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User: Dekortage

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  1. Re:Not that cold on Scientists Reconstruct Millennium's Coldest Winter · · Score: 1

    People from Canada/USA/Scandinavia/Eastern Europe just laugh. They laughed at all the English people making a big deal out of "not much" snow, too.

    I lived in the American South for several years. The small town I lived in had no snow for two winters in a row, so they sold the town's snow truck. The next winter, we got a whole inch of snow, and the town almost totally shut down for a couple of days because there was no truck to plow the snow aside.

    Compare that to when I lived in Buffalo, NY, where we sometimes got five inches of snow per hour -- for six hours or more.

  2. So... make sure one of your apps is a VM? on Average User Only Runs 2 Apps, So Microsoft Will Charge For More · · Score: 1

    If this news is true, then folks will find ways around it. Running a VM could be one. Or they will turn more to web apps -- hello, tabbed browsing!

    Maybe this is actually an attempt to limit malware. If your computer is running multiple malicious background apps, suddenly you won't be able to run anything else, and users will become more careful about sites they visit, etc.??? Nah, that'll never work...

  3. Re:Not that cold on Scientists Reconstruct Millennium's Coldest Winter · · Score: 1

    In -37 C, you just don't go outside much.

    I had never studied London's climate (nor have I had the opportunity to visit, unfortunately), but that does seem mild. Even though we've had -15 F here in the winter, NY summer days can hit 90-100 F (32-37 C) with ease. A bit more extreme than your spot, I guess.

  4. Another music service bites the dust on Ruckus Closes Down · · Score: 3, Insightful

    FTA:

    music that has not passed its âoerenew dateâ still works... music that has expired will no longer work because the DRM licensing server has apparently shut down.

    Quick, listen to your music before it expires!

    Also, the article suggests that Total Music (which recently acquired Ruckus, and was a joint venture between Sony and UM) still has some life in it, but this article (on the same site!) says otherwise and quotes the blog of a VP there. I guess these record labels are having a hard time with this stuff...

  5. Re:Not that cold on Scientists Reconstruct Millennium's Coldest Winter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Of course our cold temps pale in comparison to Canada, and the northern New England states Maine, New Hampshire, etc.

    Where I live in upstate New York, we've hit -15 F (-26 C) several days this year. Further upstate from me has gotten to -25 F (-32 C) below. Friends in Maine tell me they've seen -35 F (-37 C) this winter. These weren't just for a day, but for several, even more than a week at times, before returning to ever-so-slightly warmer temperatures.

    Even if things were cold back in 1709, methinks they doth protest too much.

  6. Almost ten years??? on $93,803 a Year to Do Nothing · · Score: 2, Funny

    "It's been this way for Hinton for most of this decade." So now that he's earned almost a million bucks, plus retirement and benefits, he's coming forward. What a guy!

    Wife: "So honey, how was work today?"

    Hinton: "It was really tough. They kept playing lousy music on the radio, and the commercials were terrible! At least I finished learning French on tape."

  7. Find a WISP in the U.S.? on WISPS Mean Cable and DSL Aren't the Only Choices · · Score: 2, Informative

    This seemed useful...

  8. Re:not your fundie on RIAA and BSA's Lawyers Taking Top Justice Posts · · Score: 1

    You don't. The government didn't pay for abortions before, and it doesn't now, no matter how the media chooses to represent things.

  9. Re: don't want to pay for abortions on RIAA and BSA's Lawyers Taking Top Justice Posts · · Score: 1

    I work with several international nonprofits, and I know a lot of people who write grant proposals, as well as folks in USAID and various foundations who review proposals. The U.S. government does not simply dump money into the general fund of any organization. Instead, it defines a very narrow destination for that money: you will work on Issue X (e.g. HIV), in Region Y (e.g. Uttar Pradesh in India), for Time Period Z (e.g. September 2009 through August 2011), using Methodology A (e.g. abstinence education). Furthermore, you will report on your efforts with weekly summary reports and quarterly detailed analysis, and we will drop by whenever we feel like it to inspect. A lot of folks in the nonprofit world complain about all the strings and boundaries placed on the money and the work, but hey, it is the government's money, and they have every right to ask this. But none of this is going into anybody's "general fund."

    Now, you're probably referring to the Global Gag Rule that was recently overturned. To quote an earlier post:

    U.S. funds did not pay for abortions overseas before the GGR, and they won't now. Check the 1973 Helms Amendment and subsequent clarifications by the government. The Global Gag Rule took it a step further, and said that if a health clinic accepted U.S. funding for any reason (obviously not abortions because that was prohibited), then it couldn't use any of its OTHER funding sources for abortions -- even if that funding was from its own government, or its own fundraising, and even if abortion was legal in its country. In fact, if it accepted U.S. funds but did not offer abortions in any way, its funding would be cut if staff merely told women of other clinics where abortions were available.

    Furthermore, shutting down clinics due to the GGR has been enormously stupid: the rates of safe abortions have dropped, but they are offset dramatically by the rise in unsafe witch-doctor-style abortions. And since these clinics are generally one-stop health centers that provide a huge variety of services, cutting off all their US aid means cutting back on things we can all support, like malaria medicine for kids or prenatal checkups for pregnant women or HIV counseling for infected couples.

  10. Re:change on RIAA and BSA's Lawyers Taking Top Justice Posts · · Score: 1

    It's an enormous deal to me that my tax dollars are being used to fund overseas abortions.

    You must be talking about the Global Gag Rule (a.k.a. Mexico City Policy to its supporters) which Obama recently overturned. You shouldn't believe everything you hear in the news. U.S. funds did not pay for abortions overseas before the GGR, and they won't now. Check the 1973 Helms Amendment and subsequent clarifications by the government. The Global Gag Rule took it a step further, and said that if a health clinic accepted U.S. funding for any reason (obviously not abortions because that was prohibited), then it couldn't use any of its OTHER funding sources for abortions -- even if that funding was from its own government, or its own fundraising, and even if abortion was legal in its country. In fact, if it accepted U.S. funds but did not offer abortions in any way, its funding would be cut if staff merely told women of other clinics where abortions were available.

    I think abortion is wrong, but the Global Gag Rule has been a terrible piece of legislation, and dramatically misrepresented by most media sources.

  11. Re:Assault ! on Bill Gates Unleashes Swarm of Mosquitoes · · Score: 1

    That note -- marked UPDATE -- was not on the page when I posted it, but thanks for pointing it out.

  12. Re:Assault ! on Bill Gates Unleashes Swarm of Mosquitoes · · Score: 1

    Except that he only pretended to release the mosquitos...

  13. Re:More details please on Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development · · Score: 1

    Like you say, it's free, try it out for yourself.

    However, from experience I can tell you that hiring a good expert in the CMS of your choice, can really save you lots of headaches. Whether it's Typo3, or Drupal, or Plone, or Joomla, a good expert can set up the templates, organize the pages, and give you advice/support on managing the site. I am not an expert in any of these CMSs, but have worked on projects involving them enough times that I recognize the value of a good expert. It can be like hiring a magician, and far better than trying to learn a programming and coding your own CMS. (I have coded my own CMS's for custom situations, but an off-the-shelf system generally does what most people need.)

    (My current CMS of choice is Cascade, which is a commercial product and based almost entirely on XML/XSL to output just about any data you want: XML, XHTML, PHP, JSP, ASP, PDF, whatever. Really powerful, although XSL is a cruel lover if you aren't careful.)

    Having said all that, I'll share this advice about Joomla:

    • The built-in text editor is junk. Find and install JCE. The core JCE functionality is free, though the commercial add-ons for image management are worthwhile if you manage a lot of graphics in the site. Like a lot of things about Joomla, JCE adds features that should have been there in the first place.
    • You need the Extended Menu plug-in if you want to do any useful CSS menuing like Suckerfish. Even though it doesn't handle SSL links right (they get menued as HTTP instead of HTTPS), it's still totally worthwhile. You can fix some of the HTTPS stuff via an htaccess file if necessary. As above, this adds a feature that should be already part of Joomla.
    • I have never, ever, ever been able to get any of Joomla's community extensions working right. None of them. It's a good thing that I don't run any community sites and have only experimented with them for family or clubs I'm in.

    I've written Typo3 extensions before (in PHP obviously), but must admit that I detest TypoScript. It always feels like a hack.

  14. Obligatory on Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development · · Score: 1

    I write music for $squigglything, you insensitive clod!

  15. No Current Plans to Advertise... on Google Maps To Add 'Friend' GPS Tracking · · Score: 1

    FTA:

    There are no current plans to sell any advertising alongside Google's tracking service, although analysts believe knowing a person's location eventually will unleash new marketing opportunities.

    C'mon, Google income is totally based on advertising. You know they're going to use the info somehow. Maybe they won't advertise alongside the tracking service, but their other services may offer more intelligent ad targeting based on your location.

  16. The saddest part... on Man Robs Convenience Stores With Klingon "Batleth" · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The saddest part is that in both robberies, the clerk recognized the weapon as not just unusual, but specifically Klingon. Geeks fer sure. Hey guys, are you on Slashdot???

  17. Re:This is what the civilised world finds bizarre. on Web Rescues Un-Aired Super Bowl Ads · · Score: 1

    I've wondered if it is because they don't want to see real violence or skin shown on TV, but the violence can be more easily faked. If an American TV show actually showed real people truly killing each other, or shooting each other, or whatever, it would be shut down immediately. (Boxing and football are violent but don't count.) But scripted, special-effect violence is fine. You can't (or don't) fake the sex stuff, so it offends people.

  18. Re:Cash on Blu-ray Update Sent To User Via Credit Card Records · · Score: 1

    A couple of years ago, a friend of mine tried to pay for our meals at Burger King with $2 bills. The kid at the register wouldn't accept them until the manager came over, who was at least aware that $2 bills existed (though she had never seen one before). Caused a minor stir. But I think that was the point, no?

    I have some $2 bills but I am not going to spend them... semi-historical. I also have some Japanese pesos printed during their occupation of the Philippines...

  19. Re:Requires iTunes on Apple Intros 17" Unibody MBP, DRM-Free iTunes · · Score: 1

    You should not have to install a piece of software to use a fucking music store. Do you have to install eTunes to use eBay? Do you have to install amaTunes to use Amazon?

    There is not a single thing wrong with installing a piece of software to accomplish a given task. Just try using the World Wide Web without a browser, and see how your day goes.

  20. Re:Only the paranoid survive (not) on Are My Ideas Being Stolen? If So, What Then? · · Score: 3, Funny

    Windows wasn't the first OS or even graphical OS to market. ...Doing it right is more important than doing it first.

    In fact, "doing it right" may have nothing to do with the concept, and everything to do with how you sell and license the concept. Windows is an excellent example of this.

  21. Re:Requires iTunes on Apple Intros 17" Unibody MBP, DRM-Free iTunes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There are a number of words in your post that the average consumer will not recognize, nor care about: FLAC, AAC, OGG, RockBox, Amarok, Magnatune, etc.

    Until the masses care, most capitalists will not.

  22. Re:Darn... no Mac Mini update on Apple Intros 17" Unibody MBP, DRM-Free iTunes · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't suppose you've ever considered a third party solution?

  23. Re:Whew on Amazon S3 Adds Option To Make Data Accessors Pay · · Score: 1

    After reviewing a number of options (Mozy, Crashplan, etc.) I ended up with JungleDisk too. I don't care about my music library, but I do have a photo library similar to yours -- just about 41gb. JungleDisk does incremental backups (only files that have changed) and can be configured to save X number of old versions for you. If you add their JungleDisk Plus service ($1/month) you get block-level and resumable backups, and web access to the files. But the thing that really sold me on JungleDisk was the bandwidth throttling -- during the day I could set it to something small (say 200kbps) so everyone else in the house can still do what they want online, while at night it has no limits.

    I use local backups too, but for ten years of valuable photographs, I want offsite storage too, and this is more convenient than cycling drives or tapes offline. I'm not thrilled that Rackspace bought them, but at least JungleDisk is just software, and uses Amazon/S3 instead of Rackspace's servers.

  24. The sick mouse -- and an obligatory IT video on Tales From the Support Crypt · · Score: 1

    My cousin came up to me during a holiday party and told me her web browser had become blurry ever since she plugged in a new mouse -- and she wondered if the new mouse (which needed no drivers) had installed some kind of virus.

    Meanwhile, one of those great tech support videos (sound absolutely required).

  25. Re:What about the recent ice storm in the Northeas on Storm Causes AT&T Outage Across Midwest · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I can believe this happens elsewhere on a more regular basis. The emergencies were from exactly what you said: snapped trees, downed powerlines, etc. My neighbor had one 40-foot elm split down the middle and land on his roof, and a similarly-sized maple tree uprooted from the weight of the ice -- as it fell, it took out the transformer on a nearby power pole, then landed on his truck. Ouch.