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Comments · 105

  1. Re:Pollution? on Mount St. Helens is WA state's No. 1 air polluter · · Score: 1

    Modern Environmentalism as it has come to be known regards man as a thing of naught. They seek to punish and torture humans in the name of "saving the Earth."

    I don't know if it's still like this, but I remember being indoctrinated in such things while going to Elementary School. I even once had a "Save the Planet" poster hanging in my room. Now I'm convinced that the planet doesn't need saving, it does a pretty good job of doing that itself.

    I'm not saying we should just trash the place up, but at the same time we should realize that the Earth has been going through all sorts of fluctuations and cycles of change for a very long time. It will continue to do so as a result of the way it is, or rather, the way it has developed. (Remember the Ice Age? How about all those dinosaurs that mysteriously just died out? Nature does that.)

  2. Re:Don't forget about typing skills... on The Illiteracy of Corporate American E-Mail · · Score: 2, Insightful
    "If you can't type fast enough, 'u' or 'ur' is easier than typing 'you' or 'your'. These people must just assume people don't mind reading that garbage."

    I remember the first time I got a message from someone who typed like this in or around 1997. It was a rather long message and I remember it took me twice as long to read it than normal writing would and reading it required a lot of extra effort. Good readers don't read letters or even words. Most people who read a lot read three or more words at a time and recognize the words by their shape and length.

    If you can't type fast enough to type complete words then you are just transferring the slowdown from yourself to the reader. I'm sure there is some physics-related law somewhere to explain this effect.

  3. AOLers advising corporate America? on The Illiteracy of Corporate American E-Mail · · Score: 2, Interesting
    "If you want to indicate stronger emphasis, use all capital letters and toss in some extra exclamation points."

    It's incredible that seemingly anyone can just write a book and by virtue of that alone be considered worthy of quoting on such topics. The example she gives is an even better indicator that she doesn't know what she's talking about:

    "Should I boost the power on the thrombo?
    "NO!!!! If you turn it up to eleven, you'll overheat the motors, and IT MIGHT EXPLODE!!"

    When I read this I imagine Doc Brown freaking out about the "1.21 Gigawatts" needed to power the flux capacitor. Besides, would anyone use email for something that time critical that it's acceptable in society to yell "NO!!!!" in their face and effectively slap their hands away from the controls? She only got two paragraphs in the story, but I think that was two more than she deserved.

  4. Still a "predilection?" on The Illiteracy of Corporate American E-Mail · · Score: 1
    "[Don] Morrison, [a CEO,] said, 'I liked long, convoluted passages rather than simple four-word sentences. And I had a predilection for underlining words and throwing in multiple exclamation points.'"

    I know this is probably a quote from his speech, so this isn't the Mr. Morrison's fault, but shouldn't that just be one sencence? Beginning a sentence with "and" is awkward at best and completely unnecessary in this instance.

    Also, predilection is a word that most people would hear and either think: "Wow! He's smart!" or, "Wasn't that the Word of the Day a while back?"

  5. The CEO is always right? on The Illiteracy of Corporate American E-Mail · · Score: 2, Interesting
    "Even CEOs need writing help..."

    No one dares to point out mistakes the Boss makes. Well, not in front of him, at least. Every message that I've seen from the CEO (excepting those written by their secretaries) usually has been worded very strangely. The grammar is usually good, but they tend to use and overuse uncommon words. They also tend to use words incorrectly, especially when they are trying to excite and encourage employees and others.

  6. Re:What worked for Bi-lingual daughter? on Too Many Computers Hurt Learning · · Score: 1

    I am majoring in Computational Linguistics. I recently came across an interesting article involving language acquisition. It talks about academic research and conclusions and then gives practical ways to overcome hinderances to learning a language or helping someone else learn a language other than those that are spoken natively in one's country.

    The basic assumption is that children don't necesarilly learn languages more easily than adults. Most studies compare children learning a first language to adults learning a second language. It turns out that most children take at least ten years to master their mother tongue. Most adults in a completely foreign nation without any way to fall back on their mother tongue will have better mastery of the second language in seven years than most ten year old children do of their first.

    According to the article it's very difficult to "encourage" a child to retain a language unless they have a close friend or a relative with whom they interact often that is not able to understand them otherwise. Once the child finds out that Dad speaks English to everyone else it all falls apart. That said, it's not impossible, just extremely difficult.

  7. Re:This is excellent on SNES Audio Unit As Stand-Alone Player · · Score: 1
    There is a band called The Advantage, that play nothing but covers of classic 8bit ninetintedo songs, and they play them well. the songs may have simple bases, but they are actually really good musicly.
    I'm interested in the band's music, but their website just hurts to look at and to try and navigate. Yikes!
  8. Sendmail support in the year 2468 on Postfix's Wietse Venema Interviewed · · Score: 2, Funny
    Indeed, one takes a grave responsibility when implementing yet another mail system. It adds to the burden of system administrators world-wide who have to care and feed the system until the end of time.
    I guess that explains why people still use Sendmail.
  9. Driver competence on Will Our Cars Become Our Chauffeurs? · · Score: 1

    This would be quite a breakthrough, but people will always need to have the option to be in control. The biggest problem I see with this aspect of the system is that new drivers will not have much of an opportunity to gain driving experience and thus will never be competent enough to take control when necessary. Similarly those who learned to drive the old-fashioned way will become worse and worse drivers until they, too will not be comfortable driving in manual mode.

  10. All or none on Will Our Cars Become Our Chauffeurs? · · Score: 1

    I think the easiest way to implement this would be if all the cars on the road were to be converted over night. Reality dictates this is nearly impossible, though. It will take much more time for a system like this to evolve to the point where it can work around all the standard vehicles on the road with which the autopilot cannot communicate.

  11. Re:Switchable on Will Our Cars Become Our Chauffeurs? · · Score: 1
    How much would a long haul semi-truck operation save if they could run their trucks 24/7 and didn't have to pay for drivers? That's a lot of profit to be had and profit drives innovation.
    Or the trucker's union would just keep it secret and have really cushy jobs like in the Simpsons episode Maximum Homerdrive where we learn all the trucks on the road today are on autopilot.
  12. Deep space Radar Telemetry on USAF Studies Teleportation · · Score: 2, Funny
    "...struck a raw nerve with physicists and critics of wasteful military spending."
    Just wait until they hear about the SGC and the rest of the Stargate program!
  13. PUOps on Coating Promises Scratch-Proof CDs, DVDs, LCDs · · Score: 1

    Truer than true. Prohibited user options are the bane of my existence (in those situations when someone wants the subtitles turned on, for instance, and you can't do it any other way than exiting to the menu and interrupting the movie).

  14. Re:What is so horrible about caddies? on Coating Promises Scratch-Proof CDs, DVDs, LCDs · · Score: 1

    Nothing is wrong with caddies to you and me. MiniDisc is pretty popular (or was at least) in Europe and Japan. BUT, they don't look modern enough and they're inherently bulkier than their caddyless counterparts. Kids don't like caddies, and that's what's seemingly the most important thing, not durability.

  15. Pirates Beware? on Coating Promises Scratch-Proof CDs, DVDs, LCDs · · Score: 1

    There go the claims that Disney CDs NEED to be backed up so your kids don't ruin them.

  16. Finally... on Coating Promises Scratch-Proof CDs, DVDs, LCDs · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can take my CDs to the beach!

  17. cease v. seize on Virtual Stuntmen Ready for Hollywood · · Score: 2, Informative
    cease
    1. To put an end to; discontinue.

    seize
    1. To grasp suddenly and forcibly; take or grab: seize a sword.
      1. To grasp with the mind; apprehend: seize an idea and develop it to the fullest extent.
      2. To possess oneself of (something): seize an opportunity.
      1. To have a sudden overwhelming effect on: a heinous crime that seized the minds and emotions of the populace.
      2. To overwhelm physically: a person who was seized with a terminal disease.
    2. To take into custody; capture.
    3. To take quick and forcible possession of; confiscate: seize a cache of illegal drugs.
    4. also seise
      1. To put (one) into possession of something.
      2. To vest ownership of a feudal property in.
    5. Nautical. To bind (a rope) to another, or to a spar, with turns of small line.
  18. Is this really news on Virtual Stuntmen Ready for Hollywood · · Score: 3, Interesting

    June 26, 2003
    The world's first virtual stuntmen, born out of an Oxford University zoologist's research into human motion, will make their debut next year in the film "Troy," according to a press release issued this week by the university.


    I thought this site was supposed to be News for nerds. This story is over a year old.

  19. Science v. Religion? on The Eye: Evolution versus Creationism · · Score: 1

    Science searches for tangible provable truth. Religion searches for proof that cannot be measured scientifically. How science and religion are related to one another may be debated. Neither is competing with the other. God never said he didn't create evolution, and evolution doesn't say there is no God. Assuming the God of the Bible exists, I don't believe he would want arguments to ensue about details he never revealed to us. We are given to learn and to think and to debate, but disputation that leads to hatred is not good for anybody.

    Religion and Science are not competing for a monopoly on truth.

  20. mplayer modularity on VectorLinux 4.3 - Rocket Fueled Slackware · · Score: 1

    I agree that projects like mplayer, SDL, etc, would do well to make it so one doesn't have to recompile for each option. Maybe a config file specification to locations of certain .so files along with options to enable or disable certain vo and ao drivers and the like would be a more modular solution. But it doesn't fix the problem, because numerous programs still requre recompilation to get certain unctionality out of them.

  21. Re:Actually a *big* problem on VectorLinux 4.3 - Rocket Fueled Slackware · · Score: 1

    The reason I like compiling from source is that I don't have to rely on someone else packaging something for me. The other issue I've run into is when a program needs to be compiled with certain options to make it do what I want (mplayer and SDL are both good examples) and packaging systems just don't tend to offer enough flexibility in that regard.

  22. Re:Actually a *big* problem on VectorLinux 4.3 - Rocket Fueled Slackware · · Score: 1
    I believe the program you are thinking of (or at least the only one I know of) is called checkinstall. I've used Debian before and I thought it was great. Debian's got a lot going for it, but what about when all you want to do is upgrade something like SDL to the newest or CVS version on a system? Debian's package manager will wipe out EVERYTHING (if you want to build from source) that relied on SDL! Instead of
    ./configure
    make
    sudo make install
    you just do a
    ./configure
    make
    sudo checkinstall
    and you're good to go. Makes a Slackware package (says it can also make Debian packages, but I can't vouch for how well that works) that can easily be managed with pkgtool, etc. Checkinstall is available as a slackware package from the extra directory on Slackware mirrors.
  23. Re:Proneenciation? on Linus Interviewed · · Score: 1
    I have an Uncle named Linus who was born and raised in the USA by parents who were born and raised in the USA, and his name is pronounced Linn-us. I always thought the Peanuts character's name was the same until I was old enough to see a cartoon where it was pronounced differently. When I started with Linux in '96 I naturally pronounced it like my Uncle Linus' name. I think what comes most naturally to most American English speakers are Leye-nus and Linn-ux though. Linn-ux just feels easier to say to me. But what do I know? I pronounce the K in Knoppix like any German speaker would (I speak German, too) but I don't pronounce the G in GNOME. Don't even get me started on how to pronounce:
    /etc/fstab
    /usr
    /src
    I don't know if there are any "standards" out that explain how to verbalize such concepts. I always find myself having to explain to others exactly what I mean when I try to pronounce those my way.
  24. Cheap Space Travel = Lots of Dead People on Planning Phase Complete For Indian Moon Mission · · Score: 1

    If many countries suddenly decide to start sending cheap space vehicles to the Moon, there will be a lot more debris from the inevitably high failure rate of the missions. That said, the actual number of successes would like ly dwarf the number of successful US moon landings and colonization and possible control of the Moon would likely not end up in US hands. Maybe the US will get in on this soon enough to keep that from happening though.

  25. Re:Star Wars on Sky Captain and the Films of Tomorrow · · Score: 1

    I'm guess I'm an "old fogey," too! I'm only 23, but if you say Star Wars I don't think of Jar Jar, I think of Chewbacca. I think of Luke, not Anakin, and I think of the REAL Obi-Wan Kenobi!