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User: X_Bones

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Comments · 278

  1. Re:We already have driverless cars on How Would Driver-less Cars Change Motoring? · · Score: 1

    Any municipality that allows cellphone use while driving is, essentially, endorsing driverless cars.

    You're not seriously suggesting that driverless cars will have the same reaction ability as someone talking on a phone while driving, are you? If so, um, no. If not, what's your point?

  2. Re:Inadvertently... on GIMP Core Mostly Ported to GEGL · · Score: 1

    At that point, you want just to have MDI = every image as own window and tools in own window.

    no, at that point YOU want to have all those as different windows on your screen(s). Not everyone uses virtual desktops or has access to multiple monitors, and even if they did not everyone shares the same mental model. Lots of people see no need whatsoever to have a tool palette be a top-level window (from the window manager's point of view) because they view their WM's window switcher as an APPLICATION switcher, and why the hell would they want to alt-tab to a tool palette but keep hidden the image windows it applies to?

    I have nothing against MDI. It obviously works fine for some people. But guess what? SDI works fine for some people too, so why shouldn't the GIMP devs give their users the ability to choose between the two modes? They are, and that's great, and I applaud them for it. What's not great is people like you condescendingly asking if other folks have never heard of multiple monitors or thinking that the stupid unwashed masses would see the light if only they'd use the proper window manager.

  3. Re:Less non-corporate info on US Open Government Sites To Close · · Score: 1

    decent radio as we know it just DIED across most of rural America

    um no. The House voted to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), from which NPR gets some but not all of its money. The provision won't make it out of the Senate, and even if it does the President still has to sign it into law, and even if he does NPR still gets revenue from user donations and from local stations subscribing to its content.

    It's a damn shame that House Republicans are playing games like this when they promised to make this legislative session all about job creation, and I donated my sixty bucks to NPR as soon as I heard of this happening, but let's not distort the facts here. That makes you just as untrustworthy as Fox News.

  4. Re:All this effort, just to avoid the real problem on US Contemplating 'Vehicle Miles Traveled' Tax · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oh dear - you just imagined a government providing no safety net to citizens and no confidence to investors until some vaguely-defined point in the future! How silly of you!

    State and federal governments are not spending too much money - if anything, they're not spending enough (and not only that but they're taxing the wrong people to get it). The job of the government is to provide for the security and well-being of its citizens. Cutting spending during a massive economic downturn is absolutely no way to do that job. Providing help through stimulus and job creation is.

    I swear, it's like the only lesson all the small-government starve-the-beast meatheads learned from the Great Depression is to have a couple of wars when your country is going to shit.

  5. editorialize much? on Utah To Teach USA is a Republic, Not a Democracy · · Score: 5, Informative

    because a "Democracy" would have "Democrat" in it.

    This is completely unsupported by the linked article. Either include the proper links to back up your statements, or stop editorializing in your submissions.

  6. Re:Notability sucks. Long live TV Tropes. on Old Man Murray Entry Deleted From Wikipedia · · Score: 1

    Nowhere did the parent to your post claim that he was the creator of the webcomic. He only wrote that he "detailed" it.

  7. Re:Good on Samsung Unveils Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy S II · · Score: 2

    And what happens when you want to have a USB device and a DVI/HDMI device plugged in at the same time? PDMI is stupid. Why combine a general-purpose connector with a display-specific one?

  8. Total FUD on For Mac Developers, Armageddon Comes Tomorrow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For decades the Mac has had a viable shareware scene where you download apps and, if desired, pay a modest fee to upgrade to a full or non-crippled version. I don't see how anyone could possibly argue that a Mac App Store will be the end of the world unless they're a clueless analyst who thinks the only programs people run on Macs are Photoshop and Office.

  9. what? on Sciencey Heroes For Young Children? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    no love for the safe-crackin', bongo-playin', Challenger-investigatin' Richard Feynman?

  10. Re:Good? on Comic Sales Soar After Artist Engages 4chan Pirates · · Score: 2, Informative

    4chan can use their powers for good?

    4chan isn't just /b/ . Some of its less-popular boards like /co/ (the comics board, where this took place) actually have, on occasion, informative and insightful discussions.

  11. Re:Well, duh. on Why Facebook Won't Stop Invading Your Privacy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can't seem to get it to stick...

    you can lead a brain to knowledge but you can't make it think.

  12. Re:arms race on GMail Introduces Priority Inbox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    uh, it's not like they're just examining the X-Priority: OMG CRITICAL header field or anything here. TFA says it's based in part on the people who you email the most, and the emails which you choose to reply to. I imagine it'll work about as well as Gmail's spam filtering (i.e., pretty damn good in my experience).

  13. MetaFilter has done this for years on Leaving a Comment? That'll Be 99 Cents, and Your Name · · Score: 1

    I don't agree at all with publishing commenters' real names (though the city and state of the billing address strikes me as useful), but a one-time fee coupled with halfway decent forum moderation policies really is the way to go. The financial aspect causes idiots to think very hard before shitting in a thread, and light-handed and pragmatic moderation helps keep a discussion civil.

    MetaFilter has been doing this for a long time now, requiring a one-time $5 signup fee and employing a small handful of fantastic moderators (4 or 5 mods for 100K+ users), and the level of discourse is some of the highest I've read on the Web.

  14. Re:Healthcare on Vivek Kundra On US Government Inefficiency · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We're all thinking it, so I'll say it: "Hey, let's let our government handle healthcare to increase effeciency"

    uh, no. Some of us are thinking "hey, let's let our government handle healthcare because it's fucking criminal that for-profit entities are allowed to literally and figuratively bleed us dry in order to please their stockholders. And a big contributor to inadequacies in things like Medicare and the VA system stem from a lack of funds for improvements, either because people are too cheap and shortsighted to raise taxes or they have screwed up financial priorities like funding instead the biggest military on the planet so it can go bomb people overseas."

    But then again I'm one of those filthy Commies who wants a single-payer healthcare system in the US, so feel free to disregard anything I say.

  15. Re:Obvious, but... on Minnesota Introduces World's First Carbon Tariff · · Score: 1

    In certain states like Massachusetts, the power plants and the transmission wires are owned by different people. Residents can choose who they want to get their electricity from.

    That way the local public utility infrastructure can be regulated by one set of rules, and the electricity providers by a different set. Makes sense to me. Now if we could only have the same separation of infrastructure and content with the cable companies...

  16. Re:Same Arguments, So Simply Discredit Them on Broadband Rights & the Killer App of 1900 · · Score: 0

    spot on. The parent to your post is improperly using the boogeyman-of-the-week to help make the case for a specious argument. But at least we got another hilarious "FTFY" out of it!

  17. Re:Comments on Your Opinion Counts At CNN — But Should It? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'll just grab the headlines from google news and skip the commentary.

    Then your opinions will be just as knee-jerk and uninformed as those of the people you're berating. The only difference is that you're keeping them to yourself instead of inflicting them on everyone else.

    It takes work to keep yourself informed, and since the news media is more interested in advertising revenue than informing the public, that work now has to be done by you (and me, and anyone else who wants to know more than the superficialities of an issue). Sure it's hard and sometimes depressing to wade through the all crap from @bootycakes and friends, but you will almost always find a point or two that you hadn't considered before, or a link to an analysis piece on another site, or maybe a post from an expert in the field that backs up or refutes a claim from the original piece. These are the things that help you understand the nuances of a story, which is what you need before you can claim that you're actually informed.

  18. Re:My Career in Virtual Crime on On the Advent of Controversial Video Games · · Score: 1

    Similarly unrealistic is what happens when I get killed. Quick trip to the hospital and everything's back to normal. Will this turn anybody into a criminal? Somehow I doubt it.

    [...]

    What kind of media violence turns people violent? [...] the kind that makes violence innocuous. The hero gets knocked out and wakes up 15 minutes later with nothing worse than a splitting headache -- no concussion symptoms such as extreme nausea and neurological impairment.

    How can you argue both of these things at the same time?

  19. Re:This is the new war. on US Electricity Grid Reportedly Penetrated By Spies · · Score: 1

    There's a reason the military is starting to get mighty interested in nerdy types, although most programs designed to leverage these skills are in their infancy. We need to get serious about this fast; other nations certainly are.

    I hope we do; maybe it'll help fix the sorry state of math and science education in this country. For better or for worse, as goes the military so goes our money.

  20. Re:Can we stop enabling these people? on Are Quirky Developers Brilliant Or Dangerous? · · Score: 1

    um, no. What do you think happens to productivity when this superstar asshole developer leaves for whatever (or no) reason, and everyone at his old job has to scramble to make sense of his poorly-documented code instead of getting their own work done?

    Sure the article probably isn't 100% unbiased, but it seems like the author did more or less the right thing. The developer was a dick, and his manager was either too short-sighted or too focused on making herself look good to actually, y'know, manage her developers.

  21. um. on So Amazing, So Illegal · · Score: 1

    Is there even a story here? What's your point?

  22. Re:First Amendment on Doctors Silencing Online Patient Reviews Via Contract · · Score: 0

    thank you.

  23. what? on The Secret Lives of Ubuntu and Debian Users · · Score: 3, Insightful

    [...] Ubuntu users are more likely to be newbies than Debian users. The numbers reveal, for instance, that 86 percent of Ubuntu machines use the proprietary NVidia driver, where only a mere sliver of Debian machines do.

    How does that classify a user as a newbie instead of just someone interested in playing games through WINE, or someone interested in graphics performance?

  24. hmm. on Conflict of Interest May Taint DTV Delay Proposal · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I'm not saying there are no differences between the two administrations, but I wonder how many people who are casually dismissing this report would be howling with outrage if the article was about, say, Bush's choice for assistant director of the FCC instead of about someone on Obama's transition team.

  25. definitely do it on Study Abroad For Computer Science Majors? · · Score: 1

    I went to Georgia Tech for my BS in computer science, and spent a semester studying abroad in Barcelona. Tech has some sort of exchange program with UPC (Universidad Politecnica de Catalonia) where UPC students come to Atlanta and Tech professors and students go to Barcelona. The CS courses offered all focused on UI, HCI, and i18n-type stuff; there were also courses offered in architecture and Spanish.

    It was a hell of a lot of fun, I got to do a lot of traveling around Europe by myself and with friends, and being an out-of-state student it was actually cheaper than taking courses on campus.

    You don't mention where you go to school now, but check with your CS department's advisors and see if they offer any similar programs, or get in touch with UPC and see if they can help you.