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User: Brian+Gordon

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Comments · 2,140

  1. Re:I'm wondering on Wi-Fi In a SIM Card · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Of course you'd be charged for access (by the provider most likely), but still it's a pretty cool idea...

    Well, someone would be charged by an ISP for a connection to the internet, but you don't necessarily need the internet. It's easy to imagine a free mesh network running over nodes like this, with everyone running as a repeater for the common good. Various local services (bus schedules, local maps, restaurant locations, ordering a cab or a pizza) could be made available by servers connected to the mesh network without anyone paying for an internet connection. And of course people could run free exit nodes off their spare bandwidth at home or something to give the network some tenuous internet access.

  2. Re:Pardon my skepticism on Directed Energy Weapon Downs Mosquitos · · Score: 1

    They use a camera with an optical zoom lens to locate targets in 3D space.

  3. Pardon my skepticism on Directed Energy Weapon Downs Mosquitos · · Score: 0

    Finding, focusing on, and tracking a mosquito (in 3 dimensions!) would be an astonishing accomplishment. Forgive me if I'm skeptical.

  4. Re:A Christian's take on Texas Textbooks Battle Is Actually an American War · · Score: 1
  5. Re:Too bad on Subversive Groups Must Now Register In South Carolina · · Score: 1

    States are not sovereign. They're subject to the control of Congress and federal judicial oversight like everyone else. It would be one thing if Congress voted and approved the secession (which the Supreme Court upheld as legal). It's quite another to overthrow lawful control by force of arms.

  6. Re:Surprise on Microsoft Says Windows 7 Not Killing Batteries · · Score: 1

    Oh my, that's an unfortunate coincidence. Different Brian Gordon!

  7. Re:Surprise on Microsoft Says Windows 7 Not Killing Batteries · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...which will source the frenzied blogosphere shrieking conspiracy and propagating each others' blind speculation. And of course nobody will pay attention to the only source that can possibly know what they're talking about: the engineers that designed the system..

  8. Re:There are actually several kinds of "law" on White House Claims Copyright On Flickr Photos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    well there was a section symbol in there somewhere. Unicode-ignorant slashcode ate it.

  9. Re:There are actually several kinds of "law" on White House Claims Copyright On Flickr Photos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nice try, but no. What this actually means is that the copyright notice on the flickr page is a mistake and it holds no power. Anyone sued for violating its copyright can yawn in the direction of USC 17.1105 and walk out of the courtroom.

  10. Re:Oh god on Google's Nexus One, a Steal At $49 Unlocked? · · Score: 2, Funny

    :O Check your email, we're doing this. I'll call some VC people, you call cell providers and see if we can get a bulk discount. We're going to make millions!

  11. Re:Consistent Histories? on Physicists Discover How To Teleport Energy · · Score: 1
  12. Re:Consistent Histories? on Physicists Discover How To Teleport Energy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sorry to burst your bubble but you can't transmit information faster than light.

    Period.

  13. Re:Consistent Histories? on Physicists Discover How To Teleport Energy · · Score: 1

    Actually, "spooky" isn't a bad way to to put it. Entanglement is spooky action over distance. Calling it nothing spooky/mystical is a stretch, and calling it not FTL is just wrong.

  14. Re:Powerlines? on Physicists Discover How To Teleport Energy · · Score: 1

    How would you get a supply of entangled particles up to orbital satellites?

  15. Pico on Giving CubeSats Electric Propulsion · · Score: 4, Funny

    What, we've exhausted the marketability of the buzzword nano and have stepped it up to pico? Somehow I doubt that regular satellites mass 10^12 kilograms.

  16. TFA on Game Industry Vets On DRM · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It seems any game, even if it's $0.99 has a five hour demo and is DRM-free and done by a nobel-peace prize winning game design legend, will be cracked and distributed on day one

    If it's being cracked then it wasn't DRM-free now was it?

  17. Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree on Key EDS Witness Bought Internet Degree · · Score: 1

    Well, a job is ultimately just a lot of little papers good for furniture and hamburgers. If it's all a bit of paper, then what makes one better than the other?

    Learning to think and to understand is what really matters in life, and university is the best place to do that.

  18. Re:dilbert on Google To Pay $500 For Bugs Found In Chromium · · Score: 5, Funny
  19. Re:Uh, no. They didn't. on Has Apple Created the Perfect Board Game Platform? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This reminds me of the horrifying carnage of the train wreck that was the GameCube + GBA link cable.

    Remember Metroid Prime - you could get some bonus by just connecting Metroid Fusion. And Animal Crossing - just some minigame (again with a bonus incentive) that could easily be presented on the TV instead of on the GBA. Wind Waker - useless except for the ultra-die-hard 100% complete players. Four Swords Adventures or Crystal Chronicles? Yeah, go buy four GBAs, four GameCube link cables, plus the game itself. I bet like Nintendo Apple can't imagine how out of a set of four people one of them could not use an iPhone.

    Forgive me for being skeptical.

  20. Re:Maximizing on Multiple Monitors on 2 Displays and 2 Workspaces With Linux and X? · · Score: 1

    Maximizing an app causes it to completely fill the leftmost monitor that it currently occupies, NOT the entire multi-monitor desktop.

    That has nothing to do with Xinerama, it just means that your window manager handles multiple displays properly. Most of them have this support by now but a few don't.

    I'm running xmonad and the multi-monitor support is brilliant. I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble to customize though.

  21. Re:No flash support on Apple's "iPad" Out In the Open · · Score: 1

    Gnash seems to work for flash video and many flash games.

  22. Re:But why? on Future Ubisoft Games To Require Constant Internet Access · · Score: 1

    Warsow seems to have aged rather well on a Quake II engine..

  23. Re:Steam and Electronic Arts on Game Distribution Platforms Becoming Annoyingly Common · · Score: 1

    Books are specifically protected in copyright law. You do own the book, and you can sell it (unlike your digital licenses), although you can't copy it.

  24. Re:No flash support on Apple's "iPad" Out In the Open · · Score: 1

    Flash is proprietary

    Maybe if Apple opened up their platform then a free Flash implementation could gain some momentum.. An "app store" for an $829 computer is ridiculous. You should be able to run any downloaded code like on OS X.

    Also, "i" is quickly passing "e-" as corniest tech prefix. I suggest "Apple Books".

  25. I don't know how they can possibly defend that position. The very necessity of a tax-preparation industry is insane, and the only way they get away with it ethically is by blaming the government for having such complicated tax laws. But there's no way for them to reasonably object when the government makes things simpler and more efficient.

    Intuit is evil anyway. Charging $50 for the same software every year.. Not to mention SafeDisc..