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User: dumbfounder

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Comments · 52

  1. Re:chipset inside and utilization? on Reliability of PC Flash SSDs? · · Score: 1

    Yeah, those are just junky drives. We have used Intel and OCZ drives for about 4 months using very heavy read/write databases and search engines and we have had no problems.

  2. the purpose of sleep on Alzheimer's Disease Possibly Linked To Sleep Deprivation · · Score: 1

    The main purpose of sleep is to sort your memories and mental connections you make while conscious. As you get older, it makes sense that this becomes more difficult, because there is a lot more data to deal with. So the benefits of sleep actually increase, but for some reason it seems that older people sleep less than younger people. Sleeping is like defragging your hard drive, if you don't do it often your data becomes very fragmented. I wrote a blog entry on this a while back, and just a few months ago I was talking to someone about Alzheimers and that I thought there might be a connection. http://blog.searchles.com/2008/03/why-we-sleep.html (I am no scientist, this was just my take as an information expert)

  3. what's the prob? on What Has Fox Got Against Its Own Sci-Fi Shows? · · Score: 1

    I really like sci-fi and comics and all that crap, and I haven't seen Dollhouse, but I did watch the first 3 or so episodes of Fringe and I think it was pretty bad. Like a bad mix of X-Files and Lost. And it was getting terrible ratings, so why should they be faithful to it? I gave Sarah Connor an entire season and every second of it I absolutely hated. It is just a plain terrible show. Terrible dialog. Terrible writing in general. Terrible pretty much everything except hot chicks kicking ass. Which is nice and all, but eventually the stupid dialog and asinine plot lines get to you. And I love T2, and I think the premise of the series is excellent, but it just isn't well executed.

    They gave Sarah Connor plenty of time to make it. Maybe they didn't give Fringe a good enough chance, not sure, but I certainly am not going to complain. If either of those shows were 1/4 as good as Alias Season 1 I would have stayed for the duration even as it declined into terribleness.

  4. Re:Main mistake they made? on Circuit City Closes Its Doors For Good · · Score: 1

    I called their warranty the "Circuit City Buy Back Program" and it is probably one of the main reasons they went out of business. I got free upgrades in Laserdisc players, laptops, and other stereo equipment over the years. And if they did't have a similar item in stock, they would give you store credit. Which was basically the same as cash. (I am also from the DC area, maybe they were too nice here)

  5. Incredibly Simple Solution on Fallout From the Fall of CAPTCHAs · · Score: 1

    All you have to do is put "you must be under 18 to solve this captcha" built into the captcha itself. Anyone on the porn site is over 18 because that's the law, and then they won't be allowed to solve the captcha because they are too old*!

    * does not work in areas of the world where you can view porn under 18, or on anyone who lies about their age, or any porn sites where there isn't an age requirement, and it means your site won't allow any users over the age of 18 to contribute
    hey, it's not perfect

  6. a lot of people don't even know... on Some 12% of Consumers 'Borrow' Unsecured Wi-Fi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    when they are 'stealing' wifi access. My former neighbor was very tech savvy and he said that every now and then his laptop would pick my access point to join instead of his. I didn't care, it is my responsibility to secure it if I don't want others on it. But the point is, I am sure that less tech savvy people don't even know a lot of the time when they are using someone else's network. BFD. It's like someone that has a big cannister of oxygen on their property and you get arrested for breathing when you walk by.

  7. Re:Why no go back to horses sometime? on 100-Year-Old Electric Car Design Makes a Comeback · · Score: 1

    yes but at least the horsepower race will be over, with everyone tied at 1

  8. Re:You're kidding, right? on Michigan Man Charged for Using Free WiFi · · Score: 1

    OMG. I totally could not agree with you more. You are 100% wrong. The cops definitely wouldn't wait until you turned your back to laugh. They would laugh in your face.

  9. Wow, I think every single person here misses the.. on Tech Billionaire Boot Camp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    point. Most of these companies are just at the idea stage. Most companies at the idea stage would give out 5% just for Paul Graham to be on their board of directors, which opens up Paul Graham's rolodex for making contacts in the industry. For kids coming out of college to get funded in this way is a huge springboard for their careers. It is a HUGE opportunity for these (mostly) kids that I thought the slashdot crowd would have some amount of respect for. Yes, it isn't a lot of money, and it is meant to put a lot of pressure on these guys to get a product together ASAP. Which is a GOOD thing for a tiny startup.

  10. Re:nonsense on Hummer Greener Than Prius? · · Score: 1

    you mean the olsen twins?

  11. the road to hell is paved with good intentions on When Your Site Ceases To Exist · · Score: 1

    What they say is law these days. It is NEVER that good to give one entity so much power.

  12. give the bonus to the kids with the good grades! on More A's, More Pay · · Score: 1

    That way the less priveleged kids are even more incented to do well because the money means more to them. But if you really want to give bonuses to the teachers, perhaps each grade should be peer-reviewed to help avoid cheating. Then have a 3rd party do random audits.

  13. Re:To clear up any confusion... on Google Advertising Tools · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's because their advertisers don't want to be associated with porn, Google doesn't really care either way. Think about it, would disney want their ads to show up on a porn site by accident? It is very possible given that a large portion of Adsense ads are determined algorithmically. They are just covering their butts.

  14. oops on Wired's Very Short Stories · · Score: 1

    you are your own biological father

  15. my brain on Wikipedia's $100 Million Dream · · Score: 1

    I am tired of thinking for myself all the time, can't everyone else just edit what's in my head?

  16. 12 Sata drives and only 4gb of RAM? on AMD 4x4 Quad Father, Quad Core CPU Details Emerge · · Score: 1

    that seems very weird. why is it that we seem to have hit a wall for RAM limits on motherboards? we had machines with 4gb of ram like 6 years ago. I would rather have 12 dimm slots and 2 sata controllers. you can always buy a sata controller card, but there is nothing you can do about the RAM situation.

  17. Re:Can't wait on Dot-Com Bubble v2.0? · · Score: 1

    let's take a look at social bookmarking. del.icio.us is the current king, yes? they just surpassed 1 million users. that's a lot! well guess what, there a billion people that use the internet. that means there are room for 1000 sites to replicate the success of del.icio.us (sort of). there IS a lot of crap out there, but it's because the Net is going to be an everlasting land grab, and that's the beauty of it.

  18. Re:The data shows there are problems on Alexa, Amazon's Most Flawed Idea · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think they changed to a different statistical model at that point, there are a ton of sites that make a jump on that same date. It is a good thing that they continually refine what they have (because it is FAR FAR FAR FAR from perfect) but they should have a little asterisk there letting people know what happened.

  19. bmi != fatness but... on French Scientists Link Higher BMI with Lower IQ · · Score: 1

    the people that are obese will much more often than not have a high BMI (or low, whatever it is) so that doesn't mean there isn't something to fat people having lower IQ's. My guess is that since obesity is linked to lethargy, that there would also be a link to IQ because if you are tired then you won't test very well. They probably link it to BMI because height/weight are much easier stats to accumulate than measuring everyone's actual fat content. You may see the phenomenon even more pronounced when you take a more accurate measure of fatness.

  20. it's not the number of zeroes on Gap Between Google and Competition Widening · · Score: 1

    it's how you use them

  21. Re:Wow... on Free PC With French Broadband Connection · · Score: 1

    and they are so precise about it, they calculated it out to one thousandth of a user

  22. let's look at the stats on Would You Date Microsoft? · · Score: 1

    Windows: very pretty, kind of dumb, gets along well with others, but maybe a little too well because she probably has some social diseases

    vs

    Linux: built like a tank, takes a while to get to know well, will get freaky if you ask her too, of course disease-free, but downright buggly

    vs

    OSX: freaking hot, no diseases, but man does she like diamonds

    I'd say it's a matter of taste.

  23. Re:There is no cure for impersonation on Can Banks Shift Phishing Losses to Customers? · · Score: 1

    it's basically like someone setting up a fake atm and then you go enter your pin. That has happened before, did the banks pay the customers back in those cases?

  24. bush wants us to watch national news?!?! on FCC Orders Anti-Monopoly Report Destroyed · · Score: 1

    why would Bush want us watching the national news, it bashes him every day! One would think that if he was behind this he would have everyone watching local news so we can be ignorant about the world outside our little towns

  25. Re:population on Social Networking Goes Big Business · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wow there is no way that statistic is actually what it sounds like. If the numbers are correct, which I highly doubt they are, then a user aged "35-54" means some old person that heard a kid talking about myspace and was like "wtf is this that" and then went to the homepage and clicked around and thought "this is stupid" and left never to return. If an advertiser used that stat to target their ads I am sure they wouldn't get a very good return. They need to base that stat on pageviews for it to make sense in this context. Based on pageviews I bet the percentage drops to less than 1%.