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  1. Re:Funny this was submitted by kdawson on Linus Calls Microsoft Hatred "a Disease" · · Score: 2, Informative

    The best example went to court where Fox argued that there was "nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization"; the Florida Appeals court agreed with that statement.

    As a result, Fox and all other US news organizations are fully within their right (in Florida at least) to make up anything they want.

    http://www.ceasespin.org/ceasespin_blog/ceasespin_blogger_files/fox_news_gets_okay_to_misinform_public.html

  2. Re:Repeatable SQL on PostgreSQL 8.4 Out · · Score: 1

    Take a look at the more general SAVEPOINT feature. They can be thought of as sub-transactions.

    Any transactional statement may have the exception caught and effects rolled back within the parent transaction but it will accommodate complex logic:

    BEGIN;

    SAVEPOINT trying_complex_action;
    DELETE ...
    UPDATE ...
    DELETE ...
    INSERT ...
    -- INSERT threw exception. Catch it!
    -- Determine this is the type (say unique value exception)
    -- we don't care about and get rid of this work
    -- continuing with the outer transaction.
    ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT trying_complex_action;

    I regularly use this to ignore unique value violations but still pass something like a bad date format upstream to the application. You can opt to rollback on all errors if you choose.

  3. Re:There is always an easier solution... on University Gives Away iPhones To Curb Truancy · · Score: 1

    Attendance is the most important aspect of their work environment too.

  4. Re:Google Maps to calculate costs on Your Commuting Costs By Car Vs. Train? · · Score: 1

    Indeed. A twin track railway can carry just as much as an 16 lane highway. Yonge line in Toronto carries roughly the same number of people through Wellesley as Highway 401 at the 400 interchange for a typical weekday).

    So, not just road building and maintenance but the loan on the land as well. Most 6 lane streets carry less people than a 2 lane LRT. If roads were built as 2 lane LRT and 2 lane for delivery of goods, bikers, etc.; we can sell 2 lanes for development.

    Development also means property taxes. So we're out both the capital at say 3% plus property taxes.

    Of course, for public transit to be useful you need something running every 5 to 10 minutes with stops every 1/3 mile in a mesh across the city.

  5. Re:50 people? No problem on Can a Small Business Migrate Smoothly To OpenOffice.org v3? · · Score: 1

    The real problem is that Excel doesn't cut it. It is the various add-ons that you buy for Excel that make it worth using.

    In order for Gnumeric to replace Excel it needs the same functionality as the finance addons, not straight Excel.

  6. Re:$400 a month? on Switching To Solar Power — Six Months Later · · Score: 1

    Fixtures can be removed if explicitly stated in the agreement, likewise chattels may be required to stay for the same reasons.

    With the number of disputes about what is a fixture or chattel (how about that stone walkway that isn't attached technically attached to the house or ground?) it is generally wise to be specific in your contract and not make assumptions based on what should be. Going to court over a stone walkway can be more expensive than replacing the walkway.

  7. Re:Not a suprise to anyone who has tried Chrome on Google Chrome Tops Browser Speed Tests · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not a web developer (just occassionaly only) but to that list of FireFox plugins you can add YSlow, HTML Validator, and an inline PDF reader (not external requiring full download of PDF first as 25% of what I view is PDFs).

    Also, I use Firefox on Mac OSX, FreeBSD, and Windows Vista and having a consistent browser is convenient -- though the PDF readers work better on some than others.

  8. Re:I am a chair. on Software Is Starting To Aid Mathematical Proofs · · Score: 1

    First we would need to determine the kind of chairs.

    Many an emperor has used their slaves as a seat.

    You may be in charge of a meeting at some point or an organization.

    There is a chance you have musical talent and could be in an orchestra.

    I think you should prove you are not a chair first because I'm pretty damn certain is someone offered you a substantial amount of money to act as a seat for a day, you would.

    Proving you are not a 4 legged wooden bar chair is fairly straight forward.

  9. Re:Who Chooses? on First Mars-Goers Should Prepare For a One-Way Trip · · Score: 1

    Lots and lots and lots of people remove load bearing walls to open up a space then flip the property. They bypass the current restrictions saying "don't do that".

    If we had much better full disclosure with sales of property, say engineers diagrams of the property which can be plugged into a simulator any home inspector could use, then it probably wouldn't be necessary. Put the actual house design diagrams on title beside the property survey.

  10. Re:Unlimited plans on Australian ISPs Claim Net Neutrality Is an 'American Problem' · · Score: 1

    They all offer unlimited plans. They tend to come with static IPs and cost a touch higher than $30 a month.

  11. Re:EULA Contents: on Mozilla Demanding Firefox Display EULA In Ubuntu · · Score: 1

    6. Export Controls - you must comply with teh law.
     
    Offensive. Why do I as a non-American care about American export laws? Why should I feel compelled to click "I agree" to something I disagree with?

    You don't care but the US government does care that Mozilla complies with US export controls. They comply by saying all of their users have agreed to comply.

    Whole thing is boiler plate with a few extras to appease the US government when residents of North Korea, Cuba, etc. use the encryption package in Mozilla.

    Move Mozilla Corp, and programmers in the sensitive bits, out of the US to Canada and these types of concerns disappear.

  12. Re:Isn't that bad for electronics? on The Google Navy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Google datacenters are pretty much disposable today. Build it once, run it for X years, then dump the entire thing. Repairs are less and less useful.

    Each rack could be an independently sealed bubble (airtight) with a few wires coming out the top for power and network connectivity, then hang the entire rack into a flooded compartment of the boat -- say a catamaran with a protective mesh bottom.

    With cooling requirements taken care of, powering the computers becomes quite a bit easier.

  13. Re:Checks suck on Too Easy For Bank Accounts To Spring a Leak · · Score: 1

    For business purposes, I record all cheques that go out (value, cheque number, date) and mark the clearing date when the withdrawl appears.

    I can match both the exact balance in the account and also know exactly how much should be withdrawn as I know which cheques have not gone through.

    Being a programmer, I wrote code to extract data from CSV statements my bank sends me but it would not be too hard to find a part time bookkeeper/data entry clerk ($14/hour here) to do it by hand.

  14. Re:Bring a database down? on Diagramming Tool For SQL Select Statements · · Score: 1

    No. That is a feature of the server and can be configured in postgresql.conf or on a per user basis (ALTER USER SET statement_timeout = ...).

    Just beware it applies to all statements. You may want to check those long running reports or maintenance queries.

  15. Re:Two systems? on Space Station Toilets Poop Out · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The water is recycled.

  16. Re:Benefit of a doubt? on NBC Activates Broadcast Flag · · Score: 2, Funny

    More importantly, this person knows not do to that. The new person they hire will not have received this training information.

  17. Re:Give me a Cappacino machine on HP Seals the Deal, Buys EDS For $14B · · Score: 1

    I guess the real trick is to do both. Install the machine and give a smaller raise.

    I support this and I don't drink coffee. A durian opener and frozen yogurt machine is something I might be enthusiastic about. Nothing like durian flavoured frozen yogurt in a waffle cone.

  18. Re:I'm Unimpressed on "Understanding" Search Engine Enters Public Beta · · Score: 1

    90% of the answer for most questions will be location or culture specific. It will need to determine, based on IP address or configuration options, the context for the question in order to give an appropriate response.

    For that person, the results were not appropriate making it a poor resource.

  19. Re:Now change the ZFS license SUN on MySQL Reverses Decision On Closed Source · · Score: 1

    I want freedom from having to understand and obey a multi-page license.

    GPL does not give me that freedom.

  20. Re:Unless they're off the grid it isn't 100% on First Town In US To Become 100% Wind Powered · · Score: 1

    If everybody in North America was 100% wind powered much of the continent would be without electricity for large periods of time.

    Some other predictable power sources (possibly even stored wind energy) is required for the times when the wind farms are below expected minimum capacity.

  21. Re:Language Magic Bullets on The Return of Ada · · Score: 1

    I don't know any of the specifics but an integer overflow is still very plausible.

    A remote device might have settings 1 through 10. Send it an 11 and it has problems. ADA is still perfectly capable of overflowing a remote device by a programmer not adhearing to a communication protocol even if the local machine sending commands isn't susceptible to overflows.

  22. Re:Does public release matter? on Acid3 Race In Full Swing, Opera Overtakes Safari · · Score: 1

    The public release of the LAST browser to meet ACID3 is the most important date. Shortly after that time is when you can begin actively using the features ACID3 is attempting to have fixed.

  23. Re:Secure Platform without Anti-virus on Archive Formats Kill Antivirus Products · · Score: 1

    Really? Any platform that allows you to execute binaries, scripts, or other code as a normal user with minimal permissions is going to be a problem.

    Oddly enough, people don't care about the OS. They care more about the data files in their home directory than anything else.

  24. Re:AdSense Terms now requires privacy policy on EU Approves Google-DoubleClick Merger · · Score: 1

    Besides, Google already knows everywhere you go and everything you do anyway through all of their other data acquisition methods. They collect enough to determine which referrals are real and which are fake, paying accordingly.

  25. Re:Capri Sun on Corkscrew Cups Could Keep Space Drinks Flowing · · Score: 1

    Which works great right up until a piece of graphite breaks off and floats into a control board causing a short circuit.