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User: MichaelSmith

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Comments · 11,670

  1. Re:Track width on China To Connect Its High-Speed Rail To Europe · · Score: 1

    I don't think it is a big deal to change trains when changing continents. You do that sometimes when transiting in aircraft anyway.

  2. Re:Ka-boom! on China To Connect Its High-Speed Rail To Europe · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hope the passengers don't mind getting blowed up by terrorists.

    Death by snu-snu? I wouldn't mind being "blowed" by an attractive terrorist.

  3. Re:A point to note on Scientology Tries To Block German Documentary · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    In Germany it is seen as a totalitarian anti-democratic organization

    If only somebody in Germany had the guts to say the same thing about Catholicism, or for that matter Islam.

    Your list misses one of the main world religions ;)

    I get worried when Germans talk about wiping out religions. They have a tendency to push through with their mad schemes.

  4. Re:To clear thing out (I hope) on In Israel, Potential Organ Donors Could Jump the Queue · · Score: 1

    This "moment of death" is the real Judaism problem

    Its a problem everywhere. My wife's uncle had a haemorrhage in his brain almost a month ago. EEG shows that half his brain is dead. Doctors say that if they remove life support he will die immediately. His family doesn't want to remove life support. But is he really alive at all, if he can't communicate or take a breath without machinery?

  5. Re:Hiding in plain sight on Hollow Spy Coins · · Score: 1

    I've never once in my life experienced a check that would've found such a coin

    I have, but while it was at an airport it wasn't to get on a flight. It was on the engineering side in an Asian country where security is taken very seriously.

  6. Re:Hey guise on In Israel, Potential Organ Donors Could Jump the Queue · · Score: 1

    Traffic signals close to Synagogues in my city run automatic pedestrian movements on Saturdays because people walking to the Synagogue won't press the button.

    Joseph Guttnick wouldn't watch the football on Saturday but he did hire non-jewish security guards to watch it for him.

  7. Re:They are there invisibly on SETI Is 50 Years Old; No Sign of ET · · Score: 1

    As we ourselves transition to all digital-communications and the associated low-transmission-power-levels we will fall off the radar for other civilizations detecting us too.

    Until we start to seriously exploit the electromagnetic spectrum and the power levels start to rise again. How about wireless power transmission, continent wide wireless internet with enough bandwidth to give every client a full HD video feed, radar for everything which moves and online negotiation between vehicles, just for starters.

    I don't think our global peak emitted power will drop for long.

  8. Re:Bit of a pity we cut them down then eh? on Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic" · · Score: 1

    Nothing wrong with that. My leafs are now immensely valuable.

  9. Re:Is ugrading OpenBSD still kind of a mess? on OpenBSD 4.7 Preorders Are Up · · Score: 2

    The BSD projects have a great packaging system but it is only used for layered applications. It could certainly be used for the whole system but I think that defeats the "as simple as possible" approach they try to use.

    You can install from source and update with cvs if you want.

  10. But I want it now on OpenBSD 4.7 Preorders Are Up · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Thats how people think these days. They don't care about having the three CDs in their soft shell case. The T shirt probably won't fit (I have a NetBSD shirt which would fit two of me).

    So charge for an ISO download. Get'em out the door. Save money on CD burning, etc.

  11. Re:Invert rose-tinted-glasses on Programming the Commodore 64: the Definitive Guide · · Score: 1

    Even in those days I am sure there were lusers happily doing their jobs on a VT100 or similar terminal. Starting with a menu or simple command set was not so different from a GUI today.

  12. Re:Buzz Aldrin has a different view on Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic" · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Aldrin is arguing against a repeat of "Flags and Footprints" on the moon. He is right. The best option you and I have of going into space is a self sustaining space transport industry.

  13. Re:Another moon landing? on Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic" · · Score: 1

    while Cernan noted he was 'disappointed' to have been the last person to land on the moon.

    I'm sure they could fake another one. The sfx these days are much better than 1969. Avatar looked stunning!

    Your theory that James Cameron faked the human exploration of the Alpha Centauri system is an insult to the enormous effort put into that endeavour.

  14. Re:waste of money.... on Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic" · · Score: 1

    The idea that space exploration is giving us (humanity as a whole) good value for money is, frankly, ridiculous

    I would say that the emigration of humans out of Africa gave us (humanity as a whole) enormous value for money.

  15. Re:We need to work on mineing the moon / other pla on Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic" · · Score: 1

    We need to work on mineing the moon / other places and not just sending people there.

    You are going to need to send people there to do that, unless you want it to take 200 years. But I think the US Government is right to cut the apron strings between manned lunar exploration and public funding. There are now threads of private funding for human activities in space. These threads should be encouraged to grow.

  16. Not exactly the last on Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic" · · Score: 1, Troll

    the last person to land on the moon

    Gene Cernan was the last person to walk on the moon. He was one of the two last people to land on the moon.

    Though if you think about it. If landing on the moon inside a vehicle counts then walking on the moon inside a vehicle should also count, so he is still one of the two last people to walk on the moon.

    Neil Armstrong, who was also at the event, avoided commenting on the subject.

    True to form.

  17. Forget about the copyright on Licensing an Abandonware Game? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Make your new game. Don't use any exact names or words from the original. By all means select your names so that people know this is a successor to the original.

    After all, open office exists along side microsoft office. Afterstep came after nextstep. You need a name like "afterstep" so that people know what you are on about.

  18. Re:Wow... on Digg Says Yes To NoSQL Cassandra DB, Bye To MySQL · · Score: 1

    Languages with namespaces scale better than languages without namespaces.

  19. Re:Facebook, Twitter and now Digg on Digg Says Yes To NoSQL Cassandra DB, Bye To MySQL · · Score: 1

    Digg's net worth: $24.34 million.

    Makes me wonder why its owners put so much effort into making it suck. Their discussion system used to be half decent. Then they changed it and it is totally useless again.

  20. Re:I know the answer on Texas Approves Conservative Curriculum · · Score: 1

    Hi Zogger I can't remember now if it was the repository, the depository or the suppository.

  21. Re:DIY on Hunting Disease Origins By Whole-Genome Sequencing · · Score: 1

    Recently my seizure disorder came back and I contemplated the possibility that there was something growing in my brain. Fortunately an MRI told me that there is nothing in there apart from normal brain stuff so I will be around for a while longer. But for a while I thought my only chance for long term survival would be a port to different hardware.

  22. Re:DIY on Hunting Disease Origins By Whole-Genome Sequencing · · Score: 1

    If you want something done right, do it yourself. I am not much interested in my genome, but the contents of my brain are of great interest to me, especially if they could be extracted onto other media.

  23. Re:FSM SAVE US! on Nearby Star Forecast To Skirt Solar System · · Score: 2, Informative

    Elron Hubbard?

  24. Re:Nemesis on Nearby Star Forecast To Skirt Solar System · · Score: 1

    No, this object is well and truly above solar escape velocity. Mch more than most of our neighbours in fact.

  25. Re:Nemesis on Nearby Star Forecast To Skirt Solar System · · Score: 1

    I think it pretty much assumed that close passes by stars disturb the Oort Cloud.