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User: teflaime

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  1. Re:Wait on The FCC Says ISPs Aren't Hitting Advertised Speeds · · Score: 1

    We can't FIOS in central Illinois. Actually, we can't get Verizon anymore - they sold all their phone and internet accounts in the area to Frontier (which has developed an abysmal reputation for their DSL, which is slower than advertised (and it's only advertised at the 700kb level) and has been unavailable more than 10 days last year in some parts of town. Which, to my mind, is absolutely awful. Comcast is better than Frontier, which is the only reason I have it.

  2. Re:Wait on The FCC Says ISPs Aren't Hitting Advertised Speeds · · Score: 4, Funny

    They still are. They just hide their packet shaping from burst speed tests pretty well.

  3. It would seem on Plagiarism Inc. · · Score: 5, Insightful

    that given Mr. Kavoosi's lack of basic vocabulary knowledge, it's a good thing that he hires other people to write the papers he sells. Someone one who doesn't know what the word 'ethical' actually means would probably have a hard time writing papers that use other large words. Unless, perhaps, they were writing papers for business classes...

  4. Industry averages? on How Many Admins Per User/Computer Have You Seen? · · Score: 1

    I read a couple of years ago from somthing study that Usenix did that the industry average of servers per admin was 60ish for Unix and a little 80ish for Windows. In the shops I have worked in, the average of *nix servers to admin has usually been between 40 and 50. The average of Windows server per admin has been closer to 80-90. But that's because those shops simply had more Windows servers for nominal functions (DCs, wins servers, etc.) The numbers of users per server directly served on the *nix side was typically higher because you had fewer backend process type servers for the Unix side than you did for the Windows side.

  5. Re:Paranoid about control on While My Guitar Gently Beeps · · Score: 1

    This is all true. But the reason that copyright is no longer effective at protecting work is that people lose respect for copyrights when they are extended essentially forever. Return copyright to 20 or 40 years, and I believe people would be a lot more respectful of it. Moreover, a larger number of people would be willing to support harsher penalties for copyright infringment if it were considerably shorter, IMO.

  6. Lacking in sensile associations on California To Move To Online Textbooks · · Score: 1

    One of the problems with online textbooks is that they lack any sensile association. Sensile associations help people remember. Remember the smell of that musty textbook, and you have a much better chance of recalling what was in that musty textbook. Remember the feel of that shiny textbook page, you are more likely to recall what was on the page. If we cut out the sensile area of recall, all the evidence I've seen points to lower retention and poorer learning of subjects.

  7. Re:Creating A Problem. on ZigBee Pro, the New Home Automation Standard? · · Score: 1

    We just have to trust the utilities to use their power for good instead of evil.

    You are placing an inordinate amount of trust in a group that we can pretty much assume is evil.

  8. Re:red and white wine? on Wine Project Frustration and Forking · · Score: 1

    It took 3 years for vineyards producing primarily Merlot to recover from that 1 off the cuff statement that Giamatti adlibbed because they needed filler...

    Ironically, the prized bottle that he digs out of his closet at the end of the movie? It's a Merlot/Grenache blend, heavy on the Merlot.

  9. Re:Never Re:When? on Wine Project Frustration and Forking · · Score: 1

    Really? What's it called?

    Windows XP SP3?

  10. Re:We don't need Sony though! on Sony CEO Proposes "Guardrails For the Internet" · · Score: 1

    No, but Amazon does have a habit of dropping things (other peoples POD books, for instance) that don't make them money. Given that Amazon is still supporting the download store, one would surmise that they are making some sort of profit from it.

  11. What makes anyone think on Has MySQL Forked Beyond Repair? · · Score: 1

    that Oracle (Larry Ellison, really) WANTS to be the "right" side of the MySQL fork wars? It's fully possible that Oracle bought Sun to eliminate the current largest source of MySQL contract support, isn't it? I mean, let's face it...that's exactly the sort of think Ellison is known for (see PeopleSoft).

  12. Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. on Sony Pictures CEO Thinks the Net Wasn't Worth It · · Score: 1

    We don't need massive quantities of TV. We need TV that is engaging enough to give us our fill very quickly and leave time for something else (and time seems to be the one thing our society can't find enough of any more). I enjoy The Universe (a history channel documentary series about astronomy) because it is both interesting and generally well made. I enjoyed the Lord of the Rings series of movies, for a similar reason (extremely well made, and a captivating plot. Although the books are still better). I wish things of this caliber were frequently shown. But instead, when I turn on the TV (which is often an exercise in futility), I see very few shows that are worth my time. I stopped turning to channels other than discovery, history, science, and national geographic. I often turn on the TV, look at even *those* channels, see nothing interesting and turn the TV off.

    Then you should support getting the FCC to force cable companies to offer individual subscriber plans where you only get the channels you want.

  13. Re:Freedom not Protection from Ignorance on Trademarks Considered Harmful To Open Source · · Score: 1

    1) software shouldn't be patentable. It's a bunch of lines of code. Copywrite the bastich, but the thoughts of patents are stupid. 2) how do you figure OSS will become slavery without trademark?

  14. Re:Wrong on More Fake Journals From Elsevier · · Score: 1

    >I went in for bronchitis, and I came out with a prescription for a generic antibiotic, and a prescription for Prilosec. Mazarin5, if you use Google to search for bronchitis and acid reflux, you will find pages that mention acid reflux as a possible cause for bronchitis. It's possible that the doc who treated you thought that your bronchitis was caused by GERD or stomach acid making its way up into your esophagus. He wasn't trying to give you random pills just to make the drug rep happy. There is a connection between acid reflux and bronchitis. I am not an expert on this topic so I encourage you to do your own research with Google.

    Or, maybe better, perhaps you should take an active interest in your healthcare and ASK your doctor what each prescription is for and why he is giving them to you?

  15. More evidence... on Baby Monitors Killing Urban Wi-Fi · · Score: 4, Funny

    that children do not belong on the internet!

  16. Re:How is hyperbole on Do We Really Need a National Climate Service? · · Score: 1

    the only good use of ethanol is human consumption!

    Preferably barrel aged for 15-30 years:D

  17. Re:How is hyperbole on Do We Really Need a National Climate Service? · · Score: 1

    I probably should have said the "Ethanol" myth.

  18. Re:How is hyperbole on Do We Really Need a National Climate Service? · · Score: 1

    What I'm really trying to point out with the flat comment is that all the acres they have under cultivation means that they are losing topsoil at an accelerated rate. Even with no till farming techniques, you still have to till every couple of years or the ground gets so hard, your crops can't grow up through it. And Iowa, at least 2 years ago, had the largest percentage of acres under cultivation of any state.

    But, my experience (I am a farmer, part time) has shown me that for the smaller farmer (in Illinois, thats under about 1000 acres) you get a better return on investment and have lower costs if you plant other kinds of crops. For example, Iowa used to have a fairly large oats acrage. Now, it's only the small religious communities that still cultivate oats. Other good crops in Iowa could be things like barley and I know hops do well in certain parts of Iowa. The first couple of years delving into those markets might be break even for many farmers but it has been shown in other places (Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska) that farmers moving out of corn and soybeans see a solid uptick in return if they do their homework. You don't hear these kinds of things from the Farm Bureau (the Illinois Farm Bureau, up until the last couple of years, has gone so far as to accuse farmers who aren't doing round-up ready corn and soy of undermining Illinois' farm economy!) but we do hear them a lot from farmers who have made the switches.

    Now if we could only explode the bio-fuels myths.

  19. Re:Meanwhile on Do We Really Need a National Climate Service? · · Score: 1

    If the people of New Orleans were going to take responsibility for their problems, they'd all leave New Orleans for higher ground and let it sink into the bayou. We know that's going to happen.

    People are going to live where they can get cheap land (for instance, near volcanos and mudslide zones). Then they are going to clamor for goverment assistance to protect themselves from the dangers they should have known about when they built their houses. That is human nature.

  20. Re:How is hyperbole on Do We Really Need a National Climate Service? · · Score: 1

    Re: 1) Iowa's farmers need to quit concentrating on corn and go back to diversified farms anyway. Iowa is now has the lowest level of wild or natural acrage in the nation and in the end, all those flat, plowed fields is costing them big time.

  21. Re:Obviously it's a good thing. on Do We Really Need a National Climate Service? · · Score: 1, Troll

    Completely off topic, but Dick Cheney's view of the world is just as far from reality as Al Gore's.

    That's the problem with extremists. They are all completely full of shit (and you can't even compost it). The problem with stupid people is they believe what extremists have to say.

  22. Re:The Death of SPARC? on IBM Doubles Rewards For Ditching Sun · · Score: 1

    Our market niche is high-end computing, and always has been. In the x64 world, it means that in order to compete we have to do stuff that white boxes can't.

    My experience always had IBM P5 (now P6) for the real high end applications, except for big Oracle servers. We primarily used SPARC for mail, Oracle, and webservers, or the specific telecommunications app that required Sun. On the other hand, I know the defense department still has a lot of high end SPARC, due to trusted Solaris.

    I really hope SPARC does survive,and, as I said, I still prefer Solaris as a Unix OS. But I would like to see it as more than just an Oracle niche support market. I'm just not convinced that it will happen. Especially given the crap outsourcing that Sun has taken to for their support contracts. Hell, I know more about their new hardware than most of the CEs that have been sent out to support the limited Sun hardware at the currently company I work for. And that crap support is the reason that there won't be much more Sun coming in here.

  23. Re:The Death of SPARC? on IBM Doubles Rewards For Ditching Sun · · Score: 4, Interesting

    SPARC was a dying hardware platform anyway. Sun was shipping far more Intel product than SPARC. It's too bad. SPARC was pretty good for the level it was designed to operate (mid-range area). IBM and HP have somehow convinced everyone that P5/6 and Itanium somehow fit in that environment, but they are really out of the price range and overpowered for those needs.

    I'm just hoping Solaris survives the Oracle take over. I still like Solaris better than Linux for webservers and such, personally.

  24. Blizzard should care on The Changing Face of World of Warcraft · · Score: 2, Insightful

    about making a game that keeps making them money. The vast majority (something like 86%) of their player populace considers themselves "casual" which basically means that they will play the game as long as it's still fun to them. 8% of players (that's the last number I heard, anyway) are involved in regular runs of end-game raiding. Clearly, they do not represent a significant portion of World of Warcraft income; yet, their voices have had a significantly inordinate impact on game play for much of the life of World of Warcraft. The remain ~6% are "hardcore PvPers" who went through their own (shorter) period of inordinate influence over gameplay; yet, again, we can see that they are not a major source of income for the game. Blizzard is now starting to recognize that they can reduce their overall churn rate by conctrating on that 86% of players who want to play for fun and comradery and do it in the 2-10 hours a week that they wish to set aside to play. And if you play 40 hours a week? Well, you should probably go hit the gym because you are probably raising the rest of our health insurance rates.

  25. Re:Age of Conan Does Look Interesting... on Age of Conan's "Kinda" Launch and Massive Pre-Orders · · Score: 1

    but real time, actual skill-based combat

    Unless they've changed something in the last 24 hours, it's not really all that much better than any other MMO, combat wise. Sure, you have to press buttons a lot more. But that doesn't make combat any more interesting or fun. And, quite frankly, the story, as far as I got through it in beta, was just okay. Better than EQ. But WoW uses it's lore better, AoC just uses it more.

    As for Howard's setting, Swords & Sorcery can only go so far. Yeah, people who hate elves will probably prefer it, but being all human, with no discernable alien presence, will make Hyboria too gritty for light escapism, which is what the huge portion of so called "casual" players are looking for. And since those are the players who have made WoW fabulously successful, it points ill towards AoC being a WoW-killer.