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User: Fordiman

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Comments · 2,105

  1. Re:Exactly on How to Win on Ebay: Snipe · · Score: 1

    I usually bid the average of the start bid and my maximum. Then, I snipe within the last minute of auction.

    The benefits: In any given auction, you generally have only one other person competing for the same item. If you let them have the 'high' bid for most of the auction, they won't be outbidding and outbidding, ad inf. Meanwhile, I have found that most people, given the choice, will take the next highest bid for their first bid($1->$1.50), and use the automatics if they're outbid after that. When I snipe with my maximum at the last minute (literally, I mean), I end up winning the auction about 75% of the time.

  2. Re:But you elected these fascist trolls! on FCC Approves New Internet Phone Taxes · · Score: 1

    Really... 'cos as I understood it, the FCC is all appointed.

  3. Re:Uhh... on Biometric Payment Arrives in a Store Near You · · Score: 1

    I would assume that the digital storage would be a hash that the hash of your scanned fingerprint would have to be checked against.

  4. Re:Gummy Bears need to be put in their place on Biometric Payment Arrives in a Store Near You · · Score: 1

    The impressions are made by etching standard PCBs using a taped print lifted from a glass or soda can. You then press the gummy bear into the etched and cleaned PCB. Since PCB copper's a good match for the depth of a fingerprint, it's close as damnit.

    But you're right; smudging would defeat the process easily.

  5. Re:Just use php's functions? on PHP and Perl in One Script? · · Score: 1

    Almost any solution is better than mixing languages, but generally, it's best to use what's already configured (apparently PHP in this case), if time is a constraint.

    And yes, we know you have a favorite language. Most developers have one for interpreted and one for compiled (except those weird java guys who think they have the best of both worlds). I'm partial to C++ and perl myself. I could sit here and tout all the things that make me like it, but lets face it, most of the stuff I like about Perl, a Ruby user (to pull a random non-perl human from the air) would find intolerably designed.

    Yeah. Point is, unless someone asks, "Well, what SHOULD I use?", leave it at criticisms or appraisals of the technique asked about.

  6. Re:What are these simulations calculating? on Software to Make Blue Gene Top 200 Teraflops · · Score: 1

    Actually, 2+2==5 for very large values of 2.

  7. Re:How to test a nuke.. without testing one on Software to Make Blue Gene Top 200 Teraflops · · Score: 1

    Spoken like a true creationist.

    Tell me, do you do barmitzvahs?

  8. Re:...wow... on Software to Make Blue Gene Top 200 Teraflops · · Score: 1

    It would be 999 relationships per atom, 999000 relationships in total. Each relationship would require vector calculations, positional calculations, calculations of EM field flux, electron position probability, etc, which would bring the calculations up into the thousands per relationship (I wouldn't be surprised if it's greater than 200,000 discrete operations). That brings us well into the teraflop range for realtime (one second virtual = one second real) processing.

  9. Re:Yeah, but... on Software to Make Blue Gene Top 200 Teraflops · · Score: 1

    Oh, my, GOD, thank you.

    It's good to see a sensible human around for once.

  10. Re:Slight clarification on Software to Make Blue Gene Top 200 Teraflops · · Score: 1


    But can it run Linux?
    </obligatory>

  11. Re:Just use php's functions? on PHP and Perl in One Script? · · Score: 1

    Seriously, you're better off using temp files and the CLI for ImageMagick.

  12. Re:If you use PHP.... on PHP and Perl in One Script? · · Score: 1

    One Perl to rule them all
    One C to find them
    One bash to bring them all
    and in PHP bind them!

  13. Re:If you use PHP.... on PHP and Perl in One Script? · · Score: 1

    Right. And of course, this means that the best way to write web applications must ALWAYS be to use Mono/JScript server side. Why? JScript is syntactically identical to ECMAScript (Javascript to you buzzwordy people).

  14. Re:Quarks? on String Theory a Disaster for Physics? · · Score: 1

    Quarks are little. Protons and neutrons are made up of quarks.
    Leptons are littler. Electrons are leptons.

  15. Re:Old School on DefectiveByDesign Supporters to Call on RIAA Execs · · Score: 1

    Executive assistants make in excess of $40k/yr, as a general rule.

  16. Re:Drunk Dialing the RIAA on DefectiveByDesign Supporters to Call on RIAA Execs · · Score: 1

    Trust me. Being drunk is far more fun than looking at drunks.

  17. Re:Good luck with that on DefectiveByDesign Supporters to Call on RIAA Execs · · Score: 1

    Except that THEY think that DRM'ed music is equivalent to unencumbered for us, and know that it's better for them. We have to let them know that they think wrong.

  18. Re:Good luck with that on DefectiveByDesign Supporters to Call on RIAA Execs · · Score: 1

    It's more like telling what they need to do to get our business back. See, while we don't agree with the big labels' practices, they have the potential to do great things in the music arena - if only they would stop freaking out and start listening.

  19. Re:Selfish by Design on DefectiveByDesign Supporters to Call on RIAA Execs · · Score: 1

    Sure. Avoid the problem. That'll make it go away.

  20. Re:Selfish by Design on DefectiveByDesign Supporters to Call on RIAA Execs · · Score: 1

    Wow. What malfunction of logic gave you the impression that that was anything like an appropriate metaphor?

    *sigh* fine. If you like paying full price to rent your music, that is your choice. Me? I'm giving those fine businessmen at the RIAA a quick phone call to tell them that I don't.

  21. Re:Chicken Meet Egg on DefectiveByDesign Supporters to Call on RIAA Execs · · Score: 1

    If CD's at the time of the start of filesharing weren't rediculously expensive (they haven't come down in dollar price much since, but inflation has made them effectively cheaper), I doubt that most of your average ramen-starved college kids would have gotten into P2P.

  22. Re:"Plays for sure" = "Plays for now" on DefectiveByDesign Supporters to Call on RIAA Execs · · Score: 1

    Wow. How'd you write that with a straight face?

  23. Re:Vigilanteism on DefectiveByDesign Supporters to Call on RIAA Execs · · Score: 1

    *sigh* you're one of the same fucktards who though Blue Security got what they deserved, aren't you?

    Just fucking sad.

  24. Re:Voting with Dollars on DefectiveByDesign Supporters to Call on RIAA Execs · · Score: 1

    Most groups have more clout than an individual citizen.

    However, groups of citizens have a hell of a lot of clout, especially when they are under the alias of 'target market'.

  25. Re:Will this be effective? on DefectiveByDesign Supporters to Call on RIAA Execs · · Score: 1

    The purpose of the campaign is to get DRM removed from downloadable media.