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User: ashtophoenix

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Comments · 153

  1. Re:Getting in on Steve Ballmer Directing "House Party 7" · · Score: 1

    I am not comparing the joke, I am comparing a common rhetoric technique. That of including oneself in the genre on which the joke is made, so as to make the joke less offensive to that genre (and others).

  2. Re:Getting in on Steve Ballmer Directing "House Party 7" · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    [Relax, it's just a joke. Linux is my main OS.]

    This is like making a racist joke and then saying "Relax, I am of the same race..." and expecting that being of the same genre that you mocked makes it okay. Its amazing how that works.

  3. Re:Evil. on Google Patents Its Home Page · · Score: 1

    well said sir!

  4. Re:Evil. on Google Patents Its Home Page · · Score: 1

    Mod parent up.

  5. Re:When I multitask... on Habitual Multitaskers Do It Badly · · Score: 2

    I feel it mentally too but I also feel it physically. For example, when you are driving up or down the winding track of a parking garage and you are not paying your full attention, or you are too fast, you feel a certain vibration in your nerves, in your hands or legs. It's something signalling to you that you are on the wrong. I feel that even when I am driving a bit too fast, or even when I am about to take a rash action (maybe make a phone call that I shouldn't be making for example) but its a very subtle vibration and I think you need some amount of sensitivity and habit to sense it. Obviously it can be very helpful and at times avoid calamities.

  6. Re:Missing option on Ten Ways To Destroy a Hard Disk · · Score: 1

    It's business sonny, not personal. Kinda missed the point there didntya?

  7. Re:Missing option on Ten Ways To Destroy a Hard Disk · · Score: 1

    I had an Windows XP Professional and Ubuntu Desktop (dual boot) on my Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop and the hard disk started making funny sounds. Eventually it crashed.
    Since the machine was old, I thought this could be normal wear and tear. I bought a second hard disk and reinstalled Ubuntu only this time (no windows). The second one started making the same sounds in about 15 days and crashed soon after.
    I bought a new Thinkpad after that with Windows Vista. Then I dual boot installed Ubuntu (8.9 I think). The hard disk started making the same sound and then I started researching and learned that with the LAPTOP MODE Enabled on that particular Ubuntu release, the hard disk could crash due to excessive parking. I upgraded to the next Ubuntu release and turned off LAPTOP MODE (I think) and that fixed it.

    Just to clarify, I am a Linux guy.

  8. Feel Sorry on First American Internet Addiction Treatment Center · · Score: 1

    First I feel sorry for the parents who can't get their kids to get off the Internet and go outside.
    Next, I have to say, these greedy bastards did it again. Another way to make money. Another way to get money out of those rich folks who can afford it.
    Parents - put some time into your children, talk to them, get them into a traditional summer camp - that won't cost you a quarter of your child's college savings. Spend some more time with your children, invest time and emotions into them instead of wasting your dough.

  9. Re:Mis-Leading on Neural Networks-Equipped Robots Evolve the Ability To Deceive · · Score: 1

    Nice post. Science, logic can explain processes but not their underlying reason, w.r.t. your leaves on the road example. For example, we know that an atom has protons and neutrons and electrons that know how to revolve around the nucleus, but how did they come to be? There must be some very basic particle that comprises of everything else. Science may explain the process, the characteristics of this particle, but it hasn't yet been able to explain how they came to be. Same thing with gravitational force. Okay, it exists and Newton's law applies, but where and why did the Gravitational force come about? Same with electricity and all other processes.

  10. Re:Mis-Leading on Neural Networks-Equipped Robots Evolve the Ability To Deceive · · Score: 5, Funny

    who's to say we aren't all very evolved GA's ?

    The Creationists!

  11. Re:Mis-Leading on Neural Networks-Equipped Robots Evolve the Ability To Deceive · · Score: 1

    I agree. I personally love GAs although they leave you a bit wanting exactly because you don't know the exact nature of the solution that will turn up. That is it "feels" more like a brute force solution rather than something consciously predicted and programmed.

    But surely there are nifty ways in which you can intelligently program GAs, customize your selection/rejection/scoring process based on the domain of the problem and hence contribute in the final solution.

  12. Mis-Leading on Neural Networks-Equipped Robots Evolve the Ability To Deceive · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To use the term "learned" for a consequence of evolution to what seems to me to be a Genetic Algorithm seems mis-leading. So the generation that emitted less of the blue light (hence giving less visual cues) was able to score higher, and hence the genetic algorithm favored that generation (that is what GAs do). Isn't this to be expected?

  13. Problem with laws on Schneier On a Generation Gap In Privacy · · Score: 1

    Yes we need (better) laws for protecting our privacy and data.
    Yes we need much greater awareness than there is currently.
    But some politician will create a law above all privacy laws which allows the breach of our data/privacy because of national security. I wish Internet companies that live on data, posts, tweets would make people more aware of their privacy but then that would go against their whole business model.

    I mean there are a limited number of people who really understand and care about privacy. The masses are happy tweeting and posting along, many of them are teenagers who couldn't care less.

  14. Slow news day? on URL Shortener tr.im To Go Community-Owned, Open Source · · Score: 3, Funny

    Death Metal sends word that the owners of URL-shortening service tr.im are in the process of releasing the project's source code and moving it into the public domain.

    So?

  15. Re:How Exactly Does This Fight Spam? on Yahoo Revives Pay-Per-Email, With Charitable Twist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But what if your centmail account gets hacked and the hacker uses it to send millions of spam messages. If you credit card is on their file you will be down a $10,000. Of course you can feel good about donating that much to charity!

  16. Re:Tax Exempt? on US Colleges Say Hiring US Students a Bad Deal · · Score: 1

    Anyone doing that should be able to lay claim to this country.

    But then the state of the world isn't like this right? For example, a non-US Citizen cannot purchase US citizenship for even double the amount in taxes that you have paid over your life. But when one comes to realize that after all one is born on this earth as an equal, the boundaries of countries feel like a splinter in the eye.
    Can we allow anarchy by erasing these boundaries? No, that is not the solution. I don't know what the solution to this is...yet.

  17. Re:Tax Exempt? on US Colleges Say Hiring US Students a Bad Deal · · Score: 1

    I would take what you say a step further and ask the question "Who is someone to decide where on EARTH someone else chooses to work"? What has a citizen of a certain country done to lay his/her claim on a that country or to exclude someone elses' claim on a "piece of EARTH"? Do you really think that in the "Real Truth of Things" the earth belongs to one person more than the other? I question the whole premise of "Countries" being exclusive to citizens of that country. I reject the boundaries called countries made by men. I was born on the earth and the whole earth is mine to tread.

  18. Re:Not so different from Google on Bing Search Tainted By Pro-Microsoft Results · · Score: 1

    BS. Google for the same exact search gives much more relevant results.

    1. Why Windows Vista and Office 2007 are so Expensive  The Firefox ...
    2. Is Windows getting more expensive? - CNET News
    3. Windows 7 to be âoemore expensiveâ than Vista, XP
    4. Writing on the Wall: Why Windows is so expensive
    .
    .

    The above results would be useful to anyone genuinely interested in the expensive-ness of Windows.

  19. Re:Justice on California Student Arrested For Console Hacking · · Score: 1

    This is how everything works in 99.9 % of the world.

  20. Re:Debt to society? on iPhone App Tracks Sex Offenders · · Score: 1

    I agree, this whole thing is ridiculous. Too much information is as bad as too little. A lot of people are going gung-ho over the whole app-revolution thing, which I think, along with things like facebook/twitter is just a passing fad. Either teenagers or people who have nothing worthwhile to do will spend their time gawking at all these.

  21. Re:Everybody needs competition on Microsoft and Yahoo Reach Deal · · Score: 1

    Well, how is a collaboration of MS and Yahoo and replacement of Yahoo as its default engine more competition? Isn't it *less* competition? Previously we had Yahoo as well as MSN (or Bing if you'd rather call it that) competing with Google (albeit they offered negligible competition), but now you might end up with *just* ... well...Bing!

  22. Re:Cat got my tongue on The Web of Data, Beyond What Google and Yahoo Show · · Score: 1

    I tried, "Barack Obama" and my own name. None showed any results. Yes I understand its because there are probably no RDF/RDFa formatted pages with these names yet. But as of now I'm not sure what to do with Sig.Ma

  23. Re:Like many brilliant ideas... on New Binary Diffing Algorithm Announced By Google · · Score: 1

    Are the inventors that brilliant, or are we just that stupid.

    Isn't this simply "another level of indirection"...? :)

    I think to answer your question, its not brilliance but the ability to step away from the norm and take a fresh look at established things that brings about such innovation. (IMHO)

  24. Compromise? on 6 Reasons To License Software Under the (A/L)GPL · · Score: 1

    It is your choice. Be larger than life or become mediocre. Greatness is NOT easy. That is why we don't have many great people. It isn't even within everyone's reach in their lifetimes. It is perfectly fine to not be great. At least you yearned for it. But if you want to be considered larger than life, life will ask of you a sacrifice.

    It is your choice...It takes a certain kind of person to, for example, write open source for either the simple pleasure of writing it or for the simple pleasure of making things better. Not all of us are that person, and that's okay.

  25. Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone on Hands-On Preview of Microsoft Office 2010 · · Score: 1

    I prefer Google Docs to OpenOffice too. I find OpenOffice quirky and unreliable. It often crashes for me. In fact I think even Word (2003) is more usable than OpenOffice. Word 2007 on the other hand (and the whole of Office 2007) is a bloody mess where its even hard to figure the Menu Options - maybe I just need to sit down for a few mins and figure it out once and for all...but why??? I already did that a few years before and it was working quite well for me. I don't see the benefit of this UI Change. As for Google Docs - it has limited functionality - but its easy to use and it promises on what it delivers. So for simple documents I end up using it. One thing I would say is that MS Excel is a wonderful tool.