...until the day after the evacuation. Oh, I forgot to mention; it was the communications computer for ComSeventhFlt, who RAN the evacuation.

  10. Re:Human Nature on Ask the Robotic Psychiatrist · · Score: 1

    Gad. Either you haven't read much science fiction, or you enjoy repeating themes much-used to a hopefully-uneducated (in s.f.) audience.

  11. increasing short term...uh... on Brain's Cache Memory Found · · Score: 1

    This is reminiscent of Vernor Vinge's sessile plants with memory assist (A Fire Upon the Deep). We may need direct computer-assist input into the brain much more than we thought we did. ...And no wonder politicians seem short-sighted.

  12. Re:POLL on Making Use Of Old LCDs? · · Score: 1

    I did (query Google, that is). Never expected an obscene reply.

  13. Re:Vulcan science on Chess Improves Machines and Humans Alike · · Score: 1

    Just one note. "Philosophia"="love of knowledge.' To say that there were philosophies as in disciplines of knowledge (before the splitting of disciplines, in ways quite similar to the medeival Guild system) is a trifle misleading. I'm not arguing with the splitting of physical sciences from all else (the empirical paradigm doesn't work particularly well with the 'social sciences' simply because of difficulties with controlled experiments--although there is some arguability in current physics given that a gravity well might deform some observable interactions--the observer interacting with the observed is pretty well inescapable); however, modality of knowledge has already prevented cross-discipline application of knowledge. Nor, one might add...can the empirical paradigm be 'proven'--by its own statement. Put it this way, it's a very strong opinion on the state of affairs with some evident results. Blish's comment in the first volume of "Cities in Flight" is quite applicable, however.

  14. Re:Yeah, I can see this working. *cough* on Are You Reporting Your Internet Purchases? · · Score: 1

    Actually, you know, what they should do is this. Determine the median of income between (say) $0 and $25,000 (remember to penalize the poor). Anyone below the median should have to pay an extra 10% income tax if they use the Internet. Seems fair to me; just like something George Bush would applaud. What do you think?

  15. changes? of course! they mentioned security on Task Force Finds Blackout Was Preventable · · Score: 1

    Note that the panel mentioned security. That is this administration's chief pet toy. So they'll beef up security (for thus far non-existent attacks)...and neglect the problem. Any bets?

  16. Re:The "Biggest" on Giant Sub-Woofer · · Score: 1

    Evidently, this is the sort of company where if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. I scanned through some of their products, and not a price mentioned...

  17. Re:Planning for the future? on Longhorn Skinning A Reality · · Score: 1

    And here I thought Longhorn skins were just for trophies! guess I'll have to take mine out of the den.

  18. Re:Obvious! on Sake Used to Make Wooden Speakers · · Score: 1

    Having drunk my share of sake (room temperature, of course, as tradition insists)...hey, they've finally found a truly good use for it! But then most readers have probably never drunk Japanese wine, beer or whiskey--in Japan, not export quality--or smoked Japanese cigarettes. There is a taste (after? under? before?) to these products that is fortunately unique. --Glenn Charles (I was home-ported in Yokosuka for three years)

  19. Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall. on PIRATE Act Introduced in Congress · · Score: 1

    And Orrin was going to blow up our computers before. I wonder if he's given up the idea, or it's just under development. "Land of the free" DOES NOT EXTEND TO COPYRIGHTS, FOLKS, AND LET'S GET THAT STRAIGHT!!! (Particularly when I--Orrin--was given some start-up money to convince me I was interested.) Let's all applaud.

  20. Re:I used to vigilante too on eBay Fraud Vigilantes · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that was the one I was thinking of. Then I was doing a search yesterday for car prices on some things (69 Trans Am, true street rod, needs new paint job)...had to get 'identity' there...and as always read through agreement, only more thoroughly. If you allow them access to your bank account, they can take any amount they feel due...for any amount of time. As in, don't. And the prices on e-bay--same trans am will go elsewhere for $10k, $20k--on e-bay $1500. E-Bay is a rip at best for most sellers, and risky for buyers. And the agreement is b*llsh*t.

  21. Re:I used to vigilante too on eBay Fraud Vigilantes · · Score: 1

    Frankly, from what I've read--there are some links I don't remember (blush) that were about e-bay and paypal (and the habit of paypal of every once in a while freezing accounts cheerfully--for any amount of time)...I don't know that I would now touch either with a ten foot...computer? pole? whatever. From the looks of it, the 50% mark is probably more realistic. Certainly I wouldn't use a service that could freeze my account for any reason (PayPal).

  22. Re:DragonLance on Sci Fi Channel Plans 'Earthsea' Miniseries · · Score: 1

    I'll disagree with you slightly. The Earthsea series is in fact great fiction--Ms. Le Guin managed to modify a good many of the 'rules' of fantasy and is probably instrumental in bringing 'sf' into mainline fiction. (I thought it was terrible that I found the...fifth book of the trilogy...as a bargain buy, new.) She, Delany, Zelazny, Ing, Pournelle, Niven...all used complete characters as opposed to the two or even one dimensional characters of sf (okay, Heinlein in his later years helped a lot too). She and Delany in particular created great art that was more-or-less incidentally in the category of 'sf' (Dhalgren, for instance, is hardly standard science fiction fair). ...And to expect any series or movie to approach great writing is to expect too much; in this case the medium factually is the message in many respects. I didn't include Tolkien because he wasn't writing fantasy that could be easily included in the 'sf' of that time.

  23. Re:funny and insightful! on Bloggers' Plagiarism Scientifically Proven · · Score: 1

    I'm quite sure that the 'infection' that the scientists covered in the Wired article is exactly comparative to current studies in social networking...the most interesting (to my (mind?)) being that people in authority...are rarely the ones with the facts. No, I knew we all knew that (except the execs); it was just interesting that scientists could accept something like that (although I'm sure we're all sure it doesn't apply to the ones making the studies, or scientists in general).

  24. Re:I was thinking.... on The Memory Masters · · Score: 1

    My problem is...I remember that I was going to remember something, but I forgot what it was in the process of remembering. So what am I remembering now??

  25. Re:Does it so well? on Singularity Sky · · Score: 1

    Try reading Brian Stableford's Daedalus or Hooded Swan series...Ursula K. Le Guin's writings...Cherryh (who must write in her sleep to produce the volume of works she has)... The main problem with 'SF' is that it isn't and never has been one brand of fiction--the reason for the (much-reborn) F&SF magazine--and that originally Science Fiction avidly avoided most of the details of human existence, from sex to the more mundane. To make a blanket statement about any element of this (rather vast) field of fiction is somewhere between absurdity and ignorance, no insult intended. Bear in mind too that much mainstream fiction (carefully avoiding being 'nooked' into SF) is as speculative as books that were once solidly classified AS Science Fiction...