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User: zippthorne

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  1. Re:Interesting, but nothing really new on Google Chrome Tops Browser Speed Tests · · Score: 1

    Actually it does. Just like in torrenting, if you seed one torrent forever but refuse to seed any other torrents you use, your leeching

    Actually, bittorrent doesn't work that way. The swarm benefits from your presence even if your upload ratio is fewer than 100%. In a new swarm, you won't get the chance to have a low ratio, but in mature swarm you improve the availability, even as most of the actual work is taken up by the seeders.

    The whole point of BT is that it's *not* dependent on the largess of people who've already gotten what they want. If you're not asked for more bits while you're downloading, then they weren't needed.

    note: I'm talking about the legitimate uses of BT, like say distributing an Ubuntu iso, where Canonical is going to maintain the file and leverages p2p to let more people download it in the opening day rush. In the illegitimate use case, you're leeching whether you seed or not.

  2. Is LN2 really necessary? on MSI Wind U100, Overclocked With Liquid Nitrogen · · Score: 1

    I mean, unless the processor *needs* to be at LN2 temperature wouldn't it be more practical just to increase the flow rate of a water cooling system?

  3. Re:Well, arguably not... on Should We Clone a Neanderthal? · · Score: 1

    You do realize you just called the Democratic party mean and stupid, don't you?

  4. Re:Note to non-Americans on McDonalds Files To Patent Making a Sandwich · · Score: 1

    Burger is typically just the sandwich. Hamburger is used to refer to both the sandwich and the meat: ground beef.

    Everyone who calls burgers "sandwiches" works in the food or food regulation industry.

  5. Re:Who spends $1200 for a pimped dehumidifier... on Machine Condenses Drinking Water Out of Thin Air · · Score: 1

    They're suing the wrong people: The real estate agents should've made them aware of the restrictions and risks. This isn't like eminent domain abuse: the rights have already been appropriated by some group, and as you say, the law supported it.

  6. Re:Who spends $1200 for a pimped dehumidifier... on Machine Condenses Drinking Water Out of Thin Air · · Score: 1

    So.. everyone in the Midwest has a poorly documented, uncompensated easement on their property? Really sounds like lawsuit material to me.

  7. Re:I'd support that... on South Carolina Wants To Jam Cell Phone Signals · · Score: 1

    There were pagers before cell phones existed. Before that, presumably you had to have extra people actually at the facility, back far enough, an I suppose you just had manservants that you sent after people with letters. Response time, was, obviously not as good.

  8. Re:Theatre's & restaurants next, huh? on South Carolina Wants To Jam Cell Phone Signals · · Score: 1

    I don't think I've heard a cell phone in a movie theater in about five years, and not from lack of going to movies.

    The only annoying thing left is the ten minutes of "Don't be an ass with a cell phone, but if you ARE an ass, buy your cell phone from AT&T or Best Buy, ours are the assyest." ads at the beginning of every film.

    If you really are having a problem at your local theater perhaps you should consider upgrading your neighborhood.

  9. Re:Homeland Security on South Carolina Wants To Jam Cell Phone Signals · · Score: 1

    Uh.. You also have to search the Guards.

    Where do you think the prisoners are getting the contraband? Taking a detour during their daily Starbucks run?

  10. Re:Who spends $1200 for a pimped dehumidifier... on Machine Condenses Drinking Water Out of Thin Air · · Score: 1

    Interesting. Are gardens, then, similarly forbidden, since the plants would soak up the water that is apparently allocated to someone else?

    Also, was this other person's water easement onto your property properly disclosed when purchasing the land? I mean, it seems to me that a property's precipitation is a natural part of that property's resources, and it shouldn't be allocated to someone else without compensation.

  11. Re:Amazing! They've invented... on Machine Condenses Drinking Water Out of Thin Air · · Score: 1

    o, where, pray tell, does the water in the air go when the sun strikes it? Into a cave like a vampire? Outer space?

    You're going o forehead smack in a minute, 'cause I know you know this.

    The sun raises he temperature of the air, which raises the equilibrium vapor pressure. Since it categorically does not add vapor to he air, it effectively lowers the "relative humidity."

    Or, in other units, it moves the temperature further away from the dew point, raising he energy cost to extract each mL of water: you have to lower he temperature that much further to have output.

    "Three light bulbs" is journalistic code for 300 watts.

    Only when they want to minimize the amount of energy used. When they want it to seem like a lot, every light bulb is a "25W equivalent" CFL.

  12. Re:I've always hated the practice... on Microsoft Moves To Quash Case, End E-mail Revelations · · Score: 1

    and turning off aero entirely in basic was just segmenting the market to extract as much money as possible

    Aero is like wood trim in a luxury car (I love car analogies). It's mostly just pretty, Although I imagine it's possible that someone somewhere might find something about it that improves their efficiency.

    Take a look at their product matrix.

    The "easy" feature that they hold back from *every* edition except ultimate is encryption. Ok, business has "filesystem encryption" but from the product page, I get the impression that the swap file is unlikely to fall under it.

    And yes, I think whole-drive encryption is important, at least on any machine that uses Quicken, TurboTax, or even just homebrewed finances spreadsheets. If your computer is turned off, you shouldn't have to worry about someone being able to steal it AND get your financial information.

    It shouldn't be an "Ultimate" feature. "Premium" maybe, since there are plenty of uses for computers that don't require security, but it should definitely be in at least one "home" edition.

  13. Re:Hope CCP picks this up on Integrating the Web Into Games · · Score: 3, Funny

    No one actually plays Eve, though. It's basically a partially interactive movie: you watch the computer play eve, with practically "choose-your-own-adventure" style decision points. The whole back-end appears to be run by Progress Quest.

  14. Re:It's no more appropriate than the local library on After Columbine, Eric Holder Advocated Internet "Restrictions" · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And he was apparently one of the lemmings that got caught up in it. Not all of us were, you know. Some of us were saying things like, "Calm the hell down, it's being blown all out of proportion by the press. Now is the absolute worst time to be talking about legislation."

    Granted, we were talking about gun legislation, but the argument stands whether you're trampling the second amendment or the first.

  15. Re:Sharpening on AP Suspends DoD Over Altered US Army Photo · · Score: 1

    I was going to say that it's obviously CCD noise, and not compression artifacts, but I looked at the photo again, and it does indeed look more like compression than noise.

    So, that means that the left image is also not the original, but both images probably have the same common source.

    IOW, they're both altered, one to be flattering, and one to be easy to download. There's simply no route from left to right.

    I'm not sure what AP's complaining about, though. It would be irresponsible NOT to photoshop away blemishes and reflections before submitting a publicity photo. I imagine they ditched the background because the wide expanse of low-contrast white wall had some annoying quantization noise.

  16. Re:more exciting on Resurrecting the Mighty Mammoth, Cheaply · · Score: 1

    On the bright side, they could do GEICO commercials without even using makeup!

    Those guys are liars. They are clearly shown living in houses and apartments. They're not "cave men." They're just scrubs.

  17. Re:Tag this story on CRTC Rules Bell Can Squeeze Downloads · · Score: 1

    read through those charges. When I was with bellsouth (landline), they used to like to sneak in extra services while I wasn't looking.

    Also, when I asked them to explain all the fees, some of those "FCC mandate" items aren't end-user taxes at all. They're just sneaking things that are part of the normal cost of doing business as "extras" to avoid folding them into their regular price. Somehow this is legal.

  18. Re:What about radiation shielding? on Researchers Getting the Lead Out of Electronics · · Score: 1

    More or less proportional to it's electronic configuration to be precise. More states ~= better. But that scales nicely with mass. ish. Molecules complicate things.

  19. Re:Are you sure about that? on Ted Stevens Loses Senate Re-Election Bid · · Score: 0, Troll

    Has it occurred to you that there haven't been any prominent, obviously named, "civil rights bills" passed since then which also happen to have wikipedia articles and voting breakdown by party?

    Show me some recent votes that support your claim of "Rs were good then, but have changed now"

  20. Re:n/t on Astronaut Loses Tools While Performing an EVA · · Score: 1

    Correct, as long as the delta-v is purely radial. If there're any non-radial components, you can get plane-changes or change the period, so it'll still come to the "same" point in 3-space but the shuttle won't be there on any following orbit.

    Also, that fails to account or atmospheric drag and OMS burns.

  21. Are you sure about that? on Ted Stevens Loses Senate Re-Election Bid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#Vote_totals

    The original House version:[9]

            * Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
            * Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)

    The Senate version:[9]

            * Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%-31%)
            * Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)

    The Senate version, voted on by the House:[9]

            * Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
            * Republican Party: 136-35 (80%-20%)

    See also 1968

  22. Re:15 minutes? on Should You Get Paid While Your Computer Boots? · · Score: 2, Informative

    They might have a combination of windows 2000/NT, slow network, roaming profiles, everyone logging in at the same time, and a gigabyte of unnecessary junk foolishly located on the desktop (so it has to be loaded with the profile, over the network, at the same time as everyone else is doing the same thing.

    I can see a company doing something stupid like that.

  23. Re:Epic Fail. on McColo Briefly Returns, Hands Off Botnet Control · · Score: 1

    Ahh, but what if there are two groups of innocent bystanders, one of which is two or three orders of magnitude than the other, and protecting one means failing the other. Then what?

  24. Re:Explanation on The Neurological Basis of Con Games · · Score: 1

    And someone always points out that the distinction is immaterial based on their claim that it's a normal distribution.

  25. Re:Holy Mackerel! on Anti-Matter Created By Laser At Livermore · · Score: 4, Informative

    60e6*1e3 kcal / c^2= 2.8 kg of antimatter will give any H-bomb look like.. uh.. something that's the same size as an H-bomb. H-bombs have been proposed (and postulated to have been built) that are larger than 60 MT, and a pop-gun typically has only a few Joules, so you'd need many orders of magnitude more than 2 kg of antimatter to make an H-bomb look like a pop-gun. something like.. four times the mass of mount Everest, in antimatter.