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User: Bullfish

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  1. Not a flaw, a feature, really on Genetic Reason for Your Gadget Habit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is a good thing and is part of all of our natures. Without it, we would never have left the caves, invented the spiky club, fire, beer or the refrigerator (in which you keep your beer).

  2. Re:Smart... Real Smart... on The Plot To Hijack Your Hard Drive · · Score: 1

    I wasn't advocating it, just saying snubbing the public in such a fashion is apt to paint a target on their foreheads. I call it digging your grave with your tongue.

  3. Funny, but... on Stephen Hawking Asks The Internet a Question · · Score: 1

    Doom and gloom predications have been coming and going for centuries, yet somehow, humanity still continues to make generation over generation progress

  4. Love the attitude on The Plot To Hijack Your Hard Drive · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Is it just me, or are these weasels begging for a DDOS attack. Their attitude about damaging other people's computers reeks of entitlement and self-rightousness. Would anyone cry if their servers were fried.

  5. Re:You have no privacy on the net on Canadian ISP Shoulder Surfing · · Score: 1

    The purpose of surveilance is to see what others would consider private, so by extension, it is a privacy issue.

    You say you don't mind other people seeing what you are doing and while the common misconception is completely understandable, I point out that in fact the government is made up of people. I know, this has been questioned in he past, but studies in bars near government offices have shown civil servants shedding their disguises and revealing htemselves to be human. This is not an urban legend/

  6. You have no privacy on the net on Canadian ISP Shoulder Surfing · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think that anyone who thinks they have any privacy on the net is fooling themselves. Sympatico are announcing that they are going to do this monitoring, but no doubt they could know what traffic went in and out of a particular IP address within the hour if they needed to do so. While a lot of people think that net privacy is a sacred cow, this is just sheer fantasy. There hasn't been a government on this planet that didn't regulate or make provision to monitor communications and really that is what the internet is at it's heart.

    Bad people do exist on the net and use its power for their own ends. This has always been the case. Especially in the black and white areas we all can agree are bad, like using the net to lure kids. The dicey part is who gets to decide what is "bad" in the grey areas and that has also always been the case. It ain't going away.

  7. It's a good name on Linuxcare Reincarnated as Levanta · · Score: 3, Funny

    As the name is close enough to Levitra, with some clever marketing people will believe the company can keep your computer up.

  8. I have to say on Humanoid Robot Serves Beer · · Score: 1

    That anyone or anything that serves, or tries to serve me beer, is okay in my book.

  9. Re:I actually like the martial arts on Techie Fight Clubs Springing Up · · Score: 1

    Myamoto Musashi wandered the Japanese country for years beating the tar out of samurai and other challengers using only bokken. Never lost once so they say.

  10. Dangerous indeed to politicians on Politicians Target Social Sites For Restrictions · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Really, if you think about it, there are predators out there that will use such pages and forums to gather their forces to go after some of these poiliticians and get them out of office. It must be very scary for this guy and his ilk indeed.

  11. Good move on TiVo Signs Up for Internet Video Content · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think we all accept that most of our entertainment will be brought to us over the net in the future rather than through standard broadcast. I doubt that the early offerings are going to get anybody too excited (our choice of commercials? oh goody!), but this will be good for Tivo to get ready for a few years down the road with a nice headstart on the technology. Any techniques and refinements they can develop will help them survive one all the bandwagon jumpers start climbing on board.

  12. Refinement on Gadgets, Then & Now · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thing is, as clunky as all that stuff was back in the day, the same some exists now, only in sleeker, more refined format. If you look especially how much a lot of stuff like phones and computers have shrunk in the last 20 years while increasing capacity, it's enough to make you believe that powerful, wearable and unobtrusive computers etc will be common within say 15 years. The hype we get over new products that disappoint is often enough to make you say "it's all crap", but comparatives like this is a reminder that real progress is made.

  13. Re:Not a bad idea on EU Proposing Mandatory Battery Recycling · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually, when I was a kid you could buy mercury duracells (they were red). It was a selling feature. You paid extra.

  14. Not a bad idea on EU Proposing Mandatory Battery Recycling · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Even though mercury and cadmium is not as commonly used in batteries anymore, some countries in Europe there may still use them to a degree. The batteries I would wonder about are the imports that sell for a fifth of the price of a set of duracels. I kind of wonder what they use, but in any event, it wasn't that long ago that I read about a recall of chinese made crayons that had lead in them. So I don't discount anything.

    If nothing else, one the law is in place, it is easy to amend it for future purposes than to draft a new one. The law also probably has something to do with putting in a europe-wide standard for such things as opposed to a hodge-podge of laws.

  15. Just fishing on RIAA Targets LAN Filesharing at Universities · · Score: 1

    I don't think that anyone is under the illusion that filesharing doesn't go on in universities. All they have to do is get the university to give them a fishing license to get a new group of people to sue. It's easier than developing new talent for their labels I suppose. The universities that are reluctant to comply, well, that's what the threat to go to the government is all about. Similarly to their cases against single mothers, grandmothers and dad people, they like to go after the low hanging fruit, and fear of the expense of litigation is their biggest tool. Will this make a difference to filesharing, no, not really. Nothing else has worked, but they may be able to squeeze a few bucks out of some students. Is it underhanded, sure, but that's been their stock in trade for qite a while now. I used to think they would eventually wise up and put out product people want to buy, but it appears they are a lot thicker than I thought.

  16. Somehow... on S3 Tries to Get Back Into PC Graphics · · Score: 1

    Somehow the notion of S3 (or god forbid SIS) climbing back into the gaming video card market is like a slasher film monster coming back to life.

    Have they ever worked well for gaming (and no, solitaire doesn't count)?

  17. On-line for sure on TV Outside the Box · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of course people are going to go on-line. If you think of it, how many must see movies, TV shows or games are produced each year. And don't get me started on music. Frankly all these industries have fallen into a bankruptcy of creativity and guts. Too much of what we see and hear are hackneyed remakes of shows and songs that were fine back in the day, but repackaging them is not the path to glory. They can cry piracy all they like, but Spielberg said it best when he said that if Hollywood wants people to see their movies, they should make movies people want to see. At least on-line you can have your choice instead of what some entertainment executive thinks he can sell you. Is there some good stuff out there? Sure, but by comparison it is buried often by the volume of crap out there. Apple has done well with their kitschy little units, but it wouldn't be the same without the complicity of the industry. Hell, I could probably buy all the stuff I want for about 10 bucks a week. But then, like the music industry, once it takes off, they'll be whining that two bucks a show is too cheap.

  18. Re:It just ain't gonna happen on Mass Microsoft Defections to Apple Possible · · Score: 1

    What I meant was that neither has a chance of giving MS a sweat in the foreseeable future. It just ain't gonna happen because linux distros are, for the most part, user unfriendly compared to windows and apple. Apple itself, is too frigging expensive and restrictive in it's full-metal lockdown approach to drm. It doesn't help either that apple and linux, comparatively speaking, have a miniscule choice of games. If you think that doesn't matter, look at the shelves of any computer gaming store. If their was a buck to be made from apple, they would be all over it. MS reacting to linux, mac and google moves is just that, they have to react to someone, and people who work for bill have to justify their existence. I doubt though they sweat that the market is going to collapse from under them any more than exxon is worried that hybrids will drive them to the poor house.

  19. Re:How do you know? on Mass Microsoft Defections to Apple Possible · · Score: 1

    Gee, I might say that because MS's user base absolutely dwarfs all others combined in the consumer market. The press MS has got of late is not good and has mostly to do with business-related lawsuits etc., and that's as far as most people see MS, which is to say, from the distance from their nose to their TV. The news about vista is mostly a ho-hum to the average joe. They won't change their os until they change their pc, and they will want windows. The constantly under attack argument is hackneyed and tired. It just ain't so for most people. Once you show someone how to run ad-aware and avg, it isn't likely they will have a great deal of problems as most people stick to a few favoured websites. They are more apt to screw something up themselves than to be eaten by the internet, and that can happen to any system, any os in the hands of a klutz. Are they be 100 % secure with their wintel boxes, no, of course not. The only 100% safe computer is one not networked and which is kept in a locked room with limited, monitored physical access. Of course then, there's hardware failure I suppose. No, tell most average joes and janes about MS's software related woes and their eyes will glaze over and they will go back to playing counterstrike and shopping.

  20. It just ain't gonna happen on Mass Microsoft Defections to Apple Possible · · Score: 1

    The people that make up the population in the survey say they distrust MS. Okay, fine. What they distrust is their business practices, not MS's software itself (rightly or wrongly). They also have a lot of dough tied up in their gear. I see an exodus to linux happening far before an exodus to apple. If apple released their os for the traditional wintel box for a good price, they might might more inroads. Even then, it would be tough sledding.

  21. Mature products on Thinking About Desktop Eyecandy · · Score: 1

    This is, I think, part of the industry's attempt to keep things new and indeed sell os's and hardware. 10 years ago, computers were really just getting going in the mainstream and people were buying and upgrading al the time. Great times for the hardware and software manufacturers. Even better with the Y2K panic. It made the dot.com boom. Now, computers in the home are commonplace, and really, for most people who just browse and do e-mail etc (not hard-core gamers and hobbyists), the computer matured as a product at about the 1.5GHz mark. Possibly earlier. Most people don't need more and the only way you can sell them more if you break their old stuff. Hence the dot.com bust.

    They want and need more profit, and will do almost anything to do it. They want to avoid the perils of the mature product market where little distinguishes one product from another. Look at microwave ovens and lots of other products. several hundred bucks t start - 50 bucks now.

    So you have Mac OSX visual enhancements, Aeroglass and extreme processor editions. These things really are the same thing car makers did in the 70's when the oil crisis eliminated real stock off-the-lot pavement rippers. A performance car from the factory then was mostly the same as the regular model, but festooned with garish decals and NACA ports that did nothing but look good. They billed these performance models.

    The home computer has pretty much grown up and will likely stay this way until the real next big thing (whatever it may be). The only OS immune to this is Linux because it is not sold. On the commercial side of things, expect to see more and more of this, and expect to see hobbyists and gamers strips stuff out of their boxes much like a racer buys a car and starts ripping carpet, goo-gahs etc out of the thing. For now, this is the new world order.

  22. It's misleading advertising on Intel Launches New Pentium Extreme Edition 965 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think by now most of us on these kinds of discussion boards know that the price differential between the extreme and non-extreme versions of Intel chips is not worth the extra punch that the cache increase extreme denotes. Unfortunately, they will sell a lot of these to people who don't know any better. Some of them will be to people we know who will then wonder why our cheaper machines perform the same or better. Others will remain convinced that they bought the best and will lash themselves to believing they were not duped.

    To me, this is indicative of a lot of the market now. Really, you don't need a 700 dollar video card to play any game out on the market. True, with the more expensive card you will get better resolutions on very large or multiple monitors, but most people don't have them. I know people whole have 17 inch monitors who were almost suckered by the hype that you need a high priced card just to play FEAR at all. Ditto, BF2. This really has been driven by the hardware companies and hardware sites that like to torture test hardware. Not in and of itself a bad thing, but to the uninitiated, it can be misleading. Especially when coupled with hardware companies that implicitly promote this untruth.

    Unfortunately, the extreme edition etc, is symbolic of companies that feel a loss because their profit slipped from the previous year, in spite of the fact they are still making good money. No doubt some of these execs still sleep at night dreaming of another Y2K scam to rake in the dollars from sales of hardware most people don't need, or in the end, even want.

    That is what I believe is at the root of this kind of marketing. And I don't see it going away, I see it becoming more rife.

  23. And the winner is... on Windows Vista Delayed Again · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who had March 21rst on the "Vista is delayed" announcement pool? New pool for the next announced delay date starts soon!

  24. The old money in the US is... on FCC Levies Record Indecency Fine · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The old money in the US that really governs the country is made up of families that had their roots in a lot of quirky religions that were run out of Europe. Hence you can have tits in a margarine commercial in Europe, but if a shrouded nipple shows up in a TV show it is chased down by investigators. Ironically, it is pretty much only in the fundamentalist whacky Muslim sect countries where you will find the equivalent of a Pat Robertson and his ilk claiming god kills millions for considering gay marriage and teaching evolution. You wonder why youth is violent, but consider that the unintended message is that American society prefers extreme violence to demonstrative physical love between people. The reality is each one of us is here because two people got laid. If they had been killed...

    Frankly, it would appear, the Europeans had the right idea with these whack-jobs.

  25. Same old, same old on No More Next Big Thing? · · Score: 1

    As others have already pointed out, the guy's statement has been made before. Perhaps he wants to leave a legacy, and as he is saying that IBM has pretty much collapsed as an entity for innovation, perhaps he wants to get into a book of stupid quotes from the early 21rst century. By recycling idiotic comments others have made in the past, he only proves he can't even come up with an original saying. If he was my head of tech innovation, he would be looking for a new job tomorrow.