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User: dhasenan

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Comments · 1,168

  1. Re:Fear of fork. on Squaring the Open Source/Open Standards Circle · · Score: 1

    And they use Linux...? That's like building a gaming rig with a Rage Pro.

  2. Re:Why not just follow the formula in 1984? on U.S. Pressures ISPs on Data Retention · · Score: 1

    But then who controls the pot?

    Think of the possibilities, man!

  3. Re:The Spooks on Who Will Join Microsoft in the Portal Wars? · · Score: 2, Funny

    There's always the FBIMSNSAT&TSA. And what about the FBIMSNSAT&TSATF? Now we can get the FBIMSNSAT&TSATFBIMSNSAT&TSA if we want....

  4. Re:It's just semantics on Chicken and Egg Problem Solved · · Score: 1

    Every problem is specified semantically, I suppose. Otherwise, we would be unable to talk about anything--though we could use well-formed sentences to do so.

  5. Not so on Top 10 Strangest Gadgets of the Future · · Score: 4, Funny

    The last invention will be a simple-to-use holodeck SDK.

    Once everyone and his brother can create a score of nude virgins in an afternoon, then we won't have any further inventions.

  6. Re:Is that the only problem? on Space Elevator An Impossible Dream? · · Score: 1

    Locate the elevator in an area where storms don't occur

    You found a place where there are no storms?! Dear god, build me a house there!

    (...though I actually enjoy storms very much)

  7. Re:Why are they suing AT&T? on AT&T Accidentally Leaks NSA Suit Information · · Score: 1

    Is this fear? More like friendly cooperation combined with disdain for customers' rights. And how many people do you know that are willing to do anything about it? Even writing a letter to their Congressfolk?

  8. Re:It's just semantics on Chicken and Egg Problem Solved · · Score: 1

    In that case, the first eukaryote ancestor of chickens didn't lay eggs. But that clearly wasn't a chicken. A chicken is a bird, and the synapomorphies of birds include laying eggs; ergo, nothing that does not lay eggs is a chicken. Since the question doesn't ask "Which came first, the pre-chicken or the pre-chicken egg", then we must assume that it's talking about chickens and eggs in any reasonable definition of the words.

    Moreover, the problem didn't specify chicken eggs, just eggs. QED.

  9. Re:It's just semantics on Chicken and Egg Problem Solved · · Score: 1

    Um, no.

    First, the first chicken hatched from an egg. Eggs were around for some hundreds of millions of years before chickens.

    If we restrict the discussion to chicken eggs, then it's entirely dependent on what you consider a chicken, and then on the argument you mention. But the argument has not been restricted to chicken eggs.

  10. Re:Speculation on Chicken and Egg Problem Solved · · Score: 1

    Such a thing would be possible, but chickens would then have to be placental mammals. They're dinosaurs, so no cheese. Dinosaurs come from a long line of oviparous animals.

    So, yes, possible, but it didn't happen.

  11. Re:Evolutionarily speaking... on Chicken and Egg Problem Solved · · Score: 1

    A few million. Just a few. More like four hundred bloody million.

  12. Coyotos on Windows Vista - Not So Bad? · · Score: 1

    It's Coyotos, not CoyoteOS, and it takes a fair portion of its ideas from EROS. It's written in BitC, a language designed for security, among other things.

  13. Re:Now the computer knows who hit it on Display System That Knows Who You Are · · Score: 1

    No, but it's on my todo list.

  14. Re:Sigh on Display System That Knows Who You Are · · Score: 1

    We can use Bayesian filtering to identify them. No risks of hurting intelligent people.

  15. Re:Let me clear something up for you... on Student Faces Expulsion for Blog Post · · Score: 1

    "Public schools are instrumentalities of government, and government is not entitled to suppress speech that undermines whatever missions it defines for itself," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote in the court's opinion.

    So do schools have as much authority over home life as over school life? That part was unclear.

  16. Re:What needs to happen is a massive ... on iPod Lawsuit Lawyers Sue Their Own Plaintiff? · · Score: 1

    A class action suit? They've been doing this to a number of people, then? Where did you get that information?

    As for the judge, judges can't exactly be disbarred; they're usually elected. While most of them are lawyers, practicing law would be a conflict of interest.

  17. Re:Article Summary on Vista Beta 2 has Major Problems · · Score: 1

    If Microsoft shipped every half year, they'd have a smaller market for new versions, and would have to reduce the prices. While many businesses and technophiles would slap down $60/year for the newest version, Microsoft thinks it'd still lose money.

    The solution, of course, would be to charge a subscription fee of, say, $30/year for all the latest non-security updates, and charge a smaller fee for the initial product, they might get farther. It would be a risk, though.

  18. Re:Try stuff! on What Should One Know to be Truly Computer Literate? · · Score: 1

    When you're supposed to be working, work.

    When you're faced with a new application and no training is given, try to find out how to do something on your own before asking someone else for help.

    When you have an actual problem, ask IT. Save the more dangerous monkeying for home, where you have to rely on yourself to fix your problems anyway, or pay large sums of money.

    If these people don't see the difference between computers they own and their workstations, then they have more serious issues to deal with.

  19. Re:Fish on What Should One Know to be Truly Computer Literate? · · Score: 1

    Check out an eighth grade exam from 1900. They had to know as much as you would at the end of high school, maybe the first year of college, except for calculus and trigonometry.

    http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/1895exam.html -- though note some of the answers given are wrong, such as that given for "case", "cognate", and "trigraph"; and "syllabification" is used instead of "syllabication" these days.

    At any rate, I believe that we've been giving less content to students and keeping them for longer hours.

  20. Re:The following.... on What Should One Know to be Truly Computer Literate? · · Score: 1

    And you just lost an hour's work.

  21. Contrapositive on What Should One Know to be Truly Computer Literate? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You have to be computer literate to be a CS major. Otherwise you'll fail most of your courses.

    And the other students most likely were too eager not to mark themselves out in case they got extra work.

  22. Re:It's all about context on What Should One Know to be Truly Computer Literate? · · Score: 1

    On the other hand, how many kids actively oppose fascism? Last I checked, nobody was opposing it in the US except for the EFF and a few lawyers trying to get in on a class action lawsuit or two.

  23. Re:It's all about context on What Should One Know to be Truly Computer Literate? · · Score: 1

    Theoretical computer science doesn't really involve computers except for using their limitations as a source of problems to solve. However, there is another section to computer science: systems.

    You really need to know a lot about the computers you're using in order to do a good job with systems. Systems is about software (and, I suppose, hardware) design and implementation. Creating a kernel module to implement a new filesystem would be a common task in systems research.

    So, when saying that computer science has little to do with computers, you should specify that you're talking about theory or algorithms, not systems.

    Your little pedantic thought for the day.

  24. Re:It's all about context on What Should One Know to be Truly Computer Literate? · · Score: 1

    Argh, you beat me.

    Still, after Emacs broke into the psychotherapy market, they extended to other portions of the labor industry, including gas station attendants (added in 20.2-3).

  25. Re:Speed on Robo-Gecko Climbs Glass · · Score: 1

    The issue was with prying a foot off the glass--it took a fair bit of force, and sometimes the recoil afterward was enough to free a second foot. A more robust implementation with the same pad system would determine whether an additional foot was freed and reattach both.