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User: Lost+Race

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Comments · 1,306

  1. Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis on The Case For Surrealism In Games · · Score: 1

    Movies also try to be "real" ...

    What??? Which ones? Can you give an example? All I see in movies is trope after trope after trope, no realism in sight.

  2. Re:Oh Look.. on Fake Names On Social Networks, a Fake Problem · · Score: 1

    Ah; a story on how hiding behind pseudonyms is no bad thing.. ..followed by a comment thread in which lots of people hiding behind pseudonyms insult each other in ways they would not do if their names were actually attached and the comments could follow them home.

    That is no bad thing. I'd rather not have everybody censor themselves down to meaningless banalities for fear of possibly insulting some extremist whacko. Sure, some people will "abuse" their privacy, but such "abuse" is harmless and easily handled by moderation and reputation systems. E.g. I read Slashdot at a high mod threshold and haven't seen any pointless insults or other misbehavior in this discussion.

  3. Re:Goes for cameras too. on Why Your Dad's 30-Year-Old Stereo Sounds Better Than Yours · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have a big bulky DSLR ... in a camera bag ... at home. I also have a camera/phone in my pocket, ready to take a picture any second of the day. Guess which ones takes more shots? Image quality is far less important than image content -- interesting things happen suddenly and rarely wait around for me to run home and get my good camera. Cost isn't nearly as much of an issue as convenience. Remember: the best camera is the one you have in hand, ready to shoot. Of necessity that one is usually going to be small, fast, expendable, and therefore relatively low-quality.

  4. Re:Police State on Massachusetts Plans To Keep Track of Where Your Car Has Been · · Score: 1

    As a dangling modifier this is totally ungrammatical.

  5. Re:Ron Paul 2012 on Fed Audit's Initial Report Reveals Trillions in Secret Loans · · Score: 1

    You're deluded if you don't think inflation isn't a problem.

    Wait ... what?

    You're deluded if you don't think inflation isn't a problem.
    !(don't think inflation isn't a problem.)
    !!(inflation isn't a problem.)
    !!!(inflation is a problem.)
    !(inflation is a problem.)
    Inflation isn't a problem.

    Really? If that's what you meant to say it sure is an odd way to phrase it. If it isn't what you meant then of course it's even odder.

    /even odder

  6. Re:Pretentious twits on Chain World — Innovative Game Design Sparks Debate · · Score: 4, Informative

    You didn't have to read the article, or even the entire summary. The first four words ("A story at Wired") tell you in no uncertain terms that it's going to be a story of, by, and for pretentious twits.

  7. Re:This is worse than the current system on TSA Announces Pilot of Trusted Traveler Program · · Score: 1

    If you create an easier-than-standard path through security constraints, the bad guys, just like the good guys, will take the easier route, every single time.

    How is that a failure? Now you have a much smaller pool ("Trusted Travelers") which contains all the bad guys. Seems like that would make them much easier to catch.

  8. Re:Not fear - disgust on Women Arrested For Refusing TSA Search of Children · · Score: 1

    You aren't a lawyer, you're a dictatorship apologist.

    Make that "profiteer." The worse the laws, the more you need lawyers. Lawyers love bad laws.

  9. Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does on Retailer Calls Rivals' Bluff On "HDMI Scam" · · Score: 1

    it is easy to accidentally pull one out if you are rummaging around behind your devices

    That's not a bug, it's a feature. If you accidentally tug on a cable the best place to relieve strain is in the low-force connection between plug and socket. If the connector were locked then the strain would damage the cable, plug, or socket. I'd rather kick the plug out of the socket than tear the cable off the plug or the socket out of the device... or yank the device off the shelf.

  10. Re:How is this news on Airplanes Cause Accidental Cloud Seeding · · Score: 1

    See also NOVA: Dimming the Sun, which discusses, among other things, the effect of the September 2001 air traffic shutdown on weather (not climate).

  11. Re:Yeah on NYC Mayor Demands $600M Refund On Software Project · · Score: 1

    Why they decided to pay $600M and then ask for a refund is a bit perplexing.

    The sunk cost dilemma sucks you in and drags you along, potentially forever.

  12. Re:Hmm... on Hard Drive Overclocking Competition From Secau · · Score: 1

    From that same document:

    1. As used for storage capacity, one megabyte (MB) = one million bytes, one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes, and one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes.

    So 500,107 MB = 500.107 GB

    "Formatted capacity" has nothing to do with file system formatting; it refers to the host-accessible storage capacity of the drive, which is 976,773,168 sectors (also from that same document). The contest is to read all those sectors in under an hour. Sectors are 512 bytes each, so you need to read 500,107,862,016 bytes in 3600 seconds or an average of 138,918,851 bytes per second.

  13. Re:Excellent! on Irish Judge Orders 13-Year-Old To Surrender Xbox · · Score: 1

    "Life expectancy" was driven down by infant and childhood mortality. Once you survived your first 10 years back then you were no more likely to die than someone of the same age now. E.g. mortality rates between ages 15-45 were similar to what they are now. "Old age" was probably a bit younger than it is now, but not by much (ten years or so). So lower life expectancy (at birth) was not a good reason to marry at 13 rather than 30.

  14. Re:not just autorun! (device to filter?) on Yet Another "People Plug In Strange USB Sticks" Story · · Score: 1

    Such a device would be possible, but fairly expensive, as it would need to act as a USB host.

    Not necessarily; it could be a filtering hub, watching all traffic that passes through it and dropping all packets from any device that identifies itself as any type other than mass storage. Think of it as a USB firewall.

    BRB, off to file my patent.

  15. Native app vs native app on Native Apps Are Dead, Long Live Native Apps · · Score: 1
    FTA:

    One problem with the debate is that it's a false dichotomy,

    O RLY?

    since you can embed a Web browser within a native application.

    That's a native app.

    And, conversely, you can extend an embedded Web browser to provide access to native APIs.

    That's a native app.

    The two alternatives have not been mutually exclusive for years now.

    Whatever. If it runs in a plain old web browser, it's a web app. If it uses platform-specific native code it's a native app. Duh.

  16. Re:AZ isn't anti-immigrant on LulzSec Posts First Secret Document Dump · · Score: 2

    Hating white ghetto boys but not black ghetto boys is racist. I'm not saying you hate based on the color of skin, but if you do (as your comment suggests you might) then you're racist.

  17. Re:AZ isn't anti-immigrant on LulzSec Posts First Secret Document Dump · · Score: 1

    Lots of Americans use the word "queue" to refer to a line of people waiting their turn for something. By "lots" I mean "dozens, possibly hundreds".

  18. Re:Implicated? Yeah, and then what. on Research Suggests Tobacco Companies Add Weight Loss Drugs · · Score: 1

    I vividly remember why I didn't smoke as an adolescent: because I was smart enough to understand that lung cancer and emphysema could apply to me too. The cool kids smoking cigarettes just looked like retards playing Russian roulette, not something anybody with a working brain would want to emulate.

    My parents both smoked, and never actually forbade me to smoke, though I knew they disapproved. I tried it a few times and while it wasn't horrible it certainly wasn't worth dying for.

    I tried not to be too judgmental of my friends who smoked but if it came between us I would rather lose a friendship than take up that nasty habit. There were plenty of non-smokers (more than half the population) to be friends with instead.

    Adolescents certainly have different priorities than adults, and from our adult perspective their judgment often looks pretty questionable, but they're not all idiots who can't predict the consequences of their choices and actions. Most of them are idiots, sure, but that's true at any age.

  19. Re:Bla bla bla on 35 Million Google Profiles Collected · · Score: 1

    You're providing content for Slashdot and Facebook; more content attracts more users who might eventually be more profitable than you are. Google can collect your search terms and click-throughs to provide bulk data for market researchers. The value of these things is negligible but multiplied by hundreds of millions of users it might be worth something.

  20. Re:Shut up with the bitcoin stories on Increased Power Usage Leads to Mistaken Pot Busts for Bitcoin Miners · · Score: 1

    Seriously, if it were legal you could just grow it outdoors in some place that has lots of sunshine, instead of wasting so much electricity on indoor lighting and ventilation. Won't somebody please think of the carbon!

  21. Re:it's actually useful. on Professor Questions Sink-Or-Swim Intro To CS Courses · · Score: 1

    Introductory courses (at the college level) are not an introduction to the major for future professionals; they are an introduction to the topic for future dilettantes.

  22. Re:Apple Stores on Apple Causes Religious Reaction In Brains of Fans · · Score: 1

    Not collecting stamps is more than a hobby. It's a way of life.

  23. Re:Dark matter? on 'Homeless' Planets May Be Common In Our Galaxy · · Score: 1

    Gravitational turbulence? Eddies in the spacetime continuum?

  24. Re:Mod Parent FUD. on How Windows 7 Knows About Your Internet Connection · · Score: 1

    Windows can mount and understand Linux filesystems now?

    sort of...

  25. Re:Why is the whole network linked to credit cards on Sony Releases PS3 3.61 Update Ahead of PSN's Imminent Return · · Score: 1

    Management has no idea how things work. So they turn everything off at once during a breach. And turn everything back on in small steps with tons of testing along the way. It is a best practice as old as computing.

    We can be pretty confident at this point that whatever Sony does is not any kind of best practice.

    Never attribute to competence any Sony behavior which can be adequately explained by utter idiocy and/or malice.