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User: Divebus

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Comments · 998

  1. Re:Competition is GOOD on Rumors of Google and Dell iPhone Rival · · Score: 1

    Points well taken, AC. The products ordered from Austin (from the same Chinese factories used by Cupertino) are still very... well, blah. Making things work better, despite the activity you're reporting, isn't one of Dell's lauded hallmarks. When was the last time anyone talked about a "Dell killer" in the industry (unless you worked for HP)? Ever? On the other hand, practically anything out of Apple, even if it's a ho-hum flop, gets lots of media attention (positive and negative) and a hundred manufacturers trying to kill it off with copy-cat products. Even if the other products are "better", they still can't get traction against what appears to be innovation out of Apple.

    Apple being called a "closed system" makes some people chuckle. The hardware is the same hardware everyone else uses (now) with the ability to boot whatever you want on it. They embrace many standards that other outfit in the upper North West tries to kill off (not perfect but not horrible, either). It's true that Apple tries to intercept attempts at modifications for some products but the difficulty in that is - it's easy to do. You can pull out your favorite Unix tools and go to work on it. Even the OS itself can be installed on commodity hardware and most of what's in there is very familiar to Linux users.

    Cupertino's competition is Sony? I can see that. It's also becoming competition with Linux more than Microsoft.

  2. Re:Competition is GOOD on Rumors of Google and Dell iPhone Rival · · Score: 1

    Computer Giant Dell? Apple's market cap is almost 3X Dell's.

    Anyway, Dell makes things out of hardware they find laying around in China but they don't really innovate anything. Besides, Google's CEO sits on Apple's Board. I don't see Doogell Phone happening, but ready to be surprised.

  3. Re:The Plan on Amazon Patents Customized 404 Pages · · Score: 1
    Patent Trolls weren't invented until recently and prior art is everywhere. I did this on my WebSTAR server with NetCloak nine years ago but John O'Fallon would have laughed at the suggestion to patent something like this. That was then. From the NetCloak manual:

    When a non-existent page is requested and the error page is served, THISURL is the requested (non-existent) URL. This makes the SHOW_THISURL command useful for making a smart error page. If users have a typo in their URL, the error page can automatically redirect them to the page they were looking for.

    You could easily pull context laden hints from anywhere to make smart error pages. Not new. Obviously patentable things today (like breathing air, walking upright or farting) were taken for granted before. Sheesh.
  4. Re:Remind me again... on AIDS Drug Patent Revoked In US · · Score: 1

    Call me a conspiracy nut, but I always imagined that no one gets rich curing a disease when they can sell you pills over the course of your lifetime instead.

    OK, you're a conspiracy nut. However, conspiracy nuts sometimes provide a shortcut to the truth and this is one of those cases.

  5. Re:I misread the headline on Magistrate Suggests Fining RIAA Lawyers · · Score: 3, Informative

    We could fire the attorneys into space, couldn't we? Please?

  6. Re:Romney doesn't have a prayer...(pun intended) on Mitt Romney Answers Tech Questions · · Score: 1

    Hadn't thought of it that way... if you could just keep the sweat glands working for the full effect, that would be worthy of hanging over the fireplace. Maybe someone else's fireplace... I like my Han Solo in Carbonite over the fireplace too much.

  7. Re:Romney doesn't have a prayer...(pun intended) on Mitt Romney Answers Tech Questions · · Score: 1

    Hahahaha... good one but, nope, sorry. He's for real. That's why my favorite candidate is whoever is running against McCain.

  8. Re:Be nice on Mitt Romney Answers Tech Questions · · Score: 1

    Ohhhh yeahhh.... That'll be one fat Red Carpet getting rolled out. "First order of business is to get rid of all this OpenSource nonsense and legislate a REAL technical strategy for the future! And all those rulings against Microsoft are rescinded. Here's $150 billion in restitution."

  9. Re:Romney doesn't have a prayer...(pun intended) on Mitt Romney Answers Tech Questions · · Score: 4, Informative

    At least Romney hasn't advertised he'll put Steve Ballmer on his cabinet like McCain has. Gak! You think we have it bad NOW?

  10. Re:Light but lower performance on In-Depth Review of the MacBook Air With Photos · · Score: 0

    The Air has more features than some full size portables.

    BAWHAHAHAHA.... that was HILARIOUS!

    Anyway, the Macbook is nice enough to forgo the Air at that price point. We'll see a lot in Hollywood anyway with Final Cut on them under the arms of wannabe producers.

  11. Great on KDE Goes Cross-Platform, Supports Windows and OS X · · Score: 3, Funny

    That bodes well for kimovie, kiphoto and kitunes (for my kipod)

  12. Re:They are all playing the lock in game on Microsoft Threatens Startups Over Account Info · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Same old head crushers. Are you watching this DOJ? Oh, it's not a threat... it's a choice. An anti-competitive, locked in, service bundling, vendor threatening choice - in the name of beter "security". Puleeeez. We've seen this behavior before and I hope this blows up in their face worse than last time.

  13. Re:... and here's a Linux one. on First Scareware For the Mac · · Score: 1

    your link is broken... can you repost?

    HA! Fscking hilarious... tnx

  14. Re:... and here's a Linux one. on First Scareware For the Mac · · Score: 1

    I guess the Mac village is still relatively safe, but if the market share keeps increasing it's not going to be such a safe small village anymore.

    That's for sure. More Village Idiots who are mostly Windows switchers bringing bad habits with them - "Click here to see the dancing monkeys"

  15. Re:obligatory on Microsoft Will Stream Ads To Grocery Carts · · Score: 4, Funny

    Whole new application for the term "Crash Cart".

  16. Re:If you don't like the ads... on Microsoft Will Stream Ads To Grocery Carts · · Score: 1

    I suspect quite a few of these will be broken shortly after introduction.

    No bumping necessary. It's the only OS I know that will crash by itself if you leave it alone long enough.

  17. Re:Form? on Ford Claims Ownership Of Your Pictures · · Score: 1

    "Crustang", "Rustang", "Mustake", and "My Little Pony"

    I would see Ford trucks with the metal letters rearranged to say "FROD" or "DORF". Make a calendar out of THAT!

  18. Re:Form? on Ford Claims Ownership Of Your Pictures · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here's a fix: Make the Ford dealer remove all brand marks from any car you buy, or make them pay for the advertising space.

  19. Re:Not surprising... on Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back · · Score: 1

    Ahhhh... the days when good audio was difficult! My friend with the enormous audio budget also had to put his components in a separate room. Even then, the tonearm only quit jumping when he put a piece of granite under the turntable. He would also constantly "demo" equipment from Myer Emco here in the States (D.C. area) and things would get more and more expensive every other week.

    My favorite system he had was a Mission turntable (and a Thorens 160 for a bit but he really wanted the Thorens Reference MK-I), a Dynavector Ruby MC cartridge (made the biggest difference), an FET preamp (which was changed to a Mission tube preamp after he blew up the FETs with his Zerostat gun), a Yamaha "Natural Sound" amp with the 100 watt power FET output (low power but VERY clean) and a set of Acoustat model 2 speakers (the Magnapan IIAs were temperature sensitive, too directional and ate the Yamaha alive). We also installed a flat, braided high velocity speaker cable under the rug. Can't remember the name but the cable made an impressive difference in loss and clarity getting to the speakers. Of course, he had the record post clamp, silver Litz wire between the cartridge and preamp, the cleaner-lubricator brushes (which he removed because you could hear the bristles echo in the groove) and he played with tonearm putty.

    Once it was all done, we could hear things in recordings never heard before. There was a sonic difference between closing the cover on the turntable, opening it or removing the cover completely. You could hear the solo violinist breathing in the recordings of Herbert von Karajan / Berliner Philharmoniker Brandenburg Concertos. It was like his nose was whistling right into your ear. Those Deutsche Grammophon recordings and pressings were spectacular. The stereo image was a real image - not confined to just coming from the speakers. You could hear offstage sounds; enough to go into the next room to see what fell off the wall. The sound was in the recording and would project far right or left out from between the speakers. When I brought my Revox over to tape records, we had to be quiet because you could hear us talking in the room between tracks of the record. I haven't heard anything like it since.

    If nobody believes the voodoo of playing a record properly, they clearly never had a chance to experience all this. Every little thing made an audible difference and, yes, we could hear the difference between the same record played five minutes ago and played yesterday. The friend, BTW, happened to be named Dave Grusin - who shared the same grandfather as the famous Dave Grusin.

  20. Re:"Suddenly"? on Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back · · Score: 1

    Stylus point temperatures can approach the melting point of Vinyl. Think about the stylus contact point. The pressure there is around 40,000 pounds per square inch sliding along the groove at about 20 inches per second. Gets hot at any fixed point on the record for just an instant.

  21. Re:In other news... on Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back · · Score: 1

    Yeah, some of the greatest intelligence ever was published by Anonymous Coward. Write something germane.

  22. Re:"Suddenly"? on Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back · · Score: 1

    No, it's true... with the stylus contact point heating to a few hundred degrees, it will push the high frequencies around on the Vinyl surface but elasticity will return them to (more or less) their original position. I'm glad I'm half deaf now - makes my music devices a lot cheaper these days.

  23. Re:Not surprising... on Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back · · Score: 1

    AWESOME! My buddy had some Leak Audio speakers with aluminum cones that would take this. We'd try to control rattles in the house - tying coat hangers together in the closet, double stick the pictures on the wall... we'd still have shit fall off the bookshelves when the cannons hit! He also had a Warfdale "sandbox" speaker with 30-inch driver but didn't use that (it was his dad's Hi-Fi thing).

  24. Re:Its just criminals on Proposal for UK Prisoners to be Given RFID Implants · · Score: 1

    Give them to criminals? Hell - if they're going to do that, make them pay for the device, installation and maintenance. However, I heartily agree that any approach like this will lead to extension into the general public and abuse of information. The Thought Police will get us all.

  25. Re:Location of the implants on Proposal for UK Prisoners to be Given RFID Implants · · Score: 1

    "He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name." [Rev 13:16-17, NIV]

    Everyone knows that refers to Bill Gates. The mark on the right hand is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and the mark on the forehead came from pounding it on the keyboard.