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User: AttilaSz

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  1. Maybe conventional explosives would work too on BP Says "Top Kill" Operation Has Failed · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It might also be possible to do it using a bomb or bombs with conventional explosives. The biggest current US conventional explosive bombs might be as effective as some smaller nukes. It's not implausible that they're as effective as the nukes Soviets used in the
    '60s and '70s oil leak bombings.

    That'd probably make the nuke-worried people a bit less worried. Although the thing to realize is that, really, the contamination from that nuclear explosion would still be orders of magnitude less than what the oil spill will cause if it's left untreated for much longer. So, if it calls for a nuke, then nuke it should be.

    Funny how there's a bunch of SF movies where we use nukes to avert a catastrophe, although it's almost exclusively of the "asteroid will hit Earth" variety. Well, here we have a different scenario on our hands, and it's real, and it needs to be solved soon.

  2. Re:Ok.. now if there were OSS engines of this qual on Crytek Plans Free Version of CryENGINE 3 · · Score: 1

    Best to have a talent for hiring people with abilities you lack.

  3. Re:Electric Shock on How Do You Get Users To Read Error Messages? · · Score: 3, Funny

    "'ll get it fixed ASAP"

    After all, it's a piece of cake.

  4. Re:As far as misleading headlines go on Chuck Norris Attacks Linux-Based Routers, Modems · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yes, he is played by Bruce Schneier.

  5. Re:As far as misleading headlines go on Chuck Norris Attacks Linux-Based Routers, Modems · · Score: 1

    The only legal action Chuck Norris takes is one where he is the judge, the jury, and the executioner.

  6. Re:Try lack of jurisdiction on Chuck Norris Attacks Linux-Based Routers, Modems · · Score: 1

    Yes, their major problem will be Chuck Norris coming after them.

  7. Re:Try lack of jurisdiction on Chuck Norris Attacks Linux-Based Routers, Modems · · Score: 1

    No international boundary can stop Chuck Norris.

  8. Re:Spell Checking on Students Failing Because of Poor Grammar · · Score: 1

    And some don't even bother running a spell checker, i.e. you :-)

  9. Prohibit pictures of people killing on Man in Court Over Simpsons Porn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So why don't they make it illegal to possess a picturing of any crime being committed, even if the portrayal is completely fictional? Like, I dunno, people beating up, or killing other people. That should be completely eradicated from movies now, don't you think?

    Sheesh...

  10. Five year cycle on Gnome Switches Nautilus Back To Browser Mode · · Score: 1

    Maybe they just operate on a five-year cycle; just wait when in 2014 they'll announce that spatial was actually better, and they'll return to it yet again.

  11. Webcam stripper? on FTC, Google Go After Scammers · · Score: 2, Informative

    "... Kate Lister, author of Undress for Success — The Naked Truth about Making Money at Home..."

    Admit it, your first thought was "webcam stripper". Mine was :-)

    The website at http://undress4success.com/ is actually quite interesting.

    And, no, it ain't a webcam stripper :-)

  12. Re:Can you actually do anything useful? on Commodore 64 Runs Again On the iPhone · · Score: 1

    Yes. You could have dusted off a computer magazine from the '80s and then type in by hand a game you found in one of them. On the on-screen keyboard. You could probably accomplish this in few days of typing.

    (For those too young to remember, computer magazines in the '80s sometime published printed source code for small games that the readers could type in by hand to play the games.)

    That's why Apple's objection was stupid.

  13. Engine of job creation on Genentech Puts Words In the Mouths of Congress Members · · Score: 1

    “One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country.”

    So was the chemical industry in Germany in 1940s. Appealing to these arguments is a very weak justification, IMHO. The Big Pharma can certainly hire some better speech writers than this.

  14. Shocking news: PowerPC CPUs not supported either on Mac OS X 10.6.2 Will Block Atom Processors · · Score: 1

    So, you think you have it bad that your Atom Hackintosh will forever stay on 10.6.1?

    Guess what, my PowerPC *genuine* Mac will forever stay on 10.5.8.

    Apple is often not supportive even of older hardware they sold few years ago.

    Examples:

    As mentioned, Mac OS X 10.6.0 doesn't support the PowerPC CPUs while the 10.5.x did. I have a fairly strong (even by today's standards), last generation G5 PowerPC Mac that I bought in December 2005 (one month before they confirmed the Intel switchover rumors) that is now doomed to never run Snow Leopard. I could now go around and holler "APPLE BASTARDS BLOCKED PowerPC IN 10.6.0", right?

    Or I could be annoyed by the fact that even when Leopard came out, PPC experience was already "downscaled" compared to Intel Leopard - i.e. no Java 6, no support for certain HD video codecs, etc.

    Heck, not even Macs with 32-bit Intel CPUs could have Java 6 under Leopard. Curiously, they do in Snow Leopard, but I digress.

    Recent news was that on some older (2006) Intel Mac models (some of them already 64-bit), you won't be able to install Windows 7 via BootCamp. (This one I don't care much about, but some people certainly will.)

    As you can see, even their own hardware gets left in the dust. I'm not ruling out deliberate malice on their part, but I'd rather assume they recompiled the kernel and libraries with compiler options that benefit their current CPU lineup the most, and it turned out to be incompatible with Atom, and they shrugged and said, "so what? We aren't supporting any hardware with Atom CPU anyway". Even if they did it deliberately, they can just claim that they did it as an effort to optimize performance for their current hardware.

    At the end of the day, there's many more Hackintoshes out there than just Atom-CPU based ones, why would they go after specifically after the Atom ones? Those aren't even competition to Apple's hardware business - Apple doesn't have a netbook offering, and they don't consider MacBook Air to be one. People buying a netbook aren't a market Apple targets.

    So, I think it's much more plausible that end of (accidentally working until now) Atom support is being a collateral effect of them doing some improvements. However, if it's not deeply baked in, then I'm sure the Hackintosh crowd will manage to get around it.

    In any case, they have much better chances of it than me seeing Snow Leopard on my PowerPC Mac.

  15. Re:Saying double u double u double u a billion tim on Tim Berners-Lee Is Sorry About the Slashes · · Score: 1

    I use "triple double you" when I need to express "www" verbally in English.

    In all other languages that I speak, "we we we" works better.

  16. MOD PARENT UP! on A New Explanation For the Plight of Winter Babies · · Score: 1

    Man, that's a brilliant positive feedback loop!

  17. Re:Astroturfers Wanted on Twitter To Add Money-Making Features · · Score: 1

    Yeah, yeah, we got it; you work for Apple.

  18. Re:Astroturfers Wanted on Twitter To Add Money-Making Features · · Score: 2, Informative

    They wouldn't gain much with ads.

    About 80% of Twitter's traffic is through their API (3rd party Twitter apps pulling content and rendering on their own), and only 20% through their website. They couldn't really enforce various Twitter clients to display ads when they pull tweets over the API, so Twitter can't really be monetized by ads. (OTOH, some 3rd party Twitter apps are ad-supported and display ads in their UI).

  19. Re:AK47? on Police Swarm Bungie Office Over Halo Replica Rifle · · Score: 1

    president != precedent

    This place is ripe with eggcorns!

  20. Re:Rejected on C64 Emulator Finally Approved For iPhone · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, Apple yanked the app because of the BASIC interpreter hole, and the developers have plugged it and resubmitted the app.

    Way to go, Apple. I mean, what harm could that BASIC interpreter do? It has no means of loading external code - no access to local filesystem of the underlying OS, no network connectivity, nothing. Are they afraid I'll manually type-in a program from a listing published in a magazine or something?

    I got tons more "sense of childlike wonder" from toying with the interpreter than I could ever from playing Jack Attack and Dragon's Den combined!

    Sheesh...

  21. Re:Stay classy on Snow Leopard Drops Palm OS Sync · · Score: 1

    Support for legacy technologies gets dropped all the time.

    One of the reasons I switched to Mac back in 2005 is that iSync could seamlessly sync iCal and Address Book to/from my (then already) ancient Ericsson R520m phone. Note it's not even *Sony* Ericsson, just plain old standalone Ericsson before Sony's involvement. Attempts to sync data between it and my Windows PC before that were frustrating to the point of pulling my hair out.

     

    So, I was extremely glad they didn't drop that. I don't have Snow Leopard yet, but I bet its iSync will still support Ericsson R520m. Reason? Sony-Ericsson ain't screwing with Apple like Palm does, violating the USB specification by faking the Pre's vendor ID. Make no mistake, this was political decision. Whether it's smart on Apple's part, I don't know.

     

    In any case, Palm users aren't completely out in the cold. To continue my iSync story, I eventually switched to a Sony Ericsson W850i that at the time didn't have native sync support with iSync. Guess what, I was able to buy a 3rd party iSync plugin for, like, 2 EUR that enabled the syncing. iSync actually has a plugin architecture. So I'm sure someone will step in and fill the void - here I agree with you.

     

    If I'm pissed at Apple for something, I'm pissed that they don't have iSync for iPhone in order to strong-arm people into a MobileMe subscription.

  22. Profit! on How the Pirate Bay Will Be Legalized · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1. Create a moderately funny home video. Heck, create crappy home video.
    2. Upload to PirateBay
    3. Instruct your 1000+ machine BitTorrent botnet to download it 24/7
    4. Ask GGF to pay royalties for downloads.
    5. Profit!

  23. Distinguishing from Bing on Google Apps Leave Beta · · Score: 1

    Maybe they want to start distinguishing their services from Microsoft's Bing? "Our products are stable, not like that Bing thing; it's still in beta"

  24. Re:The other %1? on Most Complete Topographical Map of Earth Complete · · Score: 1

    European football, or American football?

  25. Re:Larry effect again? on Apple Removes Nearly All Reference To ZFS · · Score: 1

    That's true. All I said is that Apple wouldn't drop ZFS just because it became Larry Ellison's property (which is what OP suggested). There might be other legitimate business reasons to drop it though. I personally suspect Apple engineers hit a technical problem that'd jeopardize Snow Leopard deadline, and had to make a no-go decision. Or maybe its legal has problems with licensing, although CDDL shouldn't be a problem, so that's less likely IMHO.