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  1. Re:stick to the tamer side of the web on Tips for Teaching Seniors About the Internet? · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, Yahoo has a really high portion of no-longer-valid links, and they appear to make no effort to remove them when reported.

  2. Re:The beginning of the end for free speech. on Washington Spam Law Upheld · · Score: 1

    Too bad the statistics don't include what portion were selfe defense but determined not justified. In some areas, most or all self-defense killings are determined unjustified, either because of ideas like "duty to flee" or just general feeling that people should not be doing the job of police.

  3. Re:Cool.... on The Lamps Are The Network · · Score: 1

    It's not a warning of a warning, it's a longer warning. Traffic in cities is complex. A longer warning would be beneficial. Simply making the yellow longer would not help, because the lights would be even more inconsistant than they already are, and if you see the light is yellow and didn't see it change from green, you have no idea at all how much time is left.

  4. Re:One little problem on The Return of Microsoft · · Score: 1
    Noone can force me to use Microsoft products,

    There is already so much Microsoft-only hardware. When trying to get information from the vendors on writing drivers, they frequently either refuse or make impossible demands. Now with the DMCA, we can not even legally reverse engineer drivers.

    While some of these are probably due to ignorance, how many are due to coercion from Microsoft? More importantly, how much more room is there for them to coerce hardware vendors to produce hardware that only works with Windows? This is what I am afraid of. Windows-only soundcards to start with, perhaps because of encrypted data paths to protect copyrighted music. Windows-only NICs, keyboards, mice. As Microsoft gains market share and impunity from antitrust regulations at the same time, they will be able to do this. It makes good business sense. They do it with software, which causes enough problems. When they have done it with hardware, we will all be using Windows.

  5. Re:Bad thing? on CD burning Will Never Be The Same · · Score: 1
    I want to be able to pay the artists money for their songs. Up until now, there simply is no way to give money if you want to download an electronic version. If they allow me to pay a reasonable price to download a song, then I will gladly pay it.

    Pay it to who, the artist? The artist is probably not the copyright holder - they sign the copyright away to the record label. It's the same distinction as the author of software vs the company that employed that programmer.

  6. Re:How would sound work? on 22" 9.2-Million Pixel Display · · Score: 1

    You could simply do the mixing in software. If you wanted to do it in hardware, just get a many-channel sound card, like this one. Windows only, of course, but high-end sound support is one of the areas in which free OSes are most lacking.

  7. Re:Bad for compulsive gamblers on Nevada Lawmakers Nearer To OK'ing Net Betting · · Score: 1
    Picture a boatfull of poor people shoving all of their money into slot machines.

    Those people are throwing all their money away gambling for the same reason that they are poor. Be it unintelligence, irresponsibility, mental illness, or other problems. They no more deserve to be "protected" from the chance to gamble than they deserve to have high-paying jobs despite their lack of skill/dedication/responsibility

  8. Re:This is silly, read the articles! on The Fiber Age Meets The Power Grid · · Score: 1

    Glass is still brittle. While in a lab the higher tensile strength might be interesting, it is of little practical benefit for most common applications.

  9. Re:Megapixel on 22" 9.2-Million Pixel Display · · Score: 1

    Well, a megapixel isn't even necessarily the number of pixels. When digital cameras have their resolution adveritised, the megapixel rating is much larger than the product of the largest resolution. So it's a made up term that seems like it means one thing, but really means something else, for the purposes of deceptive adveritising.

  10. Re:Bad for compulsive gamblers on Nevada Lawmakers Nearer To OK'ing Net Betting · · Score: 1
    This is really a bad news for all gambling addicts. Most of them can manage not to go near a casino, but with that even being near a computer could be "dangerous"..

    Too bad for them. Maybe they could learn some self control.

  11. This is silly, read the articles! on The Fiber Age Meets The Power Grid · · Score: 2

    If you read the Wired article, you see a link to the real article. Congrats to Wired for citing their source. Too bad they blew their article, and so did Slashdot. It is not "fiber optics" in the center of the wire. This is *so* *obviously* *wrong*. Fiber optics are glass! Is glass stronger than steel? The real article clearly says that they are "fiber-reinforced composites". That is, newfangled materials that are indeed stronger than steel. Not glass! Have some common sense, people.

  12. But what has changed? on Linux Kernel 2.4.5 Released · · Score: 1

    Where can we actually find out what has changed? This is always a problem with each new kernel version. The changelog includes information about everything that was changed, but says nothing about what the change was. The diff is too detailed to read and could take days to understand.

  13. Re:At Stanford... on A Diploma and an Email Account for Life · · Score: 1
    But your username might get changed on you if they hire a new faculty member with a similar name:

    There are, however, situations where an account name or csalias will be changed or eliminated. This is normally decided on a case-by-case basis by the facilities committee or csd-cf (depending on the situation). One case where this may happen is when a faculty member has a last name matching an existing account or csalias belonging to a student or former student.

    That's pretty insidious.

  14. Re:Call a contract lawyer on On Call and Underpaid in IT/IS? · · Score: 3

    Isn't it worth having some idea of where to begin before consulting a lawyer? Just as it is good to search the net for medical advice before consulting a doctor. You have no idea about the competency of the "professional", and it's impossible to judge. When you walk in there without a clue, you are begging to be exploited.

  15. Re:From New Scientist... on 1TB In A Cubic Centimeter · · Score: 1
    Glass is liquid at room temperature - it's just a very, very thick liquid. Take a look at a decades-old house some time - the window glass, if it's original, will be measurably thicker at the bottom than at the top.

    While glass may not be a crystalline solid, and therefore can be considered a liquid depending on your definition of the term, it certainly does not flow at room temperature. Old windows are uneven and modern windows are flat because glass making techniques have improved. The thicker side is at the bottom because it was purposely put that way. Why would the thicker side be put on the top?

  16. Re:From New Scientist... on 1TB In A Cubic Centimeter · · Score: 1
    I don't know how long the data lasts before the liquid nature of glass ditorts it,

    Most other media melts at a much lower temperature than glass, so I'm sure it's not a real big issue.

  17. Re:$50*(# of spams) + court cost = HUGE deterrent on I Won A Lawsuit Against A Spammer · · Score: 1
    It would disappear from the Internet just like horse-drawn wagons from New York City.

    There's plenty of horse-drawn wagons in New York City. More than there are cars in most other cities.

  18. Re:Legislation by examples on FCC Lays Down the Law On Decency · · Score: 1

    Is the purpose of the convoluted language lawyers use not to be as specific as possible?

  19. Re:Not Semantics on Broadband from World's Tallest Building · · Score: 1

    Why are the top floors of Petronas Twin Towers not occupied?

  20. Re:Yes on Is The Web Becoming Unsearchable? · · Score: 1

    Most searches for herbal medicines (e.g. "5-HTP") find you way more hits (especially the high ranking ones) from companies trying to sell you it than actual objective information about it.

  21. Re:Relative! on Secure Shell Will Remain 'SSH' · · Score: 1
    I wrote:

    Please use relative symlinks! i.e. "ln -s secsh /usr/bin/ssh"

    Then you wrote:

    Are you an idiot? secsh is the one that exists and ssh does not exists. Read the message more carefully, dude.

    But ln's first argument is the name of the destination of the link, and the second argument is the name of the link that is going to be created. Its arguments are in the same order of link() and symlink().

    I am correct, you are not. I understand that the order of ln can be confusing, but you should be more careful before criticizing others so sternly.

  22. Re:Yo Queiro Taco Bell on Mir Deathwatch · · Score: 1
    1) A taco does not cost 50 cents to make. A taco is sold for about that.

    2) A taco is not a meal. If they were to give out a free taco to everyone in the country, they would -make- money. People would go in to buy a taco and some other food and a drink.

  23. Relative! on Secure Shell Will Remain 'SSH' · · Score: 1
    This will save a lot of people from typing 'ln -s /usr/bin/secsh /usr/bin/ssh'.

    Please use relative symlinks! i.e. "ln -s secsh /usr/bin/ssh" This way your links do not break if you mount that filesystem elsewhere, or if you move that directory (though not too likely to happen in the case of /usr/bin). The same reasoning is why you should use relative links in html.

  24. Re:You can reduce this further. on Illegal Prime Number Unzips to DeCSS · · Score: 1
    However determining this number would be (ludicrously) computionally expensive.

    Do primes have at all a predictable distribution? i.e. x is prime, y is a constant, x is the (x/y)th +/- z prime. And if so, how large is z?

    Or is there some other shortcut for figuring this out? This would be extremely interesting. h

  25. Re:WWW!= Internet on Georgia Tech Implements Wireless Campus Net · · Score: 1

    There are many ways they could secure it properly, within the 802.11 protocol, without forcing users to to only use devices that support a web browser.