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User: mojotoad

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Comments · 68

  1. Powered by Android (TM) on Google Fights Back Against Android Fragmentation · · Score: 2

    Why not do something like THX used to do for theater sound systems? Trademark the 'official' powered-by-android phrase, run a certification program, let the vendors customize all they want -- they get to use the OS but not necessarily the 'brand'.

  2. Re:Hmmmmm on Why Published Research Findings Are Often False · · Score: 1

    I think the problem is that there's no system for publishing negatives, only a system for publishing positives. Sure, false positives slip through, but why aren't there more publications detailing the true negatives? True negatives are valuable information, from a scientific perspective. They just aren't sexy. True negatives are ignored until someone claims a false positive. Then 'unbiased media' gets involved, because there's a 'sensation'.

  3. Turing, meet Maori on Interactive, Emotion-Detecting Robot Developed · · Score: 1

    Seriously. One of the subsets of the Turing Test should be how the system responds to a 'typical' Maori war dance (we'll even allow the All-Blacks as performers of the ritual), without any pedagogical knowledge of the Maori.

    You know, be a diplomat. Or, god forbid, a missionary. That's worked out pretty well for lots of intelligences (the human kind, of a sort).

  4. Ballmer Defenestrated on Does Ballmer Need To Go? · · Score: 2, Funny

    best chance to use 'defenestrated' in a headline ever. Save that for when he actually *does* leave the company!

    Cheers,
    Matt

  5. Re:privacy: you can't have your cake, and eat it t on AOL, Netflix and the End of Open Research · · Score: 1

    Nodal networks are interesting things. There's research to be had there, regardless of what a 'node' is. This article is about cleansing real world data in such a way that the 'nodes' can be used for such research regardless of nodal identity. So, yes, real and interesting anonymous data can be gleaned. But so can meta-data associated with a 'node'.

    Just hope that you don't become too AdNoid while your AdNodes are tonsured.

    Cheers,
    Matt

  6. Re:May I suggest? on The Ultimate Dual-Hand Touchscreen · · Score: 1
    This being /., we all know which organ should be first to go, seeing as how it's the least used.

    You mean his left hand?

    ;)
    Matt

  7. Landlords on Verizon Threatens Google's 'Free Lunch' · · Score: 1
    Nuf said.

    Cheers,
    Matt

  8. Re:+1, Ironic on NewsWeek Looks at Search Engine Optimization · · Score: 1
    "Cogito me cogitare, ergo cogito me esse (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)"
    - A. Bierce

    Care to back that attribution up? Clever phrase, but still...Ambrose Bierce? Really?

    Cheers,
    Matt

  9. Re:~FFE4 on Windows vs. Linux Study Author Replies · · Score: 1
    And here I thought it meant 'Full Width Broken Bar' :)

    http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/ffe4/ index.htm

    Cheers,
    Matt

  10. Re:Insect on Dinosaur Forces Rethink Of Flight's Evolution · · Score: 1

    #3 Bats
    #4 Flying Fish

  11. no dang blabbit, the singluarity is n[GONG!] on Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near" · · Score: 2, Funny
    [Gabby Johnson (on the roof of the church) spots the new sheriff riding into town]

    Gabby Johnson: [shouting] The singularity's a n[GONG!]
    [the last word is lost in the peal of a church bell]

    Harriett Van Johnson: What did he say?

    Dr. Sam Johnson: He said the singularity is near.

    :)
    Matt

  12. electric baby chicken peepers, anyone? on Microsoft Patents The Body Bus · · Score: 1
    As for conductivity, what about those little novelty baby chicks with two electrodes on the bottom -- when you cup it in your hand, the electrodes contact your skin and the chick starts going peep-peep-peep.

    Everyone that's ever played with one of those probably quickly found out that you could link hands with several people, with only the two people on the end of the chain each touching a peeper electrode, to get the same effect.

    Microsoft patents Ohm's Law?

    Matt

  13. Re:An important piece of history on Moon Rocket Scrubbed and Blown Dry · · Score: 1
    I just recently visited with the one on display at the Space Museum in Huntsville, AL (my home town, actually). It seems to be suffering a similar fate, but I didn't notice lots of "biology" in the thing.

    There is a restoration project for Huntsville's Saturn V as well.

    Matt

  14. Re:Seems to me... on Microsoft to Charge for FAT File System · · Score: 1
    Patents don't cover a particular implementation. They cover the right to implement an idea.

    This completely backwards, at least as far as the original intent of the patent system is concerned. Patents USED to cover specific implementations. Up until USPTO started allowing patents on algorithms and business methods, there was no such thing as patenting an idea.

    Matt

  15. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, And... on Software Tariffs and US IT Outsourcing? · · Score: 1
    Well, why is bread (and other basic cost-of-living items) cheaper in these countries?

    Bread is cheaper in these countries because the bread makers are competing in the local market, not the global market. Once entire economies reach par with one another, then you will see bread prices equalizing (ignoring problems inherent in the transport of physical goods for the moment).

    This is what I was getting at with "it's all or nothing" -- you can compete globally in IT, but the underlying economies are not on par, so labor seeks the weaker economies.

    Matt

  16. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, And... on Software Tariffs and US IT Outsourcing? · · Score: 1
    I've seen a lot of whining about standards or costs of living, and clamouring for tarriffs, but why exactly is it that it's okay for US workers to earn vastly more than third world workers for doing essentially the same job? Why should a US worker have some divine right to be protected by tarriffs against his more economically efficient competitors in foreign lands?

    But why should a worker in India or Pakistan have access to a loaf of bread 100 times less costly than a U.S. worker pays for essentially the same product? Why should non-US workers have some divine right to have access to cheap bread?

    Seriously -- I'm all for the global market. But your comment ignores the problems inherent in the impedance mismatch inherent in partial blending of economies. It's all or nothing. Focusing on a single aspect of the mutual economy can lead to false conclusions -- one way or another -- about the holistic interaction of the two economies.

    Matt

  17. Tom Robbins on Top 10 New Sci-Fi/SF Authors? · · Score: 1
    Pick up some Tom Robbins novels. They have plenty of fantasy elements, sex, and irreverence woven into post-modernistic philosophical manifestos. They are a hoot to read.


    In particular, I recommend Jitterbug Perfume and his most recent Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates


    Matt

  18. Strap on a backpack and GO! on Visiting the World, as a Geek? · · Score: 2, Informative

    I just recently finished a year's worth of travel. It was budget travelling, 3/4 of which was in the third world, all of which ended up costing about $22,000. Highly recommended.

    A great book to get you started is: The Practical Nomad. Read through that, or similar literature, and you'll be so stoked to travel that nothing will hold you back.

    Don't worry about "the world climate." The media hypes everything, just like shark attacks. Keep your wits about you and you'll be fine.

    Don't worry about geeking out. Take a PDA with a backup cartridge; there are cyber cafes all over the world you can use for internet and mail access.

    Fly high little bunny!

    Matt

    P.S. check out my website if you want to read through some of my travel stories.

  19. Perhaps Moon Number Four? on Is This Moon Three? · · Score: 1
    From one of the pages about Moon #2, Cruithne , this could be our fourth moon:

    (Sept 18 2001) There are now two more near-Earth asteroids known to be currently in resonant states similar to those of Cruithne. These are 1998 UP1 and 2000 PH5. We are currently in the process of preparing these results for publishing. Look for more information on these fascinating new asteroids soon.

    As mentioned above, Cruithe was reported on slashdot previously.

    Matt

  20. Re: Re:What are these people's problems? on Piers Anthony Unbound · · Score: 1
    I like the way you're thinking. Likewise, abstinence from eating has a 100% success rate of preventing obesity. Abstinence from breathing oxygen, *the* most potent carcinogen known to mankind, has a 100% success rate of preventing cancer.

    What we have here is a failure to properly define the problem space.

    Matt

  21. Re:What are these people's problems? on Piers Anthony Unbound · · Score: 1
    Dude, the proposition of "sex", as in "safe sex", means the act of sex, not the notion of sex.

    It's not just people fucking with your mind.

    Matt

  22. speak for yourself, not me on Spider-Man, Star Wars and the Power of Myth · · Score: 1
    Speak for yourself, monkey-boy. You feel you speak for all users of slashdot? Now that is strange behavior.


    Matt

  23. White is the Bitch on Flying on Mars · · Score: 2, Informative

    Fortuna Wolf said:

    Somewhere, if you hunt around for photos from the surface of mars, and correct using say, photoshop, for the colour (look at the parts of the probe you can see in the picture and return them to their original colours, usually white or metal, unless its an american flag), the sky will be blue.


    In spite of this potential troll, I feel compelled to point out that the reflectivity of a surface will naturally reflect most electromagnetic components of its environment. This goes for white surfaces. So by "correcting" the color balance of such a surface, such as appendages of the mars probes, you have in fact only inferred the original environment from which your photo was based.

    Mojotoad

  24. MS DOS? on Microsoft Starts Legal Fight Over Lindows Name · · Score: 1

    Anyone remember any of the DOS permutations, DRDOS, etc? At the time did IBM or MS hold a trademark on the DOS name?

    Just curious.

  25. Re:Missing the Point on Federal Judges Take a Stance Against Workplace Monitoring · · Score: 1

    Monitoring downloads >10MB... Speak for yourself. In the oil industry, at least, downloads in the GB range happen hundreds of times a day in research...er, technology centers. On the other hand, I suppose at this end of the spectrum porn is unlikely as well. Or if it is likely, then I need a new source for my director's cuts.