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User: jonbryce

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  1. Re:And the summary is an example of that hyping on Global Warming Endangered by Hot Air? · · Score: 1

    Here in England, you could either describe it as the warmest winter on record, or perhaps more accurately say that we never had a winter - it jump straight from Autumn to Spring.

  2. Re:Is Germany allowed to patent software? on Germany Rejects Microsoft FAT Patent · · Score: 1

    Where the invention is solely a computer program, or a method of carrying on business, a patent may not be granted under EU law. However, the fact that an invention may involve the use of a computer program does not in itself prevent a patent from being granted if there is some non-software related inventive step.

  3. Re:wacky, stupid, hypocritical .... on Five Things You Can't Discuss about Linux · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why are you sick of hearing that linux is a kernel? It is a statement of fact.

    ntoskrnl.exe is a kernel, which is used as part of the Windows operating system. Darwin is a kernel, which is used as part of the MacOSX operating system, and can be used elsewhere as well.

    The difference in the operating systems that linux is used in, is that there are many different variants available, from the ones used in picture frames to the ones in supercomputers and everything in between.

  4. Re:Some of this is just wacky on Five Things You Can't Discuss about Linux · · Score: 1

    To be fair on Microsoft, Visual Studio Express does provide about half of what you are looking for; but nevertheless, your point is valid.

  5. Re:What spam? on SEC Halts Trading on Spam Driven Stocks · · Score: 1

    You need to already own the shares to do that. And the sort of companies they pick on are small caps where it is unlikely that you already own then.

  6. Re:What spam? on SEC Halts Trading on Spam Driven Stocks · · Score: 1

    That's what a lot of the victims think. In reality, it doesn't work like that.

  7. Re:Should we be continuing this fallacy? on Google's Academic TB Swap Project · · Score: 2, Informative

    The other primary place where the prefixes are in use is RAM chips, and they do use 2^10 rather than 10^3.

  8. Re:ya but.. on Sun May Be Warming Both Earth and Mars · · Score: 1

    There is a big difference between general weather trends - cold & wet in winter / warm & sunny in summer, and specific short term forecasts - 25mm of rainfall between 07:38 and 10:23, 16C wind blowing 23.8km/h WWE.

  9. Re:Sounds complicated on University Migrating Students to Windows Live Mail? · · Score: 1

    The art / graphic design department, if they have one, will almost certainly use macs.

  10. Re:Who modded that informative? on University Migrating Students to Windows Live Mail? · · Score: 1

    It flags the email as not to be presented to pop3 clients again, but leaves it on the server. I think it also marks the mail as read.

  11. Re:Encouraging companies to overemphasize tests on Microsoft OneCare Last in Antivirus Tests · · Score: 1

    A new computer I looked at recently, from Toshiba, had Norton installed with Vista, not OneCare.

  12. Re:Old Viruses on Microsoft OneCare Last in Antivirus Tests · · Score: 1

    No, because email viruses are a nuisance in an Outlook 2007/Vista inbox even if they don't do anything other than take up space.

  13. Re:Old Viruses on Microsoft OneCare Last in Antivirus Tests · · Score: 1

    E mail viruses are a pain even if you are running linux, as you have to identify and delete them when looking for legit mail. That is why I have virus scanning as part of my spam filtering setup. I run the virus scan before the whitelist check, and run the spam analysis stuff afterwards.

  14. Re:No mention of DRM on Is Vista a Trap? · · Score: 1

    No realplayer streaming means you can't listen to BBC radio stations, and this is an article on the BBC site, so it is relevant.

  15. Re:Oh Come On... on Windows For Warships Nearly Ready · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Northern Ireland perhaps?

    Britain tends to support the unionists who want NI to stay part of the UK. The US tends to support the republicans who want NI to become part of a united Ireland.

  16. Re:Fedora Responds on Raymond Knocks Fedora, Switches to Ubuntu · · Score: 1

    But it appears that ESR is going for Linspire, which is now based on Ubuntu rather than plain Debian, and has lots of non-free software.

  17. Re:Open up your networks! on RIAA Victim Wins Attorney's Fees · · Score: 1

    That would depend on what the letter says. If the letter says "the account is being used share music unlawfully, can you tell us its owner" then probably not, as the account was being used to share music unlawfully.

  18. Re:Odd... on Teacher Avoids Getting Sent to Siberia For Piracy · · Score: 1

    In many countries, only commercial copyright violation is a criminal offence. Non commercial violations, such as giving a CDr to a friend are a civil matter.

    If it the same in Russia, then it makes perfect sense that it was dismissed because the financial damage was too insignificant.

  19. Re:Not as a false positive, but nasty anyway. on Are AV False Positives Hurting You? · · Score: 1

    I've yet to find a virus scanner that doesn't detect VNC as a remote access trojan. Yes, I know it allows people who know the password and are on the LAN to access my computer remotely. That's why I installed it.

  20. Re:I'll take the Off-topic hit for this on Could Open Source Lead to a Meritocratic Search Engine? · · Score: 1

    The Search Engine Optimisation expert gets the money. One of the things he will likely do is make the site compliant with the W3C's accessibility guidelines, as this will likely improve search ranking. That does benefit society as a whole. But other techniques such as url cloaking and keyword stuffing do not benefit society as a whole, so having scarce resources devoted to these tasks is suboptimal as far as the economy is concerned.

  21. Google may not be the best choice on Accurate Browser Statistics? · · Score: 1

    as it is the default search engine for pretty much every browser except internet explorer. A lot of ie users do change their search engine settings to google, but many will stick with live.com or msn.

  22. Re:This doesn't matter with regard to wind power. on Storing Wind Power In Cold Stores · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, they can do this without using wind power, and they probably do. That isn't the point though.

    The point is that the output of a wind generator is pretty erratic and unpredictable, and this limits the % of total electricity that this source can supply.

    If you have a power input that can take an erratic and unpredictable electricity supply and still function effectively, then this increases the % of electricity that can be supplied by wind turbines.

  23. Re:Access to proprietary software and codecs on Canonical and Linspire Make a Deal · · Score: 1

    Well you can't play DVDs on a newly purchased windows installation either, so what's the difference there?

  24. Re:Sand dunes on One Laptop Per Child Security Spec Released · · Score: 1

    I do however have excel browse the web for today's stock prices, and push the values into an access database containing my financial information. This is of course what Bill Gates had in mind when he introduced this functionality. The difficult bit is letting me do this without it also doing what you describe above.

  25. Re:At least Apple is consistent, I guess... on Jobs Favors DRM-Free Music Distribution · · Score: 1

    That doesn't mean that there won't be any difference between an mp3d aac and an mp3d cda track. The loss of quality with the acc compression may be so small to be unnoticeable, but it might be noticeable when you add it to the additional loss of quality from the mp3 compression.