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User: ratsnapple+tea

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  1. test #1 on Japan Considering Moon Base, Shuttle Projects · · Score: 1

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Internet bloggers should enjoy traditional press freedoms and not face regulation as political groups, lawmakers and online journalists said Friday.

  2. Re: Intel C compiler team on GCC 4.0 Preview · · Score: 1

    And what about IBM's compiler for PowerPC? It would be great if GCC could incorporate some of the IBM compiler's optimization techniques, especially now that IBM's "freed" its patent portfolio.

  3. Re:Don't go there. on Google Goes to Answers.com · · Score: 1

    What's your name, SSN and checking account number? I promise I won't do anything with this information except withdraw all your money.

  4. Re:Stubs on Google Goes to Answers.com · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And what about the featured article removal candidates? The existence of these would seem to indicate that the quality of articles, over time, tends not towards brilliance, but mediocrity.

    In the past, I've vastly improved articles in the 'pedia (earning much praise in the process, so "improvement" isn't just my ego speaking) and returned to them after many months, only to find them unreadably disorganized or studded dangerously with errors. To me, this asymptotic approach to shitsville is even more damning than the fact that featured articles don't usually remain so for long.

  5. Re:Bugs in Wikimedia projects on Google Goes to Answers.com · · Score: 1

    You're kidding, right? Do you really believe the occasional mistakes in Britannica or Webster's even begin to approach the bloody brown avalanche of misinformation, trolling and ugly prose smeared across the face of Wikipedia?

    As I've said elsewhere, I doubt comparing Wikipedia to Britannica will convince anyone of the reliability of the former. Doing so only makes Wikipedia apologists seem out of touch with reality.

  6. Re:And Slashdot Too! on Google Goes to Answers.com · · Score: 1

    But don't academics ("people who do know what they're talking about") already edit Wikipedia more than the general population?

    If so, broadening Wikipedia's reach will only serve to degrade its quality even further, if that is even possible.

  7. Re:And Slashdot Too! on Google Goes to Answers.com · · Score: 3, Funny

    No kidding. Want a laugh? If you've got some hours to spare, read this page, which even includes a poll to determine how to conclude the other poll. Any satire would be too easy.

  8. Re:Wikipedia information incorrect on Google Goes to Answers.com · · Score: 1, Troll

    "Wikipedia information incorrect (Score:5, Informative)"

    More like (Score:5, Obvious).

  9. Re:The Shuffle is a clone to begin with. on iPod Shuffle Lookalike Hits CeBIT · · Score: 1

    Form is function. Especially when it comes to tiny flash players.

  10. Re:Hang on... on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to Arrive in April · · Score: 1

    Dude, you added me to your foes list for debating you in this thread? It's no matter to me, but if you're going to go to the trouble of foe-ing me, perhaps you could at least have the courtesy to respond to the (sincere) question I asked here.

  11. Re:OS10.4 Upgrade for new Macs on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to Arrive in April · · Score: 1

    I've always wondered why people do this. I'm pretty laid back when it comes to typos (I mean, you kind of have to be to read Slahodst without exploding) but when I see people referring to a company called Mac, my field of vision begins throbbing crimson. Do other companies have this problem? And don't even get me started on the "MAC" thing.

    I also wonder why I find it so massively obnoxious. Maybe I really am that anal.

  12. Re:Yeah, its great on Apple Wins Against Bloggers · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you think it should only require that broad and self-referential notion of "public interest" to relieve journalists of having to reveal their sources when it's obvious they were privy to a crime, then it's hard to imagine any circumstances under which you'd think they should be forced to name their sources. Surely you don't believe there exist no such circumstances?

  13. Re:Yeah, its great on Apple Wins Against Bloggers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, come off it. Revealing the unethical and borderline murderous behavior of tobacco companies serves a clear and immediate public interest. What "public interest" does it serve to protect the guy who leaks confidential information about the next Power Mac revision?

    As the judge wrote, an interested public is NOT the same as a public interest.

  14. Re:Real Estate Bubble - Stock Bubble on The DotCom Crash Revisited · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ah, you're right. In Australia, it's the rate of rise in house prices that's dramatically dropped, not prices themselves. In Q4'04, 2.4% rise on one year before, compared to 18.9% same in Q4'03; meanwhile, the boom continues unabated elsewhere. My mistake.

    There's a nice summary here. Sorry you had to leave Australia. :)

  15. Re:Real Estate Bubble - Stock Bubble on The DotCom Crash Revisited · · Score: 1

    The real estate bubble isn't confined to America, it's pretty much global, the only notable exception being Australia.

  16. Re:Physicality on Broadband to Kill Off DVD? · · Score: 1

    Sure, but I think the point is that just as most people prefer MP3 to CD (for convenience, etc.), most people can wait a day or two for a movie if it means you get to watch in HDTV quality. There'll be people who don't mind lower quality in exchange for immediate gratification, but Jobs thinks these people represent a much smaller share of the market. And I tend to agree.

  17. Re:Physicality on Broadband to Kill Off DVD? · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Well, not necessarily. The problem is that physical media are going to be much better as delivery mechanisms for video than broadband, for the foreseeable future. I'll let Steve Jobs explain, for you Apple fans out there. :P

    People are much more attuned to visual quality than audio quality. This is the most amazing thing that happened in the music industry to me: We had the cassettes and then the CD, which raised the quality supposedly, right? The next format after the CD should have been a higher-quality format just like we got television going to high-def, but it wasn't. SAP and DVD audio have totally failed.

    What was the successor to the CD format? MP3, a lower-quality format, but one that provided a convenience of being able to transmit music over the Internet that no other format had. So convenience won out and people settled for lower quality. The first time I've ever seen that in my life.

    But that's not going to be the case with video. No one is going to go back to VHS quality just because they can download it faster over the Internet. It ain't going to happen. The download of DVD-quality movies takes hours over most people's broadband connections, and we're going to high-def in 2007, let's say. That's going to add bandwidth and get even slower as we go to high-def. To download a high-def movie is going to take you half a day if the bandwidth increases. Is that instant gratification like a song that takes just a minute to download? No.

    Therefore, the threat to Hollywood--of which we're a small member at Pixar--is very different than the threat to the music industry. Actually, the biggest threat to Hollywood isn't the Internet; the biggest threat to Hollywood is DVD burners.

  18. Re:They wish... on Is Apple The New Microsoft? · · Score: 1

    Cool... I really wish someone would implement a clone of InDesign's excellent optical kerning algorithm, which (to my knowledge) does away with the need for hinting tables. Assuming it isn't patented, that is.

    Thanks for the reply.

  19. Re:nobody should be at the front of the line on Long-Awaited BitTorrent 4.0 Released · · Score: 1

    Remember the Google Zeitgeist before they removed the OS stats last year? Mac 3%, Linux desktops 1%. Just another data point, I guess.

  20. Re:wikipedia skeptic on The Wikipedians Who Make it Happen · · Score: 1

    What makes you think I didn't?

  21. Good to see progress... on Long-Awaited BitTorrent 4.0 Released · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The OS X client is still at 3.4.2. Is anyone working on an update? (I'd offer to help, but I don't program :p)

  22. Re:Can I be the first to say, Yuk. on Sony takes on iPod Shuffle · · Score: 1

    No kidding. Not to mention "LAME" and "BitchX," and even the mediocre "Firefox," which sounds generic and rather bland. Firefox could be anything, from a car to a toaster oven. And what's the deal with HURD? The name always recalls "HURL" and "TURD" and "HARD," as in hard-on. Maybe it's just me, but I hope Stallman renames it when--if--it ever sees the light of day.

  23. Re:wikipedia skeptic on The Wikipedians Who Make it Happen · · Score: 1

    Well, of course. But can you tell me with a straight face that Britannica is even worse than Wikipedia, in terms of errors and awkward prose? Frankly, I don't think Wikipedia has anything to gain from a comparison with commercial encyclopedias, unless you value quantity (truckloads of crap) over quality.

  24. Re:wikipedia skeptic on The Wikipedians Who Make it Happen · · Score: 1

    Sure, but then you're admitting the project is nothing more than an interesting social experiment. And that's probably an accurate assessment. I'd be embarrassed to call the thing an "encyclopedia"--to me, that term implies something with a greater degree of accuracy and reliability than Wikipedia provides (in my experience).

    But frankly, I'd be sad to see the well-meaning efforts of so many people spent on a social experiment, because there is a lot of great stuff on Wikipedia; it's just that when you have to approach it with such a skeptical eye, the good stuff quickly becomes useless. I've edited and created my fair share of articles too.

  25. Re:wikipedia skeptic on The Wikipedians Who Make it Happen · · Score: 1

    But not everyone has the time or even the inclination to fix everything they see. Speaking for myself, I'd rather just find a more trustworthy source, whose biases are known, and that lacks the glaring, ridiculous errors plaguing Wikipedia.