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User: wrencherd

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  1. "Poh-tay-toh, poh-tah-toh" on Consumer Reports Can't Recommend iPhone 4 · · Score: 1

    Consumer Reports have had suspect opinions (IMO) for at least 15 years.

    It is no longer clear what their business is, or where they get their funding.

    I would no more trust their ratings/rankings of anything, than I would take Apple's word that my iPhone is not working b/c I'm holding it wrong.

    (Oh I see . . . I should hold it with the prehensile tail, that's better; can you hear me now?)

  2. House of meat's been done many times . . . on Growing A House From Meat · · Score: 1

    . . . the one in NYC was called, "Studio 54".

  3. And in the closet . . . on Growing A House From Meat · · Score: 1

    . . . skirt steak? (Could be weird depending on who does or does not live there.)

  4. Would you buy a used term paper from this man? on Plagiarism Inc. · · Score: 1

    Looking at the photo accompanying the article, it would be hard to think that anyone would pay those clowns to do anything in which smarts are (supposed to be) involved, much less put one's name on it and turn it in for a grade.

    You might just as well ask them to take the MCAT for you; you'd be better off just checking off "C" on every question.

  5. Re:Big O for the iPad? on The State of iPad Satisfaction · · Score: 1

    Sure, the users are satisfied, but what the iPad and its needs?

    Whoops, that should read:

    " . . . but what about the iPad and its needs?"

    Not nearly as humorous when you have to re-edit.

  6. Big O for the iPad? on The State of iPad Satisfaction · · Score: 1

    Sure, the users are satisfied, but what the iPad and its needs?

  7. "Wonder", or "wander"? on The Tuesday Birthday Problem · · Score: 1

    From TFA:

    Still, Gardner’s initial overly narrow interpretation warns of the dangers of over-hasty analysis of probability questions — and shows the wonder that can come from them.

    Is it "wonder", or does it mostly reveal how non-mathematical and unscientific probability is?

  8. Dot-plan? on Why Engineers Don't Like Twitter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's like an SMS message, but not necessarily directed at a particular person. It's like an IM status, but not tied to IM.

    It actually reminds me the most of the old unix "plan" file which popped up when users were "fingered".

    But this plan is constantly being re-edited over and over and over and over and over . . . you get the idea.

  9. RSV=="Real Swedish Volvo"? on When the US Government Built Ultra-Safe Cars · · Score: 1

    Volvos had a lot of these same characteristics and didn't look like Pacers--though they were "boxy, but safe"--through the '70's, 80's and most of the 1990's.

    Then Ford Corp. bought controlling interest in Volvo and that was that.

  10. Any research on whether this works? on UK Newspaper Websites To Become Nearly Invisible · · Score: 1

    Is there any research showing that this works (i.e. that cutting people off from the online version of the paper either drives them to pay for access or buy the print version)?

    TFA makes it sound like a whim; hard to believe that such a large corp would make a move like w/o some research to support it.

  11. Which "morons"? on Tabnapping Scams Around the Corner? · · Score: 1

    I think I'd want to have some kind of referendum on what "stupid" is before I'd agree to the whole sterilization thing.

    And as far as natural selection taking care of stupidity, it much more often seems like the stupider one is the more their reproductive practice takes on a pattern similar to that of voting in Chicago: early and often.

  12. Re:So what? on Hacking Automotive Systems · · Score: 1

    I think the problem here is assuming that technology only advances on one side of the equation; if terrorists know how to reprogram the car through the on-board computer(-s), then it is also likely that the secret service would have some means of re-reprogramming those same computers just as the VP, VIP, PM, MP or PP was being loaded into an otherwise "secure" vehicle.

    And what used to pass for innocuous auto maintenance would no longer innocuous, but that would only be true . . .

    [Rips off lifemask] . . . if you choose to accept this mission . . .

    Dum dum da-dum dum,
    Dum dum da-dum dum.
    Deeda-dah deeda-dah deeda-dah, da-da-dah, etc.

  13. Questionable car analogy: not quite turbo . . . on AMD Undercuts Intel With Six-Core Phenom IIs · · Score: 1

    "Turbo" seems the wrong (perfunctory) auto analogy.

    Boosting clock-speed on some of the cores when others are idle sounds more like "variable displacement technology" than it does turbo-charging.

  14. Probably killing as many ebook-reader sales on iPad Is Destroying Netbook Sales · · Score: 1

    I gave one as a gift based on a comparison with available ebook-readers (Kindle and Sony).

    Given the price (for the base iPad) it was better all the way around--particularly as the person I was giving it to already had a Mac to sync with--b/c of everything else it offered (including techno-fetishism) beyond books.

  15. Black-listing attachments/MIME-types? on State Senator Caught Looking At Porn On Senate Floor · · Score: 1

    Will it ever be possible to filter email attachments before they are opened by recipients?

    If it were (putting aside the legal/political implications) could certain attachments be black-listed in the same way that websites are?

    Just wondering.

  16. Re:Does this Qualify? on State Senator Caught Looking At Porn On Senate Floor · · Score: 1

    It's probably not pornographic by applicable community standards (which I think is still the rule).

    But the legal definition of "pr0n" is likely less the issue in this kind of PR snafu, than it is about what idle hands are allowed to get up to.

  17. Re:A long-standing theory is, that this is normal. on Aphid's Color Comes From a Fungus Gene · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    . . .this is the reason some people look more like the animals their predecessors are.

    And some think a lot like their animal ancestors too, eh. ;)

    I think you meant to type, "ate" rather than "are", no?

    It's my impression that quite a few Polish and German people are Jewish, which would preclude them from eating pork.

    Yet I don't remember ever seeing any Poles or Germans who look like whitefish (though I have met quite a few people, across all nationalities and religions, whom I would classify as "lox").

  18. Is it biodegradable? on Japanese Researchers Make Plastic Out of Water · · Score: 1

    The most important thing about any replacement for our current plastics, I would think, would be that it be biodegradable, no?

    TFA doesn't seem to say one way or another though.

  19. Still a better named product on Microsoft's Touted iPad Rival Courier Becomes Less Than Vapor · · Score: 1

    The worst part is that they had so much of a better name than "i-"whatever.

  20. Pulitzer Zombies v. Apple Zombies on Bad PR Forces Apple To Reconsider Banning Mark Fiore's App · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The upshot of this seems to be that we're all now expected to seek out this "comic" b/c (1) it's been given a Pulitzer, and (2) reading it "sticks it to the man" (the man in this case is Steve Jobs).

    Free PR notwithstanding, this "comic" is not really up to the standards of most parodies on youtube.

    It seems to be a choice between being a "Pulitzer-zombie", or an "Apple-zombie".

    In the end, a zombie is a zombie: "They're all messed up." --John Russo & George A. Romero

  21. So, you prefer the gatekeeping of PPC over Apple? on Apple Blocks Cartoonist From App Store · · Score: 1

    It seems to me that anyone who deems this most offensive b/c this cartoonist was given a Pulitzer, really isn't expressing their respect for free speech, so much as they are voicing a preference for the information gatekeeping choices of the prize committee over those of the app store.

    It's a matter of pick your poison in that regard.

    Pulitzer, by the way, was about as admirable a person vis a vis "journalistic integrity", as Cecil Rhodes--for whom the eponymous-, and highly-touted scholarship is named--was a "scholar".

  22. Or maybe the Horta from STTOS on Microbial Life Found In Trinidadian Hydrocarbon Lake · · Score: 1

    If this is true: "respiring with metals", then it seems more like just a few evolutionary steps to the Hortaas in"Devil in the Dark" from the original series.

    (But then my understanding of the term "respiration" has probably been impoverished by watching too much sci-fi tv.)

  23. Re:From that infernal nonsense Pinafore . . . on The Pirate Party of Canada Is Official · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sure, but if I were that talented I would be a musician.

    That would probably lead to dating, which would, in turn, invalidate my SLA w/ slashdot.

  24. From that infernal nonsense Pinafore . . . on The Pirate Party of Canada Is Official · · Score: 2, Funny

    More like:

    "In matters digital, downloadable and musical,
    I am the very model of a modern torrent client."

    I should think.

  25. Dentist's office shouldn't have an aftertaste on Completely Farm-Bred Unagi, a World First · · Score: 1

    If you think root beer tastes like the dentist's office, I'd say you're drinking the wrong root beer . . . and you should seriously reconsider allowing your dentist to put you under at your next cleaning.