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User: amliebsch

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  1. Re:I still don't get it on New Blow for Microsoft in EU Row · · Score: 1

    If Microsoft has a monopoly in the PC Desktop market (despite the plentiful availability of alternatives) then why doesn't Apple has a monopoly in the PMP market (despite the plentiful availability of alternatives)? The market share is essentially the same.

  2. Re:I still don't get it on New Blow for Microsoft in EU Row · · Score: 1

    Ummm...Did you actually click the link? Try it, and see how long it takes you to find the link for the download without iTunes. Whether or not Apple is a monopoly, this is the same kind of sleazy trickery that Real pulled, and it doesn't reflect favorably on Apple.

  3. Re:Sysadmining by voice on Voice Recognition for a Techie? · · Score: 2, Funny

    Umm...isn't an "L" a hockey stick? Unless I'm woefully misinformed about the nature of hockey pucks, that is.

  4. Re:Write it yourself on Voice Recognition for a Techie? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Parent is on the right track, for sure. Microsoft may be evil, but their speech API is truly easy to use. Also, if you are willing to use Windows, Windows XP Tablet Edition comes out of the box with relatively full-featured voice command and dictation capabilities built into the OS. With a little training, it can probably do most of what you require. I have in the past actually used it to dictate an entire paper. In fact, I used it to write this post. Once you get used to getting all the proper punctuation commands, it is possible to dictate at a fairly good rate of speed.

  5. Re:of course not on Mafia Boss Using Crook Crypto Captured · · Score: 1

    7zip isn't really necessary. Windows has built-in file encryption using EFS.

  6. Re:On top of what? on Burst.com Sues Apple Over Patent Infringement · · Score: 1

    Those figures are big because our economy is big, and presenting them out of context doesn't tell the true story. The UK, for example, is next on the list of external debt with $7,107,000,000,000, roughly 80% of ours, but with a GDP barely 10% of ours! Or consider Japan's debt as a percentage of its GDP - 170%! Compared to ours at roughly 65%, who is in a better situation? Is a millionaire who owes $100,000 in worse financial trouble than a worker with no savings who owes $10,000 simply because $100,000 > $10,000? Our GDP per capita is very high, and public debt as a percentage of GDP is average worldwide (and has been much worse at other times in our history). Doom and gloomers have been predicting disaster for the U.S. my entire life. We go through ups and we go through downs, but disaster is unlikely, and I'm starting to question the motives of those who would have me believe otherwise.

  7. Re:It makes perfect sense. on Duke Nukem Sheds Light on Brain · · Score: 1

    Valve has some really nice editing tools for both the original Half-Life and now HL2.

  8. Re:Lawsuit mushroom clouds rise over remains of US on Burst.com Sues Apple Over Patent Infringement · · Score: 1

    Ah, that old chestnut. The USA has been "falling behind" for, what, 30 years now? Yet somehow, we always seem to end up back out front. Strange, that...

  9. Re:"It's the waste, stupid." on Environmentalists Coming Around to Nuclear Power? · · Score: 1

    I disagree. The waste problem may not have any easy solutions, but it is definitely a manageable problem. There are several practical ways to dispose of it in a safe manner. The problem is you're judging nuclear power against a utopian ideal - the perfect power source which emits nothing anywhere! - instead of our present solutions - giant furnaces burning mind-boggling amounts of coal and belching huge quantities of greenhouse gasses, particulate matter, and radiactive particles into the atmosphere.

  10. Re:the problem on Environmentalists Coming Around to Nuclear Power? · · Score: 1
    Unfortunately, that's something the right wing is opposed to because the consider it a proliferation risk.

    You mean like that infamous, right-wing nut Jimmy Carter?

  11. Re:Nuclear power is viable.. on Environmentalists Coming Around to Nuclear Power? · · Score: 1
    Trucking it across the country to Nevada is NOT a good plan to dispose of these.

    Why? Hazardous stuff is trucked every day with a very good safety record. The casks they use can survive truly ludicrous amounts of abuse. And the amount of material we are talking about is actually quite small.

  12. Re:Old is New, Even Propaganda on Environmentalists Coming Around to Nuclear Power? · · Score: 1
    It was about nuclear power and gave a number of documented examples about how certain key environmentalists were very pro-nuclear (because it reduces reliance on dams, coal, oil, etc.) until they made some key political alliances and changed their stance.

    It's a long observed phenomenon that even has a name: the Red-Green Alliance. (No, not that Red Green.) It was an easy alliance for the greens to fall into, because opposition to specific development and promotion of sustainability can very easily and quickly morphs into opposition to capitalism and promotion of socialist policy. Throw in an intense desire to modify the behavior of people by force, and an alliance is born.

  13. Re:290-29,000 year HALF LIFE, not "gone-by date" on Environmentalists Coming Around to Nuclear Power? · · Score: 1
    Uh, no. Radioactive waste is made of many different isotopes. Some have a half-life of 290 years, and some of it has a half-life of 29,000 years.

    He was more right than you are. The more energetic the radioactive decay is (the most relavent characteristic of dangerousness), the more rapid the decay. Substances with extremely long half-lifes are usually only weakly radioactive, or emit low-energy alpha particles which cannot even penetrate a sheet of paper.

  14. Re:Journalism 101 on Censored Wikipedia Articles Appear On Protest Site · · Score: 1
    There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of allegedly innocent people who were executed in the US during the 20th century, many of them on the assumption that it is "reasonable" to assume a black man is a criminal.

    Fixed that for you.

  15. Re:Couple of questions on Aero To Be Unavailable To Pirates · · Score: 3, Insightful
    You all miss the point. All 2nd/3rd party applications will sooner or later start depending on Aero.

    That's just silly. Aero is a theme, not a technology. How many applications require the use of the XP "Luna" theme and refuse to run in "classic" mode?

  16. Re:Blowing Hot Air on Global Warming Dissenters Suppressed? · · Score: 2, Insightful
    You should explain that you're counting water vapor

    Why wouldn't you count water vapor? If you're talking about "greenhouse gasses," why would there be an assumption that water vapor "doesn't count?"

  17. Re:The case against DRM on Real Networks to Linux - DRM or Die · · Score: 1
    but consumers forced to extraordinary lenghts to get the things we want without having to be beholden big media over and over again.

    That's perfectly fine with the companies, because most people's time is valuable enough to them that they're not willing to spend an hour recording, slicing, and renaming captured audio streams to save five bucks. Circumvention doesn't have to be absolutely prevented, it only has to be a hassle.

    The inevitable car analogy: your car can be broken into whether you lock it or not. Would you therefore buy a car without locks? Probably not, because you know that at least locking the doors makes it a big enough hassle to steal things from the inside that most people won't bother.

  18. Re:IMHO Kyoto is dead anyway. on Where Computers Go To Die · · Score: 1
    GDP is completely meaningless. GDP is all about how much money is generated.

    No, that's completely and idiotically wrong. GDP is not a measurement of money, it is a measurement of wealth, specifically, wealth creation. If your real argument is against wealth and all the comforts it provides, then that is a legitimate argument, I guess, but a bit harder to make than simply to deny that anything of value is produced by that energy consumption.

  19. Re:IMHO Kyoto is dead anyway. on Where Computers Go To Die · · Score: 1

    But when you're dealing with the question of limited resources, and the question is how to most effeciently allocate those resources, you must balance the cost of prevention against the cost of treatment. If it is truly the case as you say, that no amount of incremental energy efficiency or conservation can work, the cost of prevention is staggeringly high with a probability that it may not work, and the cost of dealing with the problem looks much lower, with a probability that it may not be necessary. If that assessment is correct, then the rational course of action is to minimize or ignore the possibility of prevention and instead focus on adaptation.

  20. Re:A big reason Apple doesn't want to sell OS X on Bunk Camp - Apple Gets It Wrong? · · Score: 1

    Are you certain that neither of your devices is malfunctioning? Having a certified design does not protect you from bad product.

  21. Re:Actually Woz was the more important Steve ... on I, Woz · · Score: 1
    They don't, like most of us, blunder through the life taking the path of least resistance and rationizing their decisions after the fact.

    I agree with a lot of what you say, but honestly, what is this: "I wanted to work on a computer at my company and they turned me down. When you think about it, every time they turned me down, it was fortunate for the world and it was fortunate for myself," if not rationalizing after the fact?

  22. Re:Obligatory statement about Earth climate change on Venus Probe Set to Reach Target · · Score: 1

    Perhaps the intent was to insinuate that if we don't Act Soon, we'll end up just like Venus.

  23. Nuke The Moon on NASA's $73 Million Water-Finding Trick · · Score: 0, Flamebait
  24. Re:Its still illegal on Apple vs Bloggers · · Score: 1

    It absolutely does if that knowledge is an element of the crime itself. Example: the difference between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. Notably, most possession laws do not require knowledge of possession as an element of the offense.

  25. Re:Its still illegal on Apple vs Bloggers · · Score: 1

    Keep in mind, that only applies to conversion of trade secrets, which would probably require actual knowledge that the published information was actually a trade secret.