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Comments · 34

  1. Re:Sarcasm on Craigslist Agrees With State AGs To Curb "Erotic Services" Ads · · Score: 1

    I think you're right. I think my quote was Penn Jillette paraphrasing Carlin.

  2. Re:Sarcasm on Craigslist Agrees With State AGs To Curb "Erotic Services" Ads · · Score: 1

    Why should it be illegal to sell what I can give away for free?

      -- George Carlin, or someone...

  3. Re:Soon being a surgeon will be worth nothing. on Bringing Surgical Robots Into the Mainsteam · · Score: 1

    >Cut, remove, splice, stitch.

    I think you are exactly right - read Atul Gawande's book Complications, the bit about hernia operations. He talks about it in this interview - http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2008/2122487.htm

    Hmm... also read about the checklist, also by Gawande - http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_gawande

    Both show that the mystery about doctors and medicines is somewhat misplaced... in many cases (and a growing percentage) robots rule.

  4. Re:Run away! Run away! on How Do I Become an IT/IS Manager? · · Score: 1

    Hey... can you tell me more about the Sales Engineer...

    I'm currently considering my next career step (avoiding management, currently I'm a senior technical architect), and found a job ad for a Technical PreSales Evangelist... which I guess is similar to Sales Engineer

    What do you actually do? What kind of technical and challenging problems do you solve?

    Cheers :)

  5. Re:C=64 Music on Commodore 64 Still Beloved After All These Years · · Score: 1

    Actually, now that you mention it, I think it may have been these exact two names that got me passionate about programming in the first place. The imagery of peeking into some abstraction, to see what is there, and then poking it with your finger to change it.

    Similar to the imagery of push and pop, in perl for example.

  6. Wanting what you have on The Science Of Happiness · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Happiness isn't having what you want, it's wanting what you have.

  7. 8 hour money. on Yet Another Degrading DVD · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll make money that goes blank in 8 hours, and buy them with that

  8. Re:Street lighting on Surveillance Cameras in Britain Not Effective? · · Score: 1

    Violent sack beatings are up 800 percent!

  9. Re:This explains everything! on Mine The Moon For Helium-3 · · Score: 1

    then we're looking at a very violent game of hot potato over the remaining fuel

    You take the remaining fuel
    No, You take it! I don't want it!

  10. Re:Good plan on Open Source CD Lending For Public Libraries? · · Score: 1

    The local LUG could then administer the box by providing updated images to it remotely

    Urm... would you let someone else dial into your network? I wouldn't let you into mine.

  11. I mostly agree, but it's not that simple. on Should ISPs Be The Little Man's Firewall? · · Score: 1

    I think the danger is that if the Customer thinks his ISP is making him safe, he is in a safe sense of security. Things will still get through via open ports, activex, email, etc, and the customer will bitch and whine because their ISP were supposed to be firewalling for them.

  12. Personal Experience on Videogames Attract More Women Than Boys? · · Score: 1

    My wife plays computer games.

    Diablo, gauntlet, warcraft type games, on PS2 and PC

    My favourite was her playing the Sims

    "this game sucks, it's a stupid game, it sux", and then she'd play for another 6 hours... strange

  13. Re:Sell to average Joe? How bout college students? on How To 'Sell' Open Source Software · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm doing my Masters in IT at the moment, and so far we've developed in Java, Haskell, and C/GCC/prc-tools, using Eclipse as the recomended IDE.

    No MS stuff so far.. I'm not sure if thats similar in Undergrad, but I suspect it might be.

    This is at Macquarie University in Australia, in case you're wondering. They might be alone in this.

  14. Re:The scary asteroids. on Keeper of the Objects · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That would mean the object was spiralling towards the earth, revolving around it at 1 revolution per day, with it's velocity slowing down (or the angle could change) as the circumference of it's orbit(ish) got smaller.

    It would have to be an powered craft of some sort.

    Just a thought.

  15. Re:Is this really true? on Pure Math, Pure Joy · · Score: 1

    Richard Feynman once said:

    "science is like sex, sometimes something useful comes from it, but thats not the reason we do it"

    It's not the motive that is being funded, it's teh end result that is being funded.

  16. Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson on Hall On Worldwide Open Source Movement · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Does anyone else find it amusing to see "Maddog" every single time his name is mentioned?

    I've not been a Maddog for sometime, but a few years ago I said I was thinking of becoming a Maddog, and since then some people have called me "Maddog".

    Maybe it's just me..

  17. Re:But will this wind... on A Mighty Wind · · Score: 1

    Policemans (1st 2nd or 3rd) Ball... can't remember who did it... Peter cook, rowan atkinson
    not the 9 oclock news... someone along these lines

    I've only heard it on audio tape.. not seen it on vid

  18. Will this wind? on A Mighty Wind · · Score: 1

    Will this wind be so mighty, as to lay low the mountains of the earth?

  19. just 1 book? on A Good Summer Read? · · Score: 1

    just 1? in a month?

    Godel, Escher, Bach
    the man who mistook his wife for a hat
    it's not about the bike
    on writing well
    how proust will change your life
    walden
    zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
    Lila: an inquiry into morals
    The Cannibal Queen : an aerial odyssey across America
    the minds eye
    how to win friends and influence people

    off the top of my head :)

    Mitnick's book is on my list of worst books ever. it's %99 filler, %1 content. I was determined and made it quarter of the way through, the person I borrowed it from (and bought it for) didn't finish the first chapter. As one amazon review said: "very repetitive, very repetitive"

  20. Re:It was Wile E Coyote on Investigating Artificial Black Holes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The thing that always stuck me about Wile E Coyote's plans is that occasionally he would have a brilliant plan, but something would go wrong, the rope would come loose, or the buckle would break.

    Then he's move onto the next plan.

    I'd be yelling at the TV, "Try it again! It's a good bloody plan!"

    The other amusing thing about this is I keep seeing the same situation in real life. Someone would try one thing, it would go wrong, and they'd decide it was obviously a bad idea, whereas thats not necessarily the case.

  21. Re:I read the newsgroup postings... one suggestion on Old Hard Drives = Free Electricity · · Score: 1

    blistering fast at 3,000+ fps

    Did anyone else read this as frames per second, or just me?

  22. Re:No More High Speed Pursuits on Build Your Own HERF Gun · · Score: 5, Funny

    I regret saying this already, it shows my age, and possibly my viewing habits.

    In the brief remake series of Knight Rider, Knight Rider 2000 I think it was called, Kit could disable cars from a distance presumably with a similar device. I beleive the bad guys then did something to their Porsche Carerra 911's which made them impervious to this attack.

    David Hasselhof's hair was similarly insulated from the radiation.

  23. Cats on An Affordable Air Purifier For Dusty Computer Labs? · · Score: 4, Funny

    Anyone with cats knows the feeling.

    Yeah, can anyone suggest a cheap filter to remove cats?

  24. Re:artificial intelligence? on Brain Prosthesis Ready For Testing · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Isn't that the premise behind the Turing test?

    I agree it acts exactly like a mind would, but it's not a mind.

    I've seen the cams and pistons and bore and stroke and valves and shafts and spark plugs, coils, compression, explosion, expansion etc. I agree it acts like an internal combustion engine, but how do I know it's an actual internal combustion engine, and not just acting like one?

    The point being, we judge our own mind solely by how it acts, depite knowing it's just simple electrical impules and synaptical thresholds, so we can only just an artificial mind on the same basis.

    A good book that adresses all these issues (not as much with AI, but with mind) is "The Minds I", by Douglas Hofstadter and Danial C Dennett.

  25. Re:Logic flaw? on South African Gov't Declared An Open Source Zone · · Score: 1

    The reason it took a year of debates is because it's Government, Committees, RFPs, Tenders, focus groups, surveys, etc.