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User: funkatron

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  1. Re:Assembler on The Best First Language For a Young Programmer · · Score: 1

    how a computer really works

    Move, move, move move, do something, move, move, move, copy, do something etc.

    It might be important to learn this but it's hardly a good way to start if you want to get anything done.

  2. Re:10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD" on The Best First Language For a Young Programmer · · Score: 1

    One of my early programs (admittedly in Java) was outputting "Hello world" on port 80 with the correct headers. What's the point in saying hello world to yourself?

  3. Re:It is a common misconception about evolution on New Zealand Tree Stuck In Evolutionary Time Warp · · Score: 1

    That is the only reason I've heard for choosing between monotheism and polytheism. I personally think that discarding a theory because it isn't efficient doesn't seem like a step forward in attempting to understand the universe.

  4. Re:It is a common misconception about evolution on New Zealand Tree Stuck In Evolutionary Time Warp · · Score: 1

    My last sentence should be "This kind of defence could well make the theory be non-falsifiable.". I wrote it slightly differently then edited it and missed half of what I needed to take out. Think of it as unintelligently designed prose.

  5. Re:It is a common misconception about evolution on New Zealand Tree Stuck In Evolutionary Time Warp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The argument from design is certainly non-falsifiable and therefore non-scientific (at least for Popper's definition of scientific). Intelligent design is less clear, as there may be things that could be shown to be bad design and therefore not the product of an intelligent designer. This would mean that it would be falsifiable. However, when examples of falsifying evidence are raised, a common defence of the theory is to shift the intentions of the proposed designer. This kind of defence could well make the theory could well be non-falsifiable.

  6. Re:It is a common misconception about evolution on New Zealand Tree Stuck In Evolutionary Time Warp · · Score: 5, Funny

    Could be design by comitee. I never really heard a good reason for choosing monotheism over polytheism.

  7. Re:so? on UK ISP Disconnects Customers For File Sharing · · Score: 1

    Strange, at the very least you'd expect BT (the company that some government failed to de-nationalise properly) to have some operations in the area. Anyone know a reason why Karoo is the only option there?

  8. Re:Oh really? on Pics of the Longest Solar Eclipse of the Century · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Even tho it's early in the century, it might well be the longest eclipse of the century. I imagine that the calculations to predict eclipses and their duration would be relatively straightforward by modern standards. You probably wouldn't even need to take relativity into account.

  9. So on Kingston Unveils $1000 USB Flash Drive · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    After removing the tax, applying the excahnge rate and dropping the price a bit, I've worked out that it'll retail for around $6.50 in the US.

  10. Complaints here on Ireland Criminalizes Blasphemy · · Score: 2, Informative

    If this bothers you try contacting the office of the Taoiseach (seems to be like a prime minister). I've already sent a message saying that I don't want to be in the same EU a country that thinks this law is a good idea.

  11. Re:Don't see the problem. on Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad · · Score: 1

    TBH, The thing with him trying to sell the pictures to us was really the last straw after he'd been annoying us for a while. We just wished him luck (the gig hadn't got much press attention so there wouldn't be much of a market for his work that night) and warned the next band on the line up. I think they decided to get noisier when he got close to the sound system but we didn't ask them to do that.

  12. Re:Don't see the problem. on Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad · · Score: 1

    Well obvoiusly I have no problem with taking two seconds to type "Nice photo, can we use it?". Tho, there also seems to be a culture where no one would make much fuss if I didn't (how many people do you think ask permission before sticking keyboard cat on other people's videos? How many people have complained about this happening?).

  13. Re:Quality on Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad · · Score: 1

    Yes but only one of those has much of a future. who wants to pay for an encyclopaedia? As for your complaint about quality, if it really matters then you don't read wikipredia, you read the sources listed in the wikipedia article and follow it up by checking the relevant publications in the field.

  14. Re:When copyright meets copyleft on Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The trouble is that the post use copyright to mean restrictively licensed as there is no simple catchy term for it. Perhaps we should start calling restrictive licenses "copywrong".

  15. Re:Don't see the problem. on Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Asshat photographers are pretty common. At a gig my band were playing we had a photographer turn up (we didn't know him or invite him), get in the way at the front of the stage and then try to sell us pictures by showing us the display on his camera while we were trying to clear the gear up. He wasn't even interested in emailing us thumbnails so that we could look at them properly (and put them on our myspazz without buying full size versions). We're ok with people coming and taking pictures and using them wherever they want but trying to sell them to us is pushing it when we can get plenty of good pics off facebook etc. for free.

    The other and far more common place to find asshats is uni graduation ceremonies where the photographers charge extortionate amounts just to take one or two pictures.

  16. Re:Dry? on Noctilucent Clouds Spread and Mystify · · Score: 1

    It pisses a lot of scientists off to be referred to as "scientists". The term reduces a huge range of work and an even larger range of opinions down to what sounds like a single collective body (which in fact does not exist). As a general rule, any article which does not name the scientists making a claim can be ignored.

  17. Re:Have you been there? Rubbish has more flavour! on Brazil Demands Repatriation of UK Hazardous Waste · · Score: 1

    The curry sauce I was referring to tastes more like thick warm acid than actual food. I'm pretty sure that no other country would want to claim it as part of their cuisine.

  18. Re:Have you been there? Rubbish has more flavour! on Brazil Demands Repatriation of UK Hazardous Waste · · Score: 2, Informative

    You obviously didn't order the mushy peas or the "curry sauce". Tons of flavour, tho probably not to your taste.

  19. Re:So... on UK Police Raid Party After Seeing "All-Night" Tag On Facebook · · Score: 1

    "playing amplified music wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats during the night"

    One interesting response to this was a track by autechre which was written so that the beats never repeat

  20. Re:Wow on UK Police Raid Party After Seeing "All-Night" Tag On Facebook · · Score: 0, Troll

    Stupid tories.

    Just to clarify for readers outside the UK, this is insightful

  21. Re:Alrighty then on Three Arrested For Conspiring To Violate the DMCA · · Score: 1

    Sure, why not?

  22. Re:Hold on a sec... on Typography On the Web Gets Different · · Score: 1

    It's just another form of graphics. You don't make a fuss over the image tag do you?

  23. Re:Space news on Space Shuttle Endeavour Heads To Space Station · · Score: 1

    That's not very important. If it mattered NASA wouldn't have forgotten how to do moon missions.

  24. Re:Progress of society on Wikipedia Debates Rorschach Censorship · · Score: 1

    Stage show or TV show? In the TV show Penn (I think it's Penn) says how other people's magic bullshit is done.

  25. Re:So... on Cats "Exploit" Humans By Purring · · Score: 1