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User: elrous0

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  1. [raises hand] on Endeavour Crew To Be Interviewed Via YouTube · · Score: 2, Funny

    How is this pathetic attempt to show your modern relevance any different than any of the thousand other carefully-orchestrated canned interviews with pre-screened questions that you've done on the last 133 space shuttle missions, and why should anyone give a shit about this transparently obvious PR stunt aimed at generating just enough public interest to keep NASA's budget at the same decrepit state it's been at since the end of the Apollo missions 40 years ago?

    Oh, and could you please tell us what it's like to eat and drink in space?

  2. So, we can put pee pee in *their* coke? on Does China's Cyber Offense Obscure Woeful Defense? · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Take THAT joke, China!

  3. Re:There's some karma for you, Mikey on PSN Outage Continues, Console Hack Claimed To Be Responsible · · Score: 1

    The PS3 has serious buffering issues on HD movies, the 360 plays them smooth as silk. And the fast-forward and rewind implementation are far better on the 360 than PS3. Those are way more important to me than the quality of the virtual keyboard.

  4. Re:Space Race v2.0 on China Plans Space Station By 2020 · · Score: 1

    If only "could have," "might have," and "should have" counted instead of "did."

  5. Re:How? on China Plans Space Station By 2020 · · Score: 1

    That will be 17 years from their first manned space launch. That's more time that it took the Soviets, and they had to do it from SCRATCH.

  6. Re:Knock-offs on China Plans Space Station By 2020 · · Score: 1

    but inside there is a lot of plastic, bad/cheap soldering jobs, cheap components that break easily, duct tape, and a lot of empty unused space.

    Well in that case, it is *definitely* a knock-off of the ISS.

  7. Re:QC anyone? on China Plans Space Station By 2020 · · Score: 2

    China is under no obligation to recognize any "oversight committee." Unless you want to go to war with them, I'm pretty sure they, as a sovereign country, can send whatever they damn well please into space.

  8. Re:Space Race v2.0 on China Plans Space Station By 2020 · · Score: 2

    Not likely. The rivalry between the U.S. and China is nothing compared to the rivalry between the U.S. and Soviet Union at the time of the first space race. And the original space race was only prompted by the U.S. realization that the USSR was WAY ahead of us in astronautics. Launching men into space and even a space station just shows that China is on par with the U.S. and Russia, not that it's way ahead. This is likely just another move by China to assert its position as a serious peer, not a move to show superiority or provoke a new space race (which neither they nor we can afford).

  9. Re:Sony is warning users? on 77 Million Accounts Stolen From Playstation Network · · Score: 1

    Ditto for me. AFAIK, they haven't sent out a single email to the effected users. They've just issued that lame press release. Millions of users who don't follow the news are no doubt oblivious to what's happened right now.

  10. Sony isn't using the term "massive identity theft" on 77 Million Accounts Stolen From Playstation Network · · Score: 5, Funny

    They're calling it an "unexpected mass friendship opportunity."

  11. Re:Electricity from a Potato.... on Several Student-Led Experiments To Fly On Endeavour · · Score: 1

    They can put it next to my "Lemons that will BLOW YOUR HOUSE UP!" experiment.

  12. Re:Patents as well on Copyright Law Is Killing Science · · Score: 1

    My university certainly didn't. I still retain copyright on everything I ever did while I was there, even the stuff I did that was based on my grad assistantship research. How can grad students ever publish if they don't own copyright on their own research?

  13. Re:There's some karma for you, Mikey on PSN Outage Continues, Console Hack Claimed To Be Responsible · · Score: 1

    If I still had my PS3, I probably would have chosen the PS3 version of Portal 2 as well. But the fanboism of one group mocking another over sometimes fairly trivial differences between versions of games ("The anti-aliasing in my version of such-and-such game is slightly better than you version!") is very tiresome. Ironically, I remember the same thing happening when the Orange Box came out, only it was the Xbox fanboys making fun of the PS3 fanboys on that one. It really seems like the most pointless war in history.

  14. Re:There's some karma for you, Mikey on PSN Outage Continues, Console Hack Claimed To Be Responsible · · Score: 1

    No, just that I'm human, and resent being called stupid for choosing one version of a game over another.

  15. Re:There's some karma for you, Mikey on PSN Outage Continues, Console Hack Claimed To Be Responsible · · Score: 1

    You've obviously never met him, or you would know that, in his mind, Sony NEVER makes a mistake and PSN is PERFECT.

  16. Re:There's some karma for you, Mikey on PSN Outage Continues, Console Hack Claimed To Be Responsible · · Score: 1

    I've used both and here's my take on it.

    PSN has a big upper-hand on cost (free is always nice) and the openess of the network. That openess is what allows them to do thinks like integrating Steam into Portal 2 and supporting MMO's like DC Universe Online. Playstation Home is also kind of neat, and MS has no equivalent "social space." On the downside, the PSN experience is very fragmented and disorganized. There is no sense of cohesion in things like matchmaking. It all feels very hodge-podge.

    Xbox Live has the upper hand on cohesion and organization. The Live interface is consistently implemented. Matchmaking is superior. Every game feels well-integrated into the overall Live experience. It's all very polished. And the Xbox Netflix interface is by far the best I've ever seen (better than Roku, better than the PS3, better than any blu-ray player I've used). The downsides are the cost (way too much to be charging when everyone else is doing it for free), the lack of a social space like Home, and the closed network (for the last few years MS has been openly hostile to MMO's, Steam intergration or anything which might threaten their complete control over their network).

  17. Re:There's some karma for you, Mikey on PSN Outage Continues, Console Hack Claimed To Be Responsible · · Score: 1

    No one should feel safe with ANY retailer these days. It's probably a good idea to always keep a close eye on any credit card that you use for online (and some offline purchases) and keep one specific card reserved (if possible) for such purchases.

  18. Re:There's some karma for you, Mikey on PSN Outage Continues, Console Hack Claimed To Be Responsible · · Score: 1

    "We cannot rule out the possibility" is corporate-speak for "We don't want to admit it publicly yet, but yeah, it happened." Remember the "We cannot rule out the possibility of a radiation leak" statements that first came out of Fukushima?

  19. Re:Official word from Sony finally on PSN Outage Continues, Console Hack Claimed To Be Responsible · · Score: 1

    I went through the process several years ago. But I don't think I ever had any reason to give them my CC number at least (I don't recall ever buying anything from them). Guess I'm on the list too, though. Wish I had thought of creating a bogus person. That's probably a pretty good general security tip these days, though. "Never give your real name."

  20. Re:Official word from Sony finally on PSN Outage Continues, Console Hack Claimed To Be Responsible · · Score: 0

    Since PSN is free, I imagine most people haven't given it their credit card info. (unless they're buying DLC).

  21. Re:There's some karma for you, Mikey on PSN Outage Continues, Console Hack Claimed To Be Responsible · · Score: 1

    No, it doesn't change the respective merits of either online service. But I bet Mikey would still have a seizure if I asked him how his Steam coop play is going.

  22. There's some karma for you, Mikey on PSN Outage Continues, Console Hack Claimed To Be Responsible · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've got a friend who is a PS3 fanatic, and hates all things Nintendo and MS as a consequence (never understood the partisanship myself, and I've owned all three consoles at one time or another and they all have their respective merits). A couple of weeks ago when he found out I was buying Portal 2 for the Xbox (I sold my PS3 a while back), I was treated to a rant about how superior the PS3 version was because it allows cooperative play between PSN and Steam PC users (a nice feature, for sure). I thought I was going to have to give him a sedative to get him to shut up about how stupid I was to even consider the Xbox version, how great PSN is, how much Xbox Live sucks, etc., etc.

    I'm tempted to rub this in his face, but it would probably only make him worse.

  23. Re:Good luck with that on Is YouTube Launching a Netflix Competitor? · · Score: 1

    If you were going to compete with someone, would you just ignore all their best features?

  24. Interesting pics of the site today on Chernobyl 25th Anniversary · · Score: 2

    A saw a link earlier today to an interesting portfolio of pictures of the modern site. It's actually surprising that there are people still living there. Most of them are nuclear workers and associates. But a few eccentrics have apparently moved back to their villages too (the article talks about an encounter with one old lady who lives there, completely cut off and on her own). I also didn't realize that the other reactors of the plant were kept online long after the #4 reactor was entombed (the last reactor wasn't shut down until 2000). It's also amazing to see how much work has really been done to clean the place up (it's now safe to walk around most of the area, with a guide who knows the really nasty "hot spots" anyway).

  25. Re:Good luck with that on Is YouTube Launching a Netflix Competitor? · · Score: 1

    The article indicated that this was intended as a competitor with Netflix, and so that's what I compared it to. And yes, those other services aren't in the same league as Netflix. They're just examples of other services that have attempted at some point to compete with Netflix and failed.