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Comment Delete your cookies (Score 1) 333

It's my understanding that tracking is done by cookies. I delete all cookies 2-3 times a day, and always after logging out of Google (which I rarely log in to) and Facebook. The only downside is that I have to log in to again to certain sites but that is easy because of OS X's built-in password manager.

Comment Microsoft Office as "productivity software" LOL (Score 1) 188

Calling Microsoft Office "productivity software" is hilarious. I know we've all spent hours trying to do the simplest things with Office. I recently spent nine hours including querying a forum and Googling trying to figure out how to get Word to number equations. Nine hours, and all I got was a clumsy work-around. And I know this is the "right answer" and that I didn't miss something.

Comment Missing: Intelligent placement of figures, etc. (Score 1) 196

What did my word processor get wrong? I have tried and/or used virtually every word processor currently available for the Macintosh and except for LyX, they all lack the ability to intelligently place stand-alone objects such as graphics, figures, tables, sidebars, etc. Except for LyX, they _all_ treat these objects as giant characters. (Please don't tell me about anchor points etc.—they don't solve the problem.) This was astonishing to me when I discovered this about a year ago as I prepared to do a major piece of technical writing. Not even the vaunted Microsoft Word can do this. My astonishment is due in part because from about 1988 to 1998 there was a word processor for the Mac that did this with aplomb.

Second on my "missing" list is built-in equation editor. Again, LyX handles equations natively, not as an afterthought or as a third-party kludge.

Comment The Speed of Sound is not 700 mph (Score 4, Informative) 155

From TFA: "Thirty seconds after leaping, he’ll exceed the speed of sound in the thin upper atmosphere by traveling almost 700 miles per hour."

The speed of of sound in the upper atmosphere is _not_ 700 miles per hour. That figure relates to the speed of sound at one atmosphere and normal temperatures and also has to consider partial pressures including water vapor. In the upper atmosphere, the speed of sound is much less.

Claims similar to this over the years that the space shuttle is traveling at Mach 25 are just as ill-informed, since the "mach" number is supposed to be based on local conditions, not at some hypothetical place on a beach (one atmosphere, nice temperatures). It is wrong to simply divide some velocity by the speed of sound at sea level and then apply it to conditions present at the object's location.

Comment Re:Easier Voting = more uninformed voters (Score 1) 218

Direct democracy isn't what it is cracked up to be. (Sorry for any Americanism in that sentence). Which is why the Founders of the United States chose a different system, a _representative_ democracy in which people vote for wise and accomplished people to represent them, rather than allowing the masses to be swayed by specious arguments and tactics. The Founders were in many ways students of history—The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was being written by Gibbons at the same time and published in 1776–1789. The American system is not without its problems but it arguably has provided a more stable government than a direct democracy such as that of the ancient Greeks.

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