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User: Chabo

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  1. Re:Does this mean... on Scientists Reverse Muscular Dystrophy In Dogs · · Score: 1

    He could write a sequel to his autobiography, "Dean and Me".

  2. Re:Faggots on Streaming March Madness On Linux? · · Score: 1

    Don't forget the third option, which is sadly the one most people take:

    [W]alk away, and pretend you didn't see anything.

  3. Re:The RIAA will use this as fodder, I'm sure... on 17 Million People Stopped Buying CDs In 2008 · · Score: 1

    I would buy it, open it, immediatly rip it to FLAC, convert those files to MP3 V0, and drop it on my MP3 player. From that point forward, if I am at my computer, I am listening to FLAC, and if I am away, I am listening on my MP3 player.

    Shameless plug: I wrote FlacSquisher for just that purpose. I do the same thing, but with Oggs on my Rockbox'd Sansa.

  4. Re:The RIAA will use this as fodder, I'm sure... on 17 Million People Stopped Buying CDs In 2008 · · Score: 1

    Although I agree in principle, I have a serious problem with anyone who buys "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" because they liked it on the radio.

    For that reason, I won't buy any music unless I'm willing to get the whole album.

  5. Re:No, you're just getting old on 17 Million People Stopped Buying CDs In 2008 · · Score: 1

    I disagree somewhat.

    Although pop crap is crap, I think that pop crap from 10 years ago (NSync, Mariah Carey, even Blink 182) was more accessible and frankly better than today's pop crap (My Chemical Romance, Kanye West, Muse).

  6. Re:Election Fraud on Kentucky Officials "Changed Votes At Voting Machines" · · Score: 1

    As long as people believe that if neither the Democrats nor Republicans put up a good candidate, then they might as well not vote, then we'll never get a good third party.

    If you didn't like McCain or Obama, you should've voted for someone else. Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, somebody. If all the jaded voters who didn't vote did that instead, then McCain and Obama would've each only had about 25% of the population each. Doesn't matter if the election outcome would've been different, but it would've showed the nation that true change to our system of government is possible.

    Another thing is that it's very possible to make a significant change at the local election level, even if your vote has no federal influence. Never vote for any incumbent politician unless they've shown that they will make an effort to reduce the size and scope of government influence on our daily lives.

  7. Rehabilitation on Streaming March Madness On Linux? · · Score: 1

    the only thing you can do other than jail someone is free them

    But isn't that a true statement? So far as I can tell, "in jail" is a binary state: you either are, or you aren't. I mean, unless you add in the possibility of death.

    As for force, most of the time it is the only alternative to discussion (I'm speaking of personal, face-to-face violence by the way; I'm ignoring disputes between nations for the purposes of this thread).

    When someone acts violently towards you, or someone in the same room as you, you have only three basic options: run away or ignore the problem, use logic and reason to talk the aggressor down, or force him to stop.

    -Running away isn't always possible.
    -Ignoring violence committed against other people is even more anti-social than committing the violence in the first place. (hence Burke's famous quote: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing")
    -Some people aren't willing to listen to logic and reason.

    That leaves force. It's not the solution to every problem, but some problems require it. Anytime you call the police because someone's acting violent, you're asking them to stop him, using force if necessary -- lethal force if necessary -- on your behalf. The police cannot always be there though; would you really be willing to sit there, waiting for the police to arrive to stop a murder when you could do it yourself, because "violence is wrong"?

  8. Re:Faggots on Streaming March Madness On Linux? · · Score: 1

    Im a Mac user and I watched about 5 hours of tournament coverage last night (Go Horns!)

    I'd venture a guess that you're a statistical anomoly. ;)

  9. Re:Faggots on Streaming March Madness On Linux? · · Score: 1

    From your grand-grandparent:

    I couldn't even find evidence of Moonlight being ported over.

    Already been discussed.

  10. Re:Faggots on Streaming March Madness On Linux? · · Score: 1

    We should also show kidnappers a good example of socially-acceptable behavior by giving them freedom, instead of holding them in an enclosed space against their will. Holding people against their will is what a kidnapper should do, and that's bad, so let's not do that.

    Do you really think that you'll be able to talk the guy out of beating his wife? With most violent people I've encountered, the only thing that will deter them from committing more violence is physical prevention. Most people aren't trained in restraint techniques, and don't carry around handcuffs, so beating them into submission is the only available recourse.

  11. Re:Who Says What? on TechDirt's Masnick Responds To Warner's Jim Griffin On Choruss · · Score: 1

    Buy used CDs, or buy music directly from the artist (either "buy a CD at the show" for local bands, or go the Trent Reznor route). That way, you don't get high sound quality, and the labels don't get a dime.

    Then rip the CDs to FLAC (and get FLACs from Trent Reznor if you buy his music), and use FlacSquisher (shameless plug) to convert the FLACs to Oggs for any portable devices you might own.

  12. Re:Three strikes plan? on TechDirt's Masnick Responds To Warner's Jim Griffin On Choruss · · Score: 1

    What "should" happen is that musicians should be allowed to choose the method of music distribution that best suits their needs, rather than the needs of the record company.

  13. Re:Faggots on Streaming March Madness On Linux? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As unabashedly brutal as his wording was, I think he's absolutely correct. The technologically-oriented community must teach the rest of the world that things like proprietary formats, vendor lock-in, and all of the other various things we rail on about are bad.

    A high-profile example like the NCAA, which attracts many "Joe Sixpack" fans across the nation (does anyone outside the US watch basketball?), would be a perfect example of how closed formats hurt the average consumer.

    I know Mac users are about as likely as Linux users to watch basketball, but with the recent increased popularity of Macs, wouldn't that be a selling point for open formats? I can't imagine OSX has a good Silverlight implementation. I couldn't even find evidence of Moonlight being ported over.

  14. Re:Success stories on Google Summer of Code Announces Mentor Projects · · Score: 2, Informative

    Supposedly last year's GSoC helped a great deal with FFmpeg, Pidgin, and Rockbox, among others.

  15. Re:how is this useful? on Finnish Guy Gets Prosthetic USB Finger Storage · · Score: 1

    Based on the photos of just the hand, I'm guessing the face/hand photos are mirrored. Many webcams (especially by Apple) have mirroring on by default. This means it's his left hand that has the missing finger.

    Personally, I find my left ring finger to be far more useful than my right ring finger in typing, despite being right-handed. Part of it has to do with my typing style -- I'm self-taught, so I do some weird, non-standard things. For one, years of playing FPSs has made it so that my left hand goes to WASD by reflex instead of ASDF. I also tend to move my hands around the keyboard more than people who were taught the standard style -- typing "were", I use my left middle finger on the 'w', then move my index finger back and forth for "ere". I also tend to use my right middle and ring fingers for punctuation rather than my pinky.

  16. Re:Military treat you fine. Civilian DOD less so on How Do Militaries Treat Their Nerds? · · Score: 1

    It doesn't sound like the "military lifestyle" was the lifestyle he was talking about:

    They repected my expertise and knew about how to be tolerant of my lifestyle even better than civilians (who hated my lifestyle).

    I'm curious to know what he meant, but I don't think his profession was it.

  17. Re:How Do Militaries Treat Their Nerds? on How Do Militaries Treat Their Nerds? · · Score: 1

    Half the episodes of MASH had a side-plot of Radar doing just this to get an item that the doctors needed.

    One episode involved Hawkeye doing this, and the chain of barters to get the needed item ended up extending through the entire camp, so when one deal went sour, it cascaded back through all of the other deals, until there wasn't a single content person present.

  18. Re:Congratulations on Traveling With Tom Bihn's Checkpoint Flyer · · Score: 1

    Personally, if I see a person nowadays with a mullet, that's not what I think.

    I think Joe Dirt is a pretty cool guy. eh kills rats at the dump and doesn't afraid of anything.

  19. Re:Pardon me... on Traveling With Tom Bihn's Checkpoint Flyer · · Score: 1

    It's European!

  20. Re:Executive Summary on Traveling With Tom Bihn's Checkpoint Flyer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Personally, I'd rather show off my "well travelled" status with my 10-year-old backpack that's still holding together from daily use, rather than new bags that look new.

    If I use a neoprene laptop sleeve, I can even throw my ThinkPad in there without having it marked as a "laptop backpack" by thieves, and still having it protected.

  21. Re:Aside from that... that isn't scientific litera on US Adults Fail Basic Science Literacy · · Score: 1

    It's not a matter of "absolutely sure", it's a matter of statistics. When someone uses carbon dating to find out how old something is, they might say "I know within 95% confidence that this object is between 21,500 and 22,000 years old", or "I know within 99.9% confidence that this object is between 10,000 and 30,000 years old."

    We have used these measuring techniques over small and large periods of time, and the data matches the hypothesis. Where the data doesn't match the hypothesis, we don't assume the negation of the hypothesis, we change our theory to match the new data. This is the basis of the scientific method.

    How can you be so sure of anything that happened less than 2000 years ago? Our data tells us with a certain amount of accuracy what happened throughout all of history, and our theories are revised whenever new data is discovered.

  22. Re:47% on US Adults Fail Basic Science Literacy · · Score: 1

    Correct spelling isn't really necessary in a self-maintained project, but it's very important in a project in which more than one person will be looking at the code.

    What if I call the variable "CalenderWindow", then someone adds a function that references "CalendarWindow"? As "swillden" says below, in a language that's not as pedantic as others (Perl without warnings or "strict", for example), "CalendarWindow" will be implicitly declared at that point, and you'll have two different variables.

  23. Re:Yeah, except on Windows Security and On-line Training Courses? · · Score: 1

    From the Wikipedia disambiguation page for "NU":

    In universities:

            * Niagara University, a Roman Catholic university in Niagara County, New York
            * Northeastern University, an American research university in Boston, Massachusetts
            * Northwest University, a private university in Kirkland, Washington
            * Northwestern University, an American research institution in Evanston, Illinois
            * Norwich University, a private American military and traditional university in Northfield, Vermont
            * University of Nebraska-Lincoln
            * Naresuan University, a public university in Phitsanulok, Thailand
            * Nile University, a private research university in Egypt
            * National University (Philippines), a private, non-sectarian university in Manila, Philippines

    Four of those came into mind immediately when you said "NU". Which one?

  24. Re:Yeah, except on Windows Security and On-line Training Courses? · · Score: 1

    I used Firefox on Blackboard too. Hell, my mom was having issues with her Blackboard courses in IE7, cause for IE they only supported v6, so I told her to install Firefox, and it worked great!

    Maybe the school has a really old version of Blackboard?

  25. Re:needs another tag on Researchers Sniff Keystrokes From Thin Air, Wires · · Score: 1

    It was a joke.

    Slashdot's tag system doesn't support whitespace or capitalization, so "Van Eck" could also be read as "Va Neck".